Anatomy Of A Page

There are more sketches to come during the following days but today I’ll like to share with you a step by step process of how we have been working on Cursed Planet.

After the initial idea I wrote down a very loose plot, most of it was being rewritten as the first pages were done. The Zuda competition rules prohibit me from advancing the story forward so I can’t show you the sample plot.

The next step was to do a full script of the 8 pages we were going to submit. Thankfully this time I didn’t have to do many drafts (I think there were in total three drafts where I changed minor things) to reach the desired result. Sometimes I get obsessed with reworking my scripts, especially during the first scenes.

Here’s the full script of Cursed Planet’s first page:

Cursed Planet

Page 1

Panel 1: Rectangular Panel. We are in the future, in a planet with an atmosphere similar to that of our Earth. We open in what seems to be a savannah – similar to those of present day Africa – but I think it’s convenient to use colors not normally associated with this kind of terrain, to make it look bizarre from our perspective. This doesn’t just apply here but along our entire story. In the background we see a spaceship – I suggest that we think, as our starting point, what we know as “flying saucers” and from there you guys propose something but if you want to go in a different route, please go ahead – that’s obviously damaged, even missing part of its structure.

I suggest that panel 3 and 4 are slightly bigger than 2 and 5.

Panel 2: We pull in towards the entrance to the spaceship.

Panel 3: We still see the entrance of the spaceship but now, having just entered scene, we see a motorcycle that has no wheels and never touches the ground (if this turns out to be too similar to Star Wars please think in a different design) and is being driven by one of our main characters, Gabriel Espinosa. I don’t have a clear idea how Espinosa is dressed so that’s entirely up to you (just please keep in mind what we have talked about the setting and all that) but it’s important that Espinosa carries a backpack. If we can see details, he should be obviously scared.

1 Balloon (Espinosa): There’s no time.

Panel 4: We don’t move from the entrance. Espinosa leaves the motorcycle and is hastily entering the spaceship.

2 Balloon (Espinosa): It has to work…it has… it will work.

Panel 5: We remain seeing the spaceship’s entrance but we don’t see Espinosa anymore.

Panel 6: We pull back but we still se the entrance to the spaceship. In the foreground we see that some – the more we can see, the better – aliens of humanoid shape but with “reptilian” features, with scales and greenish colors red or yellow eyes. Their clothes are reminiscent of a “tribal life style” – although both their clothes and weapons must be seen as “bizarre”, seen from our perspective.

And here is what Milton came up with. As you can see he did some changes in the layout I was proposing and in the number of panels present in the page. If I ever need something very specific I write in the script, if not I like the artist to have the final word on what’s seen in the page (within certain limits of course, you’ll surely know horror stories about artists that completely ignore the script, and worse writers that don’t complain about that) as long as we talk about it and share the same goal. Unfortunately Milton was inking as he did this, not scanning just pencils so we can share with you the whole process. Anyway, here is the black and white page:

Then came Felipe´s turn. Here´s the page with flat colors.


Let there be light and shadows.


And then let here be some extra effects, notice for example the sky or the spaceship.


Then came Balloon Placement (lettering was also handled by Felipe). There he suggested showing some "alien dialogue" and I thought it was a neat idea, altough he didn´t reveal what the aliens were saying. That remained a secret util few days ago, a clever reader (BlueMaxx in Cursed Planet talback section over at Zuda) revealed to all - me included - what the aliens are saying in this page and the following ones.


And finally to see the page with letters, please go here:

http://www.zudacomics.com/node/391