In comics, a script may be preceded by a plot outline, and is almost always followed by page sketches, drawn by a comics artist and inked, succeeded by the coloring and lettering stages. There are no prescribed forms of comic scripts, but there are two dominant styles in the mainstream comics industry, the full script (commonly known as “DC style”) and the plot script (or “Marvel style”).

In this style, the comics writer (also comics scripter, comic book writer, comics author, comic book author, graphic novel writer, graphic novel author or graphic novelist) breaks the story down in sequence, page-by-page and panel-by-panel, describing the action, characters, and sometimes backgrounds and “camera” points-of-view of each panel, as well as all captions and dialogue balloons. For decades, this was the preferred format for books published by DC Comics.

Peter David described his specific application of the full script method: “I break down each page on a panel by panel basis and label them as PANEL A, PANEL B, and so on. Then I describe what’s in each panel, and then do the dialogue, numbering the balloons. I designate the panels with letters and the word balloons with numbers so as to minimize confusion for the letterer.”