More Than Storyboards: Comics and Film #6 – Love It

By Tyler Weaver

So here we are: The final installment of “More Than Storyboards.” In this series, you’ve seen that comics are, hopefully, more than storyboards. You’ve seen examples of how to integrate them with the world of your own story (and in the world of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator), and we also looked at the opportunities for boundless storytelling offered by digital comics. I’d like to make this final installment a plea. Here are three key thoughts I hope you take with you into the wild blue yonder of telling great stories in the comics medium.

All of this talk about transmedia storytelling, with all of the amazing technologies and platforms at our disposable is for naught if the story isn’t good - scratch that - amazing. Talk is cheap. Results are the end product of blood, sweat and tears poured into telling the absolute best story you’re capable of. If you don’t tell a great story that is irresistible to your audience, you’re just one of the garbled voices in the static.

Comics represents unlimited potential. The whole point of me writing a book about why and how that unlimited potential came to be is because I have one goal in mind: The eradication of the dismissive and short-sighted idea of turning a failed screenplay into a comic and making a movie adaptation. I hope that this series has shown you that comics is a unique and exciting storytelling medium, one that can challenge you in ways that you haven’t been challenged before and give you the opportunity to immerse your audience in deeper exploration of the world of your story.

I can’t stress this one enough.

If you’re going to dedicate the time and energy to creating a great comic - which you should - only do it if you love the medium. Trust me, the world is filled with sub-par commodities thrown together as last-minute money grabs by hacks.

If you’re going to create within a medium–any medium–you have a responsibility to make something great. In the age-old transaction between audience and creator, the most valuable commodity is time. Don’t waste it. Make something that you love, something irresistible and exciting, something that your audience can’t wait to dig into. Make something memorable; the old adage about comic books is true: every issue could be someone’s first… or their last.

Now that I’ve (hopefully) hammered these ideas home, go forth and create. I’ll be back next month with a new series focusing on transmedia storytelling and a future of film narrative.

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