Anatomy of a Comic Page: Batman & Robin

From script to finished page--how the short story "Hot Pursuit" came together with artist Simone Di Meo

Robin: Year Two

A couple of years ago my friend and former editor Dave Wielgosz asked me to write a short story for the Batman: Urban Legends title. I’d written for the anthology before, but this time Dave had encouraged me to try a Robin-centric story.

I’m a big fan of Robin. Whether it’s Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown, or Carrie Kelley. I wanted to write something that I had never seen before, and I wanted to go back to a very specific time period in the Batman and Robin mythos.

I had just revisited Robin: Year One, and there was a very important moment in that book where Bruce Wayne tells Dick that if they ever get into a situation where Batman is going to die, Robin needs to leave and save himself. No questions, no excuses, he just needs to get to safety.

That really resonated with me and the first thing I thought was that there was no way Dick Grayson was going to leave Bruce Wayne behind.

That led to the idea behind the short story “Hot Pursuit.”

Young Robin Drives the Batmobile

I immediately thought how fun it would be to see a young Dick Grayson (way too young to drive) trying to outrun a villain in the Batmobile with Batman passed out in the front seat.

I got to work on the script for the story and I was thrilled when I found out that Simone Di Meo would be drawing it. I had been following Simone’s work for a while, and I knew he would deliver an incredible story.

From there, I went about scripting and planning around the visuals I knew that Simoe would make into works of art.

Script Pages

Here you can see a few of the script pages from the story. My scripts are always evolving and changing, and this was the style of scripting I was using at the time.

Artwork

Here are some of the pages from the finished comic! I’m not going to post all of them, but you can find the rest of them in the Batman: Urban Legends collections or on the DC: Universe Infinite app in Batman: Urban Legends #23.

Artist/Colors: Simone Di Meo
Letters: Andworld Design
Assistant Editor: Jessica Berbey
Editor: Dave Wielgosz
(Batman created by Bob Cane and Bill Finger)

Until Next Time!

Hopefully, this has been helpful for anyone interested in how writing comics works and what it’s like to work with an artist.