If it’s a comic being adapted to a film, let the director and/or the cinematographer decide how a shot should look. Matching panels to frames is not a good way to adapt a comic unless your director is obsessed with recreating the feel of the comic.

If it’s a comic book adaptation of a film, it makes a little more sense to have the artist work from frames to build panels. But even so, artistic license is useful.

They’re both different mediums, so you really need to let them be separate entities, much the way a play and a movie based on that play are like cousins rather than twins.

I’ve always thought of comics as being a compromise between a novel and cinema, but it’s a very different medium from either extreme. Films are always ultimately bound by one big limitation – time must keep moving. In a novel or a comic, time can stand still for as long as it needs to, and the reader is free to experience every moment at his or her own pace. Whereas novels are measured by pages and comics are measured by panels, film is measured by moments.

Comics also encourage a bit more of a minimalist style when it comes to dialogue, action and pacing. Novels can be flowery, and cinema can rely on the skill of the actors, directors, cinematographers and special effects wizards to achieve some interesting moments. Comics are often limited in their scope and capabilities. Consider comic book adaptations of big films- they’re rarely satisfying or interesting. Novels can provide extra detail and motivations. But comics tend to focus simply on the visual and leave out the deeper development.

I hope that’s helpful!

I am prsently translating my Screen Play Script ” Black Island ” to Comic Book. Its has been a good learning experience. Black Island is being made into a film to which I am directing and editing, yes I am a all rounder.

I want to know your thoughs on the path I am taking, for example, I intend to make the comic book to be done by my artist more dark and gothic than the screen play itself.

My question do you think the if the comic is very graphic, do you think the film as to equal it?, Thanks for your feedback.

The other chapters in my guide should give you some guidelines on pacing. But in general, let me offer these general points:

If your script has more than a page’s worth of text assigned to a comic book page, you have too much text. Either edit it down, or spread it out. Remember that text comes at the expense of artwork, which makes it harder to see what’s going on.

Comic books need to be paced with an ebb and flow of action. If you’re following a chapter format, every chapter should have at least one major action scene. Action doesn’t have to be people beating each other up, but something DOES need to happen. 15 or 20 pages of people talking is tedious, both for the artist and for the reader.

And if you, as the writer think your book is boring, chances are good that it is. But you’re too close to the project to make the call. Talk to some friends whom you trust to be honest with you and get their opinion. Or, hire a editor to work over the script with you. Don’t try to gauge it by yourself, because you’ll probably take the wrong steps to correct the problem.