A look at Scott Snyder and Jock’s collaborative process on DETECTIVE COMICS

Here on THE SOURCE we spend a lot of time talking to writers about where they get their ideas; we also have the pleasure of showing off a lot of pieces of process artwork from our many talented artists. These are nice peeks behind the scenes, but we sometimes overlook the important process that happens in between these two steps. How does the writer work with the artist to put together a cohesive comic story? Scott Snyder, Jock and Francesco Francavilla have been putting together a killer story in their current DETECTIVE COMICS run. But how does Scott’s Point A get to Jock’s Point B? Let’s look at an excerpt of Scott Snyder’s script for page 11 of next week’s DETECTIVE COMICS #876. Check out the direction he gives, but also the room for creativity he leaves for Jock to go wild in:

PAGE 11 11.1

JOCK, I’d like this to be a page where you show off! The idea is that the first panel is an aerial view of Gotham, with BATMAN dropping towards the roofs. We are directly above BATMAN, as though we’re falling right behind him. The next panel, BATMAN (and WE) have dropped closer to the city, the next closer… And in each panel, you can pose BATMAN differently, highlighting DICK’S acrobatic style with the PARACAPE. In the final panel – and feel free to do 3, 5, 7, anything you want]. We should see a penthouse patio beneath him. Like he’s been dropping towards it the whole time. This is the patio/balcony of SONIA ZUCCO’S penthouse apartment. The place should be sleek, modern, with a rooftop pool, steaming in the cold, a table, a bar, tasteful, sharp … Something along these lines?

Of course, as always, if you have an idea for a better composition – go for it!

As you’ll see from the image masterfully colored by David Baron below, Jock did end up taking a slightly different approach to composition with this page: Jock explains his approach to the piece:

Basically the script called for something a little different (multiple panels - with the viewer following Batman down) which was super cool - and something I'd like to do again at some point - but I went for a splash idea. Hopefully keeping all of Scott's original intent!

When a page turns out as dynamic as that one, you have to imagine everyone’s thrilled with the results! For more behind-the-scenes on Detective, check out our cover design posts from Francesco Francavilla here and here. DETECTIVE COMICS #876 is on sale April 27th.