Jim Zub joins us in front of a live audience at GenCon Indy to talk to us about writing for comics. He’s the writer and creator of Skullkickers, writes the newly-launched Pathfinder comic book for Paizo, and has been writing, illustrating, and managing projects at Udon for the better part of a decade now. Jim is an expert’s expert when it comes to this.

He starts by talking about the overall process, and how his original script fits in there. Jim and Howard then talk about brevity. Jim also points us at his five-part series on writing for comics (so yes, you have homework.) We talk about the writer-artist collaborative process, and how those collaborations change shape over time.

Jim also schools us on comics pacing, and how page-turns drive the comic forward differently than they do in prose. Finally, he talks about how to get into the business he’s in.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Swords and Deviltry: The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, by Fritz Lieber, narrated by Jonathan Davis and Neil Gaiman

Writing Prompt: Introduce a place without using dialog. Describe five panels for an artist to draw, so that the reader has been introduced to the location.

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Writing Excuses 7.44: Writing for Comics with Jim Zub [ 17:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (16634)

Isaac Stewart, the interior artist for the Mistborn books, joins Brandon and Howard for a discussion of the visual elements in our work, and how to make them cohere. We talk about the yellow ball-on-a-stick fiddly-bits in the Schlockiverse, and how they unify the hi-tech of that world. We talk about all the symbols Isaac drew as he tried to conveny with the visual sensibilities of the Mistborn world. And we explain how these and other examples of art and design unify the worlds we build and the stories we tell.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, narrated by Wil Wheaton and Kate Reading.

Writing Prompt: Sketch out a starship, with interesting features, and then work those features into your story.

Additional Plug, Just Because We Can: We mentioned XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, by Tracy and Curtis Hickman. You can get it here, at Amazon, or at any hobby and game store.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.

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Writing Excuses 4.15: Visual Components of Storytelling [ 17:09 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (17517)

Jessica Day George joins the Writing Excuses crew again, this time for a discussion of writing for young adults, and maybe for teens, or even middle-grade readers. This isn’t a podcast about rigidly defining the boundary between the YA and middle-grade genres, though. That’s publishing. We’re talking about writing.

If you enjoyed last week’s discussion with the sweeping generalizations and the appropriate application thereof, this ‘cast should be every bit as intriguing. What are teenagers interested in, and how is that different from what interests adults? Do stories need to be simplified for teenagers, or are we underestimating them when we do that? How does the age of your protagonist determine the age-group to whom your publisher will market the book? Why is it genre-appropriate for Dumbledore to repeatedly withhold crucial information from Harry, Hermione, and Ron?

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Dragon’s Blood by Jane Yolen, because a pit-fighting dragon is way cooler than the dragons of Christopher Paolini.

Writing Prompt: Take a protagonist younger than about 16 and put him or her in charge of a group of adults.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.

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Writing Excuses 4.10: Writing for Young Adults [ 18:14 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (16512)

Dan and Howard are again joined by Jake Black, who writes comics (and some other things) for a living. Jake tells us how he got into the business, and we talk about how this might be applied to other folks. But you can’t do it exactly the way he did it because they’ve bricked that entrance up.

Writing Prompt: Our superhero gained his superpowers by writing technical articles for Wired…

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 25: The Business of Writing Comics [ 19:33 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (12711)

Jake Black fills in for Brandon “#1 New York Times Bestselling Author” Sanderson this week, and that’s perfect because Jake writes comics and Brandon doesn’t. So mostly this is Dan holding Jake’s and my feet to the fire.

We’ll talk about the business of writing comics next week. This week it’s more nuts-and-bolts, and we run for almost 20 minutes…

Writing Prompt: Write a story in which Superman swoops into a room, kicks something, and then turns into Spider-Man.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 24: Writing Comics with Jake Black [ 19:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (14094)