A complete comic script, page by page

The script

The whole file, exactly as it was typed.

What you type

Title: Moon’s Purpose
Series: Vongfai
Issue: 1
Writer: Nor Sanavongsay
Artist:
Letterer:

# EXT. RIVER ROAD - DAWN

[Keep the bundle out of frame until page three.]

## WIDE. Mist sitting on the water. A bus older than anyone riding it comes down a road that runs level with the river.

CAPTION:	The bus leaves once a day, and it leaves before the sun does.

## JANIDA, 15, stands at the roadside with a cloth bundle held against her chest. She is not flagging the bus down. She is deciding.

## The bus stops anyway. The DRIVER leans out of the window, unhurried.

DRIVER:	You getting on, or growing roots?

## DETAIL. Her hand closing tighter on the bundle.

JANIDA (THOUGHT):	Grandmother said I would know when.

# INT. BUS - CONTINUOUS

## Janida moves down the aisle past crates of chickens, sacks of rice, and a monk asleep against the window.

SFX:	rattle rattle rattle

## She stops at a seat. JANMANI, 12, has claimed both halves of it with her knees.

JANMANI:	Taken.

JANIDA:	By what?

JANMANI:	My legs. They are long.

JANIDA:	They are twelve.

## Janmani moves her legs. Slightly.

JANMANI (SMALL):	Half taken.

## SILENT. The two of them side by side, not talking, the river sliding past the window behind them.

# INT. BUS - LATER

## WIDE. Sun up. The bus has climbed away from the water and the road is dust now.

CAPTION:	Two hours, and neither of them had said anything else.

## Janmani looks at the bundle in Janida’s lap.

JANMANI:	What is in it?

JANIDA:	Nothing.

JANMANI:	It moved.

## INSET. The bundle. Moving.

SFX:	thmp

## BIG PANEL. Janida looks straight ahead, at nothing, holding very still.

JANIDA:	Do not tell anyone.

The same script, read back

The file above is the one below, sorted into its pages and panels by the marks in it.

This is the reflowed reading view, which keeps the whole scene on a screen or two. On paper each comic page gets a sheet of its own, at the length it prints.

What each part of it is doing

The credits at the top

Everything above the first page becomes the cover. I leave the roles I haven’t cast sitting there empty, and they stay off the cover until there’s a name in them.

# EXT. RIVER ROAD - DAWN

A # starts a page, and the text after it is the slug. Pages number themselves, so moving one around costs you nothing.

## WIDE. Mist sitting on the water.

A ## starts a panel, description straight after. WIDE, DETAIL, INSET, BIG PANEL and SILENT tell the artist about size and shape. They go in caps at the front so they read at a glance.

JANMANI: Taken.

A name in caps, a colon, a tab, and you have a balloon. Write them in the order they’re meant to be read, because that’s the order the letterer places them in.

JANMANI (SMALL): Half taken.

The parenthetical is for the letterer, in caps like the name. (SMALL) for a mutter, (THOUGHT) for a thought balloon, (BURST) for a shout, (OFF) for somebody outside the panel, (LINKED) to join it to the balloon before.

SFX: thmp and CAPTION: Two hours

The same mark as dialogue. The cue is what decides the lettering: a sound effect comes out heavy, a caption sits in its own box.

[Keep the bundle out of frame until page three.]

Square brackets make a note. It stays in the file where I can see it and stays out of the finished comic.

The rest of the marks, spreads and the full run of panel keywords, are in the comic script format guide.

Using it as a template

Open it in the editor and type over it. Put your credits at the top, keep the pages you want, and the numbering follows whatever you leave behind.

A page of comic script runs shorter than it looks. Three pages here is a scene, and a single issue is usually twenty-two of them. Worth feeling in your hands early, because the opening page is the one most of us overwrite.