Graphic Novel: Lesson 1 — Skin That Rabbit First

You might not know you need this. I didn’t. I wrote an unusual love story and decided it should be a graphic novel. Sketches, dialogue, character descriptions, paid artist’s impressions. The results weren’t great. Fair feedback: I hadn’t given the artists enough to work with.

“Fine. I’ll skin that rabbit first. And count the pages and panels.” The story spanned forty years. Changing appearances, clothes, acquired scars. “And that.” Above a certain length, the bits need managing.

The Bible

Nicked from the film industry: an authoritative source of information, separate from the story you’re telling. Define the details once. Give the collaborators somewhere to check them.

Meet Lana, my favourite institutional director, on secondment to Media Matter’s attempt to preserve knowledge permanently and visually in granite and gold. The project is insane. I love it.

Awww, fuck. I called her Lana when the Bible says Lara. Hoisted by my own technique. The Bible is right and I am wrong.

Lara Lynne artist’s sheet showing her at ages 22, 30 and 43, with expression and continuity details — **The artist’s interpretation.** Age, clothes, expressions, continuity and changing health. Open full sheet.

Supplied compiled character Bible laid out as a labelled reference table — **The reference table.** Information labelled so you can find it. Open supplied PDF. This earlier draft has age and height inconsistencies; the working example below uses age 22 and height 168 cm.

What’s happening to Lara? Reveal the story spoiler.

Lara has radiation poisoning from thorium dioxide in the cuneiform clay tablets she works with. In this story, the material contains an alpha-emitting isotope. Her work is killing her.

A bad habit

I found hundreds of character descriptions like this in the comic-script archive. Pages of capitals, with core details buried in the prose:

LARA LYNNE, AN ARCHIVIST, RESEARCHER, AND PROJECT DIRECTOR DEFINED BY THE PHILOSOPHY THAT “PEOPLE LEAVE TRACES; MY JOB IS TO MAKE SURE THEY STILL SPEAK,” EMBODIES A PRACTICAL, SHARP, AND RELENTLESSLY OBSERVANT DISPOSITION…

Or you can give those details names and put them in the table above. Here’s the source. Change something and see what happens.

Notice \charfield{Role}{...}. It supplies background context, rather than an appearance specification. The artist used that context for the Cuneiform Project / Media Matter lanyard and signage, without a panel description asking for them.

Try one change

Change Lara’s wardrobe, or the description of her “side eye” expression. Click Make PDF and find the changed row. For this lesson, keep the character name, era labels and command structure as they are. Reset example restores the starting definition.

Lara’s character Bible

The example is already loaded. Edit the descriptive text; the page supplies the document setup and era declarations.

\begin{character}{Lara Lynne}
  \aka{Lara}
  \height{168 cm}
  \ageRange{22, 30, 43}
  \wardrobe{Shirts and coats always, even inside. She likes beetle-stomper shoes that are wide and square-toed.}
  \appearance{22}{She is 22 and 168 cm tall, with short, tousled dark hair, pale grey-green eyes, a light scatter of freckles, and strong dark brows. Her most distinctive mark is a small scar cutting through her left eyebrow.}
  \appearance{30}{Still slim, but looks like too much time has been spent in the basement. Her shirts are more relaxed and often open, revealing her bra when in the non-climate-controlled bowels of the library where she works. She has taken to wearing tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. Her fringe is swept back and clipped to avoid falling over her eyes when working. There is always a dust smudge on her clothing from the rotting emulsion from the deep levels.}
  \appearance{43}{Still slim, but has started to look ill, with much paler skin. Her shirts are practical and often cut for men. Likewise, she has taken to wearing men's jeans, mostly for the pockets. She wears tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. Her fringe is swept back and clipped to avoid hair falling over her eyes when working.}
  \expressionsummary{She is careful and listening first and foremost. She has spent years listening to people describe the event, person or place involved before she searches the archives, either digital or physical.}
  \expression{listening}{She frowns and turns her head so her left ear is closest to the person speaking.}
  \expression{side eye}{Indifferent, not hostile. She has heard it all before.}
  \expression{scanning}{Eyes wide open as she bends over to examine the text.}
  \continuityRule{She is right-handed.}
  \continuityRule{She favours her left ear when listening. She always uses her left ear for her mobile phone, despite being right-handed, even to the point of her arm crossing her body.}
  \continuityRule{She has a wrist bracelet that doubles as a watch. The face, hands and numbers are silver, differentiated only by the extent of the polishing.}
  \charfield{Role}{She is a newspaper archivist early on. Later she is the director of Media Matter's Cuneiform Project: the transfer of all human knowledge (newspapers in her case) to truly permanent storage.}
\end{character}

Maximum 500,000 characters including the document setup

Draft mode

Consistency Checks

Problems will be listed here.

Character Bible PDF

Compile to see the updated table.