Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Jim Krueger on JUSTICE: How to Write an Epic
http://www.comicfoundry.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=138
As far as when you put it on paper – and these are 40-page books – how much do you have to have mapped out?
I’m just now (as of late June) starting scripts for the seventh issue, so I’m officially halfway through. And for this project, I’d say when I first started writing the first issue, Alex and I had already talked through pretty much the entire series as far as a basic overview. I’d written maybe two pages for each issue, which would be a very basic plot of this happens, then that happens, etc. And the first four issues had a slightly more extensive plot – 3-4 pages – of what happens. And even those plots had already gone back and forth between Alex and I. So what I’ll do then is I’ll have some thoughts, Alex will have some thoughts, which give me new thoughts, and again, it’s very organic.
I can tell you, whether or not it’s Justice or Earth X or Foot Soldiers or Clock Maker or Strongman, as a comic writer and now screenwriter, I always have to have the ending in mind. Everything is written not necessarily to setup the ending, but everything is written with a sense of how it has to end so that final en ding resonates with the rest of the series. And there’s nothing worse than a bad ending, in my book.
http://www.comicfoundry.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=138
As far as when you put it on paper – and these are 40-page books – how much do you have to have mapped out?
I’m just now (as of late June) starting scripts for the seventh issue, so I’m officially halfway through. And for this project, I’d say when I first started writing the first issue, Alex and I had already talked through pretty much the entire series as far as a basic overview. I’d written maybe two pages for each issue, which would be a very basic plot of this happens, then that happens, etc. And the first four issues had a slightly more extensive plot – 3-4 pages – of what happens. And even those plots had already gone back and forth between Alex and I. So what I’ll do then is I’ll have some thoughts, Alex will have some thoughts, which give me new thoughts, and again, it’s very organic.
I can tell you, whether or not it’s Justice or Earth X or Foot Soldiers or Clock Maker or Strongman, as a comic writer and now screenwriter, I always have to have the ending in mind. Everything is written not necessarily to setup the ending, but everything is written with a sense of how it has to end so that final en ding resonates with the rest of the series. And there’s nothing worse than a bad ending, in my book.
