Broken Frontier

I’m going to cheat a little with this week’s column. With the Bristol Comic Expo coming up, I’m running late with everything, so instead of a whole new piece, I’m going to adapt a reply I gave to a post on the Spawn message board  this week.

The response to the new-look Spawn has been overwhelmingly positive but there was one guy who felt he wasn’t getting his money’s worth. We’ve deliberately gone for a more cinematic style with the latest issues of Spawn and that has meant we’ve had a few silent scenes where the story is told entirely with the visuals. I also usually allow for one or two full-page splashes in each issue. To quote from our poster, one ‘El Dubious Mung’: “Full-page spreads with less than a sentence are shortcuts for losers… …make sure the book is worth $3.00.”

I’m one of those people who also gets annoyed that a $3.00 book takes about ten minutes to read and I usually try to fit as much story as possible into each issue, but that doesn’t necessarily mean more words to the page. I’m also very much in favour of letting the pictures tell the story whenever they can. Here’s what I wrote in response to Mr Mung:

“I actually have rules about the number of words to the page. Ideally a page of dialogue will have no more than 150 words. After that it starts to look crammed. I have on occasion gone up to 160 or 170. The number I aim for though is about 130. That's for a five or six panel page with continuous dialogue. I don't set a minimum limit. These last couple of issues (of Spawn), we've pursued a deliberately cinematic style and that means a lot of silent panels. Now that may mean you read the book more quickly. It depends how long you spend looking at those silent panels. Comics aren't cinema. We can't dictate the pace your eye moves over the pages, but I do try to at least influence the speed you're taking in those scenes.

Believe it or not I don't write silent scenes because I'm lazy. They often take longer to 'write' than scenes of dialogue. I don't just throw out the first set of images that comes into my head. Those silent scenes are sketched out over and over until I have the best possible sequence of images to create the atmosphere and suspense the scenes need.

Similarly, although those splash pages may be quicker to write when it comes to actually typing the description, I do spend a lot of time working out exactly when those splash panels will happen and how they are going to look. It's a tradition to have a couple of 'spectaculars' each issue - moments that really need that space. When you turn the page and see a splash it should have a real impact that a smaller panel couldn't have. It often comes at the end of an issue - a climactic moment that the rest of the issue has been building towards.

If you count the number of panels in a 22-page comic - and I actually did this recently because it does interest me to see how different writers pace their books - you'll find that most come in at between 100 to 110 panels. That's about 5 panels to the page and a couple of splash pages. Some of the 'decompressed' books come in at as little as 80 panels and some of my books have run to over 120 panels.

If you look at issues #166 and 167 they come in at 108 panels and 112 panels respectively - well within the typical breakdown.

For the reasons I explained above, these are fairly dialogue-light issues. I could add more captions but I can't honestly see where an additional caption or piece of dialogue would add anything. I hate redundant description and dialogue-heavy panels. I actually spend almost as much time cutting dialogue as writing it. I'll often go over a page of dialogue several times to cut every phrase, every word that doesn't serve a purpose.”

I then posted two of the pages that were the bone of contention – pages 14 and 15 of issue #167:

Preceding this scene, Spawn’s old nemesis, Jason Wynn has been revealing his nefarious past to a drunk in a bar. CIA agents Wolf and Hare have found him and are about to shoot the poor guy because he knows too much. Spawn has come looking for Clown, who used to co-habit Wynn’s head. He dispatches the agents with the bare minimum of dialogue. Not enough meat?

“There are two pages with a total of 12 words. Now I could have done it like this:

Page 14

Panel 1
Wynn: OH MY GOD, WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Agent Wolf: AAAAARGH! I - I'M BURNING UP!

Agent Hare: IT HUR-R-R-RTS!

Panel 2
Wynn: SOMETHING'S KILLING THEM! AND I HAVE A BAD FEELING I KNOW WHAT IT IS. THERE! LURKING IN THE SHADOWS. IT'S MOVING! IT'S COMING THIS WAY!!

The drunk guy: IT...IT'S HIM...HE'S COME FOR YOU!

Agent Wolf: CAN'T THINK! MY MIND... MELLLLTINGGGGG

Agent Hare: NNNNNNNGGGGGG!

Panel 3
Caption: AS THE AGENTS FALL TO THE GROUND, THEIR MINDS INCINERATED BY THE MYSTIC GREEN FLAMES, WYNN SHUDDERS AS HE RECOGNISES A VOICE HE HOPED NEVER TO HEAR AGAIN. THE COLD DEAD VOICE OF...

Page 15

Caption: ....SPAWN!!!

Spawn: ALL RIGHT WYNN, I KNOW CLOWN IS BEHIND ALL THE BAD STUFF THAT'S GOING DOWN AT NEW VISTA APARTMENTS. AND THE LAST TIME I SAW CLOWN HE WAS SQUATTING RIGHT INSIDE YOUR HEAD, SO I'M GONNA ASK YOU THIS ONCE AND ONCE ONLY...

"WHERE'S CLOWN?

You can decide which version works best. What I'm saying here is that there are different ways to approach scriptwriting and you can't please everyone, but what I can assure you is that none of the decisions are made as a time-saving device or a way of ripping off the reader.

I appreciate that 22 pages for three bucks is not the cheapest way to get your entertainment. I'd love to be able to tell the same story in 32 or even 48 pages and charge you the same, but the reality is that 22 pages is about as much as any artist can handle in a month, and the cost seems to be consistent across the board. That's pretty much dictated by market forces outside of my control. (The price of these books is the equivalent of $4 here in Britain so we get even less bang for our bucks.)

One last comment: The splash pages are some of the most popular - they give Brian the chance to do some very cool visuals and although I'm opposed to endless pin-up pages, I think every issue should have a couple of those "Wow!" moments.”

I’m currently working on a Spawn story that will be told mostly in captions. It really depends on the requirements of each story and the strengths and preferences of the artist you’re working with. The debate will continue. There are those who say a picture is worth a thousand words. Oscar Wilde might have disagreed. But then again, I guess it depends who’s drawing the picture.

Before I head off to Bristol, here’s some preview art for Spawn #168 …

… and Silent War #5 :