In an interview with Buzzfeed, Mike Marts decided to give us an inside look at just what goes into making a Batman comic. It’s not just one or two people penning these works of art. More like almost a dozen.
For instance, when Mike has a story idea for Batman, he runs it by Scott Snyder, who then runs those ideas by his penciler, Greg Capullo. When an idea is approved, it’s written, drawn, and moved down the line to an inker, colorist, and a letterer. But not every idea tossed out is put into a comic. Nor is it as simple as that:
Each title we do has its own writer and penciler team. In the case of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, it’s not like Scott’s just coming up with a story and tossing it to Greg and he just does his thing; these guys are collaborating all the time — talking about pages and panels, story beats, how to make things better, how to make things new and fresh and exciting.
Now that there’s an assembly line explanation, let’s see how the panels look from start to finish. (Warning: Small spoiler from Batman: Zero Year)
Step one: The initial penciling.
And then off to the colorist we go:
Right now we’re generating ideas for books that will come out in November or December. So we’re looking six months ahead, at least in terms of core story and maybe a cover idea, that type of thing.
Five months out is probably when we want to get a script in, four months out is when it starts to get drawn. A lot of the time it runs a lot closer. Then a book will go out to the printer about a month before you’ll see it on the stands.
So ideally, from start to finish, six months. The actual core production time of the writing, the art, the coloring, and the lettering is probably about a two-and-a-half- to three-month production cycle.
SIX MONTHS. That’s a lot of thinking ahead. Major kudos to the entire… Well, comic book writing world. I can’t even think a week ahead, let alone half a year.
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Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/how-batman-is-created