Show Don’t Tell: The Unique Balancing Act of Comic Book Scripting – Part 1

Written by Joel T. Lewis

Panels? We don’t need no stinking Panels 
Marvel Knights: Spider-Man (2013) no. 1-5

One of the first titles that came to mind when I began constructing this series was Matt Kindt and Marco Rudy’s 2013 mini-series Marvel Knights: Spider-Man. This arc, titled, “99 Problems…” is one of the most challenging, exhausting, and difficult stories in comics but I return to it time and again, and I cajole my friends into reading it again and again, because it is a unique triumph in comic book storytelling. 
 
These issues present a sort of accelerated and agitated stream of conscience as Parker spirals under the relentless pinging of his spider-sense, the hallucinatory poison he’s been exposed to, and the gnawing effects of exhaustion. Naturally the visual representation of these traditionally understood altered states are made even more complex and intense by the super-human perception facilitated by the spider-sense. The result is a dizzying combination of narration, dialogue, and one of the most headache-producing visual cacophonies I’ve ever experienced. The panels, such as they are, hurt to read and as Spidey loses time and jumps from villain to villain, and the audience must resign themselves to pulling back and letting the art happen to them in order to avoid getting lost in the dizzying spiral created by the art. 
 
This miniseries constitutes another prime example of comics actively resisting scholarship by their very nature. These pages are so visually dense and include such intricate and unusual “panel” layouts that including them in their original form here constitutes a cut and paste nightmare. Panel has been deliberately put in quotes to indicate that “panel” is not an accurate description of how Rudy has divided up his work. Rudy’s style of layout is more akin to a snapshot collage than the way “traditional” comics are organized. It’s almost inaccurate to analyze these issues as being divided up into individual pages as the number of 2, 3, and even 4-page layouts work together and at odds with one another to maintain the overstimulated narrative frame over the course of the 5 issues. I also wanted to include another quick note about the difficulty of quoting and researching within the comic genre; I have had to make use of my individual physical issues of this series, my digital version through Comixology, and my trade paperback (TBP) edition to confirm the original layouts and page groupings for this discussion. This needed to be confirmed in the first place because of the inclusion of advertising pages in the original single issues. The TPB version of the series made use of a few intentionally blank pages in order to present the splash pages and 2-page spreads accurate to the original release, while these spacer pages were not included in the digital edition. While this arrangement in the TPB edition serves to accurately present these 2-page sections, reading the original single issues, you quickly realize that some of the pages are isolated and presented on the left page because of an advertisement rather than being on the right as they are in the TPB version. This contextual accuracy and understanding of the limitations and compromises involved in laying out a comic script raises some questions as to the “most accurate” vs the “most accessible” version of a comic book arc which further complicates accurately citing and analyzing the comic book genre. 
 
The story of 99 Problems begins with Peter Parker on his way to a dodgy freelance photography gig that he’s agreed to shoot to make ends meet, and Rudy uses the image of unspooling and damaged camera film throughout the series perhaps as a metaphorical representation of his rejection of the traditional panel form but also as a commentary on its limitations. This is perhaps most dramatically implemented on the first page of issue 3 (below). 

Though Peter’s internal narration informs us that the images presented within the individual frames of film in the unspooling roll are how the World War II veteran processed his near death experience, the visual metaphor (here reinforced by the narration) extends and applies to Peter’s own simultaneous internal and external experience of his heightened state of perception. The repetition of these film roll sections of art in the previous 2 issues and their purpose as representations of Peter’s experience are brought into focus by his meditation on meeting with the WWII veteran. On this page Spider-Man is simultaneously above and below the film and we can link up this spool of film with the previous examples of this imagery projecting that Spidey is also in the frame of those photographs as well.

​Rudy’s use of the camera film spool is perhaps his most palatable technique used within this 5-issue arc. Rudy’s layouts and what take the place of panels twist and morph with each new threat that presents itself to Spider-Man and they often take their shape from the particular villain who’s entered the fray or the new environment the web-slinger has found himself in. In issue no. 2 the film roll portions are depicted in the style of air safety procedure cards with bright color schemes and simple and clear figures (right).

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In issue no. 3 as Spidey crosses webs with Carnage and Venom the stringy sinews of the symbiotes twist and coil around the borders of the action sequences, culminating on a page (left) where it appears that all the brawling occurs between the eyes and teeth of the symbiotes. ​

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In issue 4 the pages framing Peter’s avian adversaries Leland Owlsley (The Owl) and Adrian Toomes (The Vulture) are beautiful 2-page spreads (right) whose borders make up almost hieroglyphic outlines of birds. 


Finally, in issue 5 there are 4 pages whose layouts are contained within the outline of the massive body of the Kingpin, the mastermind behind the madness Spidey has been battling. These pages present Fisk’s head as the sinister moon looking down upon the carnage he’s created and these images culminate in a breathtaking 2-page spread (below) laid out like an Aztec temple with Fisk’s head above the utter chaos of limbs, bruises, and violence of Parker’s final stretch of villains. ​

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​It is not my position that the easiest to read comics are the most effective. It is my claim that a Comic is most effective when the artwork and script are so well balanced that if the comic is difficult to read it is not impossible to do so and the complexities that make the comic difficult to read are put into place purposefully, deliberately. What I mean to model through the example of this Marvel Knight’s Mini-series is that “99 Problems” is visually dense and difficult to read, but there is indeed a method, or in this case multiple methods, to the madness. Within the frame of a sensorily bombarded Spider-Man story, not only does the seemingly manic organization of the art contribute to reinforcing that frame but it also shifts and adapts to the subject matter as it progresses. Rudy’s collage style of layout while exhausting and fatiguing to read is clever enough to realize that the visual language of the Spidey-sense going haywire continuously over a 5-issue arc could be written off as repetitive and unimaginative. These adjectives could never be applied to Rudy’s work on this arc.