I don't know if I've mentioned this since lunch, but I really have nothing but disdain for Bill O'Reilly.
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Posts Tagged ‘old school saturday’
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Back when I was at Wizard and knew nothing about either lettering or comedy, my buddy Jairo would pass me random comic panels he had pulled for the magazine. I'd remix them, and we'd have a good laugh, because that's what Wizard was paying us to do. I'm kidding, of course. Wizard didn't pay.
Back when I was at Wizard and knew nothing about either lettering or comedy, my buddy Jairo would pass me random comic panels he had pulled for the magazine. I'd remix them, and we'd have a good laugh, because that's what Wizard was paying us to do. I'm kidding, of course. Wizard didn't pay.
We all know Peter Parker could have used a clone.
Everybody Jack Kirby drew looked like Nixon. It was a victory for Kirby when he drew a dame that didn't have Strangulation Hands. But it's kind of funny how much that little guy looks like Kennedy.
This was an earlier version of a page with some confusion as to Fabius having appeared before (in the start of the 11th chapter and as ambassador to Carthage way back in chapter 1.) So here he's a young man, whereas the fellow we wanted to see was 58, hardly in prime years for tramping around southern Italy.
Once we corrected that, I realized the Roman as currency piled in panel 3 was not gold, but copper. So that was my bad. It color corrected easily enough, though.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News.
The bear's arm and side are a little under what I want, but those spraying organs...that's some satisfying gore, from a pure art perspective. They do what they're supposed to do.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News.
This one was for a piece on how many male scientists exclude women from their fields and in the case of Watson & Crick, swipe.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News. I'm kind of proud of this one. I like the old timey moustache, the body language, the retro moonsuit. Alas, one more that didn't run in the book.
I'm trying to figure out a way to mention this in Invisible, Inc.: Yellow Journalism as something that actually happened. The Daily Sun would be a nice allusion to Mr. Twist. The invasion and the bad reporting are both major themes.
It'd just be a mention at any rate.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News. This one didn't make it into the print book despite a couple of good likenesses. Haven't had time to read it yet, so it might be that the article got dropped. Or it just might all be a conspiracy...
Anyway, Stephen King could not have been very happy with how far The Running Man went off the rails. Speaking of which, -- man, I really was working in darker greys than print will forgive when I inked these.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News.
Yeah...darker, flatter shades than I would permit of myself these days. Otherwise, it's a pretty straight-up drawing of the cover, which, I hadn't noticed before, is actually a Photoshop composite of Pitt and Norton's faces.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News. I did a couple of Aaron Burr pieces, but nothing that saw print.
Aaron Burr & Andrew Jackson -- homiez 4 lyfe
This was the illustration that replaced the Scooby-Doo image after all that alteration freaked out Cracked's lawyers. To calm their legal woes, we did a new one, this time of an extremely lizard-eyed Burr atop a polished, black marble throne. I'm kind of proud of how much Jackson looks like an elderly lunatic, and the alien glare on Burr's face. But man, this image? Too dark. And those cloned soldiers are pretty weak.
Keep on learning.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News.
This one was the original illustration to a piece on what a loony bastard Aaron Burr was. Cracked's lawyers got really nervous about it because Scooby Doo was a show that was last drawn in 1978 and here we were plainly acknowledging it existed. I don't want to presume I know more about satire laws than people who spent 7 years studying it, but I have a stack of MADs in my room that show why you have absolutely nothing to fear with this kind of thing.
Even after changing those Great Dane ears to labrador flaps, coloring it red, and giving it an Uncle Sam goatbeard, they didn't want to risk it, so we moved on and I got paid twice (hooray for litigation!)
Alexander Hamilton is the subject of something like 4% of my commissioned illustrations. It's kind of freaky.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News.
All of these drawings were too dark for the screen, let alone print, and I'm waiting to see (at the time of writing this) if they were able to salvage my work for the page or if it's just a big, dark smear.
In this drawing, I'm most proud of the pile of carnage atop which they stand.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News.
This version's much better than the first, I think you'll agree. Alas, this one didn't make it into the book.
These are the illustrations I did for You Might Be a Zombie & Other Bad News.
The idea was Three Kings actually used footage of a bullet entering someone's gut (they were already dead at the time), which is more weight than any film can bear if it could also be honestly released under the title Marky Mark & The Quest for Curly Hussein's Gold.
I might've posted the wedding dress picture before, but I think the inset is new.
Strychnine Kiss was the first comic issue I ever completed, back in 2004 with Jorge Heufemann, who was wonderful to work with. I've retooled it a few times then, trying to pare down the dialogue, beef up the action, and in general, catch my writing up to his art. You saw the first chapter in Dose #3, with additional art by German Erramouspe.
This drawing only makes sense if you've read The Golden Age, but anyway. This was a con sketch someone requested.
I don't want to spoil a great Elseworlds tale for anyone, but if you ask me to draw Dan the Dynamite, I'm going to make him one very unhappy person suffering a crisis of existence. I know it's the cool thing to hate Nazis among the kids on their skateboards these days, but man do I really hate those dirty Ratzis.
I remember drawing this back in...cripes, 2007, because Dose had just come out. Nice guy. I like when folks request the esoteric sketches rather than just Deadpool gutting someone or Rogue making out with Psylocke while Storm videotapes it.
An early design for Mr. Twist by Tomas, blocking out the shadowy figure's facial structure. Actually, as much as we bury him in shadow, we try to hide him twice as much in light. When you know Twist's true nature, you think very differently about how to present him, how he'll act. We're trying to get a little bit away from the all-knowing Deep Throat.
Early designs for Mr. Twist. Mine first, and Tomas' much improved version next week.
I have no explanation for this except I was bored one day in 2002 and wondered how the Fantastic Four would age.
Apparently if a Human Torch lives to be old enough, he becomes a Ghost Rider. That's reasonable, though. His head is the only part of him unprotected by his costume. It probably scorched off in his old age.
I'm posting this because it has to do with my thoughts for Invisible, Inc.'s current storyline, only expressed more articulately than I can write these days.
My girlfriend, sketched (poorly) while she played video games, January 17th, 2010.
Geist, sketched on the bus to New York from DC, January 19, 2010.
Some more character designs for Strychnine Kiss, starring Andek Machine, Cullen and the fellow who killed her (but it didn't take), plus bullets/roses/lipstick motif.
I wanted to do a couple of things -- one was write about a really dysfunctional loner with some baggage in a big city full of powerful interests. That's the GrimJack fan in me. The other was parse a western and a gangster story, since structurally they're almost inverse. Strychnine Kiss is an experiment.
That gorgeous cover up top was done by Marla Campbell of Tastes Like Chicken and other fine publications, back in 2003 or '04. The sketches below are my suggestions for the cover and the figure in the smoke.
For awhile there Vicious Circle was putting together a Reel Big Fish comic and I offered my services to do the cover because -- come on, it's a Reel Big Fish comic and I'm the guy who spent 30 consecutive hours slam-bashing a script home with "She's Famous Now" playing on repeat.
I'm not sure whatever happened to those guys, but anyway, here were the comic designs I sent them, most of which played off of Julie Schwartz teaser covers from the '60s.
It's funny, but the very first sketches for "Li'l Sammy Swift" are now the most relevant, as in the comics he's just encountered Capt. Baggurl and the crew of the Zeitgeist.
But of course, you know all this, because you've bought all three issues of DOSE and look forward to #4, right?
I think I was calling him Kid Ragnarok then, which I then let Elder steal for one of his Mail-Order Ninja projects. And look, neither of us did anything with it!
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
When I drew this page, war in Iraq was something you were only reading about on really far-out blogs, it wasn't being bandied about by the news or the executive office yet. And when you think about it: secret underground bases, an army of duplicates, exotic chemical weaponry...Saddam Hussein really was this horrible, real-life supervillain.
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003. Here's a version with an alternate head on Felicity, and the identity of Will's attacker altered (not that you can tell).
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Here's a later version of that page:
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
If they get within sight of the care, detail, depth and personal meaning I've with which I've imbued Iconography, I can die happy.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Here's a just-awful attempt at this page from 2002:
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Believe it or not, the first version of this page was even worse:
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Iconography will be my magnum opus. This was my first go at it, in 2003. I'm revising the script and I'll have to redraw pretty much everything.
If Invisible, Inc. is the secret history of comics, Iconography will be the official book.
Sorry for the quality. I didn't know anything about scanning in 2003.
Comics speak to me.
You'll find me more writer than artist, but I had to draw Iconography myself. Had to letter it, had to color it, even had to ink it and further defile whatever art lay in the pencils. This is my love letter to comics, and I have to watch it rise or fall by my lonesome. It's the history of the medium in America, from Platinum to present, and maybe even earlier than that, since my hero, Ben Franklin, drew America's first political cartoon. Literally every character is someone, and most are somemany.
I hope in the process I can incorporate the skills and methods of greater creators than I'll ever be: Eisner, Kirby, Steranko, Crumb, Ross, Miller, Millar, Morrison, Moore, Ellis and a thousand others, including my personal art hero, Winsor McCay. Ultimately, I hope I can innovate a little of my own before I finish.
Citizen X sketches, though not for the western. Something further down the timeline. I probably drew these in 2003.
That IS Rakh al'Gadriel in the swat uniform, though. I guess I'm doing a bit of a Blackadder thing.
Last week's Old School Saturday showed early Invisible, Inc. sketches from when it was a Marvel pitch called Control. At the time I was taking a comics writing class at Rockland Community College under living legend Denny O'Neil. It was so ridiculously awesome, having access to a veteran like him. I think the class had about a dozen people, most taking it as a lark.
These are his notes on "Control" #1, which unfolded a little differently from Invisible, Inc. #1, by trading on things people thought they knew about Marvel continuity.
In fact, that was the nugget that made me pitch originally to DC. The catch-22 of one-shots is they have to validate their existence. They have to be big, important, worth doing outside of the regular titles...and yet they have to be self-contained. Their position in continuity is dubious, so they can't change anything. The idea of doing a conspiracy theory book was it could either radically realign everything you took as gospel about a company's 60 years of continuity, or you could choose not to believe it. You could write it all off as deranged ramblings.
Denny O'Neil critiqued my script and liked it. I'm still geeking out six years later.
According to what I have written down here, my transcribed class notes are incomplete (and probably unintelligible). But hey, if you want to suss out what I put down, congratulations, here are the equivalent of How to Write Comics cliff notes:
DENNY
We were dealing with social topics, and superheroes didn't do that. Part of it was we were the new kids on the block, the flavor of the week.
The one I'm deeply ashamed of is the feminist problem. It was mercifully omitted.
We ended at the right time. It was going to become Cause of the Month comics. We did everything we felt passionate about.
We created Malthus to discuss overpopulation.
Sex stops a story dead. Becomes about sex and nothing else.
BATMAN
Chuck Dixon (?) coming from a Libertarian POV. And I'm a pinko. Left and right go far enough, they meet at anarchy.
THE SHADOW
Steranko: "Shadow doesn't believe in the death penalty. He IS the death penalty."
For it to be acceptable to me, I set it in the '30s = NeverNeverLand.
No thought ballooons. Force of nature
Robin died by 65 votes.
When Robin died, there was a news story and Denny stopped at a hot dog vendor, wearing a DC or Batman pin. Vendor inquired, and he explained he was the editor: 'HEY! This is the guy that killed Robin!' That's when I realized I'm not a guy doing fiction, I'm the custodian of folklore.
Characters have to evolve, stay relevant, yet true to roots.
Mike Carlin bought Denny three months to recover after his heart attack.
DON'T BE LATE: It's a crummy thing to do. On top of holding up everyone else, it's unprofessional.
ON CREATIVE FREEDOM: If I made the money they would give me freedom.
Warner Bros. looks at DC as R&D (alphabet soup!)
Don't ever think a corporation is your friend. It's about $.
Discipline: sit down and write everyday.
MANTRA #2: Check ego at the door. Respect it as an art form, but look on it as a job.
Tendency to equate incomprehensibility with hipness. Terse is somehow harder than prolix.
Elements that appeal to most people most of the time lost popularity since Ezra Pound, and trying to make itself difficult. Kinda showing off.
OLD COMICS: COnventional wisdom was readership turned over every 4 years.
STORY: Ask 200 people if they know what a story is. A story is not "random slice of reality" and not "random facts about people's lives." STORY = Structured narrative designed to achieve emotional (resonance?) and demonstrate proposition as reveal character.
Poe said 'every word in a short story must be aimed at the final effect'
Comics are a weird hybrid of drama and initiative. Don't waste words or images.
Harrison Ford said "Figure out important info in a scene, find an interesting way to impart it."
Practical comic writing.
COMICS AS LANGUAGE
-Word and image must work together the way parts of a sentence do to impart info to create a scene.
-Images are static. World lit by strobe lights.
-Constraints of space/time.
-You can manipulate panels and # of panels to slow down, speed up reader.
-Used to be keep it about 40 words per panel in a 7 panel page.
Umberto Eco = semioticist.
IMPROVISATIONS: Speed lines, radiation lines, heat lines, light bulb, translucent figures to show fast movements. Thought balloons, psychic balloons, dialogue boxes.
STRUCTURE: In 19th/20th century climax was 1/2 way through story. Now we use more of 3-act structure for almost everything.
Pacing is the last thing a storyteller learns. You'll get a sense of it. "Patience, young grasshopper, we will learn that." (easy to see Denny as a wudan monk)
Structure presents events coherently so the audience can understand. Maintain suspense and interest, maximize impact. Don't waste words or images. Trim all fat. Unity - focus on essentials.But don't over economize.
On mapping Gotham: I didn't want to give a gamer's mentality to the Gotham of comics. Defining it would take it from the imagination.
VALUE OF FUZZY THINKING: Let the audience fill certain non-essential gaps.
STORY SPINE (credit Wm. Goldman): What the story is about. (well that was simple)
Denny sez: "The inevitable sequence of events leading to the end."
Every movement in the story is bringing those characters to the end (and if I may add, that was what was so great about Shakespeare).
profluence - move smoothly and easily
conventional: causal sequence of events but you can use other elements
Denny's structure for a 22-page story:
1 - Hook. Anything to make people ask what's happening next. Turn to page 2.
2 - Inciting incident: what's gonna make things happen. Upset the norm. But with superheroes you might want to establish the norm first. Quick but not necessarily by page three. (Unless you're working for Shooter, he laughs as an aside) Got to understand norm before turning it over.
3 - Major visual action.
ACT II - "put protagonist on a limb, then saw the limb off." That would be the major visual action. Don't want 5/6 parts of the story to be talk. Don't want crucial plot turns to be talk. Show, don't tell, but ya know, showing visually could be an expression.
DON'T THWART audience expectations.
Write what you can get into. You will be miserable and you will probably fail if you don't.
DC says "hook" = one line summary of what's good and interesting about a book.
Indie books should NOT be serial. One damn thing after another.
Casablanca has two inciting incidents: 1 - murder of Nazi courier/theft of papers, 2 - arrival of Ilsa.
FUZZY: Eisner's master of putting in only the details you need to get the scene.
"One damn thing after another structure: inspired by serials. Stan Lee pioneered ongoing to bring you back each month.
Maguffin = thing of vital importance to characters but not to narrator/reader. Moves story along, sets it up, whatever. (not sure I 100% agree with the narrator/readers bit). Maguffin can change, but central conflict doesn't. Private eyes are great because inciting incident is built into concept. Don't skip on maguffin. It's got to be credible for the movie to work.
Don't let structure trap you.
Superheroes = modern day tribal gods = job to protect.
CONFLICT: Come into opposition, contradictory states. Shooter says conflict should be on page two (but what's he done lately? --me). Drama comes from conflict. Three types:
1 - Inner: to be or not to be?
2 - Personal: one on one
3 - External: ideological, physical, bigger than personal.
Don't make your hero a big, sloppy whiner. Stan Lee put enough into it that it worked.
Galleys = copy you have to check over.
Scenes = building blocks. Vertebrae.
CLASSICIST - looks for underlying structure
ROMANTICIST - looks for surface
Types of comic script.
1 - Full. This is standard. Everything in place.
2 - Marvel-style. Old school Stan Lee. Nobody really uses this now.
3 - Dough Moench style. 25 page plot for a 22pg story.
"Such was the genius of Julie Schwartz. I never left his office without something to write."
Is this a Julie quote? "Late '30s, ad agencies weren't hiring Jews. This was where we could get work." Explaining so many Jewish comic creators.
Comic books, when they work well, are a perfect blend of copy and image.
Scene = "action through conflict in more or less consisten time and space. Action event." --Robert McKee
No superfluous scenes. Contribute to final effect. Interaction between characters that advances plot or gives information or both. Every scene should be as brief and pointed as possible.
Beware talking heads! Don't let dialogue go on more than 2 pages. Wally Wood did a thumbnail page of many tricks you can do when writers are typing endless dialogue.
JOHN TRUBY'S STRUCTURE
1) Need - generalized problem
2) Desire - particular problem that in achieving will help solve need
3) Plan of action
4) Battle
5) Final confrontation
6) Self-realization
7) New equilibrium - key point is self-realization/revelation
Major change in storytelling in the last 50 years: serialization. Dominant in our age.
From plot comes character.
CAMPBELL
Plot pt. 1) Call to action
2) Return home with elixir, sword maguffin
3) Become ye a man!
Don't cheat the readers, no matter what.
Eddie Berganza = old fashioned editor. Made Denny rewrite. "I was really impressed. I don't think I'd have the nerve to ask somebody higher than me to rewrite" when Denny was editing/writing at the same time.
Highly directive editing is a danger. "Err on the side of laissez-faire. You want first-rate Grayson, not third-rate O'Neil." Editor's job is to be invisible, make your peopolpe look good. Doesn't mean just copyedit and let it ride, but elicit, rather than command, the best from them.
Denouement -wrapup, restoration of normalcy. DOn't have to have it. Do w/o if you can, in fact. Keep it short.
Flashbacks are overused. Try to avoid 'em. But if you do, don't insert them arbitrarily. Make them ridiculously clear. Some techniques:
-Past tense captions. Don't see these much currently, but Silver Agers used them all the time "Green Lantern recharged his ring, then turned to see the Guardians of the Galaxy..."
-Special coloring: change palate, or most often, monochrome w/varying values, monochrome w/varying saturation
-Scalloped panel borders or some other type of special border.
-Headshot in the caption, another one of those Silver Age things nobody does a lot of anymore.
Transitions are very important and necessary. Spatial. Captions, etc. Sense of place most neglected thing in comics. Eisner one of the best at it.
Lady offended by LSH costumes.
Craft - set of procedures, practices, attitudes and methods that...um...where'd the rest of the def. go?
Nobody has codified the structure for longer stories. Continuing characters have only existed for 150 years or so. Serials only since mid-19th century. Dickens. Not true serials. Movie serials since 1911. Last in 1956. "Blazing over land trail.' Comics are going to change in next 10 years enormously.
Newspaper strip - saturday doesn't advance plot because no commuters. Sunday recaps whole week or a little plot advance or a tangent. Throwaway panels
Caniff - economic, drew to service of bad printing but attentive to detail. Integrity.
One-issue stories were encouraged as one-off until '60s when distribution became more reliable.
Sarah Bright - Jeopardy researcher and comic fan.
Stan Lee 1st guy to make continued comics the rule. Told Denny he liked longer stories and didn't like thinking up new plots every month.
Sloppy writing/plotting going on a lot now. Writers don't introduce and establish. Burning time (can you say "too much decompression"?)
ARCHIE GOODWIN: "During the 80s we all got lazy and sloppy/"
SERIAL RULES: (remembering that there ARE no rules)
1) Have enough story to fill the book. Figure out spine, ribs, vertebrae
2) Must be a major development, reversal or change in each issue. Don't just visit your characters.
3) Know the ending before you begin (Alan Moore says different and I tend to agree. Obviously you can make some missteps if you don't get a sense of it, but it's a great way to achieve that every step necessary to reach the end and keep the end fresh and fitting instead of cliche and forced)
4) End each issue w/a cliffhanger.
5) Hero must do something to effect change.
6) Turning points must be a surprise.
7) Beginning of each issue must have exposition.
"One of the first things I did when I went to NY was look for Nero Wolf's house"
Spine = plot
Vertebrae = scenes
Ribs = themes
Guts = color, character
OGNs
Starhunters maybe the first one?
Eisner is King.
Maus II got comics respect
Short story - "story in which one thing happens."
Novel - prose narrative, usually long, complex, intense
Achieve catharsis. Build tension in order to relieve it. But meaningful. Sensation for its own sake = pornography. Shakespeare usually ends witha big fight. Gotta up the stakes with each new challenge, or at least different.
anti-climax - used to mean excessive emotional enxiety. But today = expositon/developments after resolution of central conflict.
Talking during fights - a convention, similar to singing in musicals.
Plot and character are completly, inextricably intertwined. "Action is character." Personality traits direct resolution of story. What makes them unique, the thoughts, feelings, reactions, direct response to crises
Building character: sometimes inside out.
USEFUL QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT MAIN CHARACTERS
What do they want?
What are they afraid of?
Why are they involved in extreme situations? Why involve themselves?
Life and death = the good stuff.
"magic realism" - realism with an element of fantasy.
HEROES
Superman upholds the Kents' values. Bond advances good causes, serves country.
John Sheldon Lawrence and Robert Jewett - "Myth of American Superhero"
monomyth - no def. Like Jung?
American: Community in "paradise." Normal institutions fail, hero of uncommon abilities appears, corrects problem. Vanishes once it's over.
Old Europe: GO out on a quest, obtain something of value, return to community with it. Changed by experience.
AMERICAN = ride in, kick ass, ride out. EUROPEAN = retrieve benefit, aid community.
And that is why we have superheroes.
Hero must be agent of story's resolution. Deconstruction of superheroes. Updating outmoded values with current ones. Speaks with distaste about Chaykin having Blackhawk get a BJ. But Frank Miller does it in service of story.
Do hero's actions add or detract from the story, you must ask yourself. Story comes first.
Batman's official age is 33. Denny devised Elseworlds. Would have disapproved of Killing Joke if he'd been on it. Doesn't name names.
VILLAINS
Should be colorful. "Joker is the best villain ever" completely unpredictable.
Should have an edge on the hero.
CHARACTER
Sometimes created by needs of the plot. Archetypes: hero, mentor, threshold guardian (e.g. Starscream, Dethstro), herald (bringer of news), shapeshifter (traitor, sorta. Personality shift, deception), shadow (hero's opposite), Trickster (sneaky devil who will fool you), sidekick (hero who is less perfect. Adds texture to story. Solves exposition). Sidekick is not a classic Jungian archetype.
This might be McKee: "Character and plot are really the same thing," and this def. is him: "True character revealed by choices the character makes under pressure."
Chandler: a man of honor in one thing, a man of honor in all things."
Arthur Miller wrote thousands of words of backstory to know characters.
Be prepared to rewrite.
EVERYTHING TRUE ABOUT THE HERO SHOULD BE TRUE ABOUT THE VILLAIN.
Why do they do what they do? Hero can have a personal life.
Funny hat characterizations (?)
Gods and priests have special garments.
ENERGIA = actualization of potential in character and situation. Aristotle.
Chip away character until you reveal what the char. is really about.
Suspense = mental excitement awaiting outcome or decision, usually accomplished by a degree of uncertainty.
Tension = stretched, strained state, a combination of pacing, drama and plot.
e.g. Hitchcock, master: a child with a bomb. We know it, he doesn't. If we didn't know it, we'd be surprised, but it wouldn't be tense.
Martinson: Let the hero win the war, but lose the battle.
Generally the hero has to win, but you know, he can stll lose. Lear dies, but there's justice.
FINAL ADVICE
Mostly entertain. BUT, try to do some good. Educate. Most proud of landmine story. "Stupid weapon, mostly victimize children. If you're forced to retreat, your own guys get blown up."
Back before I had the good fortune to collaborate with Mr. David Marquez, I thought I was going to have to draw "60-Second Warren Ellis" myself. These are my sketches and thumbnails then.
I had a pretty good pitch to Platinum Studios in 2004 about a young girl who couldn't stand her humdrum family and wished they were dashing like her idols, the superheroes Golden Glove and Maxi-Might.. Lo, on her 13th birthday, she discovers she has superpowers, but her family gets kidnapped by a nefarious supervillain. Frightened and missing them, she realizes she really does love her family for what they are. Unbeknownst to her, their kidnapping has nothing to do with her new powers. It's a strike against Golden Glove and Maxi-Might, who are, in fact, her parents, ergo their ultra-mundane secret identities. She goes to free them, and the family bonds together as superheroes, even though Dinah now accepts them as regular folks.
Not a bad premise, said Lee Nordling, but see, Pixar's working on this film called The Incredibles...
Fun fact: I ended up cribbing the name Maxi-Mighty from myself that same year for Invisible, Inc. as Ulti-Might. According to my notes, I also originally devised The Paradigm and Chickadia as stupid superhero names then threw them into Invisible, Inc. and Paradigm ended up becoming a key figure. Ulti-Might, ehhh, more of a plot device. What's the difference, you ask, especially since Ulti-Might has actually appeared in the first two issues? The difference is I like Paradigm and I know things about Ulti-Might that don't make me sorry to see him go.
Anyway, these were my goofy sketches for Dinah Might.
For a brief while Toyfare's monthly "Monthly Rag" section decided to stop doing real news and start doing fake news in a blatant rip-off of The Onion. I was cool with that because it's a lot more fun to deride a life-size replica of Beta Ray Bill's hammer and anyone who wants to put that on their mantle than it is to get the facts right and make it sound like a must-have object. So I pitched them an article about Bush granting himself special powers, which he was, in fact, doing at the time. And I sent a little sketch along for fun. I have to say though, he looks like he's melting into Donald Rumsfeld here.
Article follows below:
TOYFARE #105
By Brendan McGinley
HEAD
BUSH GRANTS SELF SPECIAL POWERS
SUBS:
--But does ‘Omega Beam veto’ go too far?
--Requests sixth infinity gem for Executive Gauntlet
--Presidential purview now includes flight & healing factor
Americans, assemble!
President Bush expanded presidential powers yesterday to include legislation, invulnerability, and the ability to talk to fish.
“I swore to preservate and protect you to the best of my ability,” he told reporters, “And those abilities must be superhumanous. Iran, North Korea, Latveria…this triumvirate of terror is a superstitial, cowardly lot.”
Wearing an army-issue flightsuit and a homemade cape stitched from pieces of the American flag, Bush somberly explained he had “abilities far beyond those of mortal men.”
Reporters questioned such augmentation’s veracity, to which Bush responded, “You folks in the reality-based community…that’s not how the world works anymore. Pow! Biff! Super-powers aren’t just for kids!”
This is not the first time Bush has defied reality to obtain his goals. In 2003 he invaded Iraq without provocation or plan, and in 2000 won a narrow Presidential election after traveling back to the Cretaceous and crushing a butterfly.
If super-powers are a viable model of executive service, Bush may take a more hands-on role in government. “With superspeed, he could run the White House by himself,” said Dr. Reed Richards of the Four Freedoms Institute, a Manhattan-based thinktank. “However, the cosmic rays necessary to trigger such a physiological change exist only in space. Perhaps this was the motive behind his 2004 call for an expedition to Mars.”
Even so, Bush faces an uphill battle. Senator Ted Kennedy (D–Mass.) said the president’s claim on super-hearing violates the Third Amendment. “By spying on all 300 million Americans, the president has created a ‘Brother I’ state. Who does he think he is to overturn the laws of the land and physics?”
When told of Kennedy’s comments, Bush stifled a heated smile: “What are you, dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I’m the goddamn PRESIDENT.” Bush then referred to the Democratic party as “The Legion of Doom,” for the rest of the press-conference.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who once wrote a memo arguing for the torture of human beings, explained to reporters that all spoken information is now legally within casual earshot to “to one that may hear everything on Earth, from the gently scraping sands of the ocean floor to the churning miasma of the aurora borealis.”
Other Democrats supported the declaration. “Gee whiz,” mewled Sen. Marvin White (D-CT) “We’d better do something to get on the Republicans’ good side – and fast!”
Bush also demanded reporters refer to him as Commander-in-Freedom. “I wanted the name Captain America, but it was taken by someone else,” he joked.
At that, Secretary of Defense Donald “Captain America” Rumsfeld leapt onto the stage, and awkwardly hurled a red, white and blue shield to the back of the room. Two reporters were injured by the metal disc.
Bush next gestured to a row of shadowy figures behind him, saying, “I’d like to you to meet America’s newest, truest heroes!” The lights went up to reveal his mildly embarrassed advisors. “Super-Cronies roll call!” the President shouted, “Spyborg! [Vice President Dick Cheney] Obermeister! [Chief Advisor Karl Rove] And the deadly Zapata!” [Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice].
It remains doubtful how the president will manifest his claim to superpowers, but Jack Ryder, host of Fox News’ “Hot Seat” cited the more-than 1,200 Arabs and Muslims who have disappeared from their homes since September 11, 2001, as proof of teleportation.
“If you don’t like it,” Ryder said, “Shut up, before your timid, reasonable criticisms demolish morale. ‘The Hot Seat’ doesn’t wish to point fingers, but we will keep an enemies showcase, tracking critics, extremists and super-villains who oppose administration policies.”
“Shut up!” he added, to no one in particular.
Asked how he’ll use his new abilities, Bush announced a four-month vacation on his Texas ranch to clear brush with his heat vision. He ended the conference, saying, “America’s enemies are manyious, and they wish to terrormarize us. If we face that terroring together, and with Green Lantern rings, nothing can stop us, not even a weapon made of yellowcake uranium.”
Started this after the election of '08, then my computer tanked with it unfinished. Now, what would be the point? That's why it still looks more like the Sega character than Obama. Hadn't finessed his features in.
Still, I like the concept.
I did a 10-minute sketch of a friend once, because I like to keep my caricature skills tweedy and she hassles me if I don't furnish a new drawing of her every year (she was also the star of "Deficient in Love" but you already guessed that because you bought a copy of Dose, right?)
I posted it on Millarworld, and son of a gun of Michael Netzer didn't ink it that same week and toss it back at me. That's really more attention than this little gremlin deserves.
So I figured it'd be a good fit for this week's Old School Saturday, as we're right in the middle of Michael's "Party Girl" on Dose Thursdays. You like that, right? Sure, you do. You're already here. Go get me a whiskey; I've got some being me to do.
Back when I had a bad microphone and an appreciation of how the '40s brought out the best and the worst in humanity at the same time, I recorded the WORR broadcast.
'WORld Radio
Proudly transcribing the latest photoreels from the front
[wpaudio url="http://www.brendanmcginley.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02WORR.mp3" text="WORR - World War II radio spoof" dl="0"]
Full transcript is something like:
Full Transcript: WORR - the World News Network proudly presents the photo-reels of the latest disasters from the front lines. 3 million dead in failed Allied invasion of Brussels; logic behind the attack still unclear. A complete list of the dead and their last words may be heard Sunday night at 7 on WORR radio.
German dictator Adolf Hitler broke a six-month silence today with a radio broadcast to his people. During the 5-minute speech, the funny little man evoked the German people to remain steadfast in the face of crippling adversity. Hitler also announced that German troops would no longer be engaging Russian troops. Portions of the speech, which were mailed to top British officers in big yellow envelopes with taunting messages written on them, were returned unopened.
Prime Minister Churchill had this to say: "The ah....Hun...has....throughout history...proven himself to be a LIAR! And so, we, the good British people, under the blessing of his Majesty, the crown, the Lord God, who is an Anglican god, and a fish merchant named Alistair, have decided this day to bomb Jerry with nuclear missiles, which we do not actually have." The prime minister concluded his speech by tearing at a leg of roast lamb with his teeth and passing out in an absinthe stupor. President Truman offered no comment other than a jaunty chuckle at the pugnacious Churchill's expense.
Meanwhile, Stalin responded to the news with this to say: BLAH LBAH GOROVKINIY STUP KLCALKLHGVASH The Russian leader then slaughtered 7 million of his people and danced on their corpses to a merry Gypsy tune before having the Gypsies killed as well.
Marines advance 12 feet in the South Pacific after bringing an end to staggering Japanese resistance in the form a machine gunner's nest and three foot soldiers. Two platoons were lost taking in the dozen or so Jap soldiers, who fought with teeth and fingernails after running out of ammunition. Burl Ives commented on the bloody battle by advising his fellow americans to "slap a dirty little jap" and indicated that he would do the same. A hearty Thank you to Burl from all true Americans.
And now for the world in sports.
The World Series begins tomorrow, despite over 70 percent of the National League being cut down by machinegun fire at the hands of Hitler's despicable Nazi stormtroopers. Red Sox hero Ted Williams has announced that he will bat for both teams in between South Pacific air battles. It was not made clear whether Williams' presence in the batting lineup would delay the innings.
Football continues to kill more Americans than Nazis and Japanese combined, at least until we develop padding, and before God, that is the way we would have it. No other news there.
Jesse Owens and Paul Robeson, two of the new breed of Negro athlete, continue to shatter the soft and paltry accomplishments of privileged white men everywhere. More importantly, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth announced a drinking contest at The Thirsty Cracker the 14th of March. The two home-run heroes will consume five beers each, then attempt to hit baseballs into the open window of a sick little boy's hospital room, taking another drink after each failed attempt.
And now for the world news at home:
Cowboy actors John Wayne and Ronald Reagan are still, as of press time, staying at home enjoying cushy Hollywood careers. Sources close to both actors say neither one has engaged any Nazis not portrayed by supporting actors in a film in the last three months.
Lovable starlet Marilyn Monroe...still does not exist. However, Norma Jean Nobody, a doe-eyed housewife toiling in a munitions factory, has begun taking the first of several glamour shots that will eventually win over all our hearts, most especially those of the Kennedys. Thank you, Marilyn, and thank YOU, America. Good night, and enjoy the film! This has been a WORR broadcast. Buy war bonds, and remember to smoke White Owl cigars. Your boys abroad are counting on you to do so.
Done the summer after college.
Self-critique: Urgh! Just about everything is wrong here. If you can even read it, you might laugh at a line or two. There's not even much need for a visual elements. It's just lists.
Lessons learned: Letter by computer, bleed margins are your friends. Above all, never ink with Sharpies. They cut a tight corner, but they'll keep bleeding ten minutes after your pen left the paper. These days it's Micron Pigmas for me. (Careful: pink and plastic erasers are abrasive to them! Either use a non-repro blue pencil and skip the erasure, or use a gray, rubber, kneaded eraser).
Speaking of which, you can pick up a cheap alternative to the non-repro blue pencil in the form of its Crayola colored pencil equivalent. Exactly the same, but you save two bucks. Which adds up, believe me.
In 2001, I was a DC Comics editorial intern for the summer. I've never been a Star Trek fan, so I had no idea who Harlan Ellison was when he sent Bob Schreck a wishlist of freebies. I drew this, way back when I knew nothing about Photoshop and thought Comic Sans MS was a good font to letter with.
I still haven't read any of his work. I probably should, but I'm not a huge sci-fi guy.
Gaze upon Free American, the very first incarnation of Ultra-Conservative!
Heck, that drawing must be at least six years old. Stuff stews if you don't let it out.
When I was a DC intern, Dan Raspler let me have a copy of Mark Waid's script for JLA...#57, I think, so I could draw some sample pages for editorial critiquing. Concensus was I need some more anatomy work, and my layout isn't conducive to the story, and I need to build up on the backgrounds and all...standard comments and pretty much my own criticisms of myself. So these would have been drawn about...August? of 2001.
The story goes: Wonder Woman dashes to rescue a couple of drowning kids, but in Panel 1 we see they're tied at the waist "by a thick cord of Martian flesh. Eww."
Self-critique: I took liberties giving them a mutual waist made of aforementioned flesh, but I think the effect with the legs and the tail really makes this the closest thing to a professional panel I've ever done. Certainly the best panel on these two pages. Panel 2 shows us Plastic Man surrounded by bickering Green Lanterns, each claiming to be the real guy. Eesh, what an awful profile on Kyle #2. On the flipside, backviews of someone are my weakest point, and Kyle #3 may just be the best one of those I've put on paper yet. Also, I think the layout's pretty smooth here, until Panel 4, which doesn't even show Kyle yelling, which is the point of the panel (I suck, I know). Panel 3 pleases me, though not that tentacle thrashing WW in the background (again, my own addition).
Another sample page for Marvel, done around the same time as Deadpool. This was to show a ton of Marvel characters in the form of Impossible Man just changing shape, trying to get away from all of them.
Hoo boy! What isn't wrong here? The crazy angles on the streets imply they narrow to one lane, and the buildings look like they're about to topple. Lighting and angles are weak, and so is anatomy. My one strong point, facial expressions, is mostly inevident here.
This and the Hostess ad convinced me I'm a better idea man than artist.
2002 or 2003 I drew this. It was supposed to be a Marvel sample page featuring Deadpool rescuing a woman from T-Ray and Typhoid Mary. That's all just a flimsy excuse to do a Hostess pie ad, where, in his own inimitable fashion, Deadpool takes advantage of the villain's distraction to shoot them in the back of the head at the point where a hero would bust them. I took entirely the wrong angle on the final panel, though, so you can't even tell.
Oh well. Interesting angles, half-decent anatomy, terrible perspective. I think my storytelling in comics has actually gotten worse over the years if you look at the stuff I've drawn recently. It's all straight on or in profile, nothing cool comes in or out of the panels, gets clipped or framed to imply more exists beyond the border. It all just fits in there perfectly.
I should probably stop watching TV while I draw.
Back in the days of the college newspaper, I was at my most useful the week of April 1st. One year we did a tabloid theme, the next, a wholesale Onion knock-off centered around the campus.
"Follow me for fun!" still makes me laugh.
Back in the days of the college newspaper, I was at my most useful the week of April 1st. One year we did a tabloid theme, the next, a wholesale Onion knock-off centered around the campus.
So this is that, when I had to fill a quarter-page at 3 a.m. Sort of like right now.
Forgive me.