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 Art tips and techniques, reviews and interviews from my studio. Archived here and at World Famous Comics. Comics 101 for 01/15/2004 Finding Scripts to Draw Samples Joe,Hi Dave, Thanks for the compliments about my website. I'll pass along those props to my mighty webmaster and partner in crime. My best advice to you is to write the editors for these titles you're wishing to create samples for. Request older scripts since they are more likely to part with them than newer ones. Editors are usually plenty busy and aren't obligated to help out striving amateurs with their needs but sometimes you'll luck out, especially if you approach them in your letter professionally and rationally. If you search enough comic book artist websites you'll sometimes find script pages they've posted as part of tutorials for their fans. Scott McDaniel's site comes to mind and I know I've seen others out there who have done this as well. They may not be the characters you want to draw but it's a start. I think the what the editors and pros are getting at when they review your work by asking if you are drawing the characters you want to draw is that they want you to be putting a 110% into your work. If you are drawing characters or a story you are excited about then your work will eventually and most likely stand out above the competition. My other advice about getting a hold of scripts you want to work from is make friends with professional writers and other artists working in the industry. Even though this can be a real competitive and even cut throat industry at times, comic book creators are usually the friendliest, down to earth people out there, the ones without super-egos I mean. I'm sure you have some comic artists you really look up to or admire. Open up some dialogue with them at a convention or via email through their sites and I'm sure one of them would eventually be apt to help you in your request (that is if this artist happens to be drawing one of the titles you're jonesing to create samples for). You could also pick up a copy of X-Men, Buffy or Star Wars and draft your own script directly from what you see on the page as an outline for your own sample story to draw. And it doesn't necessarily have to be exactly the same either. Change some characters around, change the setting, make it interesting. Though it'll still feel familiar to you and maybe even the editors don't concern yourself with that. They're not reviewing your writing, they're looking at your style and storytelling abilities as an artist. And of course, the one downfall to this approach is you might consciously or subconsciously bias your art on what the previous penciler created and find yourself repeating the same camera angles or even minor details. Some of this is given since it probably was in the script and might even feel like the only natural way to draw it but don't paint yourself into this corner. If you try this approach, do lots of different layouts for your panels until you get something that still gets the meaning across but is unique to you and different from the other art. As individual artists, comic books are an art form where nothing is limited to our imagination and there's always a hundred different ways to tell the same story. My last bit of advice is actually the easiest. Create your own scripts. You're a penciler which means you're a storyteller too. Nothing is holding you back from writing a down and dirty Star Wars story (especially since getting a hold of one of those scripts is a bit trickier with an entity like LFL licensing involved). It could be three to five pages of pure action with your favorite characters and maybe a page or two of quiet, dialogue, character driven scenes. The downfall to this is when working from your own outlined short stories or scripts is that you may not challenge yourself by drawing the things you normally wouldn't draw. That's the fun and creativity a real writer can bring to the process of creating comic books. They're not thinking of the penciler's strengths and weaknesses usually, they're just focused on writing solid stories and whatever characters, environments or props involved that will make it a good yarn. Good luck with your work! See ya next week for a new Comics 101 feature! -Joe Recent Columns:
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