Instructions:
Draw 10″ x 15″ on 11″ x 17″ art paper , preferably a two-ply smooth bristol board, in pencil only. Think about, in general, where word balloons might go, but do not draw in any balloon shapes. Pencil tightly and completely. Do your best work. If you are skilled at lettering or design, then it’s acceptable to draw in your own sound effects.
Keep track of how many hours you spend on each page, and write that information on the back.
Make a full-sized photocopy of the artwork for yourself.
If submitting samples by mail, send the clean photocopies instead of the originals, with the time-it-took info on the back, your name and address and phone on each page, and a stamped, self-addressed envelope for a reply.
SAMPLE PLOT: HARLEY QUINN
PAGE ONE
This page has a really cool design element — a tall, leggy, curvy full length figure of Harley Quinn, her up-on-tip-toe legs taking up a whole side, she bends at the waist, her torso actoss the top of the page. She’s grinning at us, and holding a title card that reads “ROGUES GALLERY”.
* In a big AMUSEMENT PARK, with dual Ferris Wheels, wild roller coasters, carousels, and other rides. It’s evening, so all the concessions lights are on, making things equally cheerful and yet moody. Lots of people — it’s busy. Young, old, kids with puppies, some babes, a smooching old couple carrying cotton candy, and so on. Make it interesting and teeming with life. Harley Quinn is in the scene, but we don’t immediately recognize her. She’s wearing a light jacket with hood, obscuring anyone noticing a costume. She looks bummed out. The narration will be bouncy, like, “Wonderin’ why I’m so glum, chum? I’m missin’ my guy!”
* “Not even the funhouse mirrors cheered me up — they reminded me of..him! Until now!” Big panel — with her face big in the left side. She’s just spotted an Amusement gallery — one of those stands where you try your skill shooting a watergun or rifle with BBs at a target and win a prize. But this is a really cool gallery. It says ROGUES GALLERY across the top, and the prizes are these large, half-meter-tall stuffed toy versions of Batman’s villains: Multiples Riddler, Penguin, Man-Bat, Scarecrow, and so on, and ONLY ONE of THE JOKER. A couple of people have rifles and are already firing BBs as the manager (with a money apron) smokes a cigar.
PAGE TWO
Start with several same-size panels across the top half of the page:
* “Gotta have my Joker!” Facing the right, into the booth, Harley tosses a flurry of $$$ at the manager with one hand and points with the other, girlishly. Manager hands to her a chained-on-the-end rifle. Behind her in this angle, some guy is calmly firing away at the target.
* Same angle. Harley aims and starts shooting. The guy behind her reacts, he’s just won!
* Same angle. Tongue out, more intense to the point of silly, Harley keeps firing. The guy behind her points to the stuffed Joker, and the manager reaches for it.
* Same angle. She’s still shooting till it runs out. BANG! BANG! CL*K CL*K The guy leaves with his stuff Joker under his arm.
* Same angle. Harley turns to look to her left (away from the reader), to see the guy is gone, the manager has arms crossed waiting, and there’s an EMPTY SPACE where the Joker doll was. “HEY! It’s gone!” “Last one, Lady!”
PAGE THREE
* Harley races towards us from the ROGUES GALLERY booth, past people. The manager is knocked out, little stars and stuffed Jokers dancing around his head for humor, and the rifle bent around his neck. She sexily peels out of her hooded jacket, now in full Harley Quinn costume, in search of the stuffed Joker winner.
* We CUT TO: Wide angle. Backshot of Harley Quinn, in a BUMPER CARS ride arena called SPEED BUMP, she’s hopping (show humorous movement trail) around the cars to get to the other side, and all the little cars are bump-crashing into one another. Make the cars look like the various versions of the BATMOBILE through the years — 40s Batmobile, 50s style, TV show 60s version, movie #1 version, animated version. Reference can be found online.
* Medium close-up on Harley, all excited now, looking down out a window. “There he is!!” Sitting on one shoulder is a miniature Paul Dini-animated style Harley with “halo,” saying, “I don’t think you should cause a ruckus…” And on the other shoulder is another animated Harley with devil horns, rearing back with a silly-looking mallet with the Joker’s face painted on (even the paint is dripping), saying, “You don’t know her too well, do ya?”
* SCRASSSH! She leaps out through the window, glass shards everywhere — do cool reflections into the bigger glass pieces — and people below getting on a cool ROLLER COASTER called the WET & WILD COASTER! — looking up, wondering if this is part of the entertainment.
* Harley latches on to the end of the full roller coaster as it goes up the incline…
* It pitches forward, and she tips forward, her chest lands in some boy’s face. “Oops, Sorry. Don’t say a word…”
PAGE FOUR
* ….She’s crawling up over people as it ZOOOOMS down “pardon me…scuse me…pardon me…”
* As the coaster WHIZZZES around a wild turn, she stands up, Joker toy in her hands plucked from the couple, victoriously… “AT LAST!!” “Geez, ya want it that bad, you can HAVE it!!”
* SPLOOSH! She takes a full-frontal hit of a blast of water that usually shoots right OVER the coaster ride, knocking her off and the Joker toy goes flying….
* …down…
* ….PLOPP! It falls onto her head, crooked, as she sits dejected, legs akimbo, waist deep in water at the bottom of the coaster ride. Behind her, police run up, nightsticks and pistols ready.
* OPTIONAL LAST PANEL: She’s imprisoned back in Arkham Asylum, in prison clothes, cursing !#^@$% and jumping up and down on the now -tattered, still-soggy Joker toy.
END
