My first online comic which ran for 4 years (or so) was made with no scripts. I simply had an idea, drew it and only then worked out the dialogue. Used to get pretty decent traffic too! About 10,000-15,000 hits on update days.
I was wreck though, trying to figure out what to do for the next page and it nearly give me an ulcer. I had to give up for my own sanity.
These days I make sure I have lots of scripted pages before I put pencil to paper.
@Tani2691 Have you tried making a storyboard? like making small thumbnails of the page with the dialog next to it. Scripting doesn't help me that much either but when I storyboard and write the dialog too it helps me organize the page as well as the comic better. It helps with paneling, speech bubbles, angles, organizing dialog etc and you wouldn't have to re-draw panels and erase as much because you already have a small visual reference of how the page is gonna look.
I tend to storyboard + write the dialog next to it for pages waaay ahead of where I actually am, it gives me a better perspective of how the story is gonna go and leaves me with some space for change if I needed it.
Speaking as a reader, and not as a writer, my feelings are this: If I am reading your comic, and I start feeling like you are winging it, unless I am doing a review on it, I will stop reading.
Let me repeat that: If I feel like you are making it up as you go along, I will stop reading. The only exception is a story that I am reading just for the humour.
I am not alone in that, however most people don't have my background in writing and critique, so they will give reasons like 'too many plotholes' or 'the story wasn't going anywhere' or 'too many abandoned characters/plots' or a host of other reasons. It all boils down to the same thing, however, and that is that the story is not written completely, and the reader can tell.
As a writer, the best reason to do a script (and a complete set of thumbnails/storyboards is just another form of a script), is that you can see how the story looks from farther away than a single page. You can then do things like work on the plot, work on the character arcs, eliminate things that do not advance the story, make sure that the pacing is smooth and speeds up or slows down at the places you want it to, and most importantly, make sure that the story hangs together in plot, conflict and theme.
Now, the most important part. The first one is the rough draft. Not the final draft. The rough draft. The finest, most practiced writers in the world have rough drafts, so even if you are doing thumbnails or storyboards, it's a rough draft. Polish it up before you start drawing.
The readers will appreciate it.
Eagle
("Writing" can be done with just the storyboards/Thumbnails)
i script junk out! i think its kinda fun. but mostly i just haaaaaate doing thumbnails and storyboards. its super unartsy of me to say that. and i draw everythin else for the comic. but storyboarding has always been a butt to me. it just urks me havin to redraw stuff. or drawin somethin in the first place without puttin all my work into it
The problem is that sometimes you don't use dialog between characters because you can just draw emotion on his face which would tell much more than speech. And you will never describe on paper the way your character would speak with help of only emotions. It's impossible.
And If you have a good memory anyway, you have no need in script, which can't describe what you want
Sometimes it depends on the story for me. Some comics and stories i have scripts written out from beginning to end to keep myself focuses on the main idea of the story and/or the lesson thats suposed to be learned
some stories are just stories and i have a hard time going farther then one or two days of the story, so often times im just winging it when Im working with those stories.
I'll have anywhere from the entire story written and planed out to absolute zero planed ahead besides characters :v
@VaoMamago, I do a review column4, and I am currently working on several so that I can add them to the buffer on my site.
Eagle
(Hope that helps)
For my series Lance x Saber1 I somewhat write a "script"
I type up different actions and simple details for the plot of the story and what happens in the chapter as mental notes on what to follow when i create a set of thumbnails for each page. Usually I have a good enough memory to just look at the thumbnail panels and know what I want them to say. That or I include one or two word phrases to remind me on what they need to say.
I think at least some sort of pre planned organization for your comics and pages is a good way to have a clean cut story and make it seem less confusing for both you and the readers. I know sometimes with me if I don't plan it will all seem like a jumbled mess of information.