That’s a good question, Jeff. Let’s see, my process of writing a comic is a little different than other folks’; but to be fair, most comic writing processes are slightly different from creator to creator. I tend to come up with a bunch of notes, then I start scripting with dialog and minimal descriptions. Then I fill in panel descriptions and such. While I keep telling myself I’ll go back to using Final Draft and such, I still just write everything up right-justified in Word, with indentations and spacing for talking bits. Kinda like a po-man’s movie script.
Comic scripting for me is wildly different than game writing or prose writing, but all of the projects start the same: Notes and an outline.
The major difference with comic writing is that there’s a script involved and you are writing for an artist to interpret the story and instructions for the project. Now, comic writing is also very fluid (another major difference) in that when you start working with artists, things begin to change. The artist is the most vital element to a story told in the sequential art (comic book) medium. You can have art and daft writing by an artist, and people can still enjoy it. I seriously doubt anyone would read my awesome stories if I also provided the art (aside from it all being a big joke, I mean— yes, I have a project in mind for that madness). “No plan meets contact with the enemy” applies here, except in that artists are usually not regarded as the enemy (quite the opposite, in fact).
I hope that answers your question somewhat, sir! :)
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