Birth of a new comic - part two

Hi squad,

In my last post I covered the process of getting the idea for Death Deserved and how the very early concept began to form.

Before I begin, I want to let you know that I’m changing direction for the Death Deserved Kickstarter and it now won’t go live in July. I made this decision to improve the experience for backers and to also be more viable for funding.

Read more about it on Kickstarter.

Giving shape - the pitch document

I’ll now walk you through the second part of creating the initial core elements of a comic book.

I had my random info dump word document filled with a mess of plot points, lore, and character notes. Then, it was all about giving the project shape.

My strategy for doing this is to work using a pitch document template, which has a very rigid structure. I find this helpful, like railings on a mountainside walk. When the pages are blank, structureless - it’s so difficult to be creative. There’s some science backing this too - that creativity thrives in problem solving within limitations.

Working on this document is so much easier than going straight to producing a script. It’s better to do all your problem solving up front. Some things may change once you’re scripting too, and that’s fine. But this part should iron out fundamental problems. And part of that help is getting feedback before you begin scripting too!

Pitch document format

• Title - the name

• Format - page count, colour or B&W, miniseries or graphic novel

• Target audience - age range and what they like to read already

• Comparative titles - what books could sit on the shelf next to it

• Logline - a snappy one or two sentence overview of the situation, conflict and main character(s)

• Characters - brief overview of names, description, backstory

• Background and setting - lore details, magic systems, look and feel of the world

• Synopsis - snappy, spoiler-filled overview of the story, likely 200 words

• Outline - full plot breakdown, at least 3 or 4 pages, sometimes more if breaking down each issue too

Death Deserved pitch example

For months, I kept popping back into the document and populating it. Slowly but surely, using the structure as a daily task.

When doing this, the whole thing is quite circular. You can write down an outline for a character, but when you start plotting, you may need them to change in order to better serve the story, so I’d then go back and edit the character description to match.

It’s a long process but a fun one!

Here’s a peek at one of the Death Deserved pitch pages (spoiler free!)

That’s all for today.

On my next post, I’ll explore how I built the outline for the complete story (without spoilers!)

Thanks everyone and any questions, fire in a comment!

Gary