Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Centaurs Man, comic scripting, Comics, digital comics, entertainment, Jemma Salume, Josh Hechinger, tapastic

From Strip To Script – Centaurs, Man

By Josh Hechinger

Welcome to From Strip to Script, where I take a page of finished comic art and try to derive a script from it, to see what I can learn from the exercise.

I don't usually do comics that dropped the same week that I write this column, mostly out of my own ill-defined feeling that I should avoid spoilers (I mean, I write these on a one-week delay, but still). That said, I'm going to break that rule, for the following reasons:

– The following page was the preview image for the longer comic.

– It (and the entire comic) is really funny and I want to overanalyze that.

– Jemma Salume's work was my pick for Panels of the Year last year, and if I do an actual column on this story, that disqualifies it from a repeat pick (again, by my own ill-defined rules for this kind of thing, I guess?).

Anyway, let's look at a bit from Centaurs, Man by Jemma Salume. NSFW? If c-shapes and dots are considered a scandalous depiction of female anatomy in your workplace…I dunno what to tell you.

PAGE FOUR (THREE PANELS)

P1. Two CENTAURS sit in a grassy field, eating a burger and fries (well, one's eating the burger, one's eating the fries).

– CAPTION      What do centaurs eat?

P2. Closer in on the CENTAURS,eating away. Super casual, but they've noticed the readers.

– CAPTION      Humans die if they eat only grass

P3. NEGA SPACE. The CENTAURS pause in mid-chew to stare goggle-eyed in shock.

– CAPTION (white)      HORSES DIE IF THEY DON'T EAT GRASS

So, What'd We Learn?

– "Goggle-eyed" in P3 was originally "ball-eyed", until I remembered there was an actual cartoonish term for wide-eyed shock stares (besides "wide-eyed shock stares" which implies more of a "thousand yard stare" or…well, shock, but like, the real world physical condition, not the cartoony version used for comedic effect?)

(Basically: comedy is tragedy plus line, in comics.)

(Maybe don't tell an artist to draw someone ball-eyed? The result could be hilarious, but mmmaybe not publishable in polite company?)

– Lettering Nerd Corner #1: dropping the periods off statements, like in the captions in P2 and 3, makes them a little more…I dunno, breathless? Conversational? People rarely talk with the finality of a period from statement to statement in real life. You need punctuation for questions (usually), but…well, there's a certain conversational tone you can achieve in comics through the use of periodless-statements in the air, or a single balloon.

– Lettering Nerd Corner #2: Salume writing the captions in all caps and all black against a predominantly white background makes the switch to white on black in the punchline panels that much more effective. It's text emphasis without relying on the usual bolding, which is an effect I always track with interest.

– This is more about the overall comic, not the given page…but…man. MAN. The pacing in this comic.

Okay, so there's the cover page, which sort of uses what I'm going to refer to as the "DON~!" effect; you know the dramatic sound effect "don don DON~!"? Well, it's the last bit of that. You'll see it recur in the comic.

(Well, you'll see the dramatic effect of the sound recur in the comic, I guess, kind of, according to me?)

The first three pages establish a "don don DON~!" one-two-three panel interrogation of the whys and wherefores of "that's a people, but also half an animal?" anatomy and biology. The first two panels of each page kind of just wonder out loud, and then the last panel of each page snaps the subject's attention to the readers while heightening the questioning tone through the use of a negative contrast from the previous two panels. The actual captioning is still just kind of puzzling through it, but adding that extra visual snap to the last panel makes the overall questioning seem more urgent.

Three "don don DON~!" "don don DON~!" "don-don-DON~!" pages in a row is pushing the effectiveness of that layout. So we get four pages that expand things to a one-two-three-DON pacing to the reveals, but split them up as one-two…three-DON~!, one-two…three-DON~! across two-panel pages. It kinda…keeps it fresh, while also being a breakdown of the established rhythm of the comic.

After that, the rhythm just keeps breaking down, flipping DON~!s around until an Lobstaur (?) finally tells Salume to Stop (but, of course, with a DON~!).

Anyway, it's all pretty great.

Philly-based comic writer Josh Hechinger [joshhechinger.tumblr.com] is a Cancer, and his blood type is A+. You can find him being a loquacious dope on Twitter [https://twitter.com/joshhechinger], and read his comic collaborations on Comixology].

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