From Script to Page Comic Style

Here's how I took one page of script and turned it into a page.

I’m currently working on a new graphic novel, which I’m going to use Kickstarter to crowdfund (more on that in later posts, with an opportunity to be notified when it launches). I’m not quite ready to reveal what it’s all about just yet, but all you need to know is that this is the first page on a new chapter in which composer Joseph Haydn goes to work at Esterhazy Palace as the court composer. The story is narrated by Haydn’s skull, but you’ll have to wait until the campaign to find out why. Trust me—its a doozy of a story.

I wrote out the script for the whole GN so I had it ready for a pitch to publishers, who currently have other interests besides publishing it. This is my first stab at taking the manuscript and turn it into images. There’s always some tweaking that happens, and sometimes tweaking that adds a page. Here’s the original script:

Page 6

Haydn's Head: Yes I was quite the celebrity! I lived in a palace! The Esterhazy family hired me as a court composer at the castle at Eisenstadt.

(art note: Esterhazy and Hadyn are walking around the palace)

Esterhazy: I hope you like it here. We have plenty of rooms and a concert hall.

Esterhazy: And here are the bathrooms … (art note: maybe a guy in there going “Hey! Occupied!”)

Esterhazy: And here’s the palace dog! (art note: dog biting Haydn on the leg).

It seemed pretty good. It had a little bit of humor and the possibility of an exciting establishing shot.

However, what I decided was that if the characters were going to be walking around a palace, I need to show the palace from the outside so that the reader could get a sense of where this chapter took place. So I went to the internet and saved a few pictures of the exterior of the palace as it looks today, as well as a drawing of what it looked like back then.

I had a sketch-in at the Columbus Museum of Art with some friends and decided this would be a good time to work on a rough draft of the palace.

Here I am working on it.

You can also see my thumbnail for the page in the top right corner. I decided that I still wanted to do a spread of the inside of the palace as well so that the reader could see the lavishness of the palace interior. It’s a big place with big rooms, and I wanted to capture that. I had some reference photos for the interior of the palace, including this room which seemed like a good one to use.

However, I ran into problems while redrawing the palace on the layouts. I couldn’t quite get it and I drew it too large and out of proportion. I decided I liked my practice sketch better, and with some scissors and glue I pasted it onto the paper. It fit exactly like I wanted it to, and I could adjust it after I scanned it in to ink it digitally (and yes I know I could have created the composite digitally too, but I like to see the whole thing as a page).

Here’s what the final layout looks like! Ready to be scanned for inking!

One mistake - when I needed glue, I couldn’t find a glue stick or rubber cement, so I used my daughter’s glitter glue. It was like Elmer’s glue, and as you can see it wrinkled the page and caused it to pucker. I think when I scan it will be fine, but I have a habit of choosing quick solutions rather than good solutions.

So what happened to the other text? That’s on the next page. You will see it soon. Here’s a picture I drew for that page that I’m very proud of:

I’m excited to share more work with you. Going back to working on paper has been tremendously rewarding and I’m excited for people to read it.

If you’d like to check out my other work, please visit my website!