When I first saw this page, I laughed out loud - in a good way.

Let me explain.

As I’ve mentioned before, I write in a very sparse style. I believe it lets the action move at a quick pace, and pace is by far one of the hardest things to convey in a script. What is one sentence in a script - “Luke stares at the setting sun” in Star Wars, for example - might be a huge, moving moment that goes on for much longer than it reads (note - I don’t know if that is actually in the script, but it works for this example. I’m sure a Star Wars fan can correct me).

So I try to be conscious about how the words look on the page, avoiding huge blocks of text when writing action - ideally, no more than four or five lines at a time (it’s not usually an issue with dialogue, unless it’s a monologue). Large blocks of action can be difficult to read in a script, which is one of the huge differences between screenwriting and other kinds of writing where larger blocks of text are acceptable (prose, non-fiction, etc). I try, whenever possible, to write as little as possible.

Which brings me to this page. When I wrote it, I imagined a series of dissolves as the clock ticked by, intercut with Jim sleeping and the rest of the action. And because of my sparse writing style, I wrote it like this:



Which I why when I saw this page, I laughed. My script structure was adapted directly to the the comic book page, in a way I had never intended. I’m not sure if Jerem did this consciously or not, but I love it. During this project, I expected to see my writing interpreted in a new medium, but I never thought that this, of all things, would make it through. It’s a great lesson about the process of adapting a script into a comic book - at least from the perspective of a screenwriter who knows almost nothing about the comic book world - and it’s one of my favorite things in the entire comic book.