Category Archives: Saurav Mohapatra

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[CRAFT] Gridlocked – using grids effectively in comics (a NINE PANEL GRID column)

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Even if you are a casual comic reader, it is not very hard to notice that there are two types of layouts that a comic page can have. One is the regularly spaced Grid layout with equal size rows and columns evenly laid out and the more complicated free form layout where the panel shapes and location vary rapidly.

So why are these used? Till recently most of the “Craft” of comic book writing that I had learnt had come from reading movie screenplays and/or visualizing the scene being played out in my mind as a movie scene. That my friend was (as I learned the hard way) a big mistake! Comic books while they share certain visual motifs with movies are an entirely different and independent beast.

Let us examine the primary reason why. In a movie, you can actually control shot length (fancy name for amount of time a viewer sees a certain visual). In comics the entire page is there right before the eyes of the reader and you have absolutely no control how long a reader spends on a particular panel.

Well the previous statement is not entirely true. Layouts and visual storytelling scripts of the artist can “lead” the eye making it follow a particular pattern/path across the page. But that’s it. So how do we deal with passage of time in a comic book page or rather while visualizing / scripting a comic book page.

The answer lies in the layout. The human mind is a powerful thing. Imagine a comic book page. The panels are static snapshots of the action and our minds fill up what Scott McCloud calls in his books the “gutter action” (Gutter being the gap between two panels).

A grid by definition is a regularly spaced layout and most readers take this subconsciously as an indication that passage of time is uniformly regular across the panels as opposed to a freeform page where a smaller panel might register as a shorter length visual than a larger one (There are exceptions to this as well). This is a really handy tool in the scripter’s toolkit.

Grids when used properly convey a very regular flow of time. So it is possible to use them as (The list is by no means exhaustive only indicative) is by no means exhaustive only indicative:

  1. decompressed storytelling (lingering on a particular shot) where only a minor visual detail changes from panel to panel
  2. set up a checkerboard pattern by alternating between two shots (of say two people talking or one guy talking and some other stuff happening elsewhere)

A grid sets up the reader into a lull from which you have a platform to blow their socks off by for example setting up a magnificent splash or a two page spread.

Coming back to our discussion on shot length, this usually is pretty handy. Remember all those movies where mind blowing action is preceded by a sequence of slow deliberate shots? The contrast is what makes the action more explosive so to say.

Imagine a splash of a bomb going off. A good artist puts in a lot of energy and dynamism into the scene. But in itself the impact is not as potent as it should be.

Let’s say the preceding page set up a checkerboard pattern of a guy entering his house vs. a close up of the timer on the bomb. Let us say we’re using a nine panel grid.

  • Panel 1: a shot of the timer showing 0.15
  • Panel 2: a shot of a man fiddling with the doorknob on the door to his apartment.
  • Panel 3: a shot of the timer showing 0:12
  • Panel 4: the man loosening his tie
  • Panel 5: a shot of the timer showing 0:05
  • Panel 6 : a shot of the man from profile as he hears something perhaps the ticking of the timer?
  • Panel 7: a shot of the timer showing 0:02
  • Panel 8: an extreme close up of the man’s face as he has noticed the bomb.
  • Panel 9: a shot of the timer showing 0:00

Next page we have the magnificent explosion splash.

The second sequence is definitely much more powerful than just the explosion splash.

So remember grids are a handy tool, when used they provide a context / regular rhythm to your unfolding action that serves to underline the dynamism / energy of a sudden “sharp” action sequence that much more eye catching.

But the caveat here is that when used too much, grids lull the reader to a degree that they simply don’t care anymore :)

So as with all things, use wisely.

Some nice examples of grid usage that I have found and reference often are Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” series of books.


Page from Dark Knight Returns


Page from Leage of Extraordinary Gentlemen : CENTURY 1910

Interesting to note in the LXG page that the middle row is a single panel that uses up all three slots of the grid.

You may also check Warren Ellis’s FELL, which is told almost entirely in 9 panel grid format.


Page from FELL

See ya when I see ya…

toodles,
mohaps

This is a repost from my “Nine Panel Grid” column at Comics Waiting Room. You can find other Nine Panel Grid columns here

[CRAFT] 22 Pages of Doom – on pacing a comic book issue (a NINE PANEL GRID column)

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22 Pages, mark this number down my friend, the bane of every writer who has a monthly gig – the industry standard story page count of a monthly issue of a comic book.

Filling up the said 22 pages is the subject of much head scratching, heartache and frustration – especially when the mind goes blank and the deadline comes a-knocking at the writer’s door.

My first gig was writing a series of one-shots for Virgin Comics called INDIA AUTHENTIC. IA told the myths and legends of the Indian pantheon and since there was no continuity from one story to the next, it was not the hardest thing in the world to write. Sure, given the number of versions of each myth and the fact that I wanted the stories to be a bit more than dry biographies, I put in a significant amount of work into treating the stories as sort of a secret origins kinda gig – every story tried to capture the theme that defines the dramatis personae for the world at large. So once I locked down the story, I’d just sit down and hammer out 22 pages.

Now the very next gig I got was an ongoing monthly – DEVI. Herein, o reader, my troubles began. A monthly comic book title (especially an ongoing one) is like a TV series. Each issue has to be reasonably enjoyable on a stand alone basis (at least that’s how my editor Ron Marz, quite astutely, wished it to be) and also forward the greater arc narrative. We also decided off the bat that we should not be too steeped in continuity to ward off new readers irrespective of the index of the issue they picked up as their first.

Oy Vey! It was very exhausting, but I like to think we (Ron and I) did manage to pull that off in the run we had on DEVI. Right off the bat we were so far behind deadlines (due to factors out of our control – I was moving back stateside after a year long sabbatical in India, Ron was taking over as Editor from Mackenzie Cadenhead etc. etc.). We had a couple of weeks to go from story to pencils and we didn’t have the plot. So during brainstorming session at Ron’s house, I floated the idea of starting off with a collection of three short stories about the main characters in the series – sort of explain their motivations and background. Ron, who taught me a lot during my run on DEVI and SADHU, instantly caught on to the idea and also suggested that we use framing pages at the beginning and end of the issue and in between the stories to sort of provide a narrative. Being a veteran of comic books, he understood the 22 page structure and how to navigate through them. So 3 stories, six pages each and 4 framing splash images. We had our 22 pages. We did some back and forth on the plot of the short stories and needless to say made our deadline.

Later as I started writing full 22 page stories, I had issues (pun not intended) with how much can fit into that. Again here Ron’s experience saved me from a lot of blunders. My first treatment for DEVI #12 had seven scene changes, so on an average every third page the narrative would shift to a different scene. I knew the story I wanted to tell from #12-#15 and was setting up a lot of the stuff here. But going over Ron’s redline I realized that, when read as a standalone issue, it was pretty confusing. So we talked and later came up with sort of a format for telling a 22 page story.

But before I get to that, I must touch upon another mistake most first timers are likely to make. When I submitted the second draft of the treatment, it was too decompressed. Ron’s note said something to the effect – “Now it’s dragging, every single item is getting a visual. The pacing was too much like Manga.” So as in everything else in life, the answer is in the Golden Mean.

So coming back to the format – a safe format for the 22 pages (Your mileage may vary, but this worked for me).

ACT I (Pages 1-4)
First 4 pages are ACT I. I usually either began with a splash or had 2-3 as a two page spread. This was setup. It was something I came back to later in the issue. For an arc beginning, I would use this page for a sequence that would serve as a springboard for the entire plot. For middle issues, this was where the dramatic kaboom sequence would go in to start things off with a bang.

ACT II (Pages 5-16)
ACT II was the next dozen or so pages or so (up to page 16-17). Page 5 cut from the opening action to the thick of the story and for 3-4 pages we set up the first obstacle of the story. So most probably on page 9 or 10 we’ll get the first glimpse of what really will our protagonist(s) be up against (we might’ve hinted at this in ACT I). Then on Page 9/10, I used to cut to something that was a continuation of the opening pages and for the next three pages use that to move the story forward. That takes us to Page #14. Page 15,16,17 then serve as the setup pages which bring the thread started in act I and the sequence that introduced ACT II together and positions everyone and everything for the finale / ACT III. If I planned on ending with a big fight scene, it usually would’ve started by page 15, so that the 16-17 double spread would be used up to show a great widescreen shot.

ACT III (Pages 17-22)
For ACT III, Page 18 and 19 usually were used to show the protagonist bouncing back and kicking some righteous ass. For more story driven issues 20 and 21 introduced / foreshadowed the next issues story and 22 splash was used as a cliffhanger.

It’s a simple structure, but I felt comfortable working with it. It meant I didn’t have to worry about pacing so much, since I knew where my act braks and plot points would be. Of course it is not a rigid formula nor is it a paint by numbers kind of thing. I used this as a rough guide and hope something like this helps you write a better 22 page story.

Till next time.

Toodles,

mohaps

This is a repost from my “Nine Panel Grid” column at Comics Waiting Room. You can find other Nine Panel Grid columns here

“Oh, my god! You’re punching me” – an adventure in comic book writing in India

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This is a repost from my “Nine Panel Grid” column at Comics Waiting Room and was written in 2008. So all temporal references relative to the original date of publication.

I did something yesterday that I thought I’ll never do in my life. I told a publisher to basically (and very politely) “shove it”. Of course I ended the mail wishing them luck with their line (and I really, most sincerely do), but all in all this has been a pretty surreal experience for me.

Towards the end of 2008, I was contacted by the publisher to see if I was interested in doing a full length OGN based on Indian mythology. I was just coming off of India Authentic from Virgin Comics (now reborn as Liquid Comics) and the sudden winding down of their comic book line had left me with a few stories I wanted to do (with all the research done and plots ready) with no one to publish them. I thought this was a golden opportunity to do one of those on a bigger canvas so to speak (India Authentic was 22 page one-shots). We had the honeymoon phase where I explained the way I wished to write the particular story, a tale from Mahabharata about a young warrior who knew nothing but war. The editor-in-chief was enthusiastic about it and once my detailed page by page breakdown was approved, we got down to contractual details. I must say of all the Indian comic book publishers (Virgin excluded) I’ve had dealings with so far, they were the most open and prompt in taking care of the paperwork. Let me give credit where it’s due. The contract was standard boiler-plate “I’m signing my firstborn over to you” work-for-hire one (since the character was public domain and not one I created, I accepted it) and we got it off the plate in quick time. We created a schedule and an editor was assigned. The usual pleasantries were exchanged.

Then the first tragedy struck. I fell down the stairs in my home and ended up spraining my wrist. This put us off the schedule by a couple of weeks for the script. I managed to get the script first draft out to them within the revised deadline and moved on, waiting for the redline to arrive.

That is the funniest part. The redline never came. I got one note from the editor saying she was going through the script and then she sent me a mail saying that I should “rework” the script. As the editors who I have had the good fortune of working with in the past will confirm, I don’t mind reworking and even rewriting entire scripts if the editor gives me specific notes, but here there was a general note asking me to rewrite an entire OGN. To top it all, I was sent a script by another writer, saying use this as a reference. So I went through that script and tried to extrapolate what exactly was expected. I kept on asking for specific notes and a redline meanwhile.

There is a whole list of things I had problems with, but here are the top two.

One of the notes said “There is a lot of philosophy!”.

Of course there is. I like to call myself a non-practicing atheist. I view mythology as a rich source of tales, nothing more and nothing less. Writing mythological stories is my way of answering the questions I posed to my mother (a deeply religious lady) as a child. What was this god thinking when this even occurred? Why didn’t incidental character X did action Y when the logical thing would’ve been to do Z? In India Authentic and in the script I submitted, I tried to tell a story from the protagonists viewpoint, not simply retell a legend. The effort was to provide a narrative based on an inner monologue. I’m afraid I can’t get into specifics to protect the identities of those involved.

“Some panels don’t have any captions. We need at least 180 words per page” / “The captions don’t mention what’s shown in the pictures”

Wow, me not being verbose? My wife laughed heartily upon hearing that (She is always ribbing me about how I never know when to shut up!). Now a comic book is a marriage of words and art. But the age old adage of “Show, don’t tell” still applies.

Which brings us to the title of this article. To draw an analogy , imagine if I were depicting a fist fight between a normally peaceful hero who’s decided he’s had enough. So my script would have a panel of the guy punching the villain and next one would be the villain crashing into the ground ass first. I’d then have a close-up of the villain looking up at our hero and a reverse angle upshot as the hero glares at him. The last panel would be the villain as he collapses deciding he’s had enough. All these would be silent panels ( Maybe a line or two of the inner monologue of the hero if that). The art tells the story and I don’t need to ham handedly spoonfeed the reader. The prior pages have established the hero’s inner conflict and the dastardly villain’s desperate need for come-uppance.

Now in the absence of specific notes, here’s what I gathered I was being asked to provide for such a sequence to the publisher.

Panel 1
Hero punches villain
CAP: And then the mighty hero punched the villain
Hero: I’m punching you, you mangy cur!

Panel 2
Villain crashes down on the ground
CAP: The dastardly villain crashed to the ground
Villain: Oh my god! You punched me! I have fallen to the ground.

And so on and so forth. You get the idea!

Oh yeah! Before I forget, there was an explicit request to use “million dollar words”. The note was to the effect “The captions are worded in a very matter-of-fact/simple way. Please use more intellectual words”.

So I did a lot of soul searching. I come from a decade old professional career where I take immense pride in being …umm… professional. I like to think that I inculcate that in my writing gigs too. But I finally decided to mail the publisher and tell them that I can’t write for them. So far there has been no artist allocation for this and printing schedule has not been decided. So I decided to save both of us a lot of aches/pains further down the road and called it quits. I received an email response saying that the reason a redline was not provided was “to carry out a full edit on the script at this stage would be extremely time consuming and, I think, unnecessary.”

Anyway, as things stand right now, I’m intent upon for the first time asking to be let go from a writing gig. Hope I didn’t come off as too bitchy in this post.

Until next time, toodles and take care.

mohaps

A “Redline” is basically a version of the script with the editor’s note inline with the original draft text. Usually it’s a word doc with “Track Changes” enabled. In the merry old days, editors used to mark corrections with a red pencil and that was the origin of the term.

Disclaimer
The Capt. America #1 (Marvel Comics) cover image used in this post doesn’t mean any disrespect to the content/writing of the comic book. It was one of the most iconic punch images I could think of from the golden age. :)

Mumbai Confidential Digital Short #1 is online

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As has been mentioned before, there’s a series of digital short comics set in the Mumbai Confidential universe. So the first of these shorts called “REMASTER” (art by Siddharth Kotian) is now online.

MUMBAI CONFIDENTIAL Digital Shorts are a series of companion comics to the first book “GOOD COP, BAD COP” by various artists using the characters created by Saurav Mohapatra and Vivek Shinde. These shorts are set in the same “universe” as the main story. Though these are not required to follow the main book, they do enhance the backstory of GOOD COP, BAD COP.

About Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential is a crime noir comic book series created by writer Saurav Mohapatra (DEVI, SADHU, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN, INDIA AUTHENTIC, JIMMY ZHINGCHAK) and artist Vivek Shinde (PROJECT: KALKI, SNAKEWOMAN) set in (of course!) the Indian city of Mumbai.

Mumbai Confidential teaser posters

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We now have some teaser posters for Mumbai Confidential. Click on the images to see details or head on over to the Mumbai Confidential site.



About Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential is a crime noir comic book series created by writer Saurav Mohapatra (DEVI, SADHU, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN, INDIA AUTHENTIC, JIMMY ZHINGCHAK) and artist Vivek Shinde (PROJECT: KALKI, SNAKEWOMAN) set in (of course!) the Indian city of Mumbai.

INDIA AUTHENTIC Returns

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My very first comics gig for Virgin/Liquid was a series of one shots titled DEEPAK CHOPRA presents INDIA AUTHENTIC. IA dealt with stories from Indian mythology and each issue featured a story about a member of the Hindu Pantheon. Deepak Chopra provided a lead-in/write-up about the featured story.

I wrote 15 issues in total and it was a fun gig while it lasted. I like to think of IA as “Amar Chitra Katha on steroids” :) IA #15 KRISHNA, my last issue, was kind of lost in the turmoil surrounding the demise of Virgin Comics, or so I thought. Looks like the whole IA line is now available from as MYTHS OF INDIA. The issue #1 GANESHA is a free read and others are a dollar each.

And GANESHA has been featured on scribd.

For handy browsing, here’s a collection I made of all the issues I could find.

RYDERS Ride Again

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As I had mentioned earlier, around a couple of years or so ago, I had worked on a 48 page one-shot called RYDERS for Virgin Comics (now reborn as Liquid Comics).

Just after I had submitted the script and Dean Reuben Hyrapiet finished the art, things at Virgin got a little… umm… hairy.

Now the erstwhile Virgin Comics team is back as Liquid Comics and are pursuing an aggressive digital distribution agenda. One aspect of it is the partnership with Scribd.

RYDERS is the story of vigilantes/outlaws armed with custom cars in a dystopic future where cities are ruled by totalitarian regimes who have outlawed free speech and personal vehicular ownership. It has kind of a Mad Max meets Fast & the Furious vibe. I borrowed a lot of motifs from Westerns in terms of setting and story elements. Dean did some fantastic art on this project (Might just be me but I felt a great Geoff Darrow vibe when I was visualizing the world and Dean delivered that tone pretty nicely).

I was kind of sad that (as I thought at the time) RYDERS got “lost” in the transition from Virgin to Liquid. Long story short, RYDERS is now available for purchase from Scribd. So if you like your dystopic future/post-apocalyptic melee and muscle cars, do check it out. :)

Three Songs, Four Years

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Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl is not even aware of boy’s existence. Linkin Park songs make sense to boy. 4 years pass, boy finishes college, gets a job and finally grows up. Linkin Park songs stop making sense.

For those of you who haven’t spent 4 years in an Indian engineering college hostel, it might be beneficial if I clarify certain terms, actually one term in particular. It’s an acronym – F.O.S.L.A. (most commonly pronounced as pho-ss-laa). It stands for Frustrated One Sided Lovers’ Association. It’s not a “real” organization in the sense say, The Rotary Club or the Freemasons or even Automobile Association of America, but for all intents and purposes it is the single greatest demographic in Indian college life. The criteria for participation are simple –

  • You have to be an adolescent male (preferably staying in a college dorm)
  • You have to have a completely unrequited “thing”/”crush” on (preferably) a fellow female member of the student body. Extra credits if the said object of your affections is either completely unaware of your existence or more importantly, has been made aware of it and chose to violently demonstrate to you that you’re not in her league.

There was no recruitment drive, secret handshake or rite of passage. You kind of just moped around alone with that sad look in your eyes and other card carrying members found you. And then each of you went your separate ways, to mope some more.

So that bit of technicality aside, let’s now come down to the topic of this blog post – music. When I went to college in the last millennium, as a card carrying member of FOSLA, I naturally gravitated towards songs ( nay, not songs! Anthems!) that spoke to this particular facet of my life. These were the days before CDs, MP3s and iPods and thankfully, much later than vinyl LPs. I spent the 4 years of college (as my dormmates would attest readily) listening to the same 3 songs pretty much on a loop on my rickety yet trusty Cassette player.

November Rain by Guns and Roses
The first song was of course the grandest of all FOSLA anthems (with a kickass video that showed Slash doing his thing with an epic helicopter shot) – “November Rain” by “Guns and Roses”. This song “spoke” not only to me, but thousands of others in the same boat as me. It catered to the narcissistic tragic in every jilted lover. The basic lesson seemed to be “dump the broad and her memories, run on out to the prairie, straight into a bitchin’ guitar solo”. Hey, stop snickering! I even took guitar lessons after hearing this one – all four of them.



Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
The second one was not quite in the FOSLA anthem league (in fact the appropriate one to like would’ve been “Fat Bottomed Girls” or “I want to break free” or “Crazy Little Thing called Love”), but somehow “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen stayed with me. There was just something about it, that reached out from beyond the haze of tragic teenage angst. I know nothing about music, notes or tempo, but ever since the first time I heard it, I knew this song was unique. There’s just something about the way it ebbs and flows and twists and turns. The musical/vocal equivalent of watching a ballet performed by mixed martial artists in a last man standing melee.

Coming Back To Life by Pink Floyd
The last one is special. My memories of this one are kind of hazy (if you know what I mean ;-) ). I remember vaguely sitting on the ledge of the third floor balcony — looking out at the starry night, legs dangling into space, cigarette in hand and the cassette player blaring out “Coming Back To Life” by “Pink Floyd” at full volume from the room. This one spoke to me at a much more surreal level (granted that I was in a “susceptible” state of mind, but still…). This one I played over and over again, till the tape on my Division Bell cassette wore out. Then I got another one and another… finally I managed to find a CD after I had come over to USA in 2001 and now it resides proudly in my mp3 player’s most frequently played list.

I revisit these songs often. The FOSLA part maybe not so much, but they do remind me of a time in my life – when nothing made sense, yet it didn’t bother me. Scientists say that the neural pathways take some time to form and with age these pathways become permanent. So, till one goes senile, one’s state of being is kind of set in stone. These songs still remind me of a time, when .. ah, screw it. These were the songs that got me through college and these are the ones I still listen to after a really bad day.

THE WITCH & THE WARRIOR – a Frank Frazetta homage

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A few days back, my friend and artist/collaborator Saumin Patel (DEVI, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN) sent me a mail. Saumin is a big fan of Frank Frazetta and upon seeing Ron Marz‘s tribute to Frazetta, he too was inspired to do something.

Thus was born “The Witch & The Warrior“.

Now, Saumin’s visual storytelling (having worked with him on a bunch of projects) is perhaps amongst the best I have seen. So for a change, rather than working from a “Script”, he free-styled some sketeches/roughs with a basic story idea in mind. Our goal was to use some iconic Frazetta imagery, in a story reminiscent of those that he provided covers for. I then took a crack at tightening the story and the images into a 11 page script with dialogue and Saumin came back with astounding pencils for it. The pieces are now lettered and ready. Once Saumin finishes inking and coloring them, we’ll post it on the web.

But while we wait for that, pictured above is a rough lettered version of the cover for your to drool over. :) Hope you like it (as much as we did creating it).

“Old Jungle Saying” – PHANTOM CHRONICLES (Vol 2) HARDCOVER

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I grew up with the Phantom — the Ghost Who Walks, Guardian of the Eastern Dark. My first exposure to comic books were the collected editions of Lee Falk’s newspaper strips reprinted by the now defunct Indrajal Comics. Like many of my generation from India, I am a rabid “phan”.

So I mentioned this fact in the passing to Ron Marz, who recommended me to Joe Gentile of Moonstone Books. Joe was putting together the second volume of the anthology of new Phantom stories and as the stars aligned, I got the chance to contribute. My story “The Plague” is exclusive to the hardcover edition (by the time I spoke with Joe, the deadline for the book was already past). Joe was extremely accommodating (once he realized how big a “phan” I was :) ) and by the time he received my story, it was almost time for the book to go to print. Due to some other engagements, I was unavailable for the edits within the extremely crunched timeframe. So CJ Henderson kindly stepped in and did the required edits as per Joe’s directions.

Today I received my author’s copies in mail and truth be told, it’s a dream come true for me. Not only did I become (as far as I know) the first Indian to write a licensed/commissioned Phantom story, but it is definitely so very cool to see my name in an author list that includes (among others) Harlan Ellison and Tom DeFalco. :)