As you know, one of the purposes of this newsletter is to provide agonizingly small updates about the status of my upcoming middle grade fantasy graphic novel with artist Max Bare, coming from Papercutz, on its long, slow road to publication. This week’s update probably sounds more major than it is:

The script is finished!

Yes, I recently finalized the last part of the script with my editor, added it to a file called “Locked Script,” dusted my hands like a cartoon character and walked away whistling.

The thing is, this isn’t the first time I “finished” this script. And it won’t be the last.

Or, to put it in a way my fellow comic geeks might understand…

It is August 12, 2025, and I am putting the finishing touches on the script.

It is January 25, 2020, and I am typing “The End” on my script.

It is Smarch 16, 20XX, and I am sending in the final edits on my script.

When “The End” is not the end

Like many works of writing, comic book scripts are very rarely “done.” When I typed “The End” in 2020, there was still a metric ton of work to be done. I’ve revised the script a lot since then, and I’m proud/hopeful that every revision has made it even better.

When I made that “locked script” this week, that’s basically saying “This is good enough to be the document that the artist can use to create his art.” But a lot can change from the written word to the sequential art that brings comics to life. That’s one of the best parts of working on comics as someone who can’t draw. And it’s why there’s at least one more version of this script that will still need to come (in the year 20XX).

This is called the lettering pass. When Max takes the locked script and turns it into page after page of sequential art, I fully expect him to make some changes. Maybe he needs three panels to show something I wrote as one panel. Maybe a splash page needs to be broken up, or maybe panels get combined to give a moment room to breathe. The lettering pass makes sure that the instructions we’re giving the letterer match what’s on the page.

But even more than that, I need to make changes once I see the final art. Even beyond the mechanics of “Now this balloon is in panel 2 instead of panel 3,” there are some things you just don’t know until the art comes in. Most commonly, it’s a good bet that I overwrote a lot of the dialogue. It’s almost guaranteed that there will be emotions and information that I conveyed in dialogue that are conveyed even better just by the art — by the emotions on a character’s face. In the lettering pass, I’ll be looking for places I can dial back my dialogue and let the art speak for itself.

That’s what the lettering pass is really for. And — I cannot stress this enough — it needs to happen before you send the book to be lettered. You should only be making emergency revisions once a letterer has done their job, not doing large-scale revisions. (And that’s this edition of the newsletter’s pro tip. Don’t be a jerk to your letterer.)

So now the script is done, or at least it’s out of my hands for quite a while. Nothing to do now but go sit and chill on Mars for a bit.

Or, you know…start the next thing. Like the man said, the end is the beginning is the end.

Links to Cool Things

• I don’t see a ton of movies in theaters, but I saw Weapons and it was pretty great. Here’s a good discussion of it, if you’ve already seen it. If not, avoid spoilers and see it!

• I’ve always wanted to go to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at THE Ohio State University, except for the Ohio of it all. But chiefly, I wanted to see their collection of original Calvin and Hobbes art. There’s been a lot of talk online this week (as there is ever few months for some reason) about the best first comic to give someone, and for me Calvin and Hobbes is way up there. I think it’s one of humanity’s great artistic achievements. So I’m pretty freakin’ jazzed that the original art is going on tour, and it’s coming to the Fenimore Art Museum in (relatively) nearby Cooperstown, NY. You bet your ass I’ll be there. (Fun fact: I have been to Cooperstown on numerous occasions and have never been to its number one tourist attraction, the Baseball Hall of Fame. It ain’t me, babe.)

• I recently saw John Mulaney on his new tour [with murderer’s row of talent openers Nick Kroll (!), Fred Armisen (!!) and Mike Birbiglia (!!!)] and it was excellent. No spoilers here, but catch it now before you catch it on Netflix in a year or two!

And that’s it for now. Updates on the graphic novel may slow down for a bit, but I’m hoping to send out some newsletters on other topics in the meantime. If you have anything you’d like to hear about, just drop me a line. Thanks!