The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics

DC Comics Guides

by Dennis O'Neil

For any writer who wants to become an expert comic-book storyteller, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics is the definitive, one-stop resource!

In this valuable guide, Dennis O’Neil, a living legend in the comics industry, reveals his insider tricks and no-fail techniques for comic storytelling. Readers will discover the various methods of writing scripts (full script vs. plot first), as well as procedures for developing a story structure, building subplots, creating well-rounded characters, and much more. O’Neil also explains the many diverse formats for comic books, including graphic novels, maxi-series, mega-series, and adaptation. Of course, there are also dozens of guidelines for writing proposals to editors that command attention and get results.

Genres: Writing, Comics, Nonfiction, Art, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Dc Comics

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Dennis "Denny" O'Neil was a comic book writer and editor best known for his work for Marvel Comics and DC Comics from the 1960s through the 1990s, and Group Editor for the Batman family of titles until his retirement.

His best-known works include Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman with Neal Adams, The Shadow with Michael Kaluta and The Question with Denys Cowan. As an editor, he is principally known for editing the various Batman titles. From 2013 unti his death, he sat on the board of directors of the charity The Hero Initiative and served on its Disbursement Committee.

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an introduction to writing for the comics industry. The content covers some of the basics of writing such as Chekhov's gun and Hitchcock's thoughts on suspense, so those with some understanding of story writing and structure won't find much new here. Perhaps it would be a good book for someone who is writing for the first time and hasn't read much about writing. For me, the best part of the book is that it includes a lot of inked DC comics without the colors. Those pages are beautiful to look at.

[Wes Locher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The DC Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O'Neil is a quick little romp through the utter basics of story structure, scripting, and dialoging.

Having been a huge fan of comic books for as long as I can remember, I've always had the desire to write and publish my own mainly just because I think it would be fun. For me, sequential art has always been a medium that ties together well-written prose with artwork that's exciting and and full of detail.

If you don't know the first thing about writing comic books, then I'd recommend this as an excellent place to start. Sure, O'Neil spends a lot of time on the very basics of storytelling, informing the reader of what's necessary for Act's I-III. While you might be able to pick this up just from reading a single issue or complete story arc in a current title, it's great to have a small reference book for your shelf that doesn't require you to thumb through hundreds of pages to find the info you seek.

My favorite section offered up was that on scripting. Comic book scripting is one of those things that's very much dependent on person preference or publisher. It helps the aspiring comic writer find the style best suited for him or her and provides interesting exercises in one's ability to adapt to whatever the project requires. For effect, O'Neil juxtaposes his scripts with the finished product so you can see how artist interprets the writer's ideas and direction.

Even if you have no desire to write a comic, this quick read will give you an appreciation for how the books are constructed. If nothing else, it will remind you that even though it only took you ten minutes to read a single issue comic cover to cover... the creative team spent weeks channeling their creativity into the medium.

It's important to note that regardless of the fact that Batman and Superman adorn the covers of this book, the suggestions, tips, and tactics within are applicable to all styles of graphic storytelling. The section on plot structure alone should earn this a spot on any writer's shelf.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se você quer começar a escrever quadrinhos no estilo americano, bem, o Guia Oficial DC Comics: Roteiro é o livro que eu indicaria. Se você já começou a escrever roteiros, bem, talvez esse livro ensine boas dicas de como organizar as ideias e a deixar claro alguns termos e formatos que a indústria dos comics utiliza. Ele foi uma dos meus guias quando li em scan pela primeira vez - além de raro era caríssimo - e agora, que obtive o físico com um amigo, a releitura foi uma redescoberta e ajudou a acessar soluções para alguns momentos em minhas histórias. Ou seja: é bom ter esse livro sempre à mão. Ou a um "clique" no caso da "versão digital". Mas uma coisa que me incomodou bastante na leitura desse guia em português foi a tradução. Nota-se que o tradutor não é versado nem na linguagem de termos da escrita criativa e muito menos nos termos e personagens dos quadrinhos. Esse é um ponto fraco que prejudica a luxuosa edição em capa dura da Opera Graphica, mas nada que prejudique a leitura, só fica chato para o tradutor, mesmo. Se a sua intenção é escrever para os quadrinhos, o ponto inicial é bem esse aqui.

[Zane · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a common idea that you have to know the formula to break it. This book gives the formula to DC comics. It is sort of sad and demystifying, but for the most part maybe we could already see through it. I am glad DC is not overrun by this formula, but I can definitely see its presence. The author says every super hero story should start with action, so someone picking up your book will buy it. Now I want to go to a comic store and look to see if that is the general rule. What if it is, and I never noticed? Am I a bad reader? Also, the author makes the claim that most people don't read caption boxes in comics. I find it hard to believe that people are so lazy reading comics that they just look at pictures, read sound words, and a few voice balloons. That would also be sad. Anyway, if you are interested in writing comics, this may give you some direction. Let's just hope you couple it with Alan Moore's condemnation of most of the things this book suggests in his 'Writing for Comics.'

[Eugene booker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books great for any begging writer, get all the trade from Denny Oneil.
It goes into things like story structre and writing graphic novels, short stories and the like. Reccomended for anyone who wants to know ho to write comics!

[Marcos_e.e · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nota 7,75.
Um boa base pra roteiros de HQ.
Explicando como funcionam argumentos, personagens, arcos, séries e entre outras ferramentas da narrativa.
É bem conservador. Realmente servindo pra entender como se escreviam os Quadrinhos mais clássicos, com seus ganchos e vilões extravagantes. Ainda que seja uma uma aula bacana até hoje.

[Kieran · Rating 3 out of 5]

A basic guide to writing comics (note: emphasis on the writing - you won’t find anything about artwork in here). It’s a good introduction, providing a high level overview, but never goes beyond the basics.

[Samson · Rating 3 out of 5]

a very clear guide to writing comics. It was technical for sure, but it shied away from incredibly dreary material. but at points it was boring

[Ietrio · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the past days I had the luck, or the misfortune to read a few books on comics from the Marvel gang.

I had the luck because under Disney, the Marvel brand produces constantly the some of the best movies each year. And DC, well, they are quite crap, despite the effort put by Warner.

I had the luck because with Marvel characters there are glimpses of freedom. In the DC universe everything is about the fascist state and how the gods fight to keep the chains tight on the people's necks.

I had the misfortune, because the Marvel gang is made up from people who can barely express themselves, Brian Michael Bendis, Andy Schmidt. And because they either don't want to share, or are incapable of going further than telling the world how great their ”award-winning” buddies are.

Amazingly, Denny O'Neil can write. Compared with the moronic statements that say nothing Bendis style, O'Neil is quite clear.

And the illustrations are supporting the text, and not like with Schmidt's books, always ready to sell you something else.

> Your audience really doesn’t want to see the hero park his car, get out of it, go up some steps, check his mail, open a door, walk down a hallway, hang up his coat, get a drink of water, blow his nose, yawn, sneeze, write “get nose drops” on the to-do list magneted to his refrigerator and then saunter into the parlor where waits the killer robot. They want the confrontation with Mr. Clanky; that’s what the story is about. Unless any of that other stuff will be important later, omit it. The essence of drama, and especially melodrama, is compression. Show only what’s important. So start the scene as late as possible and once the dramatic point is made, end it.

What a breath of fresh air, after Brian Michael Bendis' void reasoning!

It is an interesting text. It does not go as philosophically as Scott McCloud, and probably this is why you might like its more practical take.

[Stuart · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is actually a pretty terrible book. Much of that is because I just finished Alan Moore's book on writing so maybe he ruined it for me. But O'Neil is so conservative in his ideas about writing that he never really suggests anything that would actually distinguish one as a better writer. It seems like a lot of what Moore considers in his book to be irrelevant. And Moore was writing in 1985.

True, a lot of what O'Neil does say sounds like the lesson plan from your Middle School English teacher. And as far as it goes I suppose that is fine. Generic but reasonable. Yet he is so afraid of advocating anything definite that it all comes across as an exercise in vagueness and an unassertive +anything goes+ attitude, none of which is that helpful to anyone.

I get the idea he doesn't like printed literature much and he comes across like that sneering kid who complains loudly about having to read anything in English class. What he does like is movies and he makes the analogy with them so often that when he finally admits that "comics are not movies" at the very, very end it sounds pretty hollow. The bibliography for example is almost all film books and that seems to send the wrong message.

It is a DC Comics guide, but he never gives much credence to anything that isn't Batman, Superman and a few Marvel titles. If this were written by Art Spiegelman, Jaime Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Moebius, Herge, Jodorowsky or Hugo Pratt the conception would be very, very different. It is a DC book but this bias sort of seems symptomatic of how limited the book's vision is.

Graphically, the illustrations are informative and useful and it is a better designed book than Alan Moore's in that sense but it could use something besides greyscale and the text should be broken up more and the print size should be larger. Watson Guptill should know better about good book design.

[Daryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent some time reading through this cover to cover, as I'm currently working on some comic book scripts and thought it might be helpful. I didn't learn much from this I didn't already know. There were a couple of good bits, one on characterization (very similar to what an author or actor does in theatre) and one on script preparation -- going from plot to outline to prose (very similar to what I have been doing). Other than that, I found it very basic information on storytelling and some specifics on comic book writing, but nothing I hadn't already gleaned from years of comic book reading, and other sources on comics writing that I've read over the years. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised as this book is older than most of the others I've perused in the past. I was torn between giving this one two or three stars, but hey, it's about comics and has lots of pretty pictures. The script examples O'Neil includes (far too many of his own, I felt) are always interesting. I particularly liked seeing a Charles Moulton Wonder Woman script from the '40s (I'm guessing), and seeing how similar it was to one that could have been written today.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for beginners

I won't get too deep into the book during this review. But as someone venturing into the world of writing comics for the first time, this was an excellent read. Plenty of helpful hints and important terminology. The thing that differentiates The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics is that they actually showed pages of actual scripts and then, how that particular script was translated into a finished comic book page.

[Mira Domsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a useful handbook for amateurs, however, many of the examples of what a comic should look like or do are so old that they don't apply to modern comic writing. But what do I know? I'm an amateur, and O'Neil is a veteran.

[Michael Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics introduces the reader to writing for the comics medium. Overall, very good material and much to learn.

Best bit: the in-depth discussion and examples about structure. (The detailed examples and discussions about them were also good, but at this level I find writing idiosyncratic.)

Content: The book covers processes for writing (full script vs. the looser plot-first technique, preparing the complete script, writing for single issues, miniseries and maxiseries, graphic novels, adaptations, plus the Levitz Paradigm of always running multiple plotlines), the core elements of writing (story structure, character building, drama and tension management, pacing, continuity for single and especially for multiple stories and characters).

Writing and teaching material: Overall, very good writing and excellent tips on writing, including an excellent if small set of references. Mentions of Fraçois Truffault's Hitchcock interview, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics (which I think should be completemented with his third, Making Comics, published in 2006), Will Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and Comics and Sequential Art, and, perhaps the most relevant for this book's focus, Christopher Vogler' s The Writer's Journey and, best last, Robert McKee's Story.


Background: part of an ongoing personal project, I'm traversing the collection of DC Comics Guides, focusing on:
+ pencilling (The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics or The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics, or this read),
+ inking (The DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics),
+ coloring and lettering (yup, The DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics), and
+ writing (The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics).

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basic writing advice, but from the perspective of a seasoned comic book hack.

If you want to write as poorly as the Neanderthals at DC, this is the book for you.

An emphasis on rapid pacing, relentless plot progression, and action. With little thought given to character or theme and none at all to creativity.

There are a few tidbits of interest which offer insight into the unique workings of DC. These are the Levitz paradigm, which describes a system where subplots graduate to A-plots in turn. And the megaseries — a massive event taking place across multiple books for a year. Denny uses Batman no man’s land as an example and describes how plotting was coordinated with writers and editors during an 8 hour meeting.

Apart from that, the most worthwhile materials here are the production documents — scripts, outlines, and charts — from various DC comics.

On a side note, almost all the art for this book is dreadful, apart from the Neal Adams cover.

[Karleen Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was required to read this Guide by Dennis O’Neil for my Writing Workshop III: Comics college course. I knew nothing about comics and I don’t read very many so this book was very helpful to me with all the definitions it has. I read a few reviews where people felt that it had to many definitions, but I think for someone like me who knows zero about writing comics those definitions are important.

Now I did have some issues with the way that it was written and some parts felt a bit tedious to read. There was also some things that were repeated in almost every section. Now, I know, repetition is the best way to remember things, but for a 128 page book, that is actually only 115 pages, because the actual lesson material starts on page 11 and ends on page 125, it was a bit excessive to me and I started to get annoyed with it. This is why I gave this book 4 stars rather than 5.

[MindProbe · Rating 4 out of 5]

a concise and often amusing overview of the fundamentals of conventional comics writing, and to some degree writing in general, though of course with an emphasis towards the sort of action-driven heroic adventure fiction generally to be expected from a DC superhero comic. much of it is Creative Writing 101 stuff, but O'Neil's tone is grounded and practical, informed by the wisdom of long experience, and he has a good teacher's skill for making concepts clear while neither boring nor patronising the reader; he was the ideal choice to write a book of this sort. his thinking is, as I say, conventional (Robert McKee is cited, briefly) but he's quick to emphasise that "there is seldom one absolute, inarguable, unimpeachably right way to do anything" and that no two writers work in quite the same way, offering a range of methods and techniques that he or one of a variety of his colleagues have found useful and dissecting their potential pros and cons, leaving the reader to consider which may be of use to them. I suspect it's a book I'll be returning to more than once.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caught my eye after a good friend and I started chatting about creating a project of writing a comic book story. One thing that immediately caught my eye was it was from the late great Dennis O'Neil. I only met him twice but he was impactful and this was a window into having another conversation with him. I found some of the tips to be amazing and I almost felt foolish not having known it prior to reading it. I read it and savor the ideas and the structure that is given to help anyone sit down and tell their own great story idea! There may be better books out there, but for me...this was PERFECT!

[Aditya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author "Denny" O' Neil breaks down the different forms of comic Storytelling, from single issue to mega series. A lot of parallels are drawn from Screenplays as well as television programs. He also breaks down the different approaches to scriptwriting used by the pros. He stresses the fact that there is no one right way to do things; whatever works is the right way. If you are someone new to the craft of writing comics this book will give you plenty to build a foundation on, but whether or not you become good depends on you. As Denny says, "Writers learn to write by writing."

[Andrew Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dennis O'Neil's book offers great advice for writers who want to learn more about plot structure, story arcs, subplots and more. I particularly liked when he compared and contrasted to devices in other media (such as television or movies), and pointed out limitations or unique benefits of the comics media.

[Daniel Farrelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting, though it's definitely a book targeted at nepo babies who landed a job writing comics for one of the big three, in the year 2000, and now need to know how to write a story. Some interesting perspectives and lingo, and the story about the No Man's Land batman story was really interesting. But it's probably not worth tracking down it, or the others in the series.

[James Hold · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't get much from this. The advice is pretty general: start with the ending, etc. Otherwise it's mostly a lot of definitions. O'Neil wrote this in a annoying 'cute' style which did not help. It's an oky starter, but Stan Lee's book is far superior.

[Hank · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best, most accessible books on the craft of writing (not just comics writing) I have ever read. There is a great deal of application to other forms of writing that I am looking forward to working with, using the lessons here as inspiration.

[Travis Webber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I read how-to books, for the enjoyment of listening to skilled professionals talk enthusiastically about their hard-earned abilities and finely-honed workflows. This was a good book, but is pitched at a more introductory level than I needed to scratch that itch.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're thinking about writing comics, this is a great book to add to your arsenal. I don't think any book is the exhaustive compendium for writing comics, but this one is a great start! Written by the late Denny O'Neil (*sniff*), it has some great basic advice for getting started.

[Gabrielle Prendergast · Rating 4 out of 5]

The early chapters were very useful for my needs, the later chapters less so. That said, for someone with less writing experience, the later chapters offer a good grounding in storytelling techniques and conventions.

I admit a skimmed a lot of this but will peruse it more later.

[Ben Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty basic writing tips but the real value is in the comics-specific tips, how to handle storylines in ongoing series. And also O’Neil proves his worth as a comics writer by packing a ton of good content (and visual examples) into a short, easy and entertaining read, just like any of his comics.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid book on writing comics. Covering many facets of the field.

[Dennis Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for beginners. If somewhat knowledgeable this might not provide any new insights. Somewhat disappointing considering some of the amazing writing O'Neil has done in his career.

[Redi Bortoluzzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um belo guia não apenas para quem deseja escrever quadrinhos, mas contar boas histórias. Recomendado em alto grau.