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Gary Phillips is a crime and mystery novelist. But, that would be too limiting to express the variety of his endeavors Agent Zero M his interests. In this article from the Books of Soul Newsletter, Gary discusses writing for comic books and graphic novels.

Right off let me say that writing for comics is harder than it looks. It is and isn't like writing a prose short story or novella. A lot of people figure it's just these crazy panels with word balloons and captions getting in the way of the cool art, right? To an extent, that's true. Because I'm not kidding myself, comics are a visual medium, but a good script can suffer from mediocre or inappropriate art. Yet it's the art that makes the script come alive so unless you're among the ranks of the talented few who write and draw their own stuff like Frank Miller or Jim Starling, then you as the scribe better 1982 Fleer baseball cards it tight on the page for the artist to have something to work with, something to get excited about.

The match between writer and artist is key. Take for instance R.M. Gura's dark, moody art on the crime comic book series Scalped, created and written by Jason Aaron. Can you imagine that cat drawing a Flash or Batman story? Okay, well, you can imagine him on a certain kind of Batman story but you see where I'm going with this. Conversely, it doesn't seem in this day and age, given everyone and they mama is blogging and sites like newsarama.com and others where comics are critiqued, you can get away with a sappy script and cool art. The fans are too sophisticated and too opinionated to go for the okey-doke.

In a standard comic book script, the writer describes, economically and clearly, what takes place in that panel. You don't over-describe and crowd it with too much, and also keep in mind your job is storytelling, maintaining flow and pacing as well as drawing in the reader like Paris Hilton to a camera. For instance: Largish panel, medium shot as Matt Murdock walks into the courtroom, sharp in a three-piece suit, take off his dark glasses and looks with his blind eyes at the jury - a mixture of various races and garb. Behind him at the defense table, Foggy Nelson wipes his brow, with their client, the manacled and subdued Mr. Hyde, seated next to him. Near to Foggy, the window explodes inward, the glass billowing everywhere. Matt's dialogue will be cut off as there is a boom from the exploding window.

The rewrite would be, bearing in mind the axiom that a panel is frozen action, Largish panel, medium shot as Matt Murdock, sharp in a three piece suit, stands before the seated jury, his dark glasses in one hand as he stares at the jury - a mixture of various body types and races, with his blind eyes. Foggy is behind him at the defense table, wiping his sweating brow, seated next to a manacled and subdued Mr. Hyde. Matt begins his final arguments.

Second panel, pushed in as Foggy, still with as handkerchief to his forehead, now looks toward the window near him that's exploding inward, the glass going everywhere. Mr. Hyde holds up his arms to shield himself from the flying glass. Matt's dialogue will be cut off as there is a boom from the exploding window.

The over-arching idea here is the comic book script is about sequencing, what follows what and when Batman action figure I need to better isolate an event and when is it better for the story to move along, to jump cut us forward?

For more on this I recommend Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art and his Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrativ, the DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O'Neil, and the print versions of Charles Fuller's play, A Soldier's Story, and David Mamet's House of Games and Glengarry Glen Ross - What can I say? I'm big on dialogue. And, while you can't go crazy with dialogue in a comic book, you want your characters saying just the right words at just the right moment. While you're at it, read a couple Walter Mosley's books as well as Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer books for their elegance of using dialogue to reveal, and not reveal, characters.

Gary Crime and mystery novelist Gary Phillips' short stories have appeared, most recently, in Los Angeles Noir (Akashic) and in Full House (G.P. Putnam's Sons). He is a member of PEN and past national board member of the Mystery Writers of America. Phillips previously wrote the comics series Angeltown for Vertigo as well as Shot Callerz and Midnight Mover for Oni Press, but he is best known for a series of mystery novels featuring private eye Ivan Monk. He's also currently writing Citizen Kang, a weekly prose political thriller hosted on The Nation's Web site. High Rollers, a new four-issue comic series detailing the rise of a Los Angeles gangster, debut in June 2008 from Boom Studios. Visit his website, www.gdphillips.com, to peruse more of his work.

Eric Brasley is the founder of Books of Soul website -- http://www.booksofsoul.com . The free site is dedicated to authors and poets to showcase their interest in African American culture and African peoples and issues. "In doing so, we think readers, publishers, agents, reviewers, librarians - everyone involved in the publishing industry - will find the site a valuable resource."