One of the things that fascinates me about comic books is how artists do conversations. I’m not too familiar with comic book conventions, so I was curious to see how Jerem and Shi would pull this off.

Here’s what struck me:

-I like the vertical length of the first frame - it emphasizes the two of them, standing next to each other. Also, there’s a lot of dialogue but it doesn’t seem too busy.

-Only the essential items are colored, so each frame doesn’t become cluttered with detail. This page has a lot of dialogue and three closeups, for lack of a better word (I come from the film world, after all): the hand hitting the register, the drawer of money, and the skull. There’s a lot going on but it’s not overwhelming. I think the black background helps this tremendously. Go back and look at the previous pages - the detail of the rest of the shop is completely missing.

-Speaking of coloring, I love how Jim is bathed in the red glow from the jewel. It perfectly captures his fascination with and lust for it. The glow hits Jennie slightly on her face - just enough to make the light seem plausible - but, by and large, the glow belongs to Jim.


One last note: I re-wrote this dialogue a lot in the script. I wanted Jim to seem like a miser and Jennie to disapprove of his selfishness, but my original dialogue for her was more over-the-top. I don’t remember the exact details, but she was much harder on him. Greg pointed out that she can still be critical enough without going overboard, and that if we go too far then it makes Jim seem worse than he should be and gives Jennie a mean streak that is out of character. She criticizes him to make a point about treating people right, not to belittle him. This story had a lot of rewrites, and almost all of them were to refine their characters and, at the same time, their relationship. That was probably the hardest part of this whole story, and I’ll get into more details in future pages (no spoilers here!)

One thing I’ve learned about writing short stories/films is that characters’ motives need to be laid out clearly and efficiently, since you have a very short amount of time to fit everything in. However, there is a limit to how far you should take it, depending on the kind of story you are writing. If I was aiming for an over-the-top, stylized story in the vein of The Twilight Zone, or Tales from the Crypt, or a Grim Fairy Tale, making their relationship more antagonistic and their characters more broad would make total sense. After all, The Big Bad Wolf isn’t very subtle, and neither is Little Red Riding Hood. But this story is supposed to be grounded in reality, and a lighter touch was necessary. The challenge was figuring out exactly how to make it work.