Writers on Comics Scriptwriting by
Mark Salisbury
pbk out May 99
(Titan Books)
at £12.99
WRITERS ON COMIC SCRIPTWRITING is a fine idea for a book, but one
which does not entirely deliver on its potential. Consisting of
interviews with fourteen of the "best" comic book writers active
today and supplemented with examples of scripts and storyboards,
Salisbury endeavours to explore and detail the processes behind the
production of comic books. The choice of interviewees and some
dubious assumptions about aesthetic worth which underlie Salisbury's
questions are unabashedly directed toward "mainstream", i.e.
superhero comics. The result is a book which will be of
considerable interest to anyone who has ever thought about trying to
write such work, but which is not particularly edifying to those with
a broader interest in the medium.
There is no denying that Salisbury has included most of the big
names in mainstream comics, including Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller,
Grant Morrison, Kurt Busiek, Peter David and Todd McFarlane. (Though
could Salisbury not have included even *one* alternative figure, like
Dan Clowes or Peter Bagge or Eddie Campbell? It would have
strengthened the book enormously.) He asks his subjects largely
similar questions concerning how they broke into the field, their
working habits, how they develop stories and handle collaboration
with artists, etc. As you'd likely predict from their work, some
writers are more interesting and thoughtful than others. Although on
average, the interviews run to fifteen pages, they are not the kinds
of in-depth discussions commonly found in THE COMICS JOURNAL and
don't get very far under the skin of the subjects. To be fair, the
book has one very specific topic in mind and Salisbury certainly
provides the reader with basic information about comic book writing
which may not be readily found elsewhere. However, the
supplementary material is underutilised and underexplained and serves
largely as filler, as do a series of sidebars within the interviews
which define and discuss related topics which will surely be
familiar to anyone who is likely to have bought the book. And there
is an unstated, essentially untrue premise which suggests that anyone
can become a comic book writer - the industry has always fostered
this illusion as part of its hook to avid fans. In fact, comics are
an exceptionally difficult industry to break into, much harder than
straight fiction, for example, and more akin to Hollywood. WRITERS
ON COMICS SCRIPTWRITING isn't a bad little book, merely one which
could and should have been something more.
(
Jay Russell
- one of the greatest talents the horror industry has produced for some time… (Black Tears))
Writers on Comics Scriptwriting by
Mark Salisbury