How to Create Comics from Script to Print. All images © 2006 Danny Fingeroth, Mike Manley and TwoMorrows Publishing. Thief of Time and all related materials are © 2006 by Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. All rights reserved.

This is an excerpt from How to Create Comics from Script to Print, an upcoming TwoMorrows Publishing book by Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. Danny and Mike take turns showing readers the steps involved in creating and publishing comics. Through sample drawing and writing lessons, invaluable information includes how Mike, who has penciled and inked many top comics for Marvel and DC, breaks a script into pages and panels via thumbnail sketches. Danny, longtime Marvel writer and editor on Spider-Man gives pointers on creating conflict and developing characters. The book will debut at Comic-Con International later this month.

My Process, The Script to Print by Mike Manley
Step 1: The Thumbnail

OK, this is where it all begins for me visually — the most important step of the job and the most creative. As I read Danny’s plot, ideas start to bubble up, and visually explode in my mind like popcorn in the microwave. I start to frantically draw down these images, scene fragments, right away. My goal is to get my first impressions down fast. Once I have these thumbnails down, I start to refine them. Sometimes I get clear ideas right away of what I want to draw, or how I want to play a scene or lay out a page. Other times I get these visual bits or panels in little “chunks” and then have to work to link them together. Through years of doing so many comics and storyboards I find that my first impressions are almost always the best. Sometimes I refine ideas, only to go back to the original. This part of the job is liquid. Ideas or panels come and go. In fact, one should always be open to a new idea that may improve the story at any time, right up until the job is out the door to the printer.

Figure 1.

Reference
One of the first steps for me upon reading the script is making a list of reference I’ll need. The next step is to surf onto Google, which is a great source for reference on the web. It may take a little time, but you can find a lot of good useable reference. You may have to get creative with your search, but like the Dark Knight Detective I was able to find all the reference for the ninja castle, rooftop scenes, ninjas, etc., without leaving my studio. And I’ll go on record here as saying there is no such thing as too much reference. Better to have more than you need. Unfortunately due to copyright reasons I am not able to reprint the images I got from my search. But if you start searching for Noh masks, ninjas, and French rooftops on Google, I bet you’ll come along the same reference I did.

In Figure 1 are the thumbnails that were my first draft at breaking down Danny’s plot visually. Danny and I are working in what has come to be called the “Marvel Style” of plotting and scripting. In the “Marvel Style” the writer provides a plot, but little or no dialogue, often leaving the number of panels per page or even how long a scene plays out up to the artist. The writer then scripts the pages either from the artist’s breakdowns or full pencils. In this style the artist controls the pacing more, unlike a full-script, where the writer is the first to control the pacing of the story by breaking each page down into specific panels as well as providing all the dialogue and captions.

Since we have worked Marvel Style before while producing Darkhawk for Marvel, Danny and I both felt comfortable working as we did in the past. I prefer plots in comics as it gives me a lot more freedom, especially on super-hero or action comics.

Figure 2 shows my second pass on the rough layout. I was initially thinking more cinematically, slowly moving into the ninja castle and into an inner chamber the Thief time-jumps into. The idea was to slowly build up to a reveal of her. Since I have been doing storyboards a lot in the last eight-plus years on shows like Batman, Superman, and Samurai Jack, and recently Fairly OddParents, this has really reinforced and honed my cinematic storytelling skills and the motto, “tell the story.”