Writing for Comic Book

Adaptations

Sam Payne

BACHELOR’S December 2021 Degree Programme in Media & Arts Interactive Media

ABSTRACT

Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu Tampere University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in Media and Arts Interactive Media PAYNE, SAM: Writing for Comic Book Adaptations Bachelor's thesis 58 pages December 2021

The purpose of this thesis was to answer the question of how to approach adapting other media into comics. In order to approach this question, several aspects of writing and adapting media were explored in order to give the reader a wide idea of applicable techniques.

The fundamentals of writing were explained using the Six Core Competencies model by Larry Brooks. How these techniques can differ across mediums was explained using Howard Ashman’s theory of different “levels of reality” among different forms of fiction. Specific techniques used when creating comics were highlighted and discussed, such as page turns, pacing and panelling techniques.

Writing techniques and beliefs regarding creating adaptations were detailed using the field of adaptational studies as a reference. The ways that these techniques apply to comic book adaptations was also explored.

Three published comic book adaptations were analysed for the purpose of benchmarking: Borderlands, Team Fortress Comics and Alice in Murderland.

The techniques discussed and information gained from benchmarking was used to create a project adapting the legend of Saint George and the Dragon. This project focused on the re-interpretation of the source material. The final comic was 45 pages. A possible production plan for the comic was also discussed.

Key words: comics, sequential art, adaptation, project

CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 5

1.1 Legal Concerns Regarding Adaptations .................................................. 6

1.2 History of Comic Book Adaptations ......................................................... 8

2 WRITING TECHNIQUES ............................................................................. 13

2.1 Comic Specific Writing Techniques ....................................................... 20

2.2 Writing for Adaptations .......................................................................... 26

2.3 Applying Writing Techniques to Comic Adaptations .............................. 29

3 BENCHMARKING ........................................................................................ 31

3.1 Borderlands, Vol. 1, 2 & 3 ..................................................................... 31

3.2 Team Fortress Comics .......................................................................... 35

3.3 Alice in Murderland ............................................................................... 41

4 THESIS PROJECT – SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON ADAPTATION .............................................................................................. 45

4.1 Project Research ................................................................................... 45

4.2 Interpretation of the Original Myth ......................................................... 45

4.3 Workflow ............................................................................................... 47

4.3.1 Adapting the Story ....................................................................... 49

4.3.2 Creating the Comic ...................................................................... 51

4.4 Post-mortem ......................................................................................... 52

5 CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................... 54

REFERENCES ................................................................................................. 55

PICTURE REFERENCES ................................................................................. 58

ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS

dōjinshi a kind of fancomic, literally meaning “shared interest

publications”

one-shot a short, often single issue story that is self-contained.

Popular one-shots may get expanded upon as a full

length book or series

screentone a technique for applying texture or shading to an

image, using pre-printed sheets of small dots, or by

using digital techniques to achieve a similar effect

spread a feature of a printed book that spans more than one

page, ie. an image

line of action an imaginary line extending through the main action of

a figure

gutter the gap in between or outside of comic panels

NPC a non-playable character in a video game

mod in videogames, short for modification. A fan-made file

or files that alter the appearance, gameplay or

behaviour of the original game

gameplay loop used to describe the core repetitive actions a player will

take during gameplay

1 INTRODUCTION

The global comic book industry valued at 3.9 billion USD at the end of 2020 and

predicted to grow to 4.8 billion by the end of 2027 (Market Research 2021).

Compared to the film industry, which was valued at 80.8 billion USD in 2020

(Motion Picture Association 2020) comics exist as a niche in the larger

entertainment market. While superhero and other mainstream comic books take

up the majority of this market due to decades of publishing history, graphic

novels, independent one-shots, and webcomics on sites like Webtoons.com

have shown that the medium can tell a wide array of stories in any genre.

Comics have also proven to be a great medium for increasing literacy among

hesitant readers, both due to comics often being shorter than fiction novels, as

well as the added visual element allowing for information to be conveyed easily.

Comic adaptations, as in comic books that adapt stories told in other mediums,

have been part of comics since the beginning, though adaptations in the

reverse direction of other mediums adapting comics are generally more

common. Adaptations of classic English literature exist as far back as the

nineteenth century, mostly in the form of singular prints (Booker 2010). One

notable popular example is Classics Illustrated, an American comic book

magazine which adapted literary classics, such as Les Misérables and The

Iliad. The magazine ran from 1941 to 1969 and published 169 issues. Since

then, adaptations have continued to be a mainstay of the medium.

There are many reasons why comic book adaptations have continued to be so

popular. Firstly many readers are interested to see a story they are familiar with

told in a different way. As comics are often produced by an individual or small

team, there is much more freedom for unique aesthetic styles which may

compliment or otherwise influence the story told. Adaptations in general can

also allow writers to give their own take on stories they like (or alternatively,

allow them to take on the challenge of telling the story in a way they feel is

better). Adaptations are also an excellent vehicle for exploring genre

deconstructions, as the readers would already have been made familiar with

genre conventions that the original material includes.

This thesis will explore the process of adapting material into comic book format

and the difficulties that may arise in doing so. The fundamentals of writing will

be discussed, and then contextualised with how they apply to both comics and

adaptations specifically. Past and current trends among comic book adaptations

will then be covered, and three adaptations will be analysed in detail,

Borderlands, Vol. 1, 2 & 3 (2013-2015), Team Fortress Comics (2009-2017)

and Alice in Murderland (2014-2018). The specific ways these adaptations differ

from their source material and their strengths and weaknesses will be covered.

Unofficial comic book adaptations in fandom will also be discussed.

The thesis will lead into an adaptation project of the legend of Saint George and

the Dragon. The writing techniques learned in the first part of the thesis will be

applied to that story in order to create an interesting take on the original myth.

Once the project is completed, it will be reflected upon in order to learn from

what succeeded and how it could be improved.

1.1 Legal Concerns Regarding Adaptations

Before attempting to adapt material into a comic book, it is important to have a

good grasp on copyright laws regarding intellectual property. These laws are

different between regions, which can lead to works that are protected in one

region still being considered infringing in other regions. Specifically, the number

of years after the creator’s death that a work remains protected for is different

between countries and between mediums. For instance, television broadcasts

in the UK are only protected for 50 years starting from the end of the calendar

year from first broadcast (Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1998 c. 48 6).

However, even these current laws are not to be relied on too heavily, as

copyright laws are ever changing. Notably, the Copyright Term Extension Act of

1998, also known as the Sonny Bono Act, or derisively, the Mickey Mouse Act,

extended the term for valid copyright from life plus 50 years, or 75 years from

publication of a corporate owned copyright (U.S. Pub. L 94-553), to life plus 70

years for privately owned copyright and either 120 years after creation or 95

years after publication for corporate copyright, whichever term would be shorter

(U.S. Pub. L 105-298). This means that it is not wise to plan or create a project

that relies on material entering the public domain in the near future, as it is

entirely possible that the work will remain protected if new terms for copyright

are introduced.

FIGURE 1. Expansion of U.S. copyright law between 1790 and 2008.

There are some ways that a creator can use material that is still protected by

copyright, however. There is the option of attaining a literary acquisition

contract, a contract that gives the included parties all or some rights to create

adaptations (Litwak 2012). The contract allows the purchaser to use the

included copyright, though most contracts only allow use of it in one medium. It

usually also allows for the purchaser to modify the copyrighted material as

much as they want in their adaptation. However, some countries and regions

give artists “moral rights”, which may prevent purchasers from changing an

artist’s work without their permission (Litwak 2012) in order to uphold the

integrity of the original work.

Literary acquisition contracts, of course, cost money. Potential purchasers can

pay a smaller fee (often 10% of the asking price of the full contract) in order to

ensure they are the only party able to buy the rights during a short period (often

one year) to allow them to gather resources and outside funding so that they

can afford to pay the whole asking price. This is called optioning the rights.

The prices for these contracts often mean that individuals looking to adapt

material will most likely have a hard time getting a return on investment. Artists

looking to adapt specific work may have the opportunity to work with a larger

producer through a work for hire contract. These contracts often absolve the

artists involved in the creation of adapted material and place legal culpability on

the producer that the work is produced for. If an artist makes a name for

themselves creating free fanworks for an established copyright, they may be

given priority when applying for such work.

There are also some protections for artists using copyrighted material in their

own works. An artist is allowed to use copyrighted material without the holder’s

permission if the artists work is “transformative”. Due to its nature, the definition

of transformative works is not black and white, but it primarily covers work under

the categories of criticism or comment, news reporting, research or parody

(Copyright Alliance n.d.).

While the first three are relatively straightforward, parodies of copyrighted

material have been rife with legal accusations from copyright holders. Fair use

under parody generally allows a fairly extensive use of the copyrighted work, in

order to “conjure up” the original (Stim R 2019). Many copyright holders may

take offense to use in this way, especially if the parody is considered mean-

spirited, but historically courts have sided with the accused in such cases.

However, fair use does not cover satire. This is under the assumption that

parody is referencing the specific work being drawn from, while satire offers

commentary and criticism about the world, not that specific work (Copyright

Alliance n.d.).

1.2 History of Comic Book Adaptations

Adapting media into comic books has been a part of the medium since its

infancy. While quite different from what modern-day readers may consider

comics, the works of Hieronymus Bosch may be considered early comics, as

many of his multi-panel biblical paintings depict sequential events, qualifying it

as sequential art. Many other early comics adapted religious or historical

material as several images accompanied by text, such as The Life of St.

Laurentius by Antonio Tempesta (1599). This format can be seen below.

PICTURE 1. The Life of St. Laurentius. (Tempesta 1599)

As the popularity of comic art grew and access to printing presses became

more widespread, more writers looked to comics as a way to engage readers.

However, the majority of popular comics were political cartoons or geared

towards children. Some authors adopted the style of images accompanied by

text present in early comics in order to add illustrations to novels, but there were

not many well-known adaptations of other works in this period of growth for

comics in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. One of the few works adapted

into a comic in this period was an adaptation of Robinson Crusoe by François

Aimé Louis Dumoulin in 1810, which featured 150 engravings accompanied by

text. This may have been the first adaptation of classical literature in comic book

format.

The twentieth century saw widespread growth for comic books, as well as a

boom in comics adapting established material. The number of comic book

adaptations grew slowly in the first half of the century, including comics

adapting works such as Tarzan of the Apes and Armageddon 2419 A.D., but

the growing popularity of movies served to accelerate the number of comic book

adaptations produced. As home video was less widespread, publishers saw

comic books as an easy way for audiences to re-experience a movie that was

no longer being shown in theatres. While far from the size of their current-day

media empire, Warner Brothers, Marvel and DC all had a hand in popularising

this form of comic book adaptations, with notable examples being The Wizard of

Oz (1975) and Star Trek. These adaptations were not exclusive to films,

however, as several publications in the UK featuring licensed comic strips

based upon popular TV series. Notably, Doctor Who Magazine has been in

publication since 1979 and has featured original comics based on the TV series.

As home video grew more popular, this form of comic book adaptation gave

way to a more transformative approach. Now, publishers can either assume that

the reader will be able to access the original film or TV show due to the

prevalence of online streaming services, so a level of required knowledge can

be less of a barrier to entry. Because of this, many authors tasked with creating

tie-in adaptations choose to explore themes or elements of the original material

that they feel deserve expansion.

There has been a drive in recent years to revisit classic media to bring in new

fans. While many popular franchises have continued to publish continuous

comic book series since their initial release, several new adaptations have

begun publication in the past decade, such as Back to the Future (IDW

Publishing 2015-2017) and Labyrinth (Archaia 2018). Both of these adaptations

follow the current trend of adaptations adding a new layer of depth to the

original by showing character backstory that was left unsaid or implied, as well

as showing scenes from the original movies from a new perspective.

Fan-comics, parodies and dōjinshi (dōjin, 同人, lit. "same person", used to mean

a person or group of people sharing a common goal or interest, and shi, 誌, a

suffix generally meaning “periodical publication”), while having very few legal

protections, are all very popular varieties of adapting material into comics. As

different people come to different opinions on a piece of media, many artists

and writers will want to create using the pieces from the original in order to tell

their own stories. If an artist or writer sees untapped potential in a piece of

media, they may want to explore deeper themes through the setting and

characters. On the other hand, many people who grew attached to the

characters in a work may create fanworks that allow the characters to have a

happy end, with a lot of fanworks taking this more optimistic approach to

adapting the original. There are many cases of pieces of media staying relevant

long after their release due to dedicated fanbases creating fanworks, as these

fanworks may reach people who were unaware of the original.

Perhaps the most common form of fanwork of this nature is fancomics. Most are

published online, as it allows other fans to find them easily as well as allowing

them to be free to ensure that the creator does not have to worry about

infringing upon copyright laws. While the majority of fancomics are free, the

audience gained through them sometimes allows artists to create a name for

themselves online and can often lead to them being able to make a career out

of their art online.

The trend of fancomic artists going on to become professional artists or writers

is especially common in the dōjinshi scene. While Japan has similar copyright

laws to the rest of the world, dōjinshi are considered shinkokuzai (親告罪), a

concept sometimes also known in Europe as Antragsdelikt (German, from

antrag, petition, and delikt, offence). This means that the author of the fanwork

can only be prosecuted if the holder of the copyright files a direct complaint.

Most copyright holders in Japan take an unofficial policy of non-enforcement, as

most consider dōjinshi to be beneficial to the commercial manga market. In

2016, the then-prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe put out a statement

regarding the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement and affirmed that dōjinshi do

not compete in the market with original works and do not damage the original

creator’s profits (Stimson 2016). This does not mean that dōjinshi artists are

protected from legal consequences, as several copyright holders have

prosecuted creators for several reasons, such as possibly damaging the image

of the original or being confusing to readers if not properly stated that it is

fanmade and non-official. However, dōjinshi creators still maintain some level of

protection over their works, as the Intellectual Property High Court of Japan

ruled that sites which share dōjinshi without the creator’s consent are in

violation of copyright law, with the prosecuted site required to pay ¥2.19 million

to one such creator (Kurihara 2020).

2 WRITING TECHNIQUES

The process of writing a story is something that is hard to generalise, as it

varies greatly between individuals and the type of story being crafted. Some

writers are famously known for doing very little planning and pre-production

work, such as Stephen King, but for many others this approach may lead to

unfocused storytelling and a lack of audience appeal. However, too much

planning can equally harm a story, as time spent planning is time taken away

from actually writing.

To help negate these concerns, different writers have created structured plans

to follow that can help writers focus in on what elements of their story work best,

and which elements need extra work. One of the most popular ones currently is

the Six Core Competencies model, created by Larry Brooks in his 2011 book,

Story Engineering. In his own words (2011, 14), Brooks’ believes that “a failure

... in any one of the core competencies will almost certainly kill your chances” of

a story being executed successfully. While these six points can’t be used to

mechanically craft a story without any inspired creative input, they are a good

baseline for all writers to consider while planning or working on their projects.

The six core competencies are outlined as

Concept

Character

Theme

Structure

Scene execution

Writing voice

Concept is not to be confused with the idea or a premise for a story. A good

concept is intriguing, but does not spend its time on elements that are part of

any of the other core competencies. To use an example from Story Engineering

(2011), “an idea would be to write a story about raising the titanic from the

bottom of the sea ... a concept would be to suggest that there are secrets still

hidden there that certain forces would kill to keep concealed. A premise would

be to create an archetypical hero who is hired to do this job and in doing so

saves his country”. While the idea is often the initial draw the writer imagines,

the concept must focus around the reader. It often asks a question that the

reader wants to find out the answer to. A good concept doesn’t end with the

concept itself: it implies events to come.

Building an appealing character is often more complex than expected, despite

the wealth of instructional material available surrounding the subject.

Professional advice can vary depending on the individual, the genre, the target

audience and the situations the character is placed in. The most well known

format for building character is from Joseph Campbell’s 1949 book, The Hero

with a Thousand Faces, where he lies out the structure of the hero’s journey.

The individual points of this journey can be seen in picture 2. This is also known

the monomyth, which is the theory that many stories, with a special focus on

mythological narratives, follow a fundamentally similar narrative structure

focusing on a hero and their exploration of an unfamiliar, separate world from

their normal life.

PICTURE 2. A diagram based on Campbell’s theory of the hero’s journey.

Campbell’s theory on narrative structure has received both praise and criticism

from writers and scholars. From the point of view of the six core competencies,

it may be a good start for planning how a character will interact with the story as

a whole, but it doesn’t go into enough detail to craft a truly appealing character.

A protagonist that is solely driven by their action within the story is often flat,

and in the worst cases, it can feel as though the plot is simply moving the

character around in order to progress events. A character with no stake in the

conflict presented by the plot is often an ineffectual character.

While the protagonist is often the character with the most singular focus from

both the writer and readers, it is important that all characters in the narrative

both serve a purpose – either to the plot or to progressing character

development – in order to have the world presented in the story feel tangible.

The size and variety of the supporting cast of characters can vary wildly, but it is

important to create points of comparison between different characters, so that

the reader can better construct an idea of each characters attitudes and

morality, as well as how those features manifest within the specific world the

story takes place in.

Theme is often harder to quantify within the text of a work. While the plot is

what a story is, theme is what the story means. It is always considered with

real-world implications. A story can exist as a narrative outside of the time it is

created in and the person or people who created it, but it is impossible to fully

separate a creative work from its origins within the real world.

When it comes to implementing theme, it is something that must be considered

when creating any elements of the story. Only considering the chosen theme for

some elements and creating with a disregard for theme for other elements will

inevitably lead to the overall message and meaning of the text being

compromised. It is important to note that a theme does not always have to be

grand and society-defining, but it does need to be something that can be

conceptualised outside of fiction, for instance, a story with a grand theme could

be about the ways in which people are dehumanized by oppressors and the

specific purposes of this dehumanization, while a less grand but still strong

theme could be a story about moving on from childhood comfort items in the

transition from childhood to adolescence. Theme should be how a writer

emotionally connects with the readers.

The structure of a work is much more dependent on the medium. Screenplays

often have a very rigid structure of setup, conflict, climax and resolution. Stage

plays almost always follow a multi-act structure, with a distinct peak of action or

drama at the end of each act. Novels are less bound by structural rules, but

good novels still tend to approach and resolve conflicts in a consistent manner.

The main belief of structure is to always prioritise the “big picture”. Each scene

has to be well executed on its own, but well executed scenes can happen in

stories of any quality. Structure must be considered as one of the first building

blocks to be laid. As Brooks puts it, structure is the foundation, girders, support

beams and floor plans that allow a building to stand upright (2011, 154). He

compares story structure – planning story beats in a methodical, precise and

purposeful manner – and architecture – building something beautiful and artistic

around that structure. While all houses are structures, only some houses would

truly be considered architecture. The same goes for stories; the other core

competencies can’t save a story without the necessary plan of how the story will

be executed.

This advice is solid, but of course it can be hard to translate “create a solid plan

for story beats” into working on a project. Brooks continues to outline this by

introducing six writing talents to further support the core competencies. While

the six core competencies would be the equivalent to understanding the rules of

a sport, these talents are comparable to athletic ability (2011, 252). They are

something that can be trained, but only through practice and a concrete

knowledge of the project being worked on and the talents themselves can they

be implemented well.

These six talents are distilled into six key words that must be delivered upon

within the story (Brooks 2011, 253-255).

Compelling – What question is your story posing to the reader, and is the

answer compelling enough for anyone to care?

Hero – Why does the reader care about watching the protagonist’s

journey? How are they supposed to empathise with them?

Conflict – What is the main opposing force in the story and how does it

add dramatic tension to the events of the story?

Context – Arguably the most overlooked nuance in storytelling. What

subtext runs through each scene? What forces influence the actions

taken by the characters? What is the overall thematic context, and how

does it manifest in the moment at hand?

Architecture – Are the events that are set up delivered upon properly? Do

the events of the story progress in a coherent manner? Are there shifts

and surprises, both in terms of narrative exposition and dramatic

tension?

Resolution – Does the story deliver a poignant, emotional end? Does it

make sense? What does the end of the story imply about the characters

and world after the ending?

Scene execution can be quite subjective and dependent on medium, as it can

encompass both the purpose of the scene within the story as a whole and the

mastery of the medium within the scene. A scene in a movie with excellent

cinematography may be memorable, but if it serves no purpose to the narrative,

it will stick out for the wrong reasons, while a scene in a novel that is a key

character moment for the protagonist may feel underwhelming if the prose does

not properly convey the gravitas needed.

In order to keep scenes interesting and relevant is good to ask oneself if a

scene serves at least one of three purposes: it progresses the main conflict of

the story, it adds dimension or context to a character or it helps convey the

setting or world of the story. Ideally, each scene has at least two of these

criteria, and if possible, all three.

Another key to good scene execution is to have a scene end in a way that either

encapsulates the purpose or mood of the scene, or makes it so that the reader

or viewer feels compelled to continue. In a truly skilled authors work, you may

be able to get a sense of how plot points lead to each other simply by the last

sentence of each scene. By constructing scenes in this way, the story has a

natural flow and progression to it that remains easy to follow from one plot point

to the next. It is also very important to remain aware of how much information

overall has been delivered in a scene, to ensure that information is conveyed to

the reader or viewer at a consistent pace, as it can severely weaken a scenes

power within the story as a whole if it feels as though there has been too much

exposition or too little intrigue.

Finally, writing voice refers to the individual flairs and “creative voice” that a

writer uses to tell the story. Though the name of the competency seems as

though it would refer to the style of prose contained in a novel, it refers to

anything that can be pointed out in a work that readers or viewers would tie to

the artist as a key part of their individual style. For instance, short, information

heavy montages with fast transitions and zoom-ins is a key hallmark of Edgar

Wright’s directing style, as seen multiple times throughout The Cornetto Trilogy

- a colloquial name given to Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and

The World’s End (2013).

Unfortunately, developing writing voice is a very individualistic process and

often takes years of trying and failing. It is something that is hard to “artificially

produce”, that is, attempting to create with specific quirks that do not come

naturally through a mastery of the medium and writing process often only

comes off as clucky and inexperienced. Also, what techniques work in one

medium may not translate well to another. Rich, descriptive writing in a novel

detailing a setting very clearly could easily be boring and exhaustive in a movie,

while an immersive game that refers to the player as a character throughout

would be hard to translate to any medium that doesn’t have the same level of

interactivity.

To continue from the last point, it is worthwhile to a writer to become familiar

with the techniques that work and do not work in other mediums aside from the

one they are working within, as learning how to execute stories in other

mediums can lead to the writer having a greater awareness of their chosen

mediums strengths, as well as inspiration on how they could implement some

techniques from other mediums in an interesting, new way.

A good starting point for comparing writing in different mediums is to consider

the “level of reality” and how it differs between mediums and works within the

same medium. Howard Ashman, the songwriter for The Little Mermaid (1989),

Beauty and The Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992), discussed this in a lecture he

gave to Disney staff when he was brought onboard before the “Disney

renaissance”, which he is credited to have kick-started with his beliefs on

scriptwriting. He asserts that the reason both musical theatre and animated

musicals are seen as believable by audiences is because the level of reality is

different to a live-action film. Live-action attempts to portray events within the

film as happening within a similar reality to our own. However, as people in real

life do not break out into song, the audience is able to suspend their disbelief to

a greater extent in musicals, as it exists further from our own reality (Ashman

n.d.).

This concept can be further extrapolated to apply to other mediums and genres.

In film, the audience is expected to notice that an object is important if the

camera lingers on it, even if none of the characters in the film take note of it until

the moment it is used. In a novel, the writer must put a more specific focus on

describing said object, otherwise it would be too easily written off as part of

setting the scene. Audiences in a theatre accept that the actors on stage exist in

the same physical space as them and that events happening in the story are

being portrayed in real time, and so will be more accepting of small moments of

“dead air” as the actors can pause the scene to wait out the audience’s reaction

so that their next line is heard better.

These different levels of reality vary even more in animated and illustrated

mediums, like video games, animation and comics. As the characters in these

works are visually different enough from living humans, the mediums

exaggerate reality in both their aesthetic and narrative. This exaggeration can

be used in every genre, from outlandish comedy to dramatic action. Characters

are able to act in much less realistic ways and visually appear much less like a

real human, and audiences accept it as long as it is portrayed as normal within

the world the characters inhabit.

What may be more interesting is how this suspension of disbelief can affect

storytelling. Video games often “talk” directly to the player in order to convey

mechanical advice. This relationship between player and game has been

subverted a lot, such as by bringing real-world concepts into the world of the

game as Metal Gear Solid (1998) does, but is growing in popularity as a way to

get players to re-examine the game and video games as a whole. This is most

often done by having a character within the game (or the game as an entity

itself) be self aware and having them question their own existence within a

piece of media. The idea of elements of a fictional story bleeding into the real

world has been done in all mediums, a notable example being Ghostwatch

(1992), a pseudo-documentary that pretended that a ghost they were

investigating had manifested into the live studio. However, as video games are

an inherently interactive medium, the dissonance felt when that interactivity and

power is taken away is greater than with a story the viewer experiences

passively.

2.1 Comic Specific Writing Techniques

Comics exist in an odd in-between with their interactivity. Of course, the reader

has no impact on the actions within the story, but as a visual medium,

information is processed as soon as it is seen, rather than needing to take the

time to read. This means that the pace that the story progresses is much more

dependent on the reader than even in novels, as the reader is still dependent on

their own reading speed and how the writer describes things.

This is often incorporated into the “page-turn”, a technique where comic artists

will place one small panel of a character reacting to something unseen at the

bottom of a set of two pages, to build anticipation for the reader to turn the

page. Once they do, they are met with a larger panel, full page or spread, which

gives a payoff to that anticipation. It is a technique that is especially effective in

horror comics, with Junji Ito utilizing this technique in almost all of his horror

manga. The build-up to one of these page turns can be seen in picture 3.

PICTURE 3. Junji Ito builds anticipation for a whole page in Uzumaki.

Scott McCloud touches on this point in his book, Understanding Comics (1994).

Due to the nature of comics, the reader is welcome to go over all the images on

a page as much as they want and at any speed, so all readers interpret the

speed of actions being taken by the characters slightly differently. While novels

are visually constructed entirely in the reader’s mind’s eye, comics have enough

visual structure so that the reader only has to imagine the gaps between the

panels. To best explain this, we can compare it to the process of inbetweens in

animation. If the action would be conveyed properly with fewer inbetweens, like

the character moving their hand in the above picture, the action feels slower. If

the action would require more inbetweens, like a character going from standing

still to pointing dramatically, the action would feel faster. Comic artists can take

this a step further by implying action, even if the reader doesn’t see it, such as

by cutting away, like in cinematography, or by using visual shortcuts, like motion

lines – lines that trail after an object or character to convey movement. Motion

lines can also be drawn from the edge of the panel pointing inward, which is

often used to convey a general sense of “action”. This can be seen in the first

panel in picture 4.

PICTURE 4. McCloud stating the reader’s active role in the story.

Panelling is a lot more technical than just which actions are shown. The layout

of panels on a page is very important for artists to consider, as well as how the

actions within panels will read throughout pages. For instance, artists may try to

have the line of action from one panel lead to where the reader should look

next, or by placing text and speech bubbles in such a way that they help guide

the reader through the page. It is also common to have characters eye lines

assist in guiding where the reader should look next, as the reader will inevitably

be drawn to the characters faces as a focal point. These techniques are most

commonly referred to as “page flow” or “panel flow”.

In picture 5, Stephanie Folse of The Hooded Utilitarian draws arrows to show

how Tite Kubo creates flow throughout his pages in his manga, Bleach (2001-

2016). Not only does the character’s action lead towards where the reader

should look in the next panel, the speech bubbles are placed so that they are

close to the next bubble in sequence. Also, the speech bubble on the bottom of

the first page overlaps the gutter, which gives the reader the impression that the

actions taking place in both connected panels are happening during the time it

would take the character to say those words.

PICTURE 5. Arrows showing how the reader is lead through two pages of

Bleach, annotated by Folse, S. (read right to left)

One can also see in pictures 6 and 7 something known as “the T rule”. This is

where the gutters make the shape of a T. Rachel Thorn explains the rule as a

way to avoid confusion in the reader. The idea is to cross the “stem” of the T,

the line that intersects perpendicularly, before crossing the “arm”, the line that

cuts off the stem. This rule minimises the presence of “crossroads”, where the

gutters form a “+” shape, which causes readers difficulty in intuiting where they

should be reading next (Thorn, 2018).

PICTURE 6. Illustration explaining the T rule.

PICTURE 7. Annotated panels showing the T rule in practice. (read right to left)

Finally, the page also shows how the comic artist can split up text spoken by the

same character in order to affect how it is read. Not only does splitting up the

bubbles aid in leading the reader from one panel to the next, as well as allowing

the characters to be well framed by the text, it naturally conveys pauses in

speech or thought. By combining this with slight differences in how the text

bubbles are drawn, the writer can better convey the tone, inflection and speech

patterns of different characters, as well as better sell their reactions and

emotions in a scene.

Now that visual techniques have been laid out, a brief step-by-step process of

creating a comic will be detailed. The early stages of creating a comic are

largely the same as in other mediums, where the writer conceptualises and

builds on the base idea for the project. Where the process begins to differ from

other mediums is in creating the script.

Like scripts for film or the stage, comic scripts are the main guide for creating

the visuals. In comics writing, there are generally two types of script one can

find, a full script, which is close to what one can expect from a script with

finalised dialogue and general directions for panels and action, and a “plot style”

script, sometimes called a “Marvel style” script. This form of scriptwriting for

comics was developed by Stan Lee in the 1960s in order to give comic artists

more freedom to interpret the events of the story to better allow them to work on

multiple projects at once (Larson 2014).

In most cases, the tasks for scriptwriting and comic art are split between

multiple people. Depending on the scope of the project, there may be separate

artists responsible for the pencils, the general layout and sketch for the pages,

the inks, drawing clean lines that best convey the original sketch, and colours,

which can vary in visual style a great deal between comics. Sometimes a

separate artist is also employed to create “flats”, where they break up the

different areas established by the inks so that the main colour artist can use the

magic wand tool to work on one area at a time.

The process of lettering comics is also often tasked to a separate person. Some

projects may have the letterer decide the final placement and look of speech

bubbles, text and sound effects, while some may allow the penciller to draw the

bubbles themselves to best convey the tone they have in mind. Due to the

integral nature of text to a comic, the letterer often works closely with the

penciller from the early stages of a comic to ensure that the speech bubbles are

laid out in an appealing and easy to understand way.

After this, the comic is handed off to editorial and publishing teams. Depending

on the publisher and platform the comic is intended for, this process may either

be rather quick and simple or planned out far in advance to the comic’s

completion. While historically comics were mostly published in newspapers and

magazines, today there exists several different options for publishing comics,

from graphic novels to online distributors to independent online hosting.

2.2 Writing for Adaptations

When referencing previous material for writing an adaptation, the first concern is

the purpose of the adaptation. Historically, adaptations served as a way to

retrofit morals and lessons to myths passed through oral history. As a

community’s lives and surroundings change, there arises a need to

recontextualise the stories carried by people in order to better suit the current

needs and views of the community. An ancient story may serve as a way to

warn children about the dangers of wandering alone at night due to wild animals

that may venture closer to populated areas. As time passes and the general

area that these hypothetical people inhabit becomes safer and more built-up,

the story may be altered in order to warn children about people who may have

malicious intentions instead of animals.

In addition to modifying stories to better suit the community’s needs, religious

adaptations have historically served as a way to corroborate stories and add

legitimacy. Timothy Corrigan asserts that before the sixteenth century, the

majority of adaptations of religious texts were of this manner, and typically

either summarised or recontextualised the meaning of the text to be better

understood by whomever it was directed to (Leitch 2017). However, after this

period there was a shift in the purpose of adapting such texts from commentary

to criticism, which encouraged deeper analysis of the original and allows for a

more subjective viewpoint.

This shift formed the basis for modern-day adaptational studies. While the

individual aspects scrutinised will differ between different individual approaches

and mediums, this focus on understanding and interpreting the purpose of

elements in the original and how to reinterpret them is at the core of analysing

and writing adaptations. It is impossible to create an adaptation without first

being a reader or viewer of the original, and as such writers wanting to adapt

specific material must first establish a personal interpretation of the original

work’s themes and meanings.

The main concern with this is that analysing media in this way will inevitably

lead to a subjective and individual perspective on the original work. This can

overlap with the different reasons why an adaptation will be created and can

lead to different people creating vastly different adaptations of the same work.

The individual aspects of a piece of media that only work in the original’s

medium and how to better fit them into other mediums also have a level of

subjectivity.

While each writer will focus on different aspects of a work when approaching an

adaptation, perhaps the first concern is whether the writer intends to faithfully

adapt the original work. This can mean different things to different projects, but

the writer must consider that any work that feels as if it does not capture the

feeling or meaning of the original may have that considered as a point of failure

if they cannot adequately convince the reader that there is a reason to do this.

Once that has been decided, the writer must next consider what elements will

be the focus of the adaptation. These do not have to be the same as the

original, but it is a good idea to work with themes that at least feel tangential to

those put forth by the original work in order to maintain a sense of consistency.

The personal differences between interpreting themes between the creator of

the original and the creator of the adaptation will often be at the forefront of an

adaptational work, so it is important that a writer have a concrete and thorough

idea of their viewpoint going into writing.

Inevitably, some elements must be cut or altered in order to better suit whatever

medium the adaptation is in. A film adaptation will struggle to show a

character’s thought process as intricately as the original book, and thus must

use other ways to establish a character’s mental state through careful

cinematography and an actor’s performance. These elements that require

alteration can also differ across genre. A scene of two characters confronting

each other may appear very different between an action movie and a romantic

comedy. As such, a writer must have an understanding of the strengths and

weaknesses of their medium as well as the medium of the original work.

Elements of the story and characters will also have to be altered to fit within the

limitations of the medium the adaptation has chosen. Novels may be able to

introduce a much wider cast of characters than a film, as well-written narration

may allow for a reader to understand a character with relatively little “screen-

time”, but this cannot be the case in a more visual medium. As such, a writer

must consider what elements are essential for the purpose of the adaptation

and then work to remove any extraneous parts. In her 1992 book, Linda Seger

discusses how “narrator-observer” characters can be commonplace in critically

successful books, such as The Great Gatsby, as they allow for the reader to

use them as a “normal” baseline to better contrast eccentric, larger-than-life

characters (Seger 1992). However, these passive protagonists are ineffectual in

film, which led to the 1974 film adaptation being underwhelming. In comparison,

the 2013 film adaptation conveyed this sense of excess and eccentricity by

amping up the extravagance of the parties and locations so that their cost is

more understandable by modern audiences.

How theme is explored can differ between mediums, genres and audiences, as

it is often the most subjective part of analysing media. While overarching

themes can be more obvious in novels and plays, it is often overlooked in order

to tell a cohesive story in film (Seger 1992). Adaptations may have more room

to incorporate themes, as there is the additional layer of depth granted when the

adaptation is compared to the original work, but it is depth that may not be

apparent to mainstream audiences. Adaptations may find success in

condensing the grander themes the original work may have and focusing on

one specific aspect of that theme. For instance, Logan (2017) is an adaptation

of the character of Wolverine from DC. While a lot of the X-Men comics

containing him have loose themes of protecting helpless people against

superpowered threats, the film focuses on Logan becoming a pseudo father-

figure to a young mutant and protecting her. The subject of the theme may be

different, but it allows the film to feel accurate to the world and characters the

comics created.

2.3 Applying Writing Techniques to Comic Adaptations

Comic book adaptations are often looked down upon within the field of

adaptational studies as a “lesser” medium. This may be attributed to the general

view of comics as merely an offshoot of traditional literature or simply as one

homogenous genre. Writers must be careful not to let this view of comics

unconsciously affect their adaptation and to view comics as a medium equally

capable of contribution to academic discussion of the media which they adapt.

Colin Beineke notes that, within the field of comic book adaptations, there tends

to be a split between “adaptation” and “appropriation”. He defines this

“appropriation” as an extreme form of adaptation, drawing from the word’s

meaning “to make one’s own” (Beineke 2011). This form of adaptation generally

encompasses works that significantly change aspects of genre, time, location,

characters and so on. While semantics would argue that these comics would

not count as true adaptations, due to the popularity of this method of adaptation

with both writers and readers, they should be considered a good benchmark for

writers looking to create their own adaptation.

As previous chapters have explained, a writer must have a good understanding

of the mediums of the original work and the adaptation. However, due to the

wide variety of styles and approaches to creating a comic, a writer must

consider which of these styles may compliment their adaptation. The writer

must also consider what visual style they will employ. Comics allow for a great

deal of variety in visual styles, however due to the prevalence of cartooning

within comics, many readers’ interpretations of the adaptation may be

influenced by styles that stray further from the visual styles that are standard in

the industry. This may not always be a bad thing, as many comic artists in the

past have been able to convey a tone solely through well crafted visual styles.

This can also be combined with comics’ ability to shift in art styles as the

narrative requires to better sell the emotional high points of a story.

Dirk Vanderbeke asserts that one thing comics are suited to do in regards to

adaptation is to represent an individual subjective experience of reality –

especially that of “non-standard” characters, such as addicts, religious fanatics

and imaginative children (Goggin & Hassler-Forest 2010). Beineke further

elaborates on this by suggesting that, by use of the combination of narrative

present in comics with visual techniques established in art movements such as

abstraction and surrealism, comics are able to depict both the individual

thoughts of a character as well as their abstract cognitive process (Beineke

2011).

Translating theme from other mediums requires the most amount of personal

interpretation on the part of the adaptor, as how themes are interpreted requires

comparison to the interpreter’s views of the world. As comics utilise both visual

and textual elements to tell a story and convey theme, both of these elements

should properly serve the themes the writers wish to implement in the

adaptation. Thierry Groensteen suggests a method of implementing theme

continuously throughout a comic with the technique of “braiding”. He defines

this as occurring in two different states at once: synchronically – how panels

interact with each other on the same page, and diachronically – the reader

recognising the reoccurrence of similar images or iconography throughout a

work (Groensteen 2007). Braiding synchronically may create a singular moment

of readers being confronted with the work’s theme, while braiding diachronically

will allow readers to perceive themes throughout the entire length of the story.

3 BENCHMARKING

Three adaptations were chosen to use as benchmarking for how published

works have approached adapting material into a comic in the past. These three

are

Borderlands, Vol. 1, 2 & 3 (Neumann 2013-2015)

Team Fortress Comics (various 2009-2017)

Alice in Murderland (Yuki 2014-2018)

Borderlands and Team Fortress Comics are both adapting video games, which

is the medium besides comics that the thesis writer is most familiar with. As

such, a deeper analysis of which techniques were executed upon well would be

possible. Video game adaptations often also require a much looser

interpretation of the work, as a key driving force – the player – is absent. Alice in

Murderland was chosen as it is adapting classical literature, which will allow

some guidance to be drawn from for adapting historical legend for the thesis

project.

3.1 Borderlands, Vol. 1, 2 & 3

Borderlands is a first-person shooter for PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3,

developed by Gearbox Studios and published by 2K Games. It was released in

2009 to positive reviews and good sales, reaching over 2 million units sold in

just under two months. Its sequel Borderlands 2 was released in 2012 and was

also received well critically, but vastly outsold its predecessor, reaching over 5

million units sold in a similar time period.

The games are known for popularising the looter-shooter style of gameplay,

where a player’s progression is often defined by them attaining new weapons

and equipment, often with semi-randomised attributes. Outrageous and often

juvenile humour is a key part of the writing, as well as offbeat but personable

characters, and is often pointed to as one of the key draws of the series as it

makes sure not to take itself too seriously. The series is also known for a

distinct cel-shaded art style, achieved both by the distinct character design by

Scott Kester and a number of post-processing effects, such as drawing sharp,

comic book style outlines around the characters. These features can be seen in

picture 8.

PICTURE 8. Screenshot from Borderlands showing the game’s visual style.

To coincide with the release of Borderlands 2, a series of single issue comics

were developed alongside it, detailing the story of the player characters from

the first game. The first issue, focusing on Roland, was released on the same

day as Borderlands 2, and the subsequent issues were released in intervals of

two months. These comics were written by Mikey Neumann with art by Agustin

Padilla, colours by Esther Sanz, lettering by Shawn Lee (Vol. 1 only) and Neil

Vyetake.

The comics have more of a superhero comic style of art and colouring

compared to the games. However, this works to the comic’s benefit, as the

rough crosshatching and linework allow it to feel visually similar to the original

aesthetic, while still looking visually distinct enough to give it its own identity.

Sanz’s colour work also helps the comics feel similar to the games, as she

alternates between dusty, desaturated colours for the majority of the comic, with

emotional high points favouring more exaggerated shadows and bright oranges

and reds. An example of Padilla using stark shadows as emphasis can be seen

in picture 9.

PICTURE 9. Panels from Borderlands Origins showing the comic’s visual style.

Borderlands tells the story of four “vault hunters”, who are the playable

characters players can choose between, adventuring across the wasteland

planet Pandora in order to find one of the legendary vaults left behind by an

ancient race. The four main characters are Roland, an ex-soldier who was

betrayed by his superiors, Lilith, one of six “sirens” who possess incredible alien

powers, Mordecai, an aloof bounty hunter and Brick, a berserker with a strong

sense of loyalty. The four characters are relatively un-developed, with most of

their personality being defined by their gameplay mechanics.

Anthony Burch, the lead writer for Borderlands 2, said in a Reddit AMA that

adapting these four characters into NPCs (non-playable characters) was quite

difficult due to this limited characterisation (Burch 2012). Many of their voice

lines were generic quips and thus didn’t offer much insight into their personality

outside of combat. This is undoubtedly the most difficult part of adapting a video

game into a comic, especially when the source is as comedy-driven as

Borderlands.

Volume 1, Origins, shows backstories for the characters, which are mostly

consistent with what has been shown in the games – Roland is betrayed by the

Crimson Lance and Lilith inherits her siren powers. These events have only

been loosely discussed in-game, allowing for the adaptation to give the two

some good character depth. Mordecai and Brick have vaguer backstories in-

game, and thus mostly only serves to give us an idea of their personalities.

Mordecai is closer to how he is portrayed in-game, though he does lack some of

his standoffish attitude. Brick’s characterisation, however, is vastly reduced from

how he appears in-game. He barely talks and is much more stoic and

emotionless than he was in the games, though the comic does make a point to

highlight his protectiveness of children and animals. While this volume was

written before the release of Borderlands 2, his characterisation in the comic is

disappointing in comparison, as he brought a lot of comedic potential through

his dialogue.

Volume 2, Fall of Fyrestone, retells the first few hours of gameplay of

Borderlands, showing the four characters starting to work as a team and taking

down the first bandit leader of the game. As the issues after this point were

written after the four characters were given more established personalities in

Borderlands 2, their characterisation and interactions here feel like a good

middle ground to how they appeared in-game and how they appeared in volume

1. For instance, Roland and Lilith have a lot of playful banter that feels like a

natural pre-cursor to their relationship in Borderlands 2, and Mordecai’s

alcoholism is hinted at. The character interactions and humour make this comic

both more enjoyable and feels like it captures the spirit of the games better. As

volume 1 had much less dialogue throughout compared to volume 2, one can

see that Neumann does a good job of capturing the characters’ speech

patterns, which is often one of the most important parts of character writing in

order to get the adaptation to feel faithful to the source. The action is also more

in-depth and interesting, with dramatic, wide panels that allow Padilla and Sanz

to use stark shadows and saturated flat backgrounds with a bit of texture to sell

both the action and the connection to the game’s art style.

Volume 3 doesn’t hit the same heights as volume 2, and the pace generally

feels much more sluggish. It strays further from the events of the game does

two things that are very difficult to pull off successfully in an adaptation: adding

a new character and killing off a core character. This volume also adopts a

much more serious tone, with only a few instances of the staple humour of

Borderlands. These things coupled with the art style differing somewhat from

the previous volumes almost makes it feel like a different comic, and may have

lead to the comic not continuing after this point.

The volume focuses on a main recurring NPC of the series, Tannis, an

eccentric scientist who helps guide the four vault hunters. The majority of her

character development in-game was delivered through her personal audio logs,

which were a good way of establishing her state of mind and personality in a

way that did not interrupt gameplay, as they would play in the background while

the player explored or fought. However, these logs have been incorporated

poorly into the adaptation, as they are delivered through blocks of narration over

panels loosely showing the events in the logs. This is not a good way of

delivering this information, as long passages of informational text do not hold

the reader’s attention in the same way that dialogue does, and may lead to

them getting bored and skipping over it.

Overall, these comics are somewhat successful in adapting the source material.

While the writing has some inconsistencies, it does put effort into highlighting

the key appeal of the series – the humour and characters. The art compliments

the series’ aesthetics, with special attention being given to the colours, which

sell the setting and fit with the visual appeal of the games. However, the series

has low points with the writing, which may turn off fans of the series and may be

hard to follow for readers unfamiliar with Borderlands.

3.2 Team Fortress Comics

Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer first-person shooter for PC (with a limited

version released for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3) developed and published by

Valve and released in 2007. It is the sequel to Team Fortress Classic (1999),

which was based on a mod for Quake (1996). While Team Fortress Classic

adopted the art style of Quake with a focus on realistic textures and earth-tones,

Team Fortress 2 created a unique art style both to stand out in the market

which was saturated by gritty, realistic shooters and to allow for gameplay

information to be communicated clearly. Moby Francke, the lead artist and

character designer on the project, said he was influenced by twentieth century

commercial illustrations and popular artists of the era, such as J.C.

Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell (Francke 2018). These

influences, especially Leyendecker, can be clearly seen in early concept art for

the game, as seen below in picture 10.

PICTURE 10. Early concept art for the Soldier character.

The game is known for its series of “Meet the” animations; advertisements that

introduce viewers to one of the nine playable characters – the mercenaries. The

first of these shorts, Meet the Heavy, was released alongside the game, as the

Heavy is often the main class used in marketing material. These shorts also set

the tone for the series’ writing, with a strong focus on character humour playing

off the stereotypes each class is designed as, for example the Medic is a

morally bankrupt German scientist, the Scout is a loud-mouthed lanky athlete

from Boston and the Spy is a cocky, posh Frenchman. While these characters

are all written to be stereotypes, the writers make an effort to make sure to add

characteristics that may break the stereotypes or add dimension to the

character to make sure they aren’t written off as offensive. These shorts were

so successful that in 2014 a pilot for a potential Adult Swim show was

produced, Expiration Date, as shown in picture 11.

PICTURE 11. Several of the playable characters as they appear in the

animated short, Expiration Date (2014).

The game itself doesn’t have much of a story or even any major rules about the

world. For instance, there can be any number of each playable character on

one of the two teams, and the natural fight, die, respawn gameplay loop is not

offered much of an explanation. Later, however, as the game’s fanbase grew

and the writers came up with ideas for updates and in-game events, the lore of

the series was expanded – initially only in external media, such as the “Meet

the” videos and comics, and then later incorporated into limited game modes,

such as the Halloween events and the cooperative game mode “Mann vs

Machine”.

The unique art style and humorous characters naturally attracted a lot of fan

artists that were interested in mimicking the art and writing in their fanworks.

One notable figure in regards to the comics is Heather Campbell, known online

as Makani. In 2008, she posted fan art of the Announcer, who does not appear

in-game and only serves to deliver voice lines (albeit, very personality-filled

voice lines) that tell players the state of the match. Valve liked her design and

purchased it to become the official design for who the character would later

become, the Administrator, who is a major player in the original story told by the

comics. Campbell was hired by Valve as the artist for the majority of the Team

Fortress Comics, and the first official comic featuring her art was “Loose

Canon”, posted in 2010, shown in picture 12.

PICTURE 12. The Administrator as she appeared in 1890, drawn by Campbell.

Initially, the comics were produced as tie-in material for in-game updates. While

they did do a good job of promoting the related items and events that were

added to the game, the lore for the series as a whole began to grow as more

NPC characters were introduced through these comics. Notably, they also

began to develop the mercenaries into well defined characters by establishing

feuds and interactions between them, as well as canonising Team Fortress

Classic within the Team Fortress 2 world. Due to how well these update comics

were received by fans, an official episodic comic was planned for the series,

with the first episode, “Ring of Fired”, releasing in 2013.

Team Fortress Comics has six issues, with a bonus “catch-up” issue intended to

summarise the story points that were relevant in the update comics. A seventh

issue has been planned, but as of writing is still unreleased. The comics are

written by Eric Wolpaw and Jay Pinkerton, with art from Heather Campbell and

Maren Marmulla and colour work by Nick Filardi. The series was initially

intended to publish bi-monthly, but due to the scope issues were published at

greater intervals each time, with the largest gap between entries being between

issue five and six, which were published almost a year and half apart.

The comics start with the nine mercenaries being fired and Mann Co. being

taken over by the previously missing third Mann brother, Grey Mann. Saxton

hale, a recurring character who is the CEO of Mann Co., is ousted by Grey and

leaves the country. The Administrator’s assistant, Miss Pauling, finds that her

boss is missing and only left her with the instruction to hide. Six months later,

Miss Pauling has to gather the nine mercenaries in order to follow the

Administrator’s mysterious orders and take down Grey Mann.

The comics elegantly balance the comedic tone set by the game’s writing with

the more dramatic stakes of the comics’ story. Miss Pauling is a good balance

to the wacky over-the-top personalities of the mercenaries, while still bringing a

lot of comedic value on her own. Notably, the comics make an effort to

humanise the characters and give them satisfying emotional moments that still

manage to feel in-character.

Not only is the art consistently high-quality, the comics utilise their digital format

incredibly well. They are hosted as .CBR files on teamfortress.com, which

allows the reader to click through the pages and have them appear

immediately. Campbell uses this format to add a lot of fast-paced humour that

would be much more difficult to add in a comic with the limitations of physical

printing. It also allows for the more of the page to be revealed at a controlled

pace, with panels appearing on the page as the reader clicks through the comic.

PICTURE 13 & 14. Panels from Team Fortress Comics #1. When the reader

clicks on the page, the comic progresses from the first image to the second.

While these comics are beloved within the fanbase, the status of the final

seventh issue has been a point of discussion. As the sixth issue was released

1.10.2017, many fans have speculated that the comic series was cancelled.

This line of thought was especially prevalent when it was revealed both of the

writers had left Valve, with Wolpaw leaving in February 2017 and Pinkerton

leaving in June of the same year (Phillips 2017). They both later returned to

Valve and were credited as writers on Half Life: Alyx (2020), but the status of

the final Team Fortress Comics issue is still unclear. This uncertainty is

especially upsetting for fans, considering that issue six was left on a massive

cliffhanger.

Even with the final issue going unpublished, the series is a very well done

adaptation, succeeding in capturing the spirit of the original game and adding a

new dimension both for fans and those unfamiliar with the game. The additional

layers of characterisation the comic brought to the nine mercenaries are both

well implemented and have been received well by fans, which is difficult when

adapting any media, let alone something where the story of the original game

was very loose and left up to interpretation. The art maintains the very

intentional art style of the game while allowing it to be produced at the speed

required for a comic, and the colour work is able to suit both humorous and

dramatic moments.

3.3 Alice in Murderland

Alice in Murderland is a gothic fantasy manga written and drawn by Kaori Yuki

and published by Kodansha through Aria and Shonen Magazine Edge from

2014 to 2018. The series adapts Lewis Carroll’s novels, Alice’s Adventures in

Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, where the titular Alice leaves her

normal childhood and ventures through a mysterious and confusing other world.

Like much of Carroll’s bibliography, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland fall within

the literary nonsense genre, which has leant itself to many different

interpretations and adaptations over the years, especially so as the novels are

public domain.

Alice in Murderland follows the current manga trend of “appropriation” over

“adaptation”, and takes key identifying aspects of the original such as

characters, psychology and aesthetic choices and injects a battle-royale style

plot: the nine adopted children of a powerful family must fight each other to

become the heir to their fortune and discover the mysterious secrets that their

adoptive mother and main antagonist of the series is hiding from them.

The creator of the series, Kaori Yuki, is an established figure in the manga

industry and is known for combining a delicate, sensual artistic style with

elements of “twisted” horror and gothic lolita aesthetics, as shown in picture 15.

This combination of aesthetics is on full display with the protagonist, Stella

Kuonji, who gains the split personality of “Bloody Alice”. Yuki conveys this shift

in personality by shifting the visual style between very typical shoujo manga art

and more dramatic, dark art as each scene requires. Her stories tend to focus

on dark psychological aspects of her characters, with themes of incest, suicide,

guilt and madness being common, such as in Earl Cain (1991 – 1994), which

was heavily influenced by several popular pieces of literature, media and real-

life people, including Lewis Carroll’s work. Alice in Murderland also draws heavy

influence from the dense illustrations from the original version of Carroll’s

novels, drawn by John Tenniel, such as Stella’s costume design and the overall

design of the Kuonji mansion.

PICTURE 15. A full page panel as Stella gains the persona of “Bloody Alice”.

Much of Alice in Murderland is quite far from the original source material, with

many of the key characters being portrayed in a much darker and twisted way.

While Lewis Carroll’s work is at the centre of the world the manga creates, other

fictional characters and historical elements are added the story too, such as

Red Riding Hood, Jack the Ripper and Pandora’s Box. Some characters also

incorporate elements from the Japanese cultural zeitgeist, such as Tsukito, the

character taking on the role of the white rabbit, as his name literally means

“moon person”, which references the moon rabbit from East Asian mythology.

All these things create a work that blurs the line between adaptation and original

work, while being impossible to separate from the original work that it draws

from.

As the series progresses, it focuses more on the original elements of the story,

while never fully letting go of the elements from Carroll’s work. The manga’s

focus on deeply troubled characters feels fairly in-line with more contemporary

adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, such as American McGee’s

Alice and the Alice in the Country of Hearts series, which both depict much

more adult and violent versions of the original’s characters. It is likely that the

reason these kinds of adaptations are currently popular as they play with the

idea of a child entering a confusing, sometimes hostile world that was

established in the original, but adapting it to the more action-oriented

sensibilities of modern-day audiences.

This idea of Alice’s journey to wonderland as a metaphor for how a child

perceives the adult world before they fully understand it has been a common

reading of the text, as well as an abstraction of the changes that occur during

puberty. While some scholars, such as Leon Coward, suggest that these overly

psychological readings of the text are inaccurate and do not account for

historical context (Coward 2015), the prevalence of such readings in both

academic and adaptational contexts cements these themes within pop-culture.

Modern adaptations taking a darker approach to the material reinterpret these

themes to suit the reality of current-day children and teenagers, who are

constantly confronted with news of tragedies and violence. Yuki’s depictions of

children being forced to kill each other for survival falls in-line with these

reinterpreted themes.

While Alice in Murderland manages to rework the tone and themes to suit its

needs, it suffers somewhat on a character writing level. Yuki’s characters

contain some of the aspects of literary nonsense that the original novels, but as

the manga holds a greater significance to its plot, the characters feel like

something of a weak-link, with their actions and motives lacking weight. This is

not helped by how panels are structured. While the influence from Tenniel’s

illustrations is shown by how dense some elements can be packed into one

image, this can sometimes lead to the gutters being unclear, which means that

the reader’s eye is not lead from one panel to the next as seamlessly as it

perhaps could. This is shown in picture 16, where the plants from the top-left

panel lead down into the middle panel, which may cause the reader to miss the

text bubble on the right. The characters in the bottom-left panel also overlap into

the middle panel, which distracts from the text bubble to the left of it, as well as

the bottom-right panel.

PICTURE 16. Page showing confusing panel flow in Alice in Murderland.

4 THESIS PROJECT – SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON ADAPTATION

4.1 Project Research

Saint George and the Dragon was chosen to be the material adapted for the

thesis project. While the exact date of the legend’s origin is unclear, as Saint

George died in the year 303, but many elements of the story have been

attributed to him from other Saints and pre-Christian myths, the version this

project referenced is in the Golden Legend (collected by Jacobus de Varagine

sometime between 1259 – 1266, translated by William Caxton in 1900), which

means that there would be no concerns regarding copyright law.

A Study in Scarlet (Conan Doyle 1887) was originally planned to be the adapted

material, but as the project was in its early stages, the Conan Doyle Estate filed

a lawsuit against Netflix and other parties involved in the production of the TV

show Enola Holmes (2020), alleging that only the stories published between

1923 and 1927 had Sherlock Holmes openly showing emotion, which were still

under the protection of copyright laws in the US. They alleged the creators of

the show “refused to do anything other than credit Conan Doyle – apparently

taking the position these original story elements … can be infringed simply

because the copyrights are in their last years” (Bardacke Allison LLP 2020). The

case was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation of all parties, but as the exact

status of the disputed character traits being used in adaptations is still

unresolved, the project was pivoted to adapt something that has been in the

public domain since copyright law was first established.

4.2 Interpretation of the Original Myth

In the Golden Legend, the story begins with a venom-spewing dragon living in a

pond nearby the city of Silene in Libya. The dragon was poisoning the nearby

lands, so in order to prevent it from affecting the city the people there offered it

two sheep a day. It then progressed to offering it a sheep and a man, then the

children of the city. The children who would be sacrificed were chosen through

a lottery system, but eventually the lottery chose the king’s daughter.

The king begged for his daughter to be spared and tried to offer his fortune for

her life, but the people of Silene refused and sent her to be fed to the dragon,

dressed as a bride. Coincidentally, Saint George happened upon the princess

as she was waiting by the pond. At this moment, the dragon appeared. Saint

George made the sign of the cross and engaged the dragon on horseback. As

he fought with his lance, he ordered the princess to throw him her girdle, a kind

of belt or sash either worn to secure clothes or as part of religious garments,

which he used to leash the dragon. He handed the leash to the princess and the

dragon followed her like a “meek beast”.

The two lead the dragon back to Silene. While the people were terrified of the

dragon, Saint George offered to kill it as long as the people of the city converted

to Christianity. Between fifteen and twenty thousand people including the king

were baptized before Saint George beheaded the dragon with his sword. The

city built a church on the site where the dragon was killed and a spring of

healing water flowed from the alter. While the future of Saint George and the

princess goes unmentioned in the Golden Legend, many other retellings of the

story have them marry and have children, such as Richard Johnson’s version in

Seven Champions of Christendom (1596).

We can extrapolate the themes of the original story through a historical lens to

imply that the dragon represents a human or environmental problem that was

affecting the water supply for a local town. As historically, poisoning the water

supply was an effective tactic in sieging a city, it is possible that the livestock

and people fed to the dragon in the story were either killed by an external

military force or were taken ill by the contaminated water. The dragon may also

be a stand-in for some anachronism that lost relevance as the story was passed

through oral history, as the earliest sources of the story date back to the

eleventh century.

What is equally worth considering as the original legend is how the story has

been interpreted in contemporary fiction. The original story has several strong

ties to the beliefs of Christianity at the time, such as Saint George protecting

himself from the dragon by using the sign of the cross and only sparing Silene if

its citizens converted to Christianity. These themes are less palatable to modern

audiences, which has contributed to many retellings being catered for children.

Most of these retellings take the approach of instilling chivalric values in their

young readers, with Saint George rescuing the princess as a way to encourage

children to help people who cannot help themselves.

4.3 Workflow

As it was decided early on in the project that it would take a more loose and

deconstructive take on the original myth, the majority of the workflow was the

same as creating an original comic. Rough character designs (in picture 17)

were created first, in order to get a general idea of the main characters

personalities. These initial designs were only loosely followed in the final comic,

to allow for a more “straight ahead” approach to thumbnailing the pages which

helped for pages to be produced faster. However, having a general idea of how

the characters should look can help a lot in the writing process, especially for

comics that are driven by dialogue. Having a more concrete picture of a

character’s attitude and mannerisms can allow that process to come more

easily to the writer.

PICTURE 17. The early designs for the Knight and the Dragon.

While Saint George is traditionally portrayed as a heroic cavalryman on a white

horse and a spear, as seen in picture 18, this design for him was intended to

separate the character of the Knight from this traditional depiction. The project

would take a deconstructive approach to the legend, so the Knight would

contrast the typical image of a saint – unkempt and rough. While Saint George

died in 303, far before the period of the time period that the crusades took

place, he has commonly been depicted in crusader garb as knights of the First

Crusade believed that he had fought alongside them in Antioch and Jerusalem.

It was thus decided that the Knight had attempted to start a quiet life on the

outskirts of a village, tired and washed up from numerous battles in the past.

PICTURE 18. Saint George as seen in the Golden Legend.

As for the Dragon, it was decided that they would appear as a typical western

dragon at first, then shapeshift into a more human form once the Knight got to

know them. The reason for this was twofold: it would allow the Dragon to emote

in a way that would be more understandable to the reader and it would allow

readers to empathise with them more, as well as create a greater mental

dissonance when they say something that shows that they aren’t human after

all.

Before writing, the target audience for the comic had to be considered. The

original myth is reasonably serious; however, there have been many popular

adaptations in the past that are written for children that significantly tone down

the violent elements of the original. As such, it was decided that the comic

contain some dark elements but ensure to not portray them in an overly graphic

manner. For instance, when the Dragon gouges out their eye, it happens off-

screen, and the dragon’s hair covers their face so that the gore is implied

instead of explicit.

4.3.1 Adapting the Story

The way that the Jewish story of the Golem influenced early superhero comics

can be used to explain how writers will maintain some elements of a legend in

order to tell an empowering and meaningful story in the current day, as well as

how the historical and recent suffering of a group invariably affects any story

touching on those elements (Geller 2021). Due to this, the story has been

influenced by how freedom of religion protections have been used to justify hate

towards marginalised and ostracised people.

To suit this influence, the dragon was altered to be a full character and

incorporate some of the aspects of the princess from the original legend. By the

fate of their race, their appearance in a small town by the mountains causes the

townspeople to overreact and call for their death. The knight, having grown tired

from the cruelty of people he experienced during the wars he fought in, attempts

to satisfy the townspeople while hiding the fact that he allowed the dragon to

live. The story then focuses on their growing friendship as both of them learn to

step away from the beliefs naturally instilled in them as human and dragon and

face a new life together.

The plot of the adaptation is as follows: the Knight is asked by the Mayor to

investigate a Dragon that has been causing trouble for the townsfolk. the Knight

journeys up the mountain and meets the Dragon, then convinces them to stop

attacking the town if he would bring the Dragon food. The Knight returns to town

and lies about dealing with the Dragon, and is hailed as a hero. After this point,

the Dragon attacks the town again without the Knight knowing, and the Mayor

asks him to make the Dragon leave. Originally, the Mayor asked for one of the

Dragon’s scales specifically, but this was changed to the Knight asking for one

himself. The Dragon’s ideals of keeping the status quo because it is their nature

were added in the rewrite to make the Dragon feel unnerving and less human in

their reasoning and attitude.

After this, the Knight returns to town and hands the scales over to the Mayor,

who reacts strangely and ignores the Knight once the scales are given to him.

After this, the Knight brings a gift to the Dragon, which leads into a scene

showing that the Dragon’s assertions on them not feeling emotions might not be

true. This point could either be read as the Dragon slowly adopting human

mannerisms by being in the Knight’s presence or it could mean that whoever

told the Dragon about the nature of humans and dragons was intentionally lying

to try and uphold the status quo, instead of it being simply the way things have

to be.

A few days later, when the Knight is about to leave to deliver food to the

Dragon, the Mayor stops him and asks for him to bring back a dragon’s eye.

The Knight doesn’t want to and runs to the mountain to tell the dragon to leave.

However, the Dragon gives him the eye themselves. The Knight is

understandably horrified at the idea, both by caving to the Mayor’s demands

and that he caused the Dragon to hurt themselves. The Dragon insists that the

Knight take the eye and shows that they might be putting the Knight’s wellbeing

above their ideals.

The knight returns to his home in the village, but cannot bring himself to give the

eye to the Mayor. He thinks overnight and returns to the mountain in the

morning. When he finds the Dragon again, he becomes flustered and explains

that he couldn’t give up their eye. The Dragon seems amused by this and gives

the Knight an offer: the Knight replaces one of his eyes with the dragon eye,

and gives that human eye to the Dragon, so that they aren’t tied down by the

expectations of what humans or dragons should be. The Knight accepts.

When the Knight wakes up after gaining a dragon eye, he finds the Dragon

overwhelmed by emotion that they gained through the human eye. The Knight

comforts them, and the two set off on a new journey together, the both of them

neither human nor dragon.

4.3.2 Creating the Comic

Clip Studio Paint EX was chosen as the program used to produce the comic

pages due to its powerful comic creation tools. Creating panel layouts, text,

speech bubbles, screentones and book binding are all included in the toolset

available, as well as a large variety of stock and community created brushes. It

also allows for multiple page files to be collected in a master file, allowing for

easy viewing and editing of the entire project at once.

Certain aesthetic choices were borrowed from popular fantasy works that

incorporate dragons, such as Tolkien. The town is near a mountain range and

the dragon has taken to hiding in one of the caves there. The Dragon was

designed after a traditional quadruped European dragon with large wings and

horns (seen in picture 19), in order to ensure that they immediately read as a

dragon rather than a wyvern or drake.

PICTURE 19. A panel from the first meeting of the Dragon and the Knight.

Depth and texture were added using screentones and a number of brushes.

Clip Studio Paint allows for regular raster layers to be converted into tones,

which means that entirely custom screentones can be created for each panel to

best suit each scene and moment. This can be seen in picture 20, which is one

of two emotional peaks in the comic.

PICTURE 20. The dark gradient in the main panel solidifies the emotional peak

of the comic.

4.4 Post-mortem

There were many lessons learnt during production that will be useful in future

projects. To start with, this project was quite emotionally and mentally difficult to

complete. While some of this can be attributed to the state of the world during

2020 and 2021, as well as the thesis author’s own health difficulties, a greater

contributor to these feelings was a general feeling of disinterest in the project as

a whole. Working on an adaptation can be incredibly creatively fulfilling, as it

allows someone to work with something they love. However, the opposite is

equally true. Working on an adaptation that the creator has very little personal

stake in can be very draining. Adaptations require some level of love of the

original in order to be truly good, and trying to force this can sap a lot of creative

energy.

Now that the project is complete, it will be used as both a portfolio piece to show

a comic with a self-contained complete story, as well as (with some

modifications to make it less connected to the original legend) a possible pitch

document to publishing companies. Many comic publishers will require a

complete pilot issue and detailed plot skeleton before they take on a new

writer’s project. This project can serve both as one possible future full-scale

project and as a way to practice producing such a document.

Different methods of publishing the comic were considered, but it was ultimately

decided that it would suit small-scale single issue printing best, rather than

publishing online.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

While the writing fundamentals are important for all projects, it is important that

artists working on an adaptation are able to execute on the fundamentals as

well as understand and mimic how those fundamentals apply within the work

they are adapting. An adaptation that does not understand the core appeal

points of the original will almost always be objectively poorer than one that is

able to correctly interpret the original writer’s intentions with characters, theming

and execution. That information can be used to tie the adaptation better to the

original so that audiences are able to better see the areas where the adaptation

builds on the original which may allow them a better understanding of concepts

explored in the adaptation and a new perspective on the original.

However, adaptations should not feel confined to only explore themes and

writing styles established by the original work, especially in comic book

adaptations. Due to the nature of the medium, comic adaptations particularly

suit exploring additional character depth, as they allow for the depiction of a

highly individual perspective of reality. Comics also suit adaptations that

significantly re-imagine elements of the original work, both to explore different

themes or as a way to re-engineer the story for a different target audience.

The comic adaptation of Saint George and the Dragon allowed the techniques

and fundamentals explored in this thesis to be put into practice, and a

satisfactory final project was achieved. However, there was a lot of difficulty

creating the project. Adapting work that the writer feels little personal

engagement in can be challenging, and writers should carefully consider why

they want to adapt a work so as to ensure that they are able to properly

complete it.

REFERENCES

Ashman, H. N.d. Lecture at Disney. Partially released in Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009) and Howard (2018), full version unreleased. Partial transcript available on scribd.com. Read 22.10.2021. https://www.scribd.com/document/453572294/Howard-Ashman-s-lecture-at-D-sney Bardacke Allison LLP. 2020. Case 1:20-cv-00610 in the United States District Court for the district of New Mexico. Conan Doyle Estate LTD v. Springer, N, Penguin Random House LLC, Legendary Pictures Productions LLC, Netflix Inc, PCMA Management and Productions LLC, EH Productions UK LTD, Thorne, J & Bradbeer, H. Read 14.10.21. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6956021-Sherlock.html Beineke, C. 2011. Towards a Theory of Comic Book Adaptation. Department of English. University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Master’s Thesis. Booker, M K. 2010. Encyclopaedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Volume 1. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group. Brooks, L. 2011. Story Engineering. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books. Burch, A. 2012. Anthony Burch and Matt Armstrong Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). Read 29.10.2021. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/13y3y0/iama_anthony_burch_lead_writer_of_borderlands_2/ Campbell, J. 1949. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1st Edition. New York City: Pantheon Books. Conan Doyle, A. 1887. A Study in Scarlet. London: Ward Lock & Co. Copyright Alliance. N.d. Why is Parody Considered Fair Use But Satire Isn’t? Read on 20.10.21 https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/parody-considered-fair-use-satire-isnt/ Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 c. 48. Read 18.10.2021. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents Davenport, J. 2019. Borderlands 3 Review. PC Gamer. Released 9.9.2021. Read 29.10.2021. https://www.pcgamer.com/borderlands-3-review/ Francke, M. 2018. Artist Talk at Playgrounds Blend 2018. Partial recording available on YouTube. Uploaded 12.4.2018. Accessed 30.10.2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geFoW6BwWFE Jacobus de Varagine. 1900. The Golden Legend: Lives of the Saints. Volume 3. Trans. Caxton, W. London: J.M. Dent and Company.

Kurihara, K. 2020.

知財高裁でBL同人作品の無断コピーは著作権侵害という当たり前の判決. Yahoo News Japan. Untranslated. Read 31.10.2021. https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/kuriharakiyoshi/20201008-00201963 Leitch, T. 2017. The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Litwak M. 2012. Contracts for the Film & Television Industry. 3rd Edition. West Hollywood: Silman-James Press. Geller, J. 2021. The Golem and the Jewish Superhero. Video Essay. Released on 29.3.2021. Accessed 22.11.2021. https://youtu.be/pUBVSH6hBvY Ghostwatch. Direction: Lesley Manning. Production: BBC. BBC1 31.10.1992. Groensteen, T. 2007. The System of Comics. Trans. Beaty, B. Nguyen, N. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Goggin, J. Hassler-Forest, D. 2010. The Rise and Reason of Comics and Graphic Literature: Critical Essays on the Form. Jefferson: McFarland. Larson, D. 2014. Overview of the Comic Creation Process. Makingcomics.com Read 5.12.21. https://www.makingcomics.com/2014/01/16/overview-comic-creation-process/ Market Research. 2021. Global Comic Book Sales Market Report 2021. Electronic material. Pune: Industry Research. Read 17.10.21. https://www.industryresearch.biz/global-comic-book-sales-market-17622814 McCloud, S. 1993. Understanding Comics. Northampton: Tundra. Motion Picture Association. 2020. THEME Report. Read 5.12.21. https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/MPA-2020-THEME-Report.pdf Phillips, T. 2017. Valve loses another veteran writer. Eurogamer. Read 3.11.2021. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-06-07-another-veteran-writer-has-left-valve Seger, L. 1992. The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film. New York: H. Holt and Co. Stim R. 2019. Getting Permission. How to License & Clear Copyrighted Materials Online & Off. 7th Edition. Berkeley: Nolo. Stimson, E. 2016. Prime Minister Abe: Dōjinshi Safe Under TPP. Anime News Network. Read on 31.10.2021. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2016-04-09/prime-minister-abe-dojinshi-safe-under-tpp/.100782

Thorn, R. 2018. Twitter thread. Reposted by Sam, S. 2015. Flow, & the Eyelines! Updated with reference 26.6.2020. Read 26.10.2021. https://makingcomics.spiltink.org/flow-the-eyelines/ U.S. Public Law 94-553. 90 Stat. 2541. Copyright Act of 1976. 1.1.1978. U.S. Public Law 105-298. 112 Stat. 2827. Copyright Term Extension Act. 27.10.1998.

PICTURE REFERENCES

FIGURE 1. Bell, T. 2001. Chart showing the development of copyright durations. http://www.tomwbell.com/writings/(C)_Term.html Vectorized by Wikipedia user Clorox. 2008. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Bell%27s_graph_showing_extension_of_U.S._copyright_term_over_time.svg PICTURE 1. Tempesta, A. 1599. The Life of St. Laurentius. Uploaded to Lambiek.net under the Comiclopedia. Accessed 21.11.2021. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/t/tempesta_antonio.htm PICTURE 2. Illustration showing the main points of the hero’s journey. Based on writings by Campbell, J (1949) and Vogler, C (1985). Unknown publisher. Re-vectorized by Wikipedia user Slashme. 2009. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heroesjourney.svg PICTURE 3. Ito, J. 1998-1999. Uzumaki. Published in English by Viz Media. 2001-2002. 1st Edition. Unknown translator. PICTURE 4. McCloud, S. 1993. Understanding Comics. Panels showing the reader’s relation to events in a comic. PICTURE 5. Kubo, T. 2001-2016. Bleach. Example of well-crafted page flow. Annotated by Folse, S. 2010. Accessed on 25.10.2021. https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/06/visual-languages-of-manga-and-comics/ PICTURE 6. Thorn, R. 2018. Twitter thread. Diagram to show the T rule in comics panelling. Reposted by Sam, S. 2015. Flow, & the Eyelines! Updated with reference 26.6.2020. Accessed 26.10.2021. https://makingcomics.spiltink.org/flow-the-eyelines/ PICTURE 7. Ito, J. 1998-1999. Uzumaki. Published in English by Viz Media. 2001-2002. 1st Edition. Unknown translator. Annotated by Payne, S. PICTURE 8. Gearbox Software. 2019. Screenshot from Borderlands Game Of The Year Enhanced. Hosted on Steam. Accessed 3.11.2021. https://store.steampowered.com/app/8980/Borderlands_Game_of_the_Year/ PICTURE 9. IDW Publishing. 2013. Borderlands Origins #3. Scan posted on fizmarble.com 22.1.2013. Accessed 29.10.2021. http://fizmarble.com/2013/01/22/idw-borderlands-origins-3-preview/ PICTURE 10. Valve. N.d. Team Fortress 2 concept art for the Soldier. Accessed 3.11.2021. https://www.teamfortress.com/artwork.php PICTURE 11. Valve. 2014. Screenshot from Expiration Date. Accessed 3.11.2021. https://www.teamfortress.com/artwork.php

PICTURE 12. Valve. 2010. Panel from Loose Canon. Accessed 3.11.2021. https://www.teamfortress.com/loosecanon/ PICTURES 13 & 14. Valve. 2013. Panels from Team Fortress Comics #1, Ring of Fired. Accessed 31.10.2021. https://www.teamfortress.com/tf01_ring_of_fired/ PICTURE 15 & 16. Yuki, K. 2014. Pages from Alice in Murderland Volume 1. Published by Kodansha. PICTURES 17, 19, 20. Payne, S. 2021. Thesis Project. PICTURE 18. Unknown. Miniature of Saint George in the Golden Legend. Published by the British Library. Accessed 3.11.2021. http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8527