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Help!
Posted on 12th January 2024 by pj

About Emma Newman

Emma Newman writes short stories, novels and novellas in multiple speculative fiction genres. She is a professional audiobook narrator, and a Hugo Award winning podcaster. Her current podcasts are ‘Imagining Tomorrow’ and ‘Tea and Sanctuary’. www.enewman.co.uk

The Script

Comic script - this is exactly what happened to my son in the small hours of this morning. I only saw the messages when I woke up, and he told me what happened once he was awake. It made me laugh, and I immediately thought it might make a fun comic and Beanie agreed!

A young man (if you want to base him loosely on my son, he’s 16 years old, tall, short brown hair, blue eyes) is about to leave his room but spots a huge spider on wall next to the door (it is on the wall that the door would rest against when open and the dressing gown hanging on the back of the door would brush against where the spider is) . 

He is terrified of spiders, so he can’t open the door. It’s the small hours of the morning.

He leaps onto his bed on the other side of the room, a bookcase blocking the line of sight between him and the spider and tries to phone his Mum who is sleeping in her room across the landing, and message her on WhatsApp, but her phone is on ‘Do not disturb’ so there’s no answer. 

Panicking, he phones friends until one finally picks up - ‘Help! There’s a huge spider in my room!’

Friend: What colour is it?

Beanie: Black? Brown? I dunno! It was BIG

Friend: You’re okay, I don’t think they can climb.

Beanie: IT’S ON MY WALL! (throughout the rest of this exchange the friend also now freaking out is just making Bean panic even more!) 

Friend: Oh, that one can climb then! Just dash out the door!

Beanie: It’s by the door, I can’t get out!

Friend: IT’S IN YOUR ROOM?! 

Beanie: Yes, I told you this!

He peeps round the bookcase. The spider is gone!

Beanie: It’s gone!

Friend: THAT MEANS IT COULD BE ANYWHERE!

Beanie’s eyes flick to all the posters it could be hiding behind, and all the clothes and stuff on his floor it could now be lurking under.

Beanie: YOU ARE NOT HELPING!

He hangs up and hides in the duvet. If you think that a final shot on the spider’s hiding place would be a good ending, do add that in, but happy to end it on Beanie hiding.

 

Artists Notes

One of the goals of the project was to try and work with as many writers as possible, and so I told every writer "Don't worry - I'll take any format of script" - there are sort of comic script standards, and attempts have been made in the past to really hammer them in, but for the most part every writer I work with works a little different anyway. That said, this script required a lot of thinking about to get the most out of the story (you can argue amongst yourself whether that's what I did).

Firstly there's a sort of action limit in comics, every action will usually require one panel - character opens door, walks through door, locks door? that's three panels. I felt like, on this script, there was too much going on to fit in the super limited single page I had, plus some of the action I wanted to build it up a bit more, so I knew I'd be putting a bunch of panels towards the getting ready to go out (because build up build up build up build up PUNCHLINE!) I also knew I wanted the dialogue interaction to have that ratatatat rapid delivery, which meant I'd get a single panel for that set of dialogue. This meant brutalising the story a little, cutting out the contacting of his mum and going straight to the friend. I also wanted a little end note on the spider - I thought that would be fun, a happy little chappy. (remove the last spider panel and the page feels like it's not quite finished - it's a figurative and literal full stop)

The manga shading effect/speedlines came after I'd drawn it and realise it would work better with a little bit of manga (tonally too, fits a teen), and the coloured lettering was because I needed someway to quickly distinguish the two sets of dialogue (I decided to eschew clip studio's balloon lettering tools a) because it would take ages to get exactly how I want it and b) because I thought I could add more character to it that way. The background of the room is pretty much a direct tracing of my teenage son's bedroom (which is so quintessentially teenager it looks like a set from a modern John Hughes teen comedy). (And it's all my son's work, he's done that all without parental help)

Anyway. This was finished the day before publication, but I think it turned out ok.

Oh, and because I drew it, and then slathered lettering all over it, here's the page without dialogue...

Work Journal 13/March/2023 – 26/March/2023

Posted on 15th February 2024 by pj

Forgive me father, it has been two weeks since my last confession.

This sometimes (no, I mean, this frequently) happens. My record keeping gets sloppy as I slow down and things are a little less structured and more chaotic.

Let’s take the 13/March – 19/March Dred Judge Dredd strip for Rob Williams, episode 1 (of 8) decided to go analogue with the inking of this… that was, it turns out, a bad call. Pure greed on my part. I can sell Dredd pages. Unfortunately I’m just no longer equiped (literally, physically and mentally) to draw on paper any more. I just wasn’t happy with the results. I was getting no-as-good-results drawn much slower and for no real positive outcomes. So, two pages in I abandoned it and went back to digital. Monday/Tuesday I managed to do two pages, like cleaving the art out of stone. One page of inks per day. Then Wednesday I inked three pages digitally. Thu I finished it. But then had a whole bunch of corrections to do to Bad Magic – a hat band that had got progressivly larger as the strip went on, needed to be pulled back a bit.

Thursday I had three scripts on my table and I had no idea which way to proceed. So I planned out which I’d do, then abandoned that plan immediately, and instead started on another episode of the Leopard from Lime Street. 

I think I have two more episodes of that to draw then it’s on hiatus, sadly.

Outside of that all, we had a wall yanked down and replaced with a fence. I bought a house and this is the start of me trying to make it my own. I’ve wanted to do this since we bought the place, and as my wife likes to remind me, I was out chatting to those guys all the time (I thought they enjoyed it! I just needed the company)

Nice to watch people who know what they’re doing, do stuff I know I’m not even remotely capable of!

WE BUILT THAT WALL!


Anyway, also had visitors to the house that week or so too. So in all bit chaotic.

Total completed that week: Inks 1 page, pencils 9 pages.

The next week – 20/March/23, the builders were still building and I’d got in to a slow, but reliable pattern. Really I operate on a two page thing per day minimum. Two pages of pencils or two page of inks. That way I can reasonably say I can do one completed page per week, and I can predict about six completed pages per week. OF COURSE, I’d like to go faster (and often do) but also life throws the odd random factor in your face and you’ve gotta dodge it.

This week has just been me finishing the Leopard from Lime street, and starting a new 10 pager for Ahoy with Paul Cornell. Featuring goofy cryptids. 

I didn’t find time this week, though I should have (and might do so tonight) to sketch out some character designs for this image pitch I’m planning on (which I’ve had to scale back from 16 pages – a full story – to doing six pages – a “pitch” amount, because… well… time really)

This week’s work was Inks 6 and pencils 9.

This month to date, I’ve drawn 37 pages of inks and 21 pages of pencils. Which… wow, slightly surprised by.

Year to date: 107 pages inks, 115 pages of pencils.

Putting me on course for 428(ish) pages this year, if I can keep it up. (I don’t think I can)

Anyway, next week’s plans are: finish this ahoy strip, and see if I can find time to do this Image pitch and then MORE DREDD.

(SHH! TELL NO ONE… I have a story about the below first page – which won’t see print for blooming ages, so please don’t spread this around – but I’ll tell it to you all next week.)


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