Comic script example: a complete script, page by page

The script

This is 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

Here’s the same file, formatted into pages and panels.

This is the reading view, which fits the whole scene on a screen or two. When printed, each comic page gets its own sheet.

What each part of it is doing

The credits at the top

Everything above the first page becomes the cover. I leave roles I haven’t filled yet blank, and they stay off the cover until they have a name.

# EXT. RIVER ROAD - DAWN

A # starts a page, and the text after it is the scene heading. Pages are numbered for you, so you can move them around freely.

## WIDE. Mist sitting on the water.

A ## starts a panel, with the description right after it. WIDE, DETAIL, INSET, BIG PANEL and SILENT tell the artist about size and shape. They go in caps at the start so the artist spots them quickly.

JANMANI: Taken.

A name in caps, a colon, then the words. The gap is a tab, and in the editor a space after the colon becomes one for you. 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 word in brackets 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

Written the same way as dialogue. The name before the colon decides the lettering: a sound effect is set in bold, a caption goes 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.

Everything else is in the comic script format guide, with separate pages on writing panel descriptions and splashes, spreads, tiers, and insets.

Using it as a template

Open this example script in the editor and type over it. Put your credits at the top, keep the pages you want, and the numbering updates to match.

A page of comic script is shorter than you might expect. Three pages here make one scene, and a single issue is usually twenty-two of them. It helps to get a feel for that early, because most writers put too much on the first page.