SPREAD – Delivering The Scene: Film Vs Comic

I love telling stories. I always have, and have pretty much been a storyteller since before I could even write. For me, one of the fascinating things about telling a story is considering my approach, which directly involves considering the medium in which I plan to deliver my tale. 

Will this be a quick story delivered orally? To one person? To a whole group? In writing, is it an anecdote for a blog or newsletter post like this? Or something even more personal like a diary entry meant only for the eyes of the writer? 

My favorite two mediums for writing, as of July 2025 and I compose this piece, both involve scripts but are quite different from each other: film and comics. Here, I’ll show you the exact same scene from the film and then from the comic, along with some BTS for both to underscore exactly how different the media really are. 

The process for writing the two are very different for me, too, but this won’t go s much into process as focusing on the execution and delivery portions right near the end for each. If you are interested in really digging in how I write, let me know and I’ll definitely be glad to include a few posts that go more that direction as well. 

For now though, let’s take a look at a story called SPREAD: Pigs to Slaughter that I co-wrote with indie comics superstar Kurt Belcher back in early 2022, then scripted and filmed later that year. We are currently planning the theatrical premiere and release of the film for November 2025, and I’m scripting it one more time as a comic book, working with Branko Jovanovic and Kurt Belcher as they deliver amazing dynamic pages for the project.

For the cold open of the story, Kurt and I wanted to introduce audiences to Emily Alexander who gets murdered in cold blood just minutes later. This is a slasher-thriller after all. I won’t go into who killed Emily or her connection to any other characters in the story. Honestly, what we wrote is so cool that I don’t want to spoil it for you, especially with the release of both currently so imminent. 

Before we meet Emily, in both the film and the comic, we first get a peek at her quiet neighborhood on a quiet day as she pulls into her driveway. Once she pulls up, she struggles to juggle her keys, the bags she is carrying and trying to use her phone to make a video call to her daughter. As all this happens and she makes her way towards the front door, she is a little spooked to see it open.

That’s what we’ll see in what I’m showing you here today. What you’ll notice is how each is paced differently to take advantage of the medium in which they are being told. The film plays with time by actually using the seconds of her life on the screen as she struggles with those bags and then her phone pops on screen showing her attempt to contact her daughter and going live on Procrastagram instead (Procrastagram is their version of social media in the story, but it is also where you can get first peeks at the comic AND film here in our world! Check our Procrastagram and follow me there too when you get the chance!). The biggest dilation happens between her car and even seeing the front door that is standing open. In the comic, however, time is manipulated differently for the audience. 

In the comic, you’ll see that there is no big focus, no extra panel or page time spent with Emily as she struggles with the bags. Instead, we wanted to play with and put much more focus onto that open door which actually presents some jeopardy and at least a minor threat to the character in the eyes of the reader. So to play with time there, we made that panel the last one on the first page. This allows the moment to hang with the reader for that extended second or two as they turn the page and begin reading again.

In both film and comics, I am rather obsessed with stories being told in the micro and the macro. For me, I do not feel like I am done revising until really every scene in a film reads almost like its very own story with beginning, middle, and end. In comics, that really hits me on a page by page basis. I really make an effort for almost every page in a comic that I’ve written to contain its own story in miniature. I’m not sure if this comes from decades of collecting comics and often – especially more so as a child– finding comics with a missing page – or even just a portion or page from a comic and still being infatuated as I read it. I want that for my reader too.

In film, this means communicating what your desire is to your actors and crew. In the BTS clip I’ve included here, you will actually see the actress Stacy Marie Turner handling both since I’m showing you her selfie-shot footage that I would later pair and synch by hand with the footage from the main camera. Here you can see the script, some of Stacy’s BTS (not the footage used in the film clip – this is just for showing how we do it), and the final scene.

For the comic, after I had sent the script to Branko, he asked me to give him an idea of my thoughts on layout. Here you can compare the script, my awful thumbnails/sketch and the amazing final renders from Branko. 

In case you cannot tell, I am extremely excited about the release of the comic and the film. I hope you will continue to follow the news here in this newsletter, follow me on Instagram (https://www.Instagram.com/onlyrobertcsmith) & the film (https://www.Instagram.com/SpreadTheMovie )and if you really love all the BTS and process stuff, I hope you are following the Lethal Voice Podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you stream. For everything related to SPREAD: Pigs to Slaughter in film and comics, you can always check https://www.SpreadTheMovie.com as well.)

If you have any questions, comments or stories about your own process, I would love to hear from you in the comments!