For Part 1 of this series of blogs (The Foundations of Writing), click here!
THE SET UP
Right – so I’ve completed the first 92 Lucy the Octopus strips and I’m about to write the script for Episode 93, which will come to look like this upon completion…
The previous strips set up the story for Lucy (uncool) and Kate (cool) to be knocked out of a school bus, so ultimately they’ll be forced to spend time trapped together in a deep chasm.
Before the arc kicks off properly I decide to run this one-off strip (Episode 89) I’d had in my head for a while, to reconfirm the relationship between Lucy and the cool girls without foreshadowing the upcoming story… 
The true start of the arc begins with Episode 90 which introduces the idea of our heroine going on the school trip and reconfirms to us how bad a parent her dad is. It’s good to establish this idea as he’ll be popping up again in this story line in Episode 99.
In Episode 91 the reminder of how Lucy is viewed by the cool girls in the school from Episode 89 should pay off. Miss Faridani’s dialogue also works as exposition, letting the reader know the characters will be traveling a long way from home…
Episode 92 is a chance to show the scale of the danger the characters are facing while still keeping the typical humour of the comic in the dialogue. This is the first time in the strip the characters have faced any physical danger, so hopefully that’s an interesting new element for the readers.
So that’s where we’re at. Now what happens next?
WRITING THE SCRIPT
Plot wise for Episode 93 all I need to happen is for Lucy and Kate to be knocked out of the bus.
As with all newspaper style comic strips I try to establish all the reader needs to know in the first panel. The final panel needs to be a satisfying punchline, resolution or cliffhanger. Any panels in between the first and last progress between the two in as entertaining a manner as possible.
The opening caption says all we need it to if this was the first Lucy strip the reader had ever come across.
For some strips (like this one!) I sacrifice clarity to new readers in exchange for pay offs for longer term readers.
You can’t spend every strip re-establishing character and premise for the sake of newbies but if you can do that while being entertaining, funny and serving the story that’s of interest to long-time readers, everyone wins.
It’s definitely a balancing act.
Here’s the full script that I wrote…
- THE SCHOOL COACH HAS ENCOUNTERED A LARGE ERM, THING… / HOLD TIGHT KIDS! I’M GOING TO STEER AWAY FROM IT!
- AAAARGHH! Bus flipped upside down. Characters fly everywhere including Sandra
- KATE! GRAB HOLD OF THIS XXXX, OR YOU’LL GET HURT! / YEAH RIGHT! LIKE I’D SHARE A RAIL WITH THE LIKES OF…
- Bus flips and KATE falls towards Lucy.
- Knocks them out the back of the bus?…YOU
As you can see, it’s pretty sketchy stuff. When I’m writing a script for myself I don’t need to add much detail as I can already picture what’s going on in my head as I write. It’s good to get the dialogue as tight as possible at this stage but the action notes are just reminders.
When I write a script for someone else to draw I need to give much more detail. Below you can see the the visual description taken from the script for a couple of panels from Rosie and Jacinda, followed by the finished art. My friend Zarina Liew drew it.
Classroom of about twenty 14 year olds – first day of new term and friends are chatting to each other about their Summer break before their teacher comes in. At front of class (and panel) is Daniella looking awesome in new outfit and chatting to two cliquey friends also fashionably dressed. Couple of boys, Kyle and his friend are looking their way (clearly eyeing them up) and talking.
Other kids sat down and talking happily except Jacinda. She’s sitting alone waiting to get another year of school over with. The desk next to her is empty. Jacinda should not be the central focus of the panel – she should almost look like a background “extra”.
LETTERING
Back to Lucy Episode 93, and I lay out my text on a pre-existing template, using Photoshop. I have templates set up for 3, 4, 5 and 6 panel strips.
In this instance I knew the panel spacing would be irregular so I just plonked the lettering over any of them to get a sense of the whole canvas area of the strip.
I print out the lettering template on bog-standard A3 paper. As you can see I create two Lucy strips on one piece of paper.
Using a lightbox, I trace out where the panel borders (if known) and lettering for the two strips fall, onto good quality drawing paper. I tend to use a mechanical pencil.
Then I tape the paper on to my drawing board and using the horizontal bar and set square I rule out the panel borders.
Putting the lettering down before the drawing is very economical timewise. It shows me exactly how much space I have for my drawings. Plus I don’t have to waste time drawing anything that will be covered up by speech bubbles later.
Now it’s down on paper I can really start to see how the strip will flow.
And in this case… I don’t like it!
INITIAL TWEAKING OF WORDS AND LAYOUT
I’ve never had to do this before for a Lucy strip but as it’s an unusually action based episode I’ll forgive myself – I go back to my lettering template and I make some changes…
- I need an extra panel where you can actually see the monster, in this case hitting the bus – that’s the green circle. This new panel should clarify the action and be fun to draw (and hopefully see).
- Due to the new round panel overlapping with the top of the first, I’m concerned that the reading order will be confusing (a real pet peeve of mine). I move Miss Faridani’s line “Hold tight kids! I’m going to steer away from it!” from the bottom of Panel 1 to just below the opening caption. That way there’s no chance the reader will think that dialogue comes after the circular panel.
- It will be hard to draw Kate falling into Lucy knocking them out a door in just one small panel, so my solution is that Kate pulls a door handle open by mistake instead.
- As a result of the above, I need to change the exchange between Lucy and Kate to:
Lucy: “KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE IT OPENS THE…”Kate (interrupting): “SHUT IT LUCY! WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO…[YOU!]”
A note about that dialogue:
I had to make a decision as to how much Lucy says before being cut off by Kate. It’s more natural for Kate to cut Lucy off earlier in the sentence, but the reader needs to see enough of it to be clear what Lucy is intending to say.
She can’t get as far as “KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE! IT OPENS THE BACK DOORS…” as Kate needs to impulsively cut Lucy off before learning that information.
“KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE! IT OPENS THE BACK…” doesn’t flow well to me from a humour / rhythm perspective plus it could read as if Lucy’s managed to finish her sentence (which for the sake of the story, we don’t want).
“KATE! DON’T HOLD THAT HANDLE! IT OPENS THE…” gives just enough info and flows well.
This is of course extreme minutiae, but it’s the kind of detail that can make or break a strip, in terms of clarity and comedy.
With these changes in mind, I adjust my panel layout on my drawing paper, as before using the lightbox and drawing board…
Coming up in Part Three of this blog, I start to actually draw stuff – yeah!
For Part 1 of this series of blogs (The Foundations of Writing), click here!
For Part 3: Pencils, click here!
For Part 4: Inks, click here!
For Part 5: Erasing, Scanning & Cleaning Up click here!
For Part 6: Colours click here!
For a video overview click here!
Another workshop organised by the Cartoon Museum found me in St Thomas’s School in Fulham.
Finally, here’s some of my on the spot doodles explaining various points to the groups.
I erase the pencils from the paper methodologically, area by area.
