Batman Adventures 4, pages 10 - 11b

To generate buzz for my upcoming stint at the Long Beach Comic Book Convention of September 17th and 18th, I am posting in the intervening week, scans of my roughs to my first ever professional

comic book assignment, ‘Batman Adventures’ #4, which was published in the fall of 1992, along with the finished pages, those that I still possess. 

Today I’m posting the roughs for pages 10 - 11b, along with the page as printed. I designed two different versions of page 11, the first following Martin Pasko’s script. In the second version, I edited Pasko’s script, cutting the yadda yadda between Dick Grayson and his college roommate for a dramatic shot of Robin on his bat cycle. As you can see, the editor went with the page as scripted.

I took this bold step because I thought Martin’s script was overwritten and wanted to open it up, give it breathing room. 

Martin told me that he re-assured himself that his scripts WEREN”T overwritten by counting the number of words in each balloon, finding that he was always within the proscribed limit (I forget what that limit was). I didn’t argue with him; it was only later (and too late) that I was able to articulate my disagreement: It wasn’t the number of words in each balloon, it was the number of balloons in the number of panels. In general, everything was too dense, too tightly packed, too much stuff. One should clear things out, open things up, think cinematically.