Page 1, rough layout

Page 1 layout made with Comical, a comic book creating program.

     This is a very, very, rough first page panel layout. The story starts with the introduction of our two main characters, both in very distinct moments of the same narrative timeline. Our superhero character, called The Ghost, is shaving, getting ready for another day's work as a masked avenger. Our second character (on the panel's resting on the lower part of the page), is one of the actual terrorists that boarded the plane that hit the first Tower on September 11th, 2001. His name was Mohammed Atta, and he was on American Airlines flight 11, originally headed from Boston to Los Angeles.

     I wanted to focus on two very different characters, but I wanted the terrorist character to have actually existed in real life and taken part in the attacks. I start with the apartment door and the plane ticket in an attempt to set the actual distance between the two characters. But their first steps leading up to the events of the day are going to be different and will play off a mix of both serious and more loose narrative tones. They both build up to a very clear climax, but it is with the terrorist character that I hope to set the story's pacing.

Scott Snyder's Superman Unchained #1 script sample

     I've been reading Scott Snyder's Batman and Superman Unchained scripts in order to kind of capture the best way to explain the panel descriptions in my script. I find Snyder's scripting to be simple and very user-friendly if taken from an artist's point of view. Snyder's scripts offer the artist visual space to work in their own ideas without compromising the author's narrative vision.

     Other than Snyder's scripts, I've taken to reading up on how Jeff Lemire tackled Trillium, the time-traveling love story comic. But I found his approach a bit too constricting for use here. I felt everything was way too planned. Then again, Lemire both wrote and illustrated the comic, so I can see why he took such a rigorous approach. Given this, I've decided to follow Snyder's style a bit more closely, giving the artist space with clear descriptions that don't force him/her to draw everything down the last detail.