Dark Horse Comics

Peter Bagge's witty and incredibly well-crafted new series RESET hit shelves yesterday and he share a little bit about his process. 

My writing process is pretty typical, I imagine. First I write down a general idea or “pitch” (even if it’s for my eyes only); then an outline; then a finished script, using a scriptwriting format. Then I rough out the strip, making changes as I go along. I never STOP changing the script, right up to the inking.

Recently I was thinking about how I used to do everything by hand, including writing out all my outlines and script in longhand on yellow legal paper. I sometimes wonder if I was able to achieve something…I dunno what…more VISCERAL in my stories when I worked that way…That something got lost when I switched to using a word processor. I wonder if typing them out makes my stories more sterile, more generic.

I’d take a stab at my old way of working just to find out, only the writing muscles in my hand seem to have gotten woefully out of shape. It HURTS to write in longhand now! So odd, since I used to scribble away relentlessly, keeping up correspondences only fifteen years ago without it ever feeling like a physical burden. Has anyone else noticed this?

That’s all. Enjoy Reset!

—Peter Bagge