The script for the 28th issue of my supervillain drama Rapid City has just been posted. Read the full script here.

Panel 1. Later that night, Icicle walks along the side of concrete bridge where a main road is crossing a set of railroad tracks. She is carrying the gym bag. Her clothes are in rough shape after running through the brush.

Caption: The cold never bothers me. But hunger does. Exhaustion does.

Caption: Cars just pass me by.

Panel 2. We can see a hint of the bridge she was crossing in the background. In the foreground, she is hunkered down behind a long-unused set of newspaper boxes. She is sliding a few bills out of the cop’s wallet that she took. The way it is flopped open, we can see the cop’s badge.

Caption: Twenty six bucks. That’s it.

Panel 3. Icicle is caught in the lights of a passing car, she raises her arm to shield her face. We can see rips and smears of dirt on her sleeve.

Read all of my previous Rapid City scripts right here.

The script for the 27th issue of my superherovillain comic book, Rapid City, has just been posted. Read it here.

Panel 4. Shot of Icicle trying her hardest just to hold it together.

ICICLE

Piledriver’s dead.

Panel 5. Small panel of the milk hitting the ground and busting open.

Panel 6. As large a panel as the page will allow of Katy grabbing Icicle into an awkward hug. It is awkward because Katy is carefully keeping her spiky hands from poking Icicle.

KATY

Oh, Steph. No. You poor…

KATY

Come here.

ICICLE

He’s dead, Katy. He’s dead.

Read Issue 27 and all of the previous Rapid City scripts right here.

Everything gets shuffled around this time of year.

In this case that means Rapid City #27. It is going to be late.

As it stands, I have more than half of it ready to go. So, in theory, if I had an artist waiting to get started he or she could get started on those pages while I caught up.

Not ideal, obviously, but not a complete disaster.
I plan to catch up this weekend and then use the upcoming time off from school to get further ahead so that this kind of thing can be avoided in the future.

A few weeks ago I bought this book on a whim.
45 Master Characters.
See, I love formulas and structures when I am writing. I am not one of these that thinks everything MUST fit a formula. Rather, I think that the formulas that make sense are derived from observation of what works.
The are descriptive, not prescriptive.

The bulk of the book lays out 45 character types and how they can be used in fiction. Then there is a whole section of sub-types, with descriptions of how they can be used. That is all fascinating, but the real gold came after that.

At the end of the book is a section outlining the female version of The Heroic Journey. It is shoe-horned in almost as though it was a great idea that was not quite long enough to have a book unto itself. This was quite fortunate for me, as I think I might have been too skeptical to pick up a book called “The Feminine Journey”.

In fact, I was still skeptical as I started reading those chapters. But then pieces started to fall into place. The story structure it was putting forth started to line up perfectly with things that I had been planning for my new female protagonist, Icicle.

I was sold and I started carrying to book around with me.

It has helped me shape this story arc with skill and confidence.

Just a few minutes ago I got an email from Kav with his first pages for Rapid City #2.
They look amazing.
Not many people can understand the thrill of seeing your words brought to life like that.
I will post some of them here when I get a chance.

With all the holiday commotion, I have taken a bit of a break from busting out the next script. This is not to say that issue 27 will be late, I just have to turn it on pretty soon.

A recent spike in activity on this blog has caused me to take a look back at my earlier scripts.

I am still quite proud of them, but I also know that they are a bit rough.
If you are reading them, please bear in mind that I have not fixed them up as part of an effort to preserve my learning process.

Thanks, and enjoy.

I am really proud of issue 25.
I really think it is one of the best scripts I have ever written.

And, I am very excited about getting on to the rest of the story….
But I can’t. Not right now.
I need to spend the next week making damn sure that my application to grad school is completely in order. I gotta make sure that is all in order. So, I have to take a break from writing Rapid City… for a few days anyway.

That is the idea anyway… but damn I am so excited about this new story line.
If you have read #25… or just the last page of #25…. then you have some idea where this thing is going.

I have spent some time roughing out the plots for the next few issues, and this is going to be a doozy. There is a whole bunch of stuff going on. Bad guys, worse guys, revenge, cops, undead cops, betrayal, defeat, monsters…. and anything else I can cram in there.

In all honesty, I am excited about going to school and taking classes….. but really, I am excited about getting back to Rapid City.

Issue 25 has been a pretty quick one to write.

Maybe the reason is just that I am getting faster at doing this….or maybe this was just a quick issue.
The last two panels of the issue, though, have to set up the next mega-arc. Something on the scale of the next 24 issues.

A lot is hanging on them and I am finding myself stuck between flat out declaring the dramatic magnitude of the moment, or slyly downplaying it.

But, this is to be a revenge story, and I tend to think that subtlety and revenge do not often work well together.

Update: I just went and talked to my lovely girlfriend about how to play those last two panels. She opened my eyes to the completely obvious slam ending that this issue deserves.

It should be ready for you to read by tomorrow night.

Most of my writing time goes into the first four or five pages.
Even if you consider all of the plotting and pre-planning a different thing, it is still those first few pages that take the longest. I don’t know why that is, it just takes a long time to get started.

Through the middle section it starts to pick up the pace. It isn’t that those pages are easier, they just move a little more quickly.

Then, almost every time, I find myself suddenly at the last few pages. These pages move so quickly that I get worried about being able to wrap up the issue in my allotted 22 pages.

Right now I am in that home stretch. I have a certain chunk of story to tell, and only a certain amount of pages in which to do it. It looks like it will work, but I will have to make some tight decisions.

That will be issue 25, likely done ahead of schedule. It is the start of a whole new story and I think it is coming out pretty well.

I was just talking with my Rapid City artist A. Kaviraj.

The pages that are rolling in are really fantastic. Take a look at this teaser he sent me.

But here’s the crazy part. He’s cranking these pages out at an incredible rate. Even with edits and corrections they are flying out 10 pages a week!

10 in 7 days!