10 August 2007
Silence is wasteful

In the previous column here at the Outpost (Writing Wrongs) I vented my spleen against what I called the comic book writers’ sins of commission. As promised (threatened?), in this column I'm going to take a look at their sins of omission. Or rather, sin. I actually only have one. One sin of omission which, in my book, is far worse than any of the sins of commission mentioned last week. So … what is the one thing that you’d think no writer could possibly fail to put into his script?

Words.

As good as his word

It sounds stupid, right? Like one of those dreadful riddles you get out of crackers at Christmas. Why didn’t the corpse go to the Christmas party? Because he was dead. Why didn’t the chicken fly to the moon? Because it was a chicken. Why shouldn’t a writer write a script without words? Because he’s a writer.

Words are what writers use. In fact, words are the only things writers use. If a writer wants to convey drama or excitement or passion or boredom, he does this with his choice of words. Yes, he may also be responsible for structuring the plot, devising the inter-relationships between the characters, planning the story arcs and cycles but the reader doesn’t see any of this. It’s his use of words which gives expression to all the above. In a comic book without words, the reader sees only the pictures and, frankly, if that’s all he’s got, he’s only got half of what he paid for.

Mute force

A comic book is, by definition, a medium in which words and pictures work together. And yet it seems that creators are increasingly determined to ignore this. Here is a typical scenario of the type I used to see regularly as part of the editorial team for Midnite Comics:

Panel 1 – Long-shot of a large house, surrounded by a high wall. It is night.
Panel 2 – Zoom in closer to the wall. There is a gate in it.
Panel 3 – Closer in on the gate, we can see a man standing in front of it.
Panel 4 – Closer in again, focusing on the man now, he has his hand tucked inside his jacket as if cradling a holstered gun.
Panel 5 - The man turns his head to look through the gate and into the grounds of the house beyond.
Panel 6 – Through the gate we can see a man on the floor, two huge Dobermans standing over him, growling menacingly.

What’s wrong with that? It reads okay, doesn’t it? No. It doesn’t read okay because – once this sequence has been drawn – the words above will appear nowhere. With some additional work, it might make a half-decent screenplay at some stage but it’s not a comic script. On screen the camera would be moving, the shot tracking from the house down to the guard and through the gate to the dogs. There would be sound effects and, critically, music to enhance the atmosphere, preparing the viewer for what’s about to be revealed. On the printed page, however, there’ll be none of this. Without words, there’ll be a series of six pictures, at least five of which are unnecessary. If you remove them from the story completely and start the story with a man beset by dogs, nothing’s changed. The story might even be tighter without them.

Nothing to say

It’s as if comic writers have forgotten what makes their medium work. Or maybe they really want to be screen writers so badly that they can no longer tell the difference. Whatever the explanation, for once you can’t blame the newcomers to the industry. After all, they’re taking their cue from the professionals who are just as guilty.

Take Alan Moore, one of my (and, I guess, many people’s) heroes. In his 1988 “The Killing Joke”, for example, the first two and a half pages are without text. Twenty-one consecutive panels of sequential pictures which tell us … precisely nothing. We see the Batmobile pull up at Arkham Asylum. We see Batman get out and walk through the corridors to a cell. We see him enter the cell and confront the Joker (or, at least, the character he believes is the Joker). And then they begin a dialogue. So far so good – except that it’s only at that point that the story really begins. If you remove those two and a half pages from the book, you wouldn’t even know they were missing.

Does that matter? Well, given that most comics are only 20-something pages in length, to squander more than two whole pages (nearly 10% of the book) on pictures which add nothing to the story is wasteful and self-indulgent at best. Far worse than that, however, it short-changes the reader. He’s just paid for a comic that doesn’t start until half way down page 3. He’d have got better value if those pages had been devoted to readers’ letters. At least then he’d have had somewhere to complain.

Sentenced to hard labour

Plus, it can be hard work to read a comic without text. The artwork may be beautiful but - as much as artists may hate to admit it - without text, many readers won’t even notice their masterpieces. The reader’s eye will just move sub-consciously from the last panel with some kind of dialogue or caption to the next. If this means skipping over panels or (as in “The Killing Joke” or Miller’s “Ronin” or any one of a hundred others) even whole pages without text, it will. Panels may be beautifully drawn but, if the story moves along without them, why should the reader stop just to admire the scenery?

Of course, sometimes wordless pictures are relevant to the story. Perhaps a new character enters or a vital clue is revealed. That must be better, right? Wrong. That’s the worst sin of all. The reader’s eye will still flit sub-consciously from the last caption to the next but – when it gets there – the reader will have lost the thread. Something happened in those pages he needed to know. Now he has to go back and look at them again and – because there is no text to guide him – he has to examine each panel closely to see what he missed. I’ve said it before: creating comics might be hard work but reading them shouldn’t be.

New word order

Now, a lot of writers – especially those who are also artists – look at me as if I’m insane when I remind them that a comic book is supposed to have words in it. They tend to be the ones who are so enthusiastic about creating comics that they’ve forgotten what it’s like to read them. But it should be possible to read a comic book just by looking at the pictures, they argue (presumably having read it in a book by someone who is very important in the industry but who has also long since forgotten what it’s like to be a reader).

I usually suggest one of two exercises. The first requires them to get hold of a foreign comic strip. Something in a language they don’t speak – “Asterix”, perhaps, or one of the many German or Italian strips. I then ask them to try reading it, using just the pictures. You’d be surprised at how necessary it is to scrutinise every tiny detail in order to follow even the major plot developments. And you can forget any appreciation of subtlety, sub-plot or psychological interest.

The fact is, unless you’re writing for the kindergarten market, comic books have text because it’s necessary. It’s not an optional extra. It’s necessary for pacing, for characterisation and for plot development. Write more than two consecutive panels without text and the comic is the weaker for it.

It’s only words

So there you have it. The greatest sin for a comic writer, as far as I’m concerned, is to string together panels without words. A writer who does this is doing a disservice to himself, to his craft and to the reader.

Oh … and if you’re wondering about that second exercise, I mentioned – that’s even easier. Just imagine a series of panels with no pictures. In each panel there are one or more dialogue balloons or captions with text. No pictures, just pages of white boxes with nothing but text inside. It’s stupid, right? The text might be telling a great story but it’s not a comic is it? It’s a novel or a play or a discourse or something. But whatever it is, it’s not a comic. After all, a comic has pictures as well as words, right? Right. As well as.

[The substance of this article first appeared in a slightly different form at Comic Avalanche on 6 April 2005 and is reproduced by kind permission of Mr Avalanche. The views and opinions expressed in this column are entirely those of the author. If you wish to agree or disagree with any of the views expressed in this column, please leave your comments in the Forum].