Into the Deep - 2
Into the Deep: Part 2
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Alright, thanks for joining us for part two of Into the Deep!
This section starts off with the first of what I, at the time of writing the script, was calling data pages, but I now think of as design pages. The terminology there, and their purpose in the story, is clearly influenced by the work of Jonathan Hickman. The "data pages" terminology comes from discussions of the House of X/Powers of X era of X-Men, and is something that appears throughout Hickman's writing.
I think design pages can be a really interesting tool in comics writing. One of the core challenges and things I find interesting about writing comics is pacing. Comics, unlike other visual mediums, are static. A reader can read a comic at whatever pace they decide to read it. Scott McCloud gets into this in Understanding Comics, and there are plenty of other, more eloquent writers that have explored the way time exists in comic and how creators can manipulate that. For me, it's one of the reasons I love to letter my own comics. Lettering my own books is just an extension of the writing process, in that letters are the last place where you can really control the flow of a page and the pace of a book.
And that brings us back to design pages. These have two purposes, for me. First, exposition, obviously. You can't put too much text on a comic page without it feeling overloaded, and this is a place where I can hint more deeply at the world without needing to have too many boring, talking heads. Second, it's back to that pacing. The design page is a breath of fresh air. They take longer to read, and they create space between the scenes that happen before and after them. As we keep moving through Into the Deep, the design pages sort of drop out. That's because there's a point, about halfway through the book, where I don't want the reader to stop and take a breath.
What else to say about this section. Mostly table setting, as far as the plot goes, getting Kor and Sai into the same place. Talking about pacing, I relettered and rewrote the two of them talking about a billion times to try and get the flow of their conversation right, and reading back through it now, I think it still works. The two of them talking, the difference between Sai and Kor is another place where Felipe does a great job with the character acting of these characters. The scene doesn't work at all if their feeling and personalities don't come through in their body language, and Felipe does all of that and more.
I think we'll call it there for this time. Make sure you're signed up for our prelaunch page on Kickstarter (or have upgraded to a paid subscription to this newsletter!) and I'll see you next month for a meeting between Kor and The Imperator.