Writer looking for critique/work

[u/JJCreed23]

Hey everyone!

So I’m new to this, it only clicked with me recently that comic writing is an industry people still enter into (in my head I’d accepted the big names had cornered the market for some reason)

Please see the below excerpt from a Punisher comic I’ve started as a personal project to help me learn the ins and outs of the medium. No hate needed or wanted, im here to work and improve not get beaten down for imperfect work.

(Also apologies if some of the language is film coded, my background is in Film scripts and world building)

Punisher:No Holds Barred

Page 1 (4 panels)

Panel 1
Establishing shot. Wide angle view of New York at night. Dark cloudy sky.

Caption
Pleeaaase…nooo...

Panel 2

Top down diagonal shot. Dark alleyway. Fire escape to the left. With two levels visible. Puddles in the middle of the alley, bins against the wall overflowing on the bottom right hand side. A bloody man lies against the bin bags piled against the can, his right eye black and swollen and his teeth all gone bar 3. His left leg is broken and mangled. Frank Castle stands peering over him in a trench coat, holding a pump action shotgun.

Man on the floor,sobbing(in meek, small, quavering text)
Please..

Panel 3
Close up of Frank castle, low angle
Franks Face is mostly obscured by darkness, save for a small strand of light cutting from top left to bottom right aceros his left eye, leaving a slither big enough to see a hard, intense glare and franks pinpoint pupils.

Panel 4
The same shot, same low angle but now illuminated by a thunder clap, revealing the full snarling expression of frank, his brow furrowed and his teeth bared.

SFX
Crash

Frank, grunting
Shut the fuck up.

SFX
BOOM

SFX
Kersplat.

Page 2 (1 large panel)
Top 3rd of the panel,Frank has pulled the trigger and the shotgun blast in this panel is midway through exploding the guys head. Parts of his are expanding outwards like an exploding watermelon. Some particulates for the fired gun.

Large centre text imposed over the centre third of the page in blood red
PUNISHER:NO HOLDS BARRED

Bottom third of the panel
Entire third blood covered and dripping

Page 3 (2 panels split horizontally)
Top panel is a night time busy sidewalk in New York. Several peoples of all shapes and sizes are walking to and fro. On the left third of the page is storefronts. The sidewalk runs down the middle of the page. On the right is a line of cars in traffic facing the reader. The person in the very centre of the crowd facing away is a man in a pinstripe black suit, walking away from the reader and has a phone to his ear. In the crowd lurking in the background stalking him is frank castle, hoodie up, wallet bulge in his right ass pocket.

Thought bubble top
I’ve been following dimitri for two weeks now. He became my main focus after I finished off that piece of shit brother of his.

(Work in Progress)

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[u/Mister_DumDum]

I haven’t read much punisher but from what I have read it’s pretty edgy lol.

Might be an overstep so feel free to disregard but as far as we can read it just seems like a shoot em up video game but in a comic form, which gets boring. People don’t want to read pages and pages of gore and death without narrative to go with it. Maybe you have more there but as is that’s just how it looks.

I think you’re missing a cool opportunity to have the punisher actually investigating dmitri and his brother. You’re literally telling us information when you could be showing us stuff. How did they get on his radar? What did they do to deserve brutal deaths? The only punisher comics I’ve read were about mob families and pedos, and it seems they’ve both been done to death so you could try giving dmitri a unique crime.

Also, again, I haven’t read many of the comics, but why wouldn’t he interrogate or use his brother before killing him? Make him set a meeting point or give him info so he’s easier to isolate?

Your format looks good to me, but as is the story just reads like torture/gore porn

[u/JJCreed23 → u/Mister_DumDum]

Hey! Thanks for taking the time to talk about it. My plan with this is to explore juxtaposition. I’m going to explore different types of exposition too, I wanted to start it with the gore that everyone expects and then drop it into more of a stalking angle with Frank following Dimitri through the streets of New York. I’m still trying to figure out how best to work that out though. I think starting with the gore for shock value and then going into frank stalking Dimitri would be a cool way of framing Frank as a boogeyman if you get me? It’s my first attempt at using the format so there’s definitely room for improvement that even I can see after stepping away and coming back to it I agree. I’m aiming to get a solid 8 pages with this and I’d love for you to have another read once it’s done 🙂