TPG Week 81: Comics Are Not Music Videos
Welcome, one and all, to another installment of The Proving Grounds! This week, we have a script from our very own Yannick Morin! This is his third go-round, submitting the very first comic script he ever wrote. Let’s see how he does, shall we? Remember: Steve Colle is in blue, and I’m in red.
SCRIPT – FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
WORKING TITLE: FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
VERSION: 1
PAGE 1
PANEL 1 – SPLASH
A view of New York City, night time, snow is falling. Mostly silhouettes, shades of black, blue and white. (Which part of New York City do you envision? Central Park? One of the boroughs? Manhattan? Which is most effective in conveying your vision?)(Steve’s Canadian is coming out. It’s okay. That’s what we’re here for. NYC is the same as Manhattan. Technically, NYC is on Manhattan Island. Also, NYC is its own borough. Central Park is a big park: trees, paved pathways, mimes, contact jugglers, etc. So, New York City is justified as a location. Maybe a better question would have been: is this a nighttime skyline? Are the towers visible, or are they already gone? How close is the camera?)
All captions are in fact part of a letter written by LEONARD. As such, they are screen captures from an online mail service.
LEONARD (CAPTION): It’s four in the morning, the end of December.
TITLE LINE: Leonard Cohen’s FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
CREDITS: Original lyrics by LEONARD COHEN, YANNICK MORIN – Adaptation and layout, [ ] – Lineart and lettering, [ ], [ ] and [ ] – Models
So, we open with a splash page. I hope it sets the stage for what’s to come. As it is, it’s a little vague as to where the camera is. Is the camera pushed in, or is it pulled out? Are we looking at a skyline, or are we in closer?
The big question is: does it doe its job in getting the reader to turn the page? I’m going to say that I’m not that interested, right now. Not curious enough to turn the page, not not curious enough to close it up and put it back. This definitely falls in the grab ’em in three semi-rule that I have. I usually push it out to five, to give a little leeway, but if you don’t grab ’em with the first page, you have two more to do it in.
This is almost a silent page. That caption and the credits aren’t helping all that much. There’s still a ton of space left on the page. Let’s see if that space is wasted, or if it sets pace well enough.
PAGE 2 (Page break.)
PANEL 1 – TOP 2/3 OF PAGE
LEONARD is sitting in front of his laptop at his desk with the screen giving off the only light. We see him in the foreground, typing. The rest of the room is dark except for a window in the background through which we can see the snow flying upon a gust of wind.
LEONARD (CAPTION): I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better.
PANEL 2 – BOTTOM 1/3 OF PAGE
A view outside LEONARD’s apartment building. (Again, where is the apartment building? Is it worn down, relatively new, how many floors, which level and room has the light shining vaguely in the window?) One lone window, the same from the previous panel, gives off a faint bluish illumination. The building itself is little more than a black silhouette. (Even with a silhouette, we should be able to envision the brick layering, balconies, fire escapes, etc. Give photo references where possible.)
LEONARD (CAPTION): New York is cold, but I like where I’m living.
LEONARD (CAPTION): There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening. (To get an idea of what apartments look like on Clinton St., I found this site that shows the exterior of an apartment/hotel building at http://www.hotelplanner.com/Hotels/333436-New-York/Deal-Dream-Apartments-25-Clinton-St-10002.)
(The pace is moving pretty slowly as it is. Having listened to Leonard Cohen’s and Tori Amos’s versions of this song, I can understand why, but the average Joe Reader won’t have that same appreciation.)
Yeah, the average Joe Reader, like me. I haven’t listened to either artist, so I’m a little lost. Had to do some research. What I found, you’re not going to like when I run it down. But two panels on this page? Not digging it.
PAGE 3 (Page break.)
PANEL 1 – LEFT HALF OF TOP TIER
We see LEONARD from the side, typing on his laptop, all in black silhouette. The rest of the panel is a white field with no border.
LEONARD (CAPTION): I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert.
PANEL 2 – RIGHT HALF OF TOP TIER
Same side view, same style, but with a slight change in pose. (Still in silhouette?)
LEONARD (CAPTION): You’re living for nothing now. I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.
PANEL 3 –MIDDLE TIER
The art style changes to suggest a flashback. LEONARD is opening the door to his apartment; we see him from behind. JANE is standing in the doorway. She has her coat and hat on. Snow has piled up on her head and shoulders. She looks miserable.
LEONARD (CAPTION): Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair.
LEONARD (CAPTION): She said that you gave it to her that night that you planned to go clear.
PANEL 4 – LEFT HALF OF BOTTOM TIER
Same side view and style as the first two panels. LEONARD’s pose suggests that he’s very pensive. (You say it’s the same as the first two panels on this page, but don’t define whether it’s still in silhouette, which I’m taking it isn’t due to the pensive look on his face. Make sure to tell us.)(Sometimes, we editors don’t read as thoroughly as we should, or we misunderstand some things. I do it enough. Yannick said Leonard’s pose is pensive. He said nothing about his face. Pensive pose? The Thinker by Rodin. Same effect without having to see a face.)
PANEL 5 – RIGHT HALF OF BOTTOM TIER
Same side view, same style. LEONARD is typing again. (Silhouette?)(I’d say that this was still a silhouette, because we’ve never gotten any other details about anything else.)
LEONARD (CAPTION): Did you ever go clear?
I’m dying with the pacing.
Okay, I looked up the lyrics, and the song is kinda slow. I’m honestly not seeing the reason why this story is being told, except for love of the song.
I’m also hoping that you’re hiding the guy’s face for a reason.
Okay, so this is a song that you’re adapting to a comic. There isn’t enough in the song itself to really give too much info and background for visuals, so you’re doing it all from your gut. I can dig that. However, what I’m not digging is the fact that, so far, you haven’t deviated at all from the lyrics.
All the dialogue is told in captions, making readers sit back instead of sitting forward and being engaged by what’s going on. Always try to engage the reader.
As for the song choice? Personally, I’m not liking it. Simple reason: it’s silly. A chick shows up with a lock of someone’s hair? Really? What’s that all about. (Remember, I’m not that smart.)
Everyone has a song that they love. Prince’s song Holy River comes to mine, as does his song White Mansion. Those songs would make interesting visuals to me, but I don’t think they’d do so for many others. (The first page of Holy River would be pretty interesting, to be sure!)
Anyway, I don’t get it. And if I don’t get it, not being that smart, I don’t think others would get it. Maybe die-hard fans. Not enough to be successful, though.
PAGE 4 (Page break)
PANEL 1 – TOP 2/3 OF PAGE
A train station, the runway between two tracks. A figure in a blue raincoat is standing near the bottom of the panel, his shadow stretching towards the vanishing point. We’ll call him THE OTHER. The scene is vaguely stylized and dreamlike. (Something you forgot to mention in the panel description was the tear in the shoulder, which could be shown in the shadow as well as on the actual body to reinforce its existence.)
LEONARD (CAPTION): Ah! the last time we saw you, you looked so much older.
LEONARD (CAPTION): Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder.
PANEL 2 – BOTTOM 1/3 OF PAGE
We see THE OTHER from the side this time, walking alongside a long row of train carts (train cars), in silhouette. He’s positioned at the far right and walking towards the same direction. (Is this meant to be counter-eye flow, reading right to left as opposed to left to right?)
LEONARD (CAPTION): You’d been to the station to meet every train and you came home alone
LEONARD (CAPTION): without Lili Marlene.
(The pacing is so slow, with two panels on this page. It’s easy to lose interest when so few panels reveal so little information.)
Okay, we have two panels to this page, and the strange thing is that while this can hold more panels, the pacing of the song is what’s determining this languid pace.
I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.
What I don’t like but also get is the breakage in the caption in panel 2. Here’s what we have:
We have a rhyme that is interrupted because of the break, however, we also have a more impactful statement because of where Yannick broke it.
There isn’t a right or wrong in this case. It would really come down to author preference. I’m torn, because I’d rather keep the rhyme scheme if possible, but there’s also the fact that, cut out by itself as it is, the second caption makes a very good statement.
It throws off the pacing of the song, but it also makes a good statement by itself.
But the overall pacing is languid. This, being P4, exemplifies this. I’d like to condense, but then, that might change the effect of what little bit of story there is. Lots of conversation would need to happen before this got a green light to go into production. That is, of course, after the other thing looming over this like a dark cloud is taken care of.
PAGE 5 (Page break.)
PANEL 1 – TOP ¼ OF PAGE
All panels on this page are drawn in the same dreamlike way – it’s a flashback. Captions use the same font but they are white with no border.
THE OTHER is standing in the doorway of a bedroom. JANE is propping herself up on her elbows, a surprised look on her face. Apart from the interior of this room, everything – including THE OTHER – is in black silhouette. (Not entirely understanding this panel description. Everything besides the interior of the room is in silhouette, but does that mean JANE is in silhouette as well? Are they the only two components in the panel that are in silhouette? And if so, where is the white text supposed to appear?)
LEONARD (CAPTION): And you treated my woman
PANEL 2 – 2ND ¼ OF PAGE
We see JANE’s face over THE OTHER’s shoulder as he lies on top of her. Her hands are on his back and in his hair. Her pleasure is evident.
Apart from this, the rest of the panel is black.
LEONARD (CAPTION): to a flake of your life
PANEL 3 – 3RD ¼ OF PAGE
JANE’s hand is gripping a fistful of covers. (Is she gripping the covers during intercourse or post-sex? What is the purpose of this panel besides filling space, because it isn’t acting like a transitory image between actions? Is it to break up the pacing of the song and only that purpose?)
Apart from this, the rest of the panel is black.
LEONARD (CAPTION): and when she came back
PANEL 4 – BOTTOM ¼ OF PAGE
JANE is lying with her head upon THE OTHER’s chest. She’s sleeping. (Give us more details here as I’m seeing in my head that one minute she’s under him, then on top. Has the shot changed in angle, distance, viewpoint, etc.?)
Apart from this, the rest of the panel is black.
LEONARD (CAPTION): she was nobody’s wife.
Having to do a fair bit of research on this song. I might even listen to it when I’m done! (Just finished listening to it. Sad, lonely song, but not something that really captured me.)
Anyway, after doing the research, I’m disliking this even more. I’m simple. I don’t like to have to research something in order to understand it. And I had to do that with this. (Wish there was something that explains Grant Morrison’s The Filth…)
Basically, this is a song about a guy who’s married, and his brother sleeps with his wife, giving her a lock of his hair before leaving to do whatever. Whatever go clear means.
There are different interpretations of the song, because the imagery isn’t clear, even to the artist himself. You know its bad when the artist themselves say that they aren’t clear about what the song means.
So, we have a page dedicated, tastefully, to a sex scene. And, really, it doesn’t get more tasteful than this. Faceless silhouettes could make it more lurid, especially if it were full bodied and not covered by a sheet.
Unlike Steve, I’m able to follow the gaps in Border Time. What I’m not liking, still, is the pace. It’s just too slow. The panels are too large, and there isn’t enough dialogue to hold interest. It’s a story that could be finished in about three pages, but is stretched out for some reason.
As for the sex scene itself, making the panels larger (because you have more space) could lead to that luridness that you’ve taken care to avoid so far. So it was a good call, but was it enough? Only the readers can tell.
PAGE 6 (Page break.)
PANEL 1 – UPPER LEFT OF PAGE
Back to present. LEONARD is hunched in front of his laptop, furiously typing away as he recalls the incident in the flashback. We see him clearly from the side while JANE is seen out of focus, lying on a couch in the background.
LEONARD (CAPTION): Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth, one more thin gypsy thief
PANEL 2 – UPPER RIGHT OF PAGE
The focus switches to JANE who is now sitting up and stretching.
LEONARD (CAPTION): I see Jane’s awake.
PANEL 3 – LOWER LEFT OF PAGE
The focus is still on JANE. She has risen and is walking out of the frame. (Why do these two panels exist? All they are is movement without text that shows no real purpose except to see her leave the room. Here’s where pre-action, action, and post-action come into play, where the pre-action of her lying on the couch leads to the stretching and finally to the walking out of the frame. What is really necessary to show in order to speed up the timing between the two lines of text. Does she need to be lying down? Does she need to be stretching?)
PANEL 4 – LOWER RIGHT OF PAGE
Focus back on LEONARD who has resumed typing.
LEONARD (CAPTION): She sends her regards.
And now, I’m lost. First, we can’t tell what’s going on in the background because you purposely hid it, and now, we can see because you’ve decided to let us in on it? Nope. Not going to work. It would have been better if she were shown in the background in the first place.
So, what we have is you playing with Time, but totally losing the reader in the process. Ungood. Panels and pages that are meant to be one thing could be mistaken for another, and with the two differences in what’s happening now, you’ve managed to lose the reader in the Twilight Zone. The narrator/poet/song now becomes Rod Serling, and that’s only a good thing if that’s the type of story you’re telling. You’re not, and neither is the songwriter.
Add to that, we have some pacing that’s stretched out for storytelling purposes. Elderberries. This is already too long as it is. Purposefully losing the reader on top of it is not helping your cause.
PAGE 7
PANEL 1 – LEFT 1/3 OF PAGE
A view from outside the apartment building. (Again, give us references as it’s now apparently lighter outside so we can see the details in the structure and design of the building.) LEONARD is standing framed in the window, looking at the snow falling outside. The window is at the top of the panel.
PANEL 2 – CENTER 1/3 OF PAGE
Same view but the window is now in the center of the panel. JANE has joined LEONARD at the window. She’s hugging him from behind, her arms around his shoulders, and he has placed a hand upon hers.
PANEL 3 – RIGHT 1/3 OF PAGE
Same view but the window is now at the bottom of the panel. LEONARD is in the same position, but JANE is gone. His hand is still hanging where her arms were.
(Why change the positioning of the window in these three panels? If they were all the same, you’d get the same idea across. And what is the purpose of these three textless panels anyways?)
Wow! An entire silent page, dedicated to nothing!
Folks, this is padding. This entire page can be cut. It adds nothing at all to the story, and nothing at all to the song. This is nothing more than author indulgence.
This is a perfect example of what not to do.
Know what this is? This is a music video, but on paper, of a song that the Yannick loves. Not my idea of a popular song, and not my idea of a good time.
PAGE 8 (Page break.)
PANEL 1 – TOP 2/3 OF PAGE
We see LEONARD in black silhouette typing at his laptop. His posture suggests despair and tiredness. In the background, slightly transparent, are various images from the past, all involving him and THE OTHER: having a beer, playing a video game, studying for school, etc.
LEONARD (CAPTION): And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer?
LEONARD (CAPTION): What can I possibly say?
PANEL 2 – FIRST 1/3 OF LAST TIER OF PAGE
LEONARD, shoulder slumped, has his head hanging. (Is this in silhouette?)
PANEL 3 – SECOND 1/3 OF LAST TIER OF PAGE
LEONARD turns his head towards JANE.
PANEL 4 – LAST 1/3 OF LAST TIER OF PAGE
Close-up of JANE lying on the couch with her face towards LEONARD, looking at him and smiling.
Another page, nearly devoid of text. And, really, 4 panels, but all with very little to say. You’ve dragged this out to disproportionate lengths, Yannick. The first panel isn’t going to go over well, because you never really set the stage for it.
Just about everything is in silhouette, so just about everything will have a dream-like quality to it. Not good.
Personally, I think you lost control of the story back on P1. I don’t think it ever really came together. I don’t think that is your fault. I think that is the fault of the source material. We’ll come to that later.
PAGE 9 (Page break.)
PANEL 1 – FIRST HALF OF FIRST TIER
LEONARD has reached out and touched JANE’s face.
LEONARD (CAPTION): I guess that I miss you. I guess I forgive you.
PANEL 2 – SECOND HALF OF FIRST TIER
Close-up of JANE kissing LEONARD’S hand.
LEONARD (CAPTION): I’m glad you stood in my way.
PANEL 3 – LOWER 2/3 OF PAGE
JANE is seen on her way out the door, her backpack on her shoulder. She has her hat and jacket on. LEONARD is sitting at his chair in the foreground. (Is Leonard facing us or towards Jane in the background?)
LEONARD (CAPTION): If you ever come by here for Jane or for me, your enemy is sleeping
LEONARD (CAPTION): and his woman is free.
Another thing that’s interesting here: Yannick’s interpretation of the song. Here, Yannick is saying that Jane left the author, but the author states If you ever come by here for Jane or for me, which intimates that Jane is still there. The imagery doesn’t necessarily add up to the words.
As for the hand kiss: does she kiss the back of his hand, as a man would do a woman, or does she kiss his palm, as a woman would do a man? You don’t say, so the question has to be asked.
PAGE 10
PANEL 1 – UPPER LEFT OF PAGE
LEONARD is sitting at his computer, typing. The point of view is just in front of the laptop so we only see the top of his head and his eyes. The light from the screen if bathing what little we see of his face.
LEONARD (CAPTION): Yes, and thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes.
PANEL 2 – UPPER RIGHT OF PAGE
LEONARD is still sitting and typing. The point of view is directly behind him this time. The glare from the screen is spilling around his silhouette. (You mean backlighting him?)
LEONARD (CAPTION): I thought it was there for good so I never tried.
PANEL 3 – LOWER LEFT OF PAGE
LEONARD reclines back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the screen. (What angle? Facing us, away from us, or one of two profiles?)
PANEL 4 – LOWER RIGHT OF PAGE
Close-up of LEONARD’s face. He’s stroking his chin thoughtfully. His features are lighted by the screen. (Is this a frontal shot as well?) (Moving panel!)
Okay, so we have ambiguous panel descriptions, and a moving panel on top of it, along with padding to outrageous proportions.
The song itself is only about 5 min long. Reading the lyrics takes about 30 seconds. Reading this? Reading this takes a lot longer. And like I said, only fans of the song are going to want to read it. The question becomes this: will fans of the song like your interpretation of it? That I can’t say.
I’m thinking you have some interesting choices here.
PAGE 11
PANEL 1 – UPPER LEFT OF PAGE
Close-up of screen. We can read the following passage which had been typed earlier: and Jane came by with a lock of your hair. She said that you gave it to her that night that you planned to go clear.
PANEL 2 – UPPER RIGHT OF PAGE
The same text being highlighted as LEONARDS selects it.
PANEL 3 – LOWER LEFT OF PAGE
Close-up of the keyboard as LEONARD hits the DELETE key.
PANEL 4 – LOWER RIGHT OF PAGE
LEONARD is getting up from his chair. We can see the window in the background. There’s considerably less snow and the light has a pinkish hue – dawn is breaking.
Okay, so here we have more ambiguity.
The song repeats this line around this time, but only once. Here, Yannick has it showing up twice. But that isn’t the problem.
Because of the visualization here, it seems like this isn’t part of the song/story. It seems like Yannick is having the writer go back and do some editing of the letter he’s writing. The why is anyone’s guess, and really, only Yannick knows, since this is his interpretation.
Technically, this is a silent page.
I would have Yannick break out the text into its own element called Signage , so that the letterer will know that they have work to do in these panels, and it won’t be lost, which is easy to do in a script when the text is in the panel description.
PAGE 12
PANEL 1 – UPPER TIER
LEONARD has sat down on the couch. His hand rests on the pillow JANE was using.
PANEL 2 – MIDDLE TIER
Closer shot. LEONARD is hugging the pillow.
PANEL 3 – BOTTOM TIER
Close-up of LEONARD’s face buried in the pillow.
The silent pages can be taken as a musical interlude, or the ending of the song. Again, interesting choices. And, really, it’s killing me. Uninteresting, drags, and totally based on your interpretation. I haven’t read anything, heard anything, or have been given any imagery that would lead to what you have here: a broken down person sending an e-mail. I don’t get that from this song.
PAGE 13
PANEL 1 – UPPER TIER
A view from outside the apartment building. LEONARD is standing at the window, clutching the pillow against his body. A few snowflakes are still floating on the wind, but it’s nothing compared to the flurries in the first pages. As the light of dawn is striking the building, we can now see details from the façade.
Each panel on this page is getting larger than the previous one. This one takes up about a fourth of the top of the page and has a larger border than usual. (Do you mean a thicker border than usual?)
PANEL 2 – MIDDLE TIER
The view has panned towards the left and slightly backwards, revealing more of the surrounding buildings. (Visual references, please. Not all places I’ve looked up on Clifton St., as referenced in the words of the song, look like they belong next to each other, so it’s up to you to find something that will show their corresponding, nextdoor neighbour features.)
This panel is slightly larger than the previous one, it has a regular border.
PANEL 3 – BOTTOM TIER
The view has pulled even further, showing a considerable portion of the city, now bathed in the rising sun’s light. It has stopped snowing. (Is this the same shot as what appears at the beginning of the story, albeit in light vs. darkenss?)
This panel takes up about half the page and bleeds out.
Elderberries. That is all I have to say. This is a five page story, at max, pushed out to fourteen. Criminal. Absolutely criminal.
PAGE 14
PANEL 1 – SPLASH
Far shot of the city with the sun breaking over the horizon.
LEONARD (CAPTION): Sincerely, L. Cohen
(Okay, all I could imagine as I was reading this was storyboarding for a music video. The pacing was so lax with nothing really of interest to maintain the flow of the story. I couldn’t figure out why certain pages had two or three panels vs. five on others, and definitely couldn’t determine why this was 14 pages long. Works as a video, doesn’t work as a comic book story. One other problem is length. It isn’t an 8-page story or a 16-pager, but rather one of weird length. Could this have been brought down to an 8-page story? Sure. Would it have maintained the same pace as the song? Definitely not. There was also a lot of jumping around from present-at-keyboard to flashback to present-at-keyboard to flashback to Jane being in the room to her missing to etc. Again, music video material, not comics. As for commercial value? Uh uh. Even with a target market of Leonard Cohen enthusiasts, this is dead in the water. Worth a rewrite? I don’t think so.)
So, let’s run this down.
Format: Flawless victory. That’s about the only thing flawless about this. Take it where you can get it.
Panel Descriptions: This could be considered to be somewhat confusing. Steve had some trouble following it, but I didn’t. This means your artist may have trouble. Un-good.
There’s really only one instance of a moving panel, so that’s not too bad.
However, because of your penchant to dictate the placement of the panels, you’re going to constrict what the artist can and can’t do on the page. With those handcuffs on, you could be losing out on the artist doing their thing and making this look good.
The call for silhouettes was a good one, methinks, in that it gives the reader the opportunity to step into the writer’s shoes. The only thing that doesn’t work about that is the fact that the letter is signed. That means the reader cannot then be in the character’s shoes. I know that the song is signed, but that didn’t need to be in the story.
Dialogue: There is none.
Let me state first, that my Bolts & Nuts on Dialogue states that dialogue is anything that can be read. Technically, all the text that is readable here is dialogue, even though no one has said a word.
The reader is sitting back, and are not engaged with the story. That’s because the story is already done, and they’re just being told it. Why? Captions. Captions aren’t immediate. Word balloons are.
Pacing: Abso-smurfly terrible. There is no more than five pages worth of material here, and you almost tripled that. This thing absolutely reeks of elderberries.
You can put each line within its own space in each panel, up the panel count a bit, and still walk away with five pages. Does it destroy your pacing? Somewhat. But it’s better than this seeming to drag into infinity. Which it does.
Content: And now, we get to the meat of it.
First, you’re going to be sued. Unless Mr. Cohen states that this is for common usage, this is copyright infringement through and through. You’re going to get sued.
Second, I’m with Steve: this is a music video, set to paper. I’m not one for music videos. I stopped being entertained by them for a while now. Ever since Michael Jackson redefined what a music video could be with Thriller, I’ve stopped being interested in more pedestrian videos, and currently don’t watch any.
The interpretation you’ve chosen is also interesting. It doesn’t totally jibe with the lyrics.
And finally, this isn’t something I would read. Slow and uninteresting. (Think I’ve said that enough?)
Editorially, there is no reason for this to exist. Besides being sued, aside from this having no commercial viability, there is actually no help for this.
That’s kinda deep, but I concur with Steve: no one is going to buy this. No one. It isn’t worth rewriting in order to get better imagery, because not even the the original author can really say what the story is about.
If you were to do a rewrite of this, it would need to be condensed, with clearer imagery, and a removal of the last line. I would also add some spoken words, which would make it more immediate. But it would be cut to about 5 pages.
Okay, that’s all. I’m repeating myself.
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