Need a Critique

[crossrobertj]

YS: 2010 - #0.5 (6 Pages)

PAGE 1 (3 Panels)

Panel 1: A Deer is seen grazing in a meadow near a steaming lake. The grass swaying in the breeze.

CAPTION: Yellowstone National Park (August 15, 2010)

Panel 2: The Deer’s eyes widen, it’s mouth open. The ground is vibrating lightly.

Panel 3: The ground opens up slightly, the Deer runs off, steam rises out of the crack.

PAGE 2 (6 Panels)

Panel 1: The steaming lake begins to bubble.

Panel 2: Birds begin flying off the trees surrounding the lake.

Panel 3: The water level in the lake starts to drop....

Panel 4: ....lower.....

Panel 5: ....lower.....

Panel 6: The lake is completely drained and there is a huge crack on the lake bed.

PAGE 3 (1 Panel)

Panel 1: The lake bed explodes. Grey Smoke and Magma fill the air.

SFX: BBBBBOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!

PAGE 4 (4 Panels)

Panel 1: The Smoke and Ash rises above the trees, hundreds of feet in the air.

Panel 2: Thousands of Birds are seen flying away from the Smoke, the Sun behind the blanket of Ash and Soot.

Panel 3: Various Forest Animals running through the forest away from the lake bed.

Panel 4: Huge balls of hot Magma hitting various running Animals.

PAGE 5 (2 Panels)

Panel 1: The forest starts falling backward into the lake bed.

Panel 2: The forest is sucked up by the lake bed.

PAGE 6 (2 Panels)

Panel 1: Smoke and Ash rise from the now miles wide crater.

Panel 2: A shadowy figure with a sword on it’s back is seen observing the destruction from atop a mountain miles away.

[Peedee]

I am led to believe, based on his current activities, that this shadowy gentleman with his sword is neither Smokey, nor Yogi, the bear. What with the sheer destruction and all.

Otherwise, not terribly sure what to say about it. You write a succint script. Mostly, to me, it reads like leading material, which had the reader rapidly scanning the pages and then moving on to find out what actually happens, to actually get to the story pages. I think it reads that way in either script format, or sequential art. Sooooo.... :)

[Dannthr]

Of course it isn't Yogi, man! Yogi lives in JELLYSTONE park. Sheesh.

I think you need to clarify what "falling backward" and being "sucked up" look like. If you have a specific idea in mind, at least. Because there are plenty of ways an artist would be able to render it without being specific.

On that note this script beginning (and I hope it's just a beginning), aside from simply being incomplete, is extremely sparse. I mean... you have an average of like 3 panels a page. This will read, as Peedee pointed out, extremely fast. But I don't personally think it's to good effect. While I'm not a fan of a lot of panels on a page, you spend too much time on something that, sure, seems dramatic, but is hardly worth 6 pages. You could tell this in one, if you wanted, you could tell this in three.

Personally, I would suggest three. I would also suggest cutting back panels that seem to be repetitions. I mean the last three panels on page two are like frames in a movie, but are they all necessary? Your job as a writer is to consider the significance of each individual panel as a method of furthering the story.

If this is a story about a lake in Yellowstone park turning into a hell fire volcano/fissure thingy, then yeah, elaborate on the draining of the lake all you want. But if not, if this is a story about the shadowy figure -- you need to reach him asap.

"Start the story as late in the action as you can" - writer's wisdom

As is, I don't think I'd even REACH page six.

[Peedee]

You list all of the actions for every panel well enough, but might I suggest looking more into your viewpoints? I mean this two different ways:

1) Go through and figure out the camera angles from which we're looking at everything. If you don't have dialogue, what can you do to really make the image we're seeing nailed into my mind? I went through yesterday, because page one of my first issue has dialogue (but not much) and page two and three have none. So it's got to be interesting. I mean, you'd think flaming balls of lava would guarantee that ANYTHING is interesting...but not so. We're a messed up species.

2) As it stands right now, (and as it would still stand if you follow my advice above) your "camera," your viewpoint is a free-roaming eye that's just taking in this scene of destruction. Okay. What if you nailed it down to a character? Sure , there's no person around while this is happening...but there are animals. And since you're not exploring thoughts/dialogue anyway, what if we see all of this hellish stuff happening while we're more or less following that first Deer, who's running away? I'm not saying a first-person view, because that would be awkward (look! A comic of a deer running with its head down! Wow!) But we follow the deer, we see the lava falling, we see the deer shying away in alarm when gouts of fire hit the other woodland creatures. Maybe the deer makes it up a hill and glances back, which is where we see that the lake we've previously been aware of is now dry and volcanic?

Or something.

Them's be my thoughts. :)

[Peedee]

An addendum, because I forgot things when I was typing: Leading art is not a good idea, I don't think, or at the very least, it's one of the more dangerous of ideas.

A recent issue of New Avengers (I think it was the second to last one) has a lengthy bunch of pages where we just watch a fiery burning man falling to the North Pole and turning it to ash. And stuff. No dialogue, and while the art is gorgeous, it digests fairly quickly and then I move on to the pages stuffed with dialogue (which is, I think, a Bendis trademark....) because that's where the story was.

It was a good enough issue, all told, but I think what irked me gently when I was done was that I had paid money for something where the story didn't start till halfway through.

I might be atypical when it comes to this. I don't know. I've always intended to write a comic without a word of dialogue in it where, when you breezily read through it, you read one story, but then if you go back and read it slowly and look very carefully at the art, you suddenly realize you've read a different story.

[Dannthr]

Dean Chiang's 'The Yearning' is a silent graphic novel.

I've had friends read through it like it was nothing. There's plenty of detail and lots to glean if you take the time, but it's a risk.

I don't care if there aren't words -- I don't care if there aren't sound effects. The problem I have about THIS kind of script is that we have 6 pages of effectively nothing significant. You could describe this event in one panel. Not saying you would, but I don't feel like all these woodland creatures are important to the story. To me it's a waste of space.

[Peedee]

They're not important, no, what's important is that the park has gone from pretty woodland to volcanic hell. Everything else is just figuring out how to convey it without the reader breezing through five pages, then moving on to Marvel Zombies... :)

[crossrobertj]

Thank you for the critiques, however I should have made it clear that this is just a "side-story" of the events in my comic. The Comic has to do with what happens AFTER the Yellowstone Volcano goes off. I was just going for something of a "Prelude" to the initial story.

[Peedee]

If this were the prelude, then I got a title page, and then the story started after that in earnest...yeah, I think I'd probably keep reading.