Book Review - Stan Lee's How to Write Comics

Even though I have been writing for most of my life, I'm very new to comics. Before this year, I don't think I ever read a comic all the way through and I certainly never tried to write one. My Emily and Renaldo adventures are stories I have been working on for at least four years in various forms, and I think they will work best as a comic, but I need to learn all I can about comic writing before I can bring them to life. Who better to learn from than the legendary Stan Lee?

I really enjoyed Stan Lee's How to Write Comics and finished it in about 4 days. I have been researching for months about how to write comic scripts and I found all the information out there a bit overwhelming. I picked up this book with hopes that Lee would share insights into the process of scripting comics and really break the process down. I was amazed (and delighted) to learn about the "Marvel style" of scripting, which is actually plotting. He does also talk about scripting (or lets other writers talk about it), but his experience is, obviously, with Marvel style so that is what he talks about most. I really enjoyed learning about Marvel/plot scripting because that is what I have actually been doing as opposed to full scripting. I think that panels and layout are part of the art and artistic effects. If I was an artist I would draw it myself, but I'm not. I don't think I'm qualified to write a comic script with detailed artistic directions when that is not my strong suit. Lee helped confirm that the way I was doing it wasn't completely off-track (generally, I do need to make some adjustments, but I wasn't totally wrong in my way of thinking). In fact, there is no 100% set way to write a comic script inspite of what you might read online. It's more about the writer's relationship with the artist and how the two communicate to make the writer's vision a reality.

Of course, that was only one good thing I got out of this book. There were many things I enjoyed such as the history of comics and how they have evolved over the last century. I also appreciated how the book wasn't totally Marvel-centric. He does his best to involve writers and publishers from various comic producers so that aspiring writers can have a composite picture of the industry.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in comic writing. But I would also reccomend it for anyone interested in drawing comics. Comics are collaborative and it's impossible for people to work together if they don't know each person's role. Artists should also read this book just as writers should read Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics, which is also on my to-read list. In fact, this book is more of a primer (Lee's words) and is only the first of a long line of books about comic writing and creating that anyone interested in the comic industry should read.