Tag Archives: Toil And Trouble

Recently, I have been getting a lot of great questions and feedback about how to write comic scripts. Questions about how much description to put into panels, how much acting to describe, how much action do I choreograph in the script, what do I leave up to the artist. Since issue 1 of Toil and Trouble has been out for a few months now, I thought I would post the full script for that issue so everyone can see just what I write in my scripts and compare it to the artists’ final interpretation. 

Now you may notice some small changes, a page I describe as 5 panels might get cut to 4 or expanded to 6 panels. A line of narration or dialogue might have been cut if we thought  the art conveyed what we needed so the line became unnecessary. Rather than editing the script to match the final comic, I’ve presented the original script here as the artists received it so that you can see what they worked with to create the issue.

<One small note: I normally space my captions and dialogue over two tab spaces, I can’t remember why I didn’t do that here, but I do it on my other scripts and suggest you do too, because it will give you a better sense of how the dialogue will look in an actual bubble.>

One final note, there is a really cool writing exercise you can do here. Take issue 2 of Toil and Trouble or another comic you really love and using this script as a template see if you can reverse engineer the comic into the script. What do you need to write in the panel descriptions to get the artist to draw what you have seen in the final book? How would you describe those panels, scenes, and that action. This is a technique I first heard about from Matt Fraction years ago, and is a really helpful exercise.

Now without any further ado, I present the script, Toil_And_Trouble-Issue1-FINAL

I hope this spurs discussions and questions, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter or Tumblr with any followup questions.

The central characters in my new comic series, Toil and Trouble are the three witches of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Macbeth. In the play, these women function as supernatural seers delivering two prophecies to Macbeth that inspire Macbeth’s treachery and eventually lead to his downfall. The premise behind the series is to retell the story of Macbeth from the point of view of these three witches to uncover the true motivation behind their role in Macbeth’s fate.

In this series of blog posts, we’ll be looking at the design process for the witches and the thoughts that went into both their look and their characterization in the book. In our initial pitch, all of the witches were going to be completely nude as they are supernatural beings with no need for clothes and a lack of clothes would underscore when our “normal” characters can and can’t see them. (Also, while the entertainment industry seems to almost require partial female nudity, there’s something about non-sexual, full-frontal female nudity that still makes many people uncomfortable. We toyed with the idea of nudity to essentially put our audience on an uneasy footing right from the start). This was later changed to help the book get a teen rating and be more appropriate for schools and libraries. So fair warning, there will be some nudity in these posts.

Actually, I wanted to take a moment and say this was a special concern for me with Cait because she looks so young. The idea of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone were crucial to our design concept, so Cait really needed to look young to fulfill that part of the trinity. But while we never intended to treat her in a sexual manner, I’ll admit I was kept up at night by the prospect of being called a child pornographer. I want to tip my hat to Sarah Stone for doing such an amazing design of Cait that kept her from feeling at all sexual, even fully naked. These are the kinds of struggles you have when you’re making art.

Initial Character Sketch by Sarah Stone

Anyway let’s take a closer look at Cait,  who in the play is known as the “First Witch”. Cait is the peacemaker in our trio of witches and looks like she is a pre-teen girl despite actually being the oldest of the witches. All of the witches are tied to an element and Cait’s is earth. We also wanted to play with the idea of the maiden-mother-crone cycle, so Cait is representative of the Maiden. Here were my initial character design directions:

Cait:

Element: Earth

Type: Maiden

Colors brown skin (like soil), pale hair, black tattoos like vines creeping through her skin. Younger than Smertae and almost childlike with a teen build, Cait is wide-eyed with hair like a tangle of branches which leaf, bloom and shed their leaves throughout the story. Quiet, Cait sees much and says little. She’s often the last of the group to make a move, slow to change and to anger and wary of making a misstep.

Her familiar, Paddock, is a black adder and usually coiled around her, preferring to stay in close physical contact whenever possible.

Final Colored Design by Sarah Stone

All of the witches are meant to have supernatural elements that set them apart from the mortal characters in the book. They each have tattoos or magical markings with Cait’s being the tree branches that grow directly out of her skin. It was decided early on that these branches would almost be like the horns or antlers of an animal so you’ll notice a stag-like quality to them.  Graves from the time period she lived in (around 6,000 BCE) show that animal pieces were buried with people and I liked the idea that Cait might have been buried with a pair of antlers on her head a la the Celtic deity, Cernunnos.

When artist Sarah Stone designed the witches, these were her thoughts behind the design:

Blonde hair, perhaps so light it’s almost white. Frizzy, tighter curls that loop around branches and leaves. wide, large golden eyes or maybe darker eyes, to seem more faun-like. Branches almost form antler-esque silhouette perhaps? There can be three prominent ‘horns’. most childlike proportions: small breasted and a petite frame. shortest. Branches envelop and even appear to grow under her skin in some places. Her snake familiar can coil around her and her branches.

Later when we added clothes, we looked at the furs and leathers being worn in the Neolithic era. The cut of her outfit is based off the clothing found on a Neolithic man in the Alps. I noticed it had a very similar design and material make-up to traditional Inuit clothing, which is where we got the idea for the contrasting color stripes. We wanted something that would show off the branches growing out of her arms and legs, so we took away the leggings she probably would have worn and rounded out the outfit with some Neolithic jewelry.

Art by Kelly and Nichole Matthews

One of the coolest things about a character design is seeing how other artists interpret it. After Sarah designed the three witches, cover artist Kyla Vanderklugt and interior artists Kelly and Nichole Matthews had to bring that design to life on the page. The strong elements that were important to us from the start (her branches, her darker skin, her child-like appearance), are all noticeable in every incarnation even as little aspects may change with each artist’s style.

Art by Kyla Vanderklugt

When the series opens, Cait awaits the return of Smertae, the witch that Riata exiled many years ago, and she hopes that Riata and Cait can reconcile. She sees the others as her family and wants that family to be happy and whole once more.

Cait believes that the witches must unite in order to watch over Scotland. As our story continues, Cait must try to keep her fellow witches in line as they battle over the heart of a king and the soul of a nation.

Stay tuned for future posts about the designs of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Toil and Trouble will be available in stores and digitally on September 2nd and can be pre-ordered at your local comic shop with the form below or you can get a subscription at the Boom Studios website.

The central characters in my new comic series, Toil and Trouble are the three witches of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Macbeth. In the play, these women function as supernatural seers delivering two prophecies to Macbeth that inspire Macbeth’s treachery and eventually lead to his downfall. The premise behind the series is to retell the story of Macbeth from the point of view of these three witches to uncover the true motivation behind their role in Macbeth’s fate.

In this series of blog posts, we’ll be looking at the design process for the witches and the thoughts that went into both their look and their characterization in the book. In our initial pitch, all of the witches were going to be completely nude as they are supernatural beings with no need for clothes and a lack of clothes would underscore when our “normal” characters can and can’t see them. (Also, while the entertainment industry seems to almost require partial female nudity, there’s something about non-sexual, full-frontal female nudity that still makes many people uncomfortable. We toyed with the idea of nudity to essentially put our audience on an uneasy footing right from the start). This was later changed to help the book get a teen rating and be more appropriate for schools and libraries. So fair warning, there will be some nudity in these posts.

Initial Character Sketch by Sarah Stone

Last week we met Smertae, now let’s take a look at Riata,  who in the play is known as the “Second Witch”. Riata is the leader of our trio of witches and looks like she is in her forties so she has a more angular frame and some gray hair. All of the witches are tied to an element and Riata’s is air. We also wanted to play with the idea of the maiden-mother-crone cycle, so Riata is representative of the crone. Here were my initial character design directions:

Riata:

Element: Air

Type: Crone

Final Colored Design by Sarah Stone

Riata’s a cold woman that sees four steps ahead of everyone else and loves nothing more than to move pieces on the chessboard. The kind of woman you always expect to have unusually pointed K9s. Her tattoos are red and angular.

Her familiar, Graymalkin, is a red kite (a type of hawk native to Scotland), always on the hunt. [Note: In folklore a Graymalkin refers to a cat or winged cat that served witches. But since the other familiars’ names don’t reference a specific design and since our familiars are shape-shifters, we made Graymalkin a bird most of the time.]

All of the witches are meant to have supernatural elements that set them apart from the mortal characters in the book. They each have tattoos or magical markings with Riata’s being done in red. I also wanted her tattoos to be angular and severe so I used a lot of reference material from wind burns and severely dried skin. I wanted Riata to look like her tattoos were made from her skin starting to break open. Riata also has blackened hands with taloned fingers like a bird of prey which sharpen and grow when she is angry or using her magic. As the book goes on, you’ll see this blackness creep up as if her skin is necrotic.

When artist Sarah Stone designed the witches, these were her thoughts behind the design:

Dark hair, straightest. The most mature, and the tallest. Her frame can be almost elvish perhaps. Longer face and half lidded, cold, but beautiful piercing eyes. Pointed canines. Feathers break her silhouette, sometimes seemingly coming from her hair. Overly long nails like talons, stained black. Her tattoos could have the texture of burnt wood, like they are burns but not of flesh. When she casts, perhaps red flame or smoke bleeds from them.

Art by Kelly and Nichole Matthews

Later when we added clothes, we researched what was being worn around the first and second century, which was also the time of the Celtic hero, Boudicca, who became a strong inspiration for Riata’s look. Since the witches are each from different time periods of Scotland’s history, their clothing became an essential clue to their history but it can be hard to find clothing reference from so long ago. Since Riata’s story also relates to the Roman Invasion and is closest in time to Boudicca, I was able to research her clothing by looking for articles related to what Boudicca would have actually looked like. Note: Riata would have likely worn plaid, but plaid is REALLY hard to draw consistently especially on non-formfitting clothes. Sometimes you need to compromise.

One of the coolest things about a character design is seeing how other artists interpret it. After Sarah designed the three witches, cover artist Kyla Vanderklugt and interior artists Kelly and Nichole Matthews had to bring that design to life on the page. The strong elements that were important to us from the start (her long hair, her tattoos and talon hands, her pale skin), are all noticeable in every incarnation even as little aspects may change with each artist’s style.

Art by Kyla Vanderklugt

When the series opens, Riata awaits the return of Smertae, the witch she exiled to the sea years ago, while also preparing Scotland’s forces for a confrontation with Norway.

Riata believes that she has foreseen the path to the best fate for Scotland and needs her fellow witches Smertae and Cait to help her fulfill it. Riata hopes Smertae’s exile has proven to her that she needs to fall in line, because she needs to be able to trust the women at her side. As our story continues, Riata must face the darkness of her own past, even as she battles for the very soul of the land she loves.

Stay tuned for future posts about the designs of Cait, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Toil and Trouble will be available in stores and digitally on September 2nd and can be pre-ordered at your local comic shop with the form below or you can get a subscription at the Boom Studios website.