DC COMICS SAMPLE SCRIPT

     
Untitled Sample 1

This sample script is to be used solely in connection with preparing art for the DC Talent
Development Artists Workshop submission and may not be copied or distributed.

PAGE ONE
PANEL 1: Page-wide establishing shot of a current-day city… New York… Chicago…
Metropolis… some of us’ve been there, but for everyone else you’re drawing THE city’s
skyline! Favor a high-rise building with window balconies. We should see some river in the
near distance…
 
1 SFX: BZZZZZZZZZZZZ
 
PANEL 2: We’re inside the building now… and an alarm clock is sounding. A hand
reaches into the panel and shuts it off.
 
2 SFX: ZZZZZZZZZZ - KLIK! <
 
PANEL 3: Pull back and show a slender man in his mid-twenties sitting up and stretching his
rested back in front of floor-to-ceiling sliding doors. Outside past his balcony we can see the sun
is rising over the city. Man can be silhouetted but we can see his contemporary design sense in
the details of the bedroom around him.
 
PANEL 4: Thin panel. The man showers (tastefully cropped of course!) in an equally
modern-looking bathroom!
 
PANEL 5: Thin panel… The man is dressed in a very well-tailored suit and is taking a final sip
of coffee as he grabs his suit-jacket and is walking out his apartment door. (A lot of moves for
one panel… but people DO do this, Heheheheheh!) If we see the kitchen, near the front door…
it, too, is modern.
 
PANEL 6: Thin panel… in the hallway outside his apartment… the slim man arrives at the
elevator where a woman also waits for the elevator. She is in great shape, has long flowing
hair and is dressed very up-scale. The man smiles at the woman. He is immediately attracted
to her.
 
PANEL 7: Thin panel… The elevator has arrived and they’re inside. The doors are closing and
the woman smiles back at the man.
PAGE TWO
PANEL 1: An inset panel shows the man and woman heading for the doors to the lobby of their
building. Clearly they’ve had a very sociable ride down to the ground floor… and have really hit
it off.
 
PANEL 2: Another small inset panel… the man holds the door open for the woman in a
medium shot from outside the building. They both look up into the sky outside… they are
shocked to be seeing what they’re seeing!
 
PANEL 3: Splash panel. From behind the man and the woman’s heads (they still gesture with
surprise) we see what they’re seeing… they are looking up into the sky at their city has been
transformed. The normal city we saw at the beginning of the story has completely changed into
a futuristic city of tomorrow. We see towering spires… flying cars… people in clothing styles of
four hundred years from now. This should be all awe-inspiring in scope and imagination…
while at the same time showing in the distant sky… a tiny caped figure flying over the newly
morphed city! Though small, we can see that his hands are glowing!
 
1 TITLE: A LIFE IN THE DAY

2 CREDITS: CARL N. MICHAELS – Writer YOUR NAME – Penciler

_______ – Inker _______ – Colors

_______ – Letters _______ – Editor

PAGE THREE
PANEL 1: We zoom in on the figure hovering in the sky – he’s dressed in an awe-inspiring
super-villain costume – black leather top to bottom… he’s got chains wrapped around his torso
into a belt… with a purple cape framing his form in the city’s sky! He wears a hood (connected
to the cape) and has a purple mask wrapping around his head and eyes! He wears oversized
purple gloves – and they are the source of all his power… they glow and generate what we call
Kirby Krackle! So, with his hands glowing (It’s the gloves!)… He notices the man and the
woman who’ve just come out of the now-futuristic building off panel!
 
1 VILLAIN: At last you come out of hiding to accept your fate!
 
2 VILLAIN: Surrender yourself AND your world--
 
PANEL 2: The villain’s P.O.V. – he focuses on the nervous looking man… who is half-
heartedly taking a protective stance in front of the woman. She doesn’t really look scared.
 
3 VILLAIN (From off): -- “hero”!
 
4 MAN: M-M-ME? A hero?
 
PANEL 3: The woman steps in front of the nervous man and rips her blouse open revealing
HER Super-Hero costume beneath her street clothes! SHE’LL save the day! Her costume is
bluish overall – no mask… cape… so we can see all of her in action in the coming pages!
Go ahead and design a sleek, badass costume. She’s about to kick some ass!
 
5 WOMAN: No! I’M the hero!
 
PANEL 4: The woman zooms into the sky and faces the villain! His gloves glow and he blasts
her as she comes near! The blast does nothing to stop the rocketing heroine as she meets him
above the city! IN the distance below we can see the Man – left behind!
 
6 VILLAIN: No! You’re DEAD!
 
7 WOMAN: Hardly, Time Manipulator! And YOUR time is UP!
 
PANEL 5: Long shot… the villain zaps at her again with his power gloves… but the
heroic Woman dodges the blasts by zig-zagging in the sky!
 
8 VILLAIN: Ho ho! Funny as all the heroes are – before they fall by my hands.

9 WOMAN: Not with THAT marksmanship! You missed me by a mile!

PANEL 6: The blast hits behind a building behind the Man from the beginning of the
story… there is a huge flash and the man cringes covering his head in fear!
 
10 VILLAIN (From off): Time will tell, foolish woman!
 
11 SFX: CHOOM!
 
12 MAN (Burst): Holy crap!!

PAGE FOUR
PANEL 1: (small panel) The Man turns around… and we see past the back of his head
the corner of the building behind him – smoke from the blast is still wafting into the air…
and a creepy small reptilian HAND reaches from behind the building through the
smoke!!
 
1 MAN: NOW what?
 
 
2 SFX (From behind building): rrrrrrrrrrRRRRR
 
PANEL 2: BIG PANEL as a Tyrannosaurus Rex roars from behind the building and menaces
the Man – and all around him. The Time Manipulating Villain has transported a Dinosaur to the
futuristic city!
 
3 SFX (Big): RRRRRROARR RR!
 
PANEL 3: The Woman hero manages to get close enough to the villain… and grabs both of his
wrists… making his gloves shoot wildly!
 
4 WOMAN: These gloves are definitely in the wrong hands!
 
5 VILLAIN: Stop! You don’t know how to control them!!
 
PANEL 4: Cut back to the dinosaur RAMPAGING through the city… destroying buildings,
cars and trying to eat the futuristic people on the ground… including the Man we’ve been
following from the beginning of the story! Wild blasts from the Villain’s gloves zap the
ground!
 
6 SFX: CHOOM! KROOM! THOOOM!
 
7 MAN (Burst): Omigod! Omigod! Omigod!
 
PANEL 5: Until one of the blasts hits the Man… and he’s shocked to his core! Perhaps we
see his skeleton through his skin and clothes as he’s zapped out of this reality!
 
8 SFX: FZZZZAKKK!
 
PANEL 6: The man falls to the ground… new ground… it is just dirt! The futuristic city is
gone! Now what?! And, man, that landing HURT!
 
9 MAN: Omi—god?!
 
10 MADAME (From off/Burst): And STAY out—

PAGE FIVE
PANEL 1: The Man sits up in the dirt and looks behind himself… he’s apparently JUST
been thrown out of a Saloon in the Old West!!! We see the saloon and the Barkeep… a
tough woman who MIGHT be running a brothel on the second floor! He’s been sent to
the past!
 
1 MADAME: -- ya drunk!
 
2 MAN: I’m not drun--! Wait! Maybe I AM drunk! That’s the only thing that could
explain--

3 DESPERADO (From off): Not so fast, Stranger--

 
PANEL 2: Reverse angle so we see a classic Man-in-Black kind of Desperado on a black
horse. He’s swinging a lasso over his head as he addresses the Man who starts to get up
from the dirt!
  
4 DESPERADO: -- you’ve got some explaining to do!

5 MAN: So do all of you hallucinations!

 
PANEL 3: The lasso is thrown and wraps the Man up securely…!
 
6 MAN: What the hell did I DO to have all of this happen to me?
 
PANEL 4: Pull back to show the Super-Hero Woman suddenly flying in WEARING the Time
Manipulating gloves the Villain had on earlier… she shoots beams out of her eyes and cuts
through the lasso rope! The Horse the Desperado is on rears back… in fear! The Desperado
struggles to contain the beast’s reaction!

7 WOMAN: Nothing… and now that I’ve taken things back into MY hands--

Panel 5: The Woman in the super-heroine costume – now wearing the Villain’s gloves stands
before the Man and zaps him with the glowing glove energy!!

8 DIALOGUE CAPTION: “--you’ll be sent back to where that Time Menace

kidnapped you from!”
 
9 SFX: FZZZZAKKK!

PANEL 6: Cut to a cave. We’re inside… and we’re looking from behind a cave-man – as he
looks out the opening in his cave. This panel should echo/emulate Panel 3 from Page One. The
caveman stretches… and outside the cave entrance we see the sun rise over the Eden that
stretches out before his hovel! MAYBE we see a prehistoric Rooster “Cock-a- Doodle-Doing”
silhouetted in the opening of the cave – this is the caveman’s “alarm clock.”

PANEL 7: Page-wide establishing shot of a prehistoric panorama (which is a mirror image of

Panel 1 on Page One!) Maybe it will BECOME New York… Chicago… Metropolis… but for
now this is the lush digs of this prehistoric man – forests and hills… and caves! Favor his cave
opening as he stands outside and looks at some river in the  near distance…  

10 BLURB: THE BEGINNING