Which came first, the script or the art?

That's a very good question. My answer would be script, but just slightly ahead, and in two versions. Let me explain.

You see, I'm in an enviable spot where my comic book story is fully realized. Now I just need to work out the details.

But, there's a catch. The reader needs the details. The story's like a huge ball of twine with colorful rags tied to it, locked in a dark room. The author cracks the door slightly open, and feeds out lengths of rope a few feet at a time. The reader is pulling on the rope, eager to see the whole ball of twine.

But only YOU the author can see it. In your darkened room. In your imagination. I have what you might call a larger story arc, which looks like this:

It's very rough, very general.

It moves briskly, no details. It shows me point to point where I need to get by the end of the page.

But then, we have the finished, actual 'script'. It looks like this:

The script takes the chunky parcels of story

and smooths them out into a coherent narrative. Here's where the details get laid in. Don't have to worry about pacing, that already got taken care of by the story arc. Now's the time to dial in the focus.

Once I got a few pages like this mapped out I'm ready to start drawing. In actuality I don't have the 'whole' comic book scripted in one sitting. I do however make sure I have the next few pages ready for art. The art needs to stay in the bounds of the script and not stretch things out. Why? Because I got future pages that look like this:

Get ready for a new Mayfield Eight character in part 3: Officer Gene Sturgeon!

Buy Mayfield Eight

Even though my Kickstarter funded you can still buy issue One of Mayfield Eight my Shopify store!

Issue Two will be available some time in late August on the same Shopify site. Stay tuned!