TPG Week 44: Artists Pad, Too!
Welcome back, one and all, to another edition of The Proving Grounds!
This week, we have yet another new Brave One in the form of Kirk McCosker. Kirk is a writer/artist who does something a little different: he breaks his plots into pages, maybe has a bit of dialogue—or at least the general direction of where it should go—and doesn’t fool around with making anything final until he starts drawing.
Let’s take a look, and see if he gives himself any problems, shall we?
Issue 3: Shortbus Warzone
Page 1
Dud sits idle in his cold dark cell. He rests against the cell door and ponders the mystery of how long he had been locked away. There is no sunlight in his cell. He’s been counting his meals but it’s hard to tell, because he’s been fed irregularly. (Typical way to start out a page. Most of this, I’m thinking, is going to come out in either an internal monologue, or an omniscient narrator. I’m going with monologue.)
Page 2
Spoon fulls of slop are dumped on his head from a slot in the door. Dud asks the guard if there was any news about Supreme Court Justice Evans lately. The guard answers He died shortly after being indited, about two weeks ago…. How did you know there was news about him? Dud replies Let me out and I’ll tell ya The guard laughs Good one bro and slams the slot on the door. (I’m not a fan of the slot at the top of the door. I have visions of House of Frankenstein, where Boris reaches through and chokes his jailor. That shows a lack of safety. If the slot is to pass food through, it makes better sense on the floor. Here, Kirk seems to be going more for a visual than reason. That may come back to bite him. As for the content, I don’t think there is enough here to warrant a full page. He may be able to get five, if he padded it out. However, I’m only seeing three. That makes for a fast read.)
Page 3
Young punks Dudley Compton and Richard Dunk are drinking heavily in line at the grocery store. It’s Dunk’s 21st birthday. Dud worries about the threat supreme court justice Evans and the Klan poses. He knows how important this story is and the good it would do, but who wants to die so young, so fuck all that noise. (I have no idea where we’re at or how we got here. Kirk doesn’t leave himself a note to say if this is a flashback or something different. I also have no idea about what the story he mentions is, but as long as it makes sense to him, that’s all that matters. Again, I think the content is light. Possibly three to four panels. Remember, folks, most pages are around five panels, maybe six. Without a lot of dialogue, this is going to be an extremely fast read.)
Page 4
Dunk hands Dudley a brochure on a civilian combat training camp called Crown Liberty . Dunk says he can recommend him for a scholarship, because they owe him a favor. (half of the page will be an unfolded brochure) (See that? He left a note for himself, saying what the page will be. However, he doesn’t leave himself any notes about what the brochure looks like, or what claims it makes. Now, the question becomes, WHY would Dud want to go there? What does he get out of it? If Dunk is 21, he’s only worried about a few things: getting drunk (doing that), getting laid, and school/job. I’m assuming that Dud is around the same age, and if so, he should have the same worries.)
Page 5
Dud is on a little yellow bus to Camp Crown. The engine starts to smoke. The driver bails from the moving bus. (Yet another extremely abrupt transition.)
Camp Crown is a salvage yard of decommissioned public school transit buses. An abandoned school house serves as the HQ. (I’m not seeing this. Combat training needs a LOT of space. I was in the Marine Corps. I know about combat training. A salvage yard isn’t big enough, nor does it have varied terrain. Again, I’m not seeing this.)
Page 6
Passengers rush to the front in a panic. Dud calmly hops out of the rear emergency exit. (This page is fast, and it probably should be, since it is an action sequence. The fewer panels you have, the faster the action goes. However, this is P6, and the entire story seems to be flying by so far. Not good.)
Page 7
The bus crashes into a tree. The other passengers are in quite the pickle. A man named CROW WILSON starts shooting at the wrecked bus. He shouts Welcome to hell bitches! Any casualties? Dud is ordered to drag the injured passengers out of the bus. (And here is where my incredulity snaps. I’m assuming this is the United States, because of the talk of a Supreme Court Justice. I’m okay with that. However, the salvage yard, I’m assuming, is within the city limits. If someone is shooting at the bus in a training exercise, I’m not seeing this happening within the city limits. Prying eyes and all that jazz. This has to be in a remote place. It’s too easy for someone to get shot. So, right here, I’m calling the thinking a complete failure, because of what it is and the location I have to assume it is in.)
Page 8
We see a Character design sheet of Team Crown.
The firearm specialist and owner of the facility Crow Willson He has served in at least three wars that he can remember as an Army Ranger.
Counter Terrorism and Krav Maga expert Moe worked for Mossad since he was a teenager, But he had to leave Israel on bad terms.
Kidnap, ransom and rescue specialist Swiss used to be body guard to the Pope, until he was fired for spin kicking a drunk tourist. (Is this a character design sheet, or is it a rundown of the characters that are going to be doing the training? There’s a difference, and really, unless they’re important to the story, I’m not seeing the reason this is here. I’m hoping they show up later, instead of just being part of the training montage.)
Page 9
Crow lectures everybody on the basics Direct the pointy end at what you’d like to die and bang, it’s dead. Don’t think before you shoot. Thinking will only slow you down, when it’s time to find out who’s quick and who’s dead (Another Speedy Gonzalez page. This is only about two panels worth, and gives absolutely no indication as to where the lecture is taking place. It also makes no mention of the injured passengers and what happened to them. No one is settled. No one has their gear stowed. I’m hoping it will at least get mentioned.)
Page 10
Crow asks Anybody here ever been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer? He then shoots everyone in the chest with one pass. He then asks So how did it feel? Everybody screams in agony. As he walks away in disinterest he follows up asking Let me know if the Kevlar is up to snuff Dud is the only man standing. He’s not sure what the big deal is. (This page should be combined with the previous page. Hopefully, Kirk knows what kind of gun is being used. But right now, I’m getting that bloated feeling. That only comes from padding. It’s P10, and there’s yet to be any hint of a plot to this issue. I get that there were supposed to be two issues before it, but each issue needs to have its own plot, which helps to give the overall arc more stability. If the purpose of this issue is nothing more than training, then it fails.)
Page 11
Dud runs around shooting at wild boars through a labyrinth of short buses. He has one hand tied behind his back. The pigs are escaping under a bus. It looks like they’re getting away. (Wild boars? I take it they’re imported from somewhere else. This has just taken a turn for the surreal, and not in a good way.)
Page 12
Dud sits in a short bus loading a shotgun, counting targets. Once he stands up and racks the shotgun, all of the targets are pulled away. (What kind of targets? Where? Where is all the space coming from? Have you ever been to an outdoor shooting range? It’s something that needs a lot of space. You need the target, and some sort of berm behind it in case you miss, so that the bullets don’t go flying off everywhere. This is going from the surreal to the absurd, and not in a good way.)
Page 13
Dud is taking a piss and abruptly gets his ass kicked by Swiss. Dud has a hard time putting up a fight. Swiss is giving him a lecture about how danger can arise anytime. (This can happen in a salvage yard. However, I fail to see how this page follows the previous one.)
Page 14
Dud chases a VW Baja Bug through a maze of Short Buses. It turns an acute corner getting away. (I’m getting a Nightmare on Elm Street 3 vibe about this salvage yard. Anyway, chases how? On foot, or is he driving one himself? That’s important, because on foot, he’s already lost. Even at a dead sprint, he’s only going to go about 15mph. A little more if he’s world class or highly trained. A buggy can go faster than that without the limiting factor of getting tired. So, again, is he running or is he driving?)
Page 15
Moe locks everybody in the bus and begins to lecture. He opens with for better or worse dead men tell no tales while cutting and stabbing everybody. His knife is only two inches long, but it’s coated with a paralytic. (Who’s everybody? Hopefully, Kirk has an idea of how many people he wants in this class. And to be honest, right now, it feels like this is all part of the same day. Hopefully, over some sort of monologue or narrator caption, we’re getting into a passage of time. But notice, not once does Kirk mention anything about resting or eating. The closest was taking a piss, and that was two pages ago. Now, is anyone fighting back? Or are they sitting there and taking it. And unless there are very few people on the bus, the more he cuts and stabs—especially with a two-inch knife—the more of the paralytic will be taken from the knife. Those in the front will get a heavier dose than those in the back, and depending how many people we’re talking about, those in the far back won’t get any. Unless he’s reloading the thing after every person, he’s going to be out of paralytic in about four cuts or one, maybe two stabs. )
Page 16
He continues to explain Your enemy wants to die for their cause. So keep them alive to serve your cause
While everyone’s limbs are as limp as a noodle Moe announces there is a bomb ticking. (You need another page for this? This is nothing more than padding. Combine this with the previous page. And, we’re on P16. Where is the plot, and when is it going to be served?)
Page 17
Dud dislocates Moe’s shoulder in an arm bar and stabs him in the ass with his own bade. He then points it at Moe’s throat and demands he disable the bomb. Moe closes his eyes and holds his breath. It’s a pepper gas bomb. (This barely covers a page. Breaking it into panels, the dislocation is one, the stabbing is two (and is better served as an inset or a small panel), and the pointing of the blade to the throat is three. The breath holding is four. Now, how does anyone know what type of bomb it is or where it’s located? Could that be panel five? I don’t know.)
Page 18
Dud jumps over a short bus and lands in the Baja Bug, kicking the driver out. (Okay, we finally have superpowers. No matter what, though, this is not a full page. Not unless the clock is ticking, showing the countdown of the bomb, and even then, there isn’t much tension at all in this, because the reader knows this is a training exercise. Now, there is some indication that this follows the previous page in the story, but it could be its own action. There’s no way to tell. It could go either way. No matter what, though, it’s still padding.)
Page 19
Dud defends himself in the bathroom and smashes Swiss’ head into a toilet. Knocking him out cold. (This could be a full page.)
Page 20
Dud shoots all of the targets on the bus in one pass with two Sub-Compact Machine Pistols. (Padding.)
Page 21
Dud chases the Boars as they run under a bus. He slides under after them. On the other side of the bus he sits on top of the dead boars and declares Pork! It’s What’s for dinner (This is supposed to show he’s getting better in training. I get it. But you don’t need an entire page for it. These three pages could have been combined into a single page. So, really, it’s padding.)
Page 22
Everybody sits in the cafeteria covered in bandages, drinking milk from little boxes and eat TV dinners. Dud has a steak on his eye and a real dinner. Crow, Swiss and Moe join him. They hand him a brochure about the Crown Liberty Private Military Corp and an official Crown pinkie ring. They tell him there is medical, dental and a 401k. He should sleep on it. (So, what was all of this for? At no point is there a stated purpose in any of this. At least you can get a full page out of this.)
Page 23
The instructors rile up the crowd by asking what special forces unit they belong to. They then aggravate these killing machines by letting them know Dudley the civilian tested better. They close by announcing to the group that the $25,000 tuition will be refunded if they can kill Dudley Compton before sun up. (The absurd just turned into the stupid. Training to kill and killing trainees are two different things.)
Page 24
Dud steals a stun grenade and a side arm from Crow. He then jumps through the window, shoots out the lights and leaves the flash bang behind. (Yeah. Not seeing it. Which does he do first? Jump out the window or shoot out the lights? And I’m assuming this is at night, in order for there to be no light coming from the windows. Where does he leave the flashbang? Inside or outside? Does he leave it, or does he throw it in? Questions I hope you ask and answer for yourself when you’re drawing.)
Page 25
They wake up in the dark cafeteria. The fire sprinklers are on and Dud is nowhere to be found. Narration states I called them three weeks later to see if that job was still on the table. I figured the training alone was enough for a great story, Imagine the field work. (This could fill an entire page.)
THE END
Okay, I can’t run it down like I usually do. There’s no Format, Panel Descriptions or Dialogue. So, let’s talk Pacing and Content.
From a pacing standpoint, this isn’t good at all. If the start of the book is the present, then the whole training thing has to be in the past, making it a flashback. Two pages of Now, and 23 pages of Then. Not good at all.
Most of the ideas you have for the pages won’t fill up an entire page. I think this is too loose. Realistically, you only have about ten pages of material here. That means you padded out 15 pages, which, simply put, is sinful.
From a content point of view, this story has no purpose at all. Let’s look at it like this: this is the third issue. It starts in the present, and then goes into a flashback of epic proportion for no apparent reason. You never come out of this flashback, never bringing it around full circle, and because there is no reason for anything given, you’ve failed your readers. And you did it for 25 pages.
What happens within this story that has any bearing on the character being in prison? You don’t have any dialogue that illuminates it at all, so I’m left with no choice but to answer nothing. That means you wasted space, and people wasted their money.
I think that, for the location to have so many buses, it has to be near a city. That’s telling me that the salvage yard itself is small. I’m not seeing the things you’re doing in a salvage yard full of school buses. It’s absurdist. While I do like the absurd, I don’t like it trying to play itself straight, as you’re doing here. Think of The Pink Panther (the original and the sequels, not the remake). You have Peter Sellers being absurd and playing it straight, and everyone else around him knowing he is a fool who still somehow manages to get the job done. None of that is evident here.
Editorially, I’d make you condense it to the 15 pages it is, make you come up with an actual plot, and then make you stick to it. Right now, this has no reason for being, and as such, you’re cheating your readership. They deserve a story, not a padded out attempt at one.
And that’s all I have! Check the calendar to see who’s up next!
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Category: The Proving Grounds
Page 7, “Welcome to hell bitches!” Comma fail. I can’t believe Steve didn’t point that out.
My biggest problem for this script is a lack of connectivity and motivation. (Also the pacing problems, but Steve hammered on those pretty heavily.) To put it another way: this is a script where “things happen” without any real rhyme or reason.
He is in prison – why? how does he feel?
He gets food dumped on his head – this isn’t normal, how does he react?
He is in a flashback – why, and how does it relate to being in prison later?
There’s mention of a Supreme Court Justice and the Klan – why, and how does it relate to the rest of the story?
He goes to combat camp – why?
at the combat camp, the people running it are actively trying to murder him – why are they doing this? If it’s government-run, they need every soldier they can get and can’t afford to be killing recruits; if its privately run, MURDERING PEOPLE IS ILLEGAL. So why are they doing this? Also, how does your character react? If someone were trying to murder me, I would GTFO immediately. So why does he stay?
What makes character interesting isn’t WHAT they do, it’s WHY they do that. It makes them relatable. And you’re missing a whole lot of why.
A lot of the time when I am scripting, I write a rough outline, a little looser than what you have explaining what I want to happen, then I take a few passes figuring out character details and theme, being sure to try to explain why character A is doing plot point B. And sometimes I can’t figure out a motivation and my rough draft takes a left turn away from my outline.
I really recommend you do a more detailed draft before you start drawing because those sort of problems will come up when you finalize your writing, and they are really easy to fix now but almost impossible to fix once art is done.
If you notice, Evan, I didn’t correct ANY of the dialogue. The reason for that is I doubt that the dialogue listed here is the final draft of it. There is a lot of punctuation missing.
Part of the ‘why’ that is missing may be due to the fact that this is the third issue. The how/why he’s in prison may have been answered in the previous issues, as well as why he went to murder camp. That’s why I didn’t harp on it. I was giving the benefit of the doubt, although I should have expressed that more clearly.
Even though there is a case to be made that every comic is someone’s first, extremely few writers follow that. This is why we get the recap page in many of Marvel’s books nowadays. It simply takes up too much space for characters to always be repeating what happened last issue. It throws off the rhythm of the book.
Thanks for commenting, though!
Evan went a lot into what I was going to say so I’m going to be mercifully brief this week. 😛
It all comes down to telling a story.
A story has a definite beginning leading to a definite end. It’s how it moves from beginning to end that defines how interesting a story is: what twists it takes, what surprises you have in store for the reader, how you play into or out of his expectations.
But most of all, a story has meaning. Real life has no meaning because events are the result of pure happenstance. In fiction however, the way plot points follow one another is determined by the writer. Readers have the expectation that the writer is “going somewhere” with his story, even with the most nonsensical plot. The human brain is wired to look for patterns and it gets sorely confused when it finds none.
Find that pattern, weave it into your story and most of Evan’s questions will be answered.
Wait! That’s all we get?
I knew I should have asked questions of the gallery. What a ripoff! 😉
And imagine: since it’s my turn in the bloody circle next week, that means you have to wait two whole weeks for my enlightening comments! 😛
I’ll try to be extra verbose next week so there’s not a power vaccuum.
Thanks, Evan!
SOMEONE has to fill those over-talkative shoes!
Thanks for the feedback you guys. I didn’t realize how much I left out. I was a little curious if just a training montage were satisfying enough on it’s own, but I got a clear, honest answer on that one. I don’t mind absurd, surreal or stupid, so long as it’s satisfying. Loose, but dynamic is my objective. The worst thing a writer can do is leave the reader confused and disappointed.
I should have been way more formal about the where and when. From now on I’ll tweak the format to be more clear. I left out too many specifics. For example I left out the location details, because I was playing around with possibilities in the concept art. I was thinking this could be in Appalachia or the desert or an abandoned rust belt town, whatever seems to hit the aesthetic sweet note. Either way it was a flaky decision to leave that out.
I will note the cuts from now on. The non linear format was misdirecting. I guess nobody caught onto the scenes being cut short when conflict arised and revisited later for the resolution. I think it would have changed dramatically if I wrote “cut to”.
Luckily the future ties to this plot are open. The purpose is for Dud to establish these new supporting characters and Dud’s natural gift for combat. I’m open to writing a new plot, as a matter of fact I’ve had a couple vague ideas dancing in my head since I submitted this.
Hey, Kirk!
The biggest problem I found was that there wasn’t any real reason for this story. What was the purpose? You go into the training sequence, but the reason for it is never given. I was left with a ‘why did this happen’ feeling.
And as for cutting the scene when conflict arised in order to be resolved later… No. You followed the standard training montage seen in almost every movie: the hero doesn’t do things as well in the beginning, and then over time, they “get it” and are able to do the training at a high level. There was nothing new or distinctive about it, which is why it wasn’t mentioned overmuch.
There is a lot wrong here. Most of it is the lack of story. Too much padding without forward movement or resolving anything at all. I don’t care why he’s in jail. Why go into the training sequence? Why didn’t you come out of it? Basically, you have two scenes: the jail, and then the training. The training is overlong compared to the beginning, because readers are expecting a story.
I think there is a lot of work to be done here. If you cut the training down to about five pages or so, you’d have more than enough space to get to the story you were trying to tell.
Oh yeah, I left out too much about the intentions as well. I deleted some important information while widdeling the plot down to the core.
If this was the core of the plot, then you have no story. This is little more than an overly long training sequence. A plot gives a what and why. This is just stuff happening.
If you deleted things in trying to get to the core, and if this is that core, then I have to say that you don’t know how to tell a story. If this is what you’re working from when you’re drawing, that’s fine for a sequence of actions, but if you’re also writing it, why hide things from yourself? And if the reasons for why things are happening are in a separate document, why are you doing double work?
I think you have a long way to go. I understand that you’re following a McFarlane-esque method of creation: you follow a plot and draw around it until you get something you like, whereas he draws and then moves pictures around until something resembling a plot arrives—but I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. I suggest writing out a formal script, getting your ideas down as well as the dialogue, and then if you need to change things up while you’re drawing, you still know where it is you want to go. Try that for an issue (or a short story) and see how it works for you.
Like I said when I submitted this to you, this was a questionable issue. I couldn’t put my finger on what I didn’t like about it and you just did. There is an absence of plot and it turned into a long sequence of things just happening. Yes, that annoys me too. I call it Kill Bill syndrome. I’m not making excuses or apologizing for my work.
The only other documents I have is a one paragraph synopsis and a cover mock up, with a few sketches about the location and characters involved. I do this before and after writing the story.