The Beatboard
A comic or zine now has a work spine: an ordered set of stages across the top of the asset, Beatboard, Script, Storyboard, Pages, Lettering, Publish. The Beatboard is the first stage, where you plan the story as a row of beats before you draw a single panel. You add a beat for each thing that happens, dock the characters and locations it involves, set its page, and then turn the board into that asset's page script in one step. This page covers the spine, the Beatboard itself, and how it feeds the rest of the stages.
1The work spine
Open a comic or zine and the stages run across the top in a fixed order: Beatboard, Script, Storyboard, Pages, Lettering, Publish. That is the order the work moves in: plan the story, write it, rough it out, make the pages, letter them, ship it. Each stage heads its own surface, so clicking a stage switches what you are working on, and each stage has its own address you can link to and come back to. Pages and Publish are always present; the others can be turned off per asset if you do not use them.
2What the Beatboard is
A beat is one thing that happens in the story. The Beatboard is a board of those beats, laid out as cards you can drag around. There is one board per project, and each asset in the project gets its own row, called a lane, with a coloured band so you can tell lanes apart. When you open the Beatboard from an asset, the board is filtered to that asset's lane, so you see this issue's beats. It is a planning surface only: nothing on it is ever published or seen by a reader.
3Add a beat
Hit + Beat in the toolbar to add a card to this asset's lane, then double-click the card to open its editor. It has three fields: What happens (the title), The beat (a short summary in prose), and an optional Page number. The summary is the part that becomes the page's script later, so write it as what you want on the page. A beat with no page still stays on the board; it is reported when you build the script rather than guessed onto a page.
4Dock your cast and locations
Down the left is the pieces rail, which lists the Characters and Settings (locations) from your Codex. To attach one to a beat, click the beat to select it, then click a piece. The rail shows Docking into the beat you picked, and the piece appears as a chip on the beat card. When you build the script, a docked character or location becomes a real reference in it, linked to the same Codex entry.
5Order the story
The reading order of your beats is their order on the board: by page first, then left to right. So you set the running order by dragging cards, not by numbering them. Drag a card to move it; the board saves the new position when you let go. Pan the canvas by dragging an empty spot or scrolling, and zoom with Ctrl (or Cmd) and the scroll wheel. Fit in the toolbar frames everything again if you get lost.
6Focus and lock
Two toolbar controls change what you see and what the board may touch. Focus is a pair of pills, This asset and Whole project: it only changes which lanes are shown, and writes nothing. Lock (which then reads Locked) locks this asset's lane against board updates: once locked, the board can no longer write to the asset, and the toast says so. Use the lock when a book's script is settled and you do not want a later board edit to overwrite it.
7Turn the board into the script
This is what the Beatboard is for. Update script turns the lane's beats into that asset's page scripts: one page per distinct page number you set, beats in board order within each page. Each beat contributes a panel (its title) and a description (its summary, with any docked characters and locations as references). You see a preview first, listing what will be added, updated, flagged, or left untouched, and nothing is written until you confirm.
8On to the Script and Storyboard
After the board writes the script, the next stages pick it up. The Script stage is the written issue, page by page, where you refine the panels, dialogue, captions and sound the board laid down. From the Script stage, a Script to storyboard button hangs each page's script onto its matching card on the Storyboard, so your rough-out board carries the words for each page. It annotates the existing page cards; it does not create or move them.
9Beatboard, Storyboard, Script: which is which
Three planning surfaces sit next to each other on the spine, and they do different jobs. The Beatboard plans the story: beats and running order. The Storyboard plans the pages: a card per page on an infinite board, where you rough layouts and add sticky notes and arrows. The Script is the words: the panels, dialogue, captions and sound, page by page. Beats become the script; the script can annotate the storyboard.
10What the Beatboard does not do
A few honest edges so you know what to expect. The Beatboard is beats, docked pieces, and page numbers. There are no arrows between beats, no free-floating sticky notes, and no connector lines to draw; that kind of planning is the Storyboard's job. The board is a studio-only planning document, so nothing on it is published or seen by a reader. And it is a shared document rather than a live one: if two people edit it, each sees the other's changes when the board refreshes, not keystroke by keystroke.
Questions creators actually ask
No. A beat is one thing that happens in the story; a panel is one drawing on a page. One beat can become several panels when you draw it. The Beatboard plans the beats and their order, and Update script turns each beat into a panel-and-description starting point you refine later.
From your Codex. The pieces rail lists your Codex characters (under Characters) and locations (under Settings). If the rail is empty, add them in the Codex first and they appear here to dock onto beats. A docked piece becomes a linked reference in the generated script.
It groups the lane's beats by the page number you gave each one, in board order, and writes a panel (the title) and a description (the summary) to each page. It writes only to pages the asset already has, shows a preview before anything changes, and never erases words you wrote by hand (a removed beat's words are flagged, not deleted). You can also lock a lane so the board cannot write to it at all.
No. The Beatboard is beats, docked cast and locations, and page numbers. Arrows, sticky notes and rough layouts are the Storyboard's job. Reading order on the Beatboard comes from dragging beats into position, not from connector lines.
No. The stages are an order, not a requirement. You can write straight into the Script, or rough pages on the Storyboard, or draw on Pages, in whatever order suits you. The Beatboard is there for when you want to plan the story as beats before writing.
It is a shared document, but not keystroke-by-keystroke live. Two people can open and edit it, and each sees the other's changes when the board refreshes after a save, not instantly. Access uses your existing board view and edit permissions, with no separate Enterprise seat.
It shows on multi-page comics and zines as a full stage. A director can turn the Beatboard stage on or off per asset in the asset's settings, and Pages and Publish always stay on. Other kinds show the stages that apply to them instead.
From beats to a scripted issue
Add a beat for each moment, dock the cast and locations, set the pages, drag them into order, and Update script. You go from a blank board to a scripted issue without retyping the story, and the Script and Storyboard stages take it from there.
Where next?