I know this forum was mainly meant for writing novels, but what about comic books? I'm looking for something free, or even cheap, secure, and being able to be used on the go (phone, tablet, most preferably library computer.). What would you recommend?
Certainly this forum is not only meant for novel-writers. In fact, there are all sorts of writers here, who produce or are working to produce anything that's actually written—computer games, poetry, short stories, novels, scripts, memoirs, non-fiction, etc. Your question is a good one. I'm hoping somebody can come up with an answer that helps you. (Sorry, but that's not me. ) I do kind of suspect that any programme that allows you to draw comics into it will NOT be cheap or free, though. But good luck.
Just writing the comics, or produce the whole comic including artwork? I cannot help you with the latter. Comics are typically written in script form, like a movie screenplay. From the script, the artists draw and paint the artwork. Scrivener has a template for comic scripts. Software that is dedicated to movie screenplay (and can therefore also do comic scripts) are Final Draft, Fade In, Movie Magic Screenwriter, and Celtx. I think Celtx is an online editor with a free option, the other cost money. I think the last time I checked out screenplay software, my verdict (balancing price and features, and generally liking how the developers present themselves) fell on Fade In, but since a lot of those software do what the Scrivener template can do too that I already have, I never looked further into them. Scrivener, Fade In, and Final Draft have mobile versions. As far as I remember, the price for the online Fade In and Final Draft versions was less than $10. But in general, to write the script, any word processing software can be used. In particular for comic scripts, as there is no standardized format (AFAIK).
Comic books start life as screenplays? I wonder if writing a novel outline more in the form of a screenplay would be useful. When I outline, I tend to stick to a line or two about what happens. Adding setting and other notes as some kind of meta-information might be worth doing. I think I'll start by experimenting more with columns in OmniOutliner. Or maybe story cards set up in Tap Forms. Must cogitate.
Yes, they do. Well, most writers seem to do an outline first, in long-form text, then detailing into a script. There are no fixed formats for the actual script, but there may be standards for some publishers. Most one can find online are full scripts that already contain information about the art (panel layout, number of panels per page, special pages/panels etc.), but there is such a thing as a "plot first script" (devised and favored by Stan Lee) that leaves such things out and reads more like a movie script, and leaves the art decisions (put what into which panel, panel type etc.) either to the artists, or for a later revision (maybe after input from the rest of the team). (In a movie script, putting detailed information about the visuals into the script is considered 'directing from the page' and is a big no-no in most cases. In a comic book, the 'director' role can be either the writer [when writing a full script, or when the writer does art themself] or the art department [when developing from a 'plot only' script], but often it seems to be a team effort.) There are reasons why there are so many comic book movies: They are already scripted and storyboarded .
Back to software: Most of what the scriptwriting software does is automating the adherence to format, and keeping the script standardized throughout. For instance, one would teach the software the name of the characters, and the software would automatically capitalize the character name (as is standard in movie or TV scripts), or replace a nickname with the full character name. Or if you would just type a character name and hit enter, it would assume you want to type dialog, and would automatically indent the character name and the following text to form a dialog block. The formatting could also be done with Word (or other word processors) using the autocorrect functions and style system, which you could try and set up yourself (I would never even attempt that with Word, as I find the style system and the associated workflow abysmally bad. But that may be just me.) However, for Word, there may be style and macro packages out there to do that already that you 'just' have to find, download, and employ. Then again, there must be a reason why people sat down and wrote specialized word processors just for script writing. In addition to the formatting issues, they now include tools for keeping track of the plot/story by keeping notes, images, timelines, whatever, handy and visible, but allowing to finalize and output the script without this background information (similar to what Scrivener does by distinguishing text files between research and manuscript, and having a compile function to keep writing and formatting separate.)
I'm sure there's a reason Final Draft is expensive. It must do what screenwriters need, and I bet a word processor is a poor substitute. My recollection of Word's style support isn't favorable, either, but styles are in principle liberating. I use Nisus (and have flirted with Mellel). It's so cool to completely change the look of a document to match an audience by just loading a different style library.
I tried writing scripts for my comics before, but it always ended badly in the translation into a mainly visual format. What sounded good at first in my head looked terrible in drawing. All serious drama in book form suddenly required more realistic drawing to avoid getting cheesier and sadder than an Adam Sandler movie. Rough sketches with stick figures, copied images and placeholder texts worked well and can be done with any tool used to draw the final story. This makes it easy to replace pages one by one, but adding/removing panels will be a pain instead. You can take photos or yourself or dolls with cartoon filters as a first reference. You can borrow backdrops from online as long as you remember to replace them.
Is there a reason why you want software instead of a living artist to work with? I am assuming that if you buy the software and create a book which sells all the money goes to you? Whereas if you have a living artist you have to split the money - of which there may not be that much...? With regards to software, software X becomes popular with comic book writers, will all the art begin to look similar? Too similar perhaps? I like the little quirks that various artists have in their work. If you look at the writers that have drawn Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, etc they all have different styles even though they are drawing the same characters... Take a look at Jim Lee, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller, Todd McFarlane, etc. Sure, the quality of the paper and the richness of colour plays a role but so too does the artist's interpretation of the writer's instructions.
If we talk about computer software, I frequently use FocusWriter. It's not a program with many options, however, it's very good to focus only the writing, as the name implies. In terms of apps, I use JotterPad. A great application for those who write a lot on their phone.
