After my short story in Batman: Black & White, I was asked by DC if I wanted to do a three-part story in their new BRAVE and the BOLD relaunch. For those of you who might not remember, Brave and the Bold was a title that DC published from the 1950s until the late 80’s and it usually featured character team-ups, often (and later exclusively) involving Batman.
The new series was a thicker, anthology-style book that had a longer feature story up front followed by some shorter stories. I was offered a job writing and drawing the feature. And it was suggested by my editor that I use it as an opportunity to extend my Maps Mizoguchi/Robin story!
Of course, I said yes. My previous story in Batman: Black & White was easily written off as an elseworlds tale, but Brave and the Bold was considered to be in-universe continuity, which meant that whatever I did with Maps in this story would be ‘official’. I pointed this out to my editor, and he seemed totally cool with it, so we set about solidifying Maps’ place in the Batman canon, as an official (if temporary status) ROBIN.
A WRITING JOB
I’ve written my own stories for many years now, but my method of writing has always been short synopses and point-form notes to myself because I knew I would be drawing whatever I wrote and would very likely change things along the way. This time, however, I wanted to try something different. I wanted to see if I could write ‘full script’ format–very much like a formal screenplay, with page numbers, scene directions, and panel-to-panel action and dialogue. I treated it like a writing job. Something I could show to other editors to prove that I could write scripts that other artists could work from and maybe get other jobs in the future where I was solely the writer (spoiler: it worked).
I’m so glad I did. There’s a lot that goes into the writing process, from initial concept to finished script, and writing everything out in this format really forces you to pay attention to every little thing. It’s also easier to see, at a glance, what’s working and what isn’t in the story.
My story is called MOTHER’S DAY, and it’s split into three parts, each one 20 pages (published in Brave and the Bold issues 10-12). I wanted to tell a Batman story that had a supernatural, monstrous tone to it, and also set up Maps as a major supporting character. If you like reading scripts and screenplays as much as I do, maybe you’ll enjoy reading these. They’re in PDF form for you to download and check out. I used the Scrivener app to write them (not that it matters, but some people like to know what tools I use, and this is one I use all the time).
Give them a read and compare them to the finished issues! You might find some places where I added or deleted panels, or changed dialogue. A good script can keep you engrossed all on its own. I don’t know if I’m there yet, but let me know what you think!
THE SCRIPTS
As you can see, these scripts were written with the assumption that they’d be starting with issue 9. I guess schedules got shuffled or something. Download them below!
