Indy Comics Writer

When my 9-year-old son can read a comic in 10 minutes, that comic doesn’t have enough words.

This has been on my mind this weekend following a conversation I had late last week with the editor of an anthology magazine who recently purchased one of my short comic scripts. He mentioned to me in passing that his readers sometimes complain that the anthology’s comics have too many words.

It made me laugh, because it’s a complaint I’ve received, too, from an editor or two. I’m a good soldier; I always go back and cut away some of my dialogue and captions. Often, the cuts make sense, and improve the flow of a story. Most writing, in fact, benefits from cutting. We usually are too wordy during our first swipes through a story.

There comes a point, though, when there’s just too much cutting. I hate nothing more than being able to read an entire comic book in five minutes. I didn’t plunk down $2.99 for five minutes of entertainment.

I’m working on a story now for an independent publisher who’s requested at least one double splash page of action. I’ll do it, of course, because I’m working on the publisher’s creation. He’s hired me, so I have to follow his wishes. However, I won’t necessarily like it. Splash pages are bad. Double splashes, to me, are a complete waste of storytelling space, especially when you only have 22 to 32 pages to work with.

I recognize that artists need their space, and that it’s impossible to draw a cool panel when it’s filled with multiple dialogue balloons. But I also think comics companies are robbing their readers when there isn’t enough dialogue or caption boxes to keep a reader sitting in his chair for more than five minutes.

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