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Learn To WRITE and DRAW like the pros!

Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley

From The Editors of

HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT As demonstrated via the creation of THE THIEF OF TIME and “A Glitch in Time,” her first adventure. Conceived and edited by DANNY FINGEROTH, Editor-in-chief, Write Now! Magazine MIKE MANLEY, Editor-in-chief, Draw! Magazine Designer MICHAEL KRONENBERG Based on the original magazine designs by CHRIS DAY and MIKE MANLEY

Transcriber STEVEN TICE Publisher JOHN MORROW Cover art by MIKE MANLEY Photo on page 1 by SOFIA NEGRON Proofreading by ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON JOHN MORROW Special Thanks to ALISON BLAIRE JOHN MORROW SOFIA NEGRON ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON CHRIS POWELL BEN REILLY VARDA STEINHARDT

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 www.twomorrows.com e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com Third Printing • April 2010 Printed in Canada ISBN: 978-1-893905-60-3

Trademarks & Copyrights

Batman, Superman TM and © 2010 DC COMICS Darkhawk, Spider-Man, Thor, Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four TM and © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Thief of Time is TM & ©2010 Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. Action Planet characters TM & ©2010 Mike Manley.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Most of the material in this book originally appeared in Write Now! Magazine #8 and Draw! Magazine #9. This collected version contains 35 PAGES of NEW or ENHANCED MATERIAL, which is indicated below with an asterisk (*) FOREWORD TO THE COLLECTED EDITION * By Danny Fingeroth, Editor-in-chief Write Now! and Mike Manley, Editor-in-chief Draw! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

MAKING COMICS What the crossover—and this book—is all about, and how it can help you learn to Create Comics! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

THIEF OF TIME: BEGINNINGS Memos between Fingeroth & Manley about Heather Branscome, the Thief of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

THIEF OF TIME: CHARACTER DESCRIPTION AND DESIGN The evolution of the title character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

THIEF OF TIME: STORY OUTLINE The beginnings of Heather’s first adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

THIEF OF TIME: PLOT* Detailed description of the story’s action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

THIEF OF TIME: PENCIL ROUGHS The plot, broken down into pages and panels, with commentary by Danny and Mike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

THIEF OF TIME: SCRIPT AND BALLOON PLACEMENT The captions, dialogue and sound effects for the art, along with indications for the letterer of where they’re supposed to go . . . . . . . . . .21

THIEF OF TIME: FULL-SCRIPT VERSION* “A Glitch in Time,” written in “full-script” style, the most popular comics writing format today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

TALKING THIEF OF TIME: Danny and Mike discuss why they made the creative choices they did in “Glitch” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

MY PROCESS: THE SCRIPT TO PRINT How Mike breaks the plot down into pages and panels

Step 1: The Thumbnail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 Step 2: Penciling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 Step 3: Inking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Step 4: Lettering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Step 5: Quark (assembling the elements)* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Making Comics What This Crossover is All About By Danny Fingeroth “Most of my ‘work’ time is spent daydreaming. I spend very little time at the keyboard… Daydreaming is the job. My wife’ll tell you--I do it 24/7.”

--Chuck Dixon

s Mr. Dixon implies, the creative process is mysterious (though not as mysterious as some would have you believe), constant, and often unseen.

So, although the stated purpose of this issue of Write Now! and it’s continuation in Draw! #9 is to show you the creative process that goes into inventing a new character and her universe, as well as into telling the first story ever told featuring her, there’s a lot you won’t be seeing. As a matter of fact, you’ll have to draw on a lot of your own creativity to fill in the gaps. Nonetheless, I believe that what Mike Manley (Draw!’s Editorin-Chief) and I are giving you may be more of an inside look inside the creative process involved in comics universe and character development than anyone has ever done before. Knowing this would be recorded for posterity, Mike and I saved notes, memos, and sketches. We recorded conversations. We saved versions of plots and scripts and character sketches. There’s a lot of stuff here, stuff you should be able to learn a lot from, even if what you learn is “I’d never do it that way.” But bear in mind the things you won’t be seeing, things such as: • The time banging our heads against a wall when no ideas came. • Time at the keyboard or drawing board where what’s arrived at are dead ends. (Or what seem like dead ends. Those seemingly false starts and wrong turns often lead to ideas that do work, whether in the current project or in something that won’t be created for another five years.) • What Chuck Dixon refers to as “daydreaming”—the disjointed, impressionistic process of idea formation that comes while waiting on line at the supermarket or plunging a stuffed drain—or when you’re nodding to your spouse as if you’re actually listening to what s/he’s saying.

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Editor-in-Chief Write Now! Magazine • Conversations Mike and I didn’t record—say, when sitting together at a comics convention, or when we didn’t have the tape recorder on when we were on the phone. What you will see, though, is pretty cool. Hopefully, it will make you think about what goes into creating characters and stories and will be of use in your own writing, and in appreciating the writing of others. Since this magazine focuses on writing, I’ve interspersed the Thief development pieces with one-page lessons on key elements of writing. You might want to refer back and forth between the Thief creative steps and the points made in the lessons. See if you can identify the parts of the Thief material that correspond to the points made in the lessons. While Mike and I have tried to make a coherent narrative of the creative process, bear in mind that we have imposed structure on it. The process is much more disjointed, stop-and-start, herkyjerky than it may seem when it’s organized, after the fact, on paper. Don’t feel badly if your own process seems less structured. Most people’s are—including mine and Mike’s. The idea is to take what you’ve come up with in the throes of creative inspiration and impose logic and order on it—without draining out the juice that made the idea exciting to you in the first place. Once again, here at Write Now! (and at Draw!, too), we’re venturing into uncharted waters to show you ways of looking at the creative process maybe just a little different than ways you’ve looked at it before. I’ve no doubt that, as always, the readers of both magazines will let us know how they feel about the results of our efforts. And as always, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Creatively yours,

Danny Fingeroth

Thief of Time: Beginnings Memos Between Fingeroth & Manley

ere’s a selection of the correspondence between Mike and Danny that got the ball rolling on Thief of Time. The e-mails pretty much tell their own story.

How It All Started

• We have a short plot outline in WN. • Also in WN, we have some of the Plot & Script, and maybe some thumbnails of the story. • In Draw!, we’d show some of the plot and script. (Maybe we do the first few pages in “Marvel style,” the last few as “full-script.”)

10/1/02 Mike: Not sure how... but there’s got to be a way to do a “crossover” between Draw! and Write Now!, don’t ya think? Any interest? —Danny 11/22/02 Mike: As I mentioned in an e-mail last month: Any interest in doing a Draw!-Write Now! “crossover”? What would that mean? Maybe we could print a script in WN and then have it drawn in Draw!? Or an interview with a writer/artist or writerartist team that starts in one mag and ends in the other. Or something actually clever! —Danny

• In WN we’d have some of the lettered, uninked pages and some inked pages. • In Draw!, we’d have more of the lettered, uninked pages, and the rest of the inked pages. • And then... the Draw! color section could be the complete story, with a cover! And we can then, hopefully, take whatever character(s) we come up with—which we’d share copyright on—and pitch them to publishers, using the 8-page insert as our sample. (So we should have a bunch more printed than we need for the insert in Draw!.) Let me know what you think. Once we get a basic format we’re happy with, we can present it to John and see what he thinks.

The Ground Rules 6/3/03 Mike: Here’s my understanding of our conversation about the Write Now!/Draw! crossover that we had today: We do a 6- or 7-page story, with cover a total of 8 pages. • Premise, character and setting descriptions, character sketches and setting sketches in Write Now!

• Then we have a taped conversation about the characters and story, which we transcribe and put part in Write Now!, part in Draw!.

From an earlier Danny Fingeroth/Mike Manley collaboration: Darkhawk! This confrontation from Darkhawk #5, featuring the character Portal, has words by Fingeroth, pencils by Manley, and inks by Ricardo Villagran. [©2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Thief of Time: Plot W

hat follows is the “final” plot that Danny sent to Mike to draw. There were several versions leading up to this, as Mike and Danny discussed the story, leading to this plot, which Mike would do the art from. It was understood by both creators that Mike would be free to modify the story as he drew it. The story is done “Marvel style” (see Scripting Styles lesson elsewhere in the crossover), which means that the artist works from plot instead of from a script that is broken down into panels with dialogue pre-written.

something like that? Something we can do the same trick with— where we’re not sure at first if she’s in the past or present?) • If we’re using a mask, THAT should be the focus of the splash: A big, impressive mask being reached for by a gloved hand. • (MIKE: What era is your mask ref from? Where would such a mask be? A temple? A palace?)

Mike’s early thumbnail roughs for page two of the story. Notice how, in his thumbnails, he works out different visual ideas to express the same plot points. From there, he picks out the best ones to use. [©2010 Fingeroth & Manley] An early pencil rough of the first page of the Thief of Time story. Notice how it differs from the plot and from what the actual page (seen on page 22 of this book) turned out to be. [©2010 Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley]

“A GLITCH IN TIME” PAGE ONE: • FULL PAGE SPLASH. Ancient Japan. (Is there a famous building associated with Japanese history? Something out of Shogun or

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PAGE TWO: • Heather Branscome, dressed in her adventure duds, reaches for a beautiful (JADE?) Japanese mask on a pedestal. From the décor, it’s unclear if she’s in the past or in present. HB is clearly a 2010 woman. She makes some wisecrack about the Internet or TiVo to make that point. Heather smiles expectantly. She’s been after this thing for, oh, it seems like centuries. • Note to Mike re her wisecracks: One of the reasons Spider-Man

wisecracks is to relieve the tension of death-defying moments. Same with her. I’m modeling her on Jennifer Garner in Alias. Not a comedian, but never without a wry quip, either.

• (Or she could end up chased by dinosaurs in a prehistoric setting.) (MIKE: I like both of these. What do you prefer drawing?) (Both are okay with me if you can fit them in.) • As Japanese soldiers (or dinosaurs) advance on her, she sets the dial again, and disappears—still holding the mask—as a grenade explodes where she was standing. (Or a dinosaur stomps the rock she was standing on, shattering it.) PAGE FOUR: • Heather appears inside her 2010 headquarters lab. It’s a violent re-entry that sends ripples through the air and knocks stuff over and about in the lab, like someone opened a huge window in the middle of a hurricane. She’s stressed from too long in the timestream. • As the atmosphere settles back to normal, Henry, her fraternal

• As she’s about to grasp the mask, she is ordered to stop— • —and whirls to find herself surrounded by a dozen ancient Japanese soldiers. (Mike: Samurai? Ninjas? My Japanese history sucks.) She laughs at them—she’s not here to fight, she’s here to steal!—and reaches for a dial on her suit to make a quick getaway. • But the guards attack, and she is dodging arrows and throwing stars, one of which hits the control and the time-dial is knocked off its setting. • She grabs the mask and, clutching it to her bosom, she turns the switch on her costume anyway, and is gone in a flash (or into the time whirlpool you established on the cover). She has no idea when she’s going, but it’s got to be better than this! PAGE THREE: • In another flash (or time-whirlpool effect), she’s still in the temple or palace, but suddenly bullets whiz by her. She’s in the middle of a pitched WWII battle.

twin brother, comes running up to her with a blanket, which he wraps around her shoulders. They’re standing by banks of machinery, much of it digital, many computer screens. Henry sees that something went awry in the timestream. (He looks related to her, of course, but definitely is more intense, with a gaze that won’t let you go if he locks eyes with you. He’s, temperamentally, Q to her James Bond. Brilliant technician and scientist, but not best-suited to field-ops.)

HOW TO CREATE COMICS: FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT 15

DANNY: The big fight scene with the Ninja gives Mike space to show his—and Heather’s—stuff. The big challenge for him as artist and me as scripter is to try to convey the sense of danger that our heroes are in, but not lose the sense of fun. MIKE: Now we get to some more action, as the Ninja from the past attacks them. He's certainly out of sorts and out of his time here. Eye flow and dynamics leading you from panel to panel are my chief concern here—strong dynamic gestures that show how skilled Heather is at combat.

DANNY: The “complete unit of entertainment” wraps up here— and sets up a cliffhanger, as well. The father Heather and Henry have been trying to rescue ends up rescuing them, and tells them to quit chasing him if they know what’s good for them. Hopefully, a reader feels like he or she has read a satisfying story (the Ninja hitchhiker was defeated), but also want to know what happens to the siblings—and their dad—next. And if their mucking with time travel will doom the universe. But, really, if a reader doesn’t care about the characters, then all the impending end-of-the-world stuff doesn’t carry much weight. MIKE: The big tease. The Ninja is zapped from off-screen by the father who comes to save the day. My idea is to have him sport different items from different times, as he's jumped all over in the timestream. I was thinking sort of Alan Quatermain crossed with Michael Rennie. Again having more space to play this scene out would have been nice, and if we do expand this to a 22-pager, I would probably want to revisit these scenes and add a little.

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THE END

Thief of Time: Script and Balloon Placement B

ecause “Glitch in Time” is a plot-first job, Danny had to write the dialogue, captions and sound effects after the pencils were done. With this method, it’s also the writer’s responsibility to indicate for the letterer (in this case, Mike) where the copy will go. Balloon placement is an art in itself, since the word units become design elements that can affect how a reader responds to a page. The placement directs a reader’s eyes to experience the story elements of a page in a certain order and rhythm. Balloon placement is indicated on a photocopy, usually reduced to print size, of the art. Each unit of the script is numbered, and that number indicates where the script unit with the matching number is to be lettered.

Here’s the script and balloon placement for page 1 of “Glitch”…

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As an exercise, aspiring writers might find it useful to do something similar to what Danny did to write this full-script: take a printed comics story and then write the story panel-by-panel as the original writer might have. It will put you “in the shoes” of whichever writer’s work you do it with and probably lead you to some insights into his or her creative process. It’s a terrific way to really understand how much data—visual and verbal—will fit into a panel and on a page.

A related exercise that’s very helpful—especially when you’re starting out—is to write a full-script, and then do your own thumbnail sketches, and letter in the dialogue you’ve written. You don’t have to be able to draw anything more than stick figures, and your lettering doesn’t have to be legible to anyone but you. What you will, ideally, learn from doing this is how to describe action so it can be drawn by an artist (many beginners ask for impossibly simultaneous actions in one panel) and how many words a character can say before the balloons start overwhelming the artwork.

THE END

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Talking Thief of Time Danny and Mike discuss the creative process

hat follows is more or less a transcript of a conversation we had on May 6th, 2004. What we tried to do was simulate a conversation about how we came up with our “Thief of Time” character. We discuss what issues we were dealing with as we tried to make something original yet not completely unfamiliar, mixing genres to come up with new takes on well-traveled archetypes. Combined with the notes and e-mails printed elsewhere in this issue and in Draw! #9, we hope to map the creative process as well as can be done without attaching electrodes to our brains. (Gotta save something for the sequel, don’t we?) We had many such conversations, mostly on the phone, some in person at conventions we both attended, but that we didn’t record. We’ve tried to incorporate “highlights” of those conversations here. (The transcript has been edited by us for meaning and clarity.) You might find it interesting to compare what we discussed here and how the final story came out. —Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley

[SPOILER WARNING: Details of Thief of Time are, of course, discussed in the course of this conversation.] DANNY FINGEROTH: A little background for the folks reading this. We each have a magazine that we do for TwoMorrows. I think it was me who said, “Mike, why don’t we do a crossover?” And Mike said, “That’s a good idea.” Of course, we never really thought we’d have to sit down and do it. It seemed like a great idea when it was just theory. [laughs] MIKE MANLEY: Right. And then we talked to John Morrow to see if he thought it was a good idea, to see if it was feasible, because we’d have to do a lot of coordination to make sure it can come out the same month, all that kind of stuff.

Conducted May 6, 2010 Transcribed by Steven Tice Copy-edited by Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley DF: In time for the Comic-Con in San Diego. Now, I’m going to backtrack a little, because I thought it might be of interest to folks if we dug back in our archives and found some Darkhawk stuff. Tom DeFalco had come up with the very basic premise for Darkhawk, a three-page document, which then you and I and, I guess, Howard Mackie and Nelson Yomtov had worked out. And Greg Wright. Were you working on it when Greg Wright was editing? MM: No. Initially I became involved in Darkhawk when Howard, who was editing Quasar, which I was penciling, asked me if I wanted to work on the book. Initially, Keith Pollard, I think, had done some Darkhawk character designs, and they weren’t really happy with the way that it looked. DF: I think Paul Neary was involved for five minutes. MM: Right. So Howard asked me, and I said okay. I think in the beginning I wasn’t really sure who was going to be writing it, because I don’t think initially you were mentioned. I think maybe Tom was thinking of writing it himself in the beginning? DF: If Howard had it, then I was already the writer, because Greg had put me on it. MM: Nel didn’t get involved until issue six, seven, eight, something like that. DF: Anyway, there are ways in which our process for creating Thief of Time is similar, and ways in which it is different, from what you Two Fingeroth/Manley creations meet. Darkhawk, from promotional art for the series’ 1990 debut, and the Thief of Time. Art by Mike Manley. [Darkhawk ©2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Thief of Time ©2010 Danny Fingeroth & Mike Manley]

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MY PROCESS, THE SCRIPT TO PRINT BY MIKE MANLEY B

STEP 1)

THE THUMBNAIL

OK, this is where it all begins for me visually—the the most important step of the job and the most creative. As I read Danny’s plot, (FIGURE A) 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. 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, 44 HOW TO CREATE COMICS: FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

ninjas, and French rooftops on Google, I bet you’ll come along the same reference I did. FIGURE (B) These 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 (C) 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 Odd Parents, this has really reinforced and honed my cinematic storytelling skills and the motto, “tell the story.” The problem I ran into quickly in this case was space, or the lack thereof. Since this is only an eight-page comic with one page comprising the cover, I really had only seven pages to tell this story, introduce the heroine, the thrilling conflict and the cliffhanger. Not a lot of space, especially when I need to get some nice action scenes in there as well as room for Danny to write exposition explaining some of the back story. After e-mailing back and forth with Danny, I decided to just cut to the chase and show an establishing shot to show where the action was happening and cut right to Heather already in the castle chamber and reaching for the mask. FIGURE (D) This is the new rough for the splash page which was quickly drawn on a Post-it Note. FIGURE (E) The final tight penciled page. This, along with the final layout, is the most important part of the job. This is the visual foundation on which everything else will hang, and for me the most creative part of the job. Sure, penciling a nice figure or page and inking are always very creative as procedures themselves, but a poor beginning, bad layout and

ABOVE (LEFT): A picture of Mike penciling the splash page along with the thumbnail from the DRAW! DVD How to Draw Comics from Script to Print. TOP (RIGHT): The final inked splash page. ABOVE: A shot of Mike inking the splash page, also from the DVD.

confusing storytelling will not be overcome by the best rendering. Comics are meant to be read as a narrative, not as a series of cool drawings next to each other. HOW TO CREATE COMICS: FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT 45

Above (FIGURE 1) is Danny’s plot for page six and to the right (FIGURE 2) are my initial thumbnail breakdowns for pages six and seven. I laid out both pages at the same time as I wanted to make sure I could get the end of our comic to flow right for the cliffhanger. You can see I was working out the gesture poses on the ninja and Heather, trying to get good, clear, strong gestures and to make sure they read well as they overlay each other. I was also playing around with how to choose my shots. Do I want a medium shot, a close-up?

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(FIGURE 3) I decided to do most of the shots as medium shots to clearly show the action, and to add an inset of Henry in panel three to keep him in the action. In film this would be a quick cutaway shot. To me that is what an inset panel is, it’s almost a cutaway shot as you are showing two points of view in essentially one panel; you want the readers to read both panels as happening at the same time or to indicate that the person in the inset panel is watching the action happening in the larger panel it’s set into. (FIGURE 4) The final pencils for page six.

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How To Create Comics From Script To Print