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Dateline: May 15, 2008, 10:03 EST
WRITER VS. ARTIST
We were talking to a comic book artist a few days back and we said something along the lines of: “You know, this really is an art driven medium. So many comic book writers just get dismissed and neglected. I mean, no one talks about ‘Silver Age writers’...” To this lachrymose sentiment, the artist raised an eyebrow and responded: “What are you nuts?! When a reader likes a book, they like the story...and they absolutely don’t give a damn who did the art!” Interesting. Perhaps the real question is this: does anyone who creates anything ever feel entirely appreciated...?
Dateline: May 13, 2008, 3:04 EST
HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL: LESSON #97
Consider the use of talking animals (or Funny Animals). If you employ talking animal characters, the main thing to remember is that your tome will have a visually metaphoric / satiric tone. This pictographic irony is the basis from which all talking animal comics orient themselves...from Krazy Kat to Scrooge McDuck to Howard the Duck to Waldo the Cat to Maus. There is no such thing as an Un-Funny Animal in comic book land.
Dateline: May 10, 2008, 1:53 EST
PLEASE PARDON THE GRAMMAR
We made the conscious decision to strip our new comic book (Obsession) of all pop culture references. There are absolutely, positively no allusions to T. Rex / Alex Chilton / Jackie Kennedy / Timothy Leary / the MC5. We’ve been inhaling sleazy pulp paperbacks, true romance confessionals, mid-20th Century American junk culture...and the new book is as clean as a whistle. Except for one line (on page 65 which pertains to “Rod the Mod”) where Doctor George Simmons declares: “As they say...the first cut is the deepest...!”
Dateline: May 9, 2008, 8:04 EST
WE HAVE MORE TATTOO’S THAN YOU
Next time you’re in NYC looking for some cheap thrills, make sure to head on down to Ludlow Street at say...7:00 PM on a Thursday night. Jeezus P. Keerist, what the hell happened...? That street has turned into a postmodern joke. It’s like backstage at American Idol...
Dateline: May 8, 2008, 6:40 EST
T.S. ELIOT ON WRITING (1920)
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
Dateline: May 7, 2008, 5:32 EST
MARY PERKINS, ON STAGE (8/1/57)
PANEL 1:
CAM: ...Play my concerto on “Horizons"? I'm flattered!!
MARY: You’ve really made it, Cam! “Horizons" is T.V.'s top show!
PANEL 2:
FLORA: ...They’re waiting at the party, Cam...
CAM: You and Mary go on ahead while I go over the details with these gentlemen...
PANEL 3:
CAM: ...Uh, Flora – Mary’s acting a little sad – she’s probably overwhelmed by my success. Kind of reassure her...you know, tell her it’s still the same between us...!
Dateline: May 6, 2008, 7:33 EST
AND SPEAKING OF IRON MAN’S 100...
In our continuing quest to keep dating ourselves with this here electronic confessional...31 years ago, we walked into a shabby little book store in New Haven, CT (a smutty porn-peddling boutique called The Paperback Trader on Church Street) and purchased a brand new copy of Iron Man #100 for three shiny dimes...the issue where The Invincible One is snapping a piece of iron with a cracked “100” behind him. Jim Starlin did the cover illustration. That’s right: 1977. Marvel Comics. We were ten years old. Looking back at this comic, we only have one question: just why is Iron Man’s head so tiny in that cover drawing? Seriously...a touch of cranium shrinkage going on...his helmet is like half the size of his calf...
Dateline: May 5, 2008, 10:05 EST
IN CHINA, THE CALENDAR YEAR IS CURRENTLY 4705
For some odd reason we’ve been thinking about the question of numbering single issues of comic books...and the somewhat recent development of the first issue of a new series being presented as Number Zero. Why stop there? Why not start with Negative One...or Negative 0.99...or Negative 7/8-A...? Guess it all depends on where you’re counting from...or what you're counting. Very hard to say if the numbers game will matter in the future. Maybe full-length trade graphic novels will render the single issue collector’s market obsolete? Or maybe not...
Dateline: May 4, 2008, 3:04 EST
HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL: LESSON #97
Keep deliberating upon the number/size of panels per page...i.e, square panels vs. horizontal panels vs. vertical panels. We would submit that the 9-panel grid (3 x 3 panels per page, all the same size) is an extension of the daily comic strip design. For example: if you were to take 3 consecutive 3-panel weekday strips from Li’l Abner and lay them out on a page, you would arrive at the 9-panel grid. It’s a foundation design: formal, natural, attractive...something a writer/artist can always fall back on. The horizontal panel layout (anywhere between 3 and 7 horizontals per page) began to gain favor in American comics in the early 80’s. This type of design is cinematic, expansive, modern...ideal for dramatic action. And we're of the opinion that vertical panels should be used sparingly: verticals are effective for skylines, birds-eye views, shots of dudes in flashy spandex climbing up the sides of buildings, mad super-villains swinging from bridges, ect...
Dateline: May 2, 2008, 4:45 EST
TRUTH AS ENTERTAINMENT
At some point in the 1990’s, the promotional tag line of “Based on a True Story” was attached to Hollywood movies. We would suppose that this was a marketing decision, something that might give a shallow movie weight or legitimacy...something that would provide fodder for daytime chat fests...ink for “The Arts” section of your local rag. And this is all fine, except for one problem: too often these sorts of movies are hollow representations that barely resemble the truth. They are fictionalized histories, watered down melodramas slathered with inaccuracies, spiced-up and dumbed-down for John and Jane Q. Public. On the other hand, there are films based on stories which do, in fact, mirror the truth (which, incidentally, no one goes to see)...and these films are called documentaries.
Dateline: May 1, 2008, 6:32 EST
** ESSENTIAL VIEWING: TOP 5 JOHN CASSAVETTES FILMS **
5. LOVE STREAMS (1984)
4. OPENING NIGHT (1977)
3. ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) (actor)
2. A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974)
1. THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (1976)
Dateline: April 30, 2008, 11:35 EST
FAVORITE ALL-TIME BOND
The best James Bond flick (or to be more precise, our favorite Bond flick) is Diamonds Are Forever. Firstly, most of the movie takes place in Las Vegas, circa 1970, and it so satisfying to see Sin City in all its cheesy old-time glory. Secondly, the plot: a cross-dressing Ernst Stavro Blofeld builds a hi-tech laser out of diamonds to blackmail the world while stroking his cat, after creating a exact double of himself and his cat, after kidnapping Howard Hughes (aka Willard Whyte) and hijacking HH’s empire??? Thirdly, the minor characters: Shady Tree, Bambi & Thumper, Mr. Kidd & Mr. Wint, Plenty O’Toole...classic. And lastly, the humor: the flick is vintage camp. Bond is basically a tuxedo-clad burn-out interacting with a bunch of hicks who say things like: “Saxby? Burt Saxby?? Tell him he’s fired!” and “The satellite is at present over...Kansas. Well, if we destroy Kansas, the world may not hear about it for years.”
Dateline: April 28, 2008, 3:09 EST
HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL: LESSON #96
Consider the number of words per panel. Given space considerations, a comic book writer must understand that there is an inherent limit to the total number of words per page. Viz, 400 words per page is not a comic...it is prose with an occasional picture. Our feeling is that around 40 words per panel (or 150 total words per page) should be the maximum. The reader’s eyeballs need to move from panel-to-panel and overwriting can begin to feel like visual sludge. So kill-off unnecessary exposition; lose the unfunny jokes; impose a form of self-limitation upon your script; let the pictures tell the story. And yes, it’s true...and yes, we freely admit it...we are word counters. (121 of ‘em in the above).
Dateline: April 26, 2008, 5:54 EST
THE SECRET LIFE OF J.EDGAR
We recently perused Rick Geary's J. Edgar Hoover, A Graphic Biography and it was exceptionally well done. The graphics were excellent: Geary adeptly transformed the prissy youngster into a bloated, rotting-sack-of-flesh, paranoid old man. And the history was equally educational and entertaining with cameos by Dillinger, Ma Barker, FDR, McCarthy, Truman, JFK, MLK, Sinatra, Nixon. Kinda wanna check out the graphic bio of Reagan now...the cartoon history of America's greatest cartoon president...
Dateline: April 24, 2008, 11:21 EST
HIGHLIGHT OF NYCC 08...
...was Saturday afternoon in artist alley, watching Jerry Robinson draw The Joker.
Dateline: April 23, 2008, 4:09 EST
LOWLIGHT OF NYCC 08...
...happened when a person we've known for 2+ years shook our hand at the end of our chat and said "Hey man, great to meet you". This is excusable though. After awhile, the whole thing becomes a blur...the faces start to morph together. We talked to many, many people...for short-short-short amounts of time. And God only knows what we were saying.
Dateline: April 15, 2008, 9:44 EST
HARRY HARRISON ON NEW YORK (1966)
“New York—-stolen from the trusting Indians by the wily Dutch, taken from the law-abiding Dutch by the warlike British, then wrestled in turn from the peaceful British by the revolutionary colonials...The fifth and original borough is Manhattan: a slab of primordial granite and metamorphic rock bounded on all sides by water, squatting like a steel and stone spider in the midst of its web of bridges, tunnels, tubes, cables and ferries. Unable to expand outward, Manhattan has writhed upward, feeding on its own flesh as it tears down the old buildings to replace them with the new, rising higher and still higher—-yet never high enough, for there seems to be no limit to the people crowding there.”
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Dateline: April 11, 2008, 2:09 EST
LIKE SONIC HONEY
So advance copies of the new book just landed...and they look fine...although it does feel slightly anticlimactic. Taking pieces of your life, parts of your mind, committing them to paper...and now: post-bound book stress disorder...
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Dateline: April 10, 2008, 12:41 EST
NEXT WEEK
Moving the NYCC from February to April is a major improvement. Yes, there are casualties: APE got squashed and Passover weekend is less than ideal. But Spring is in the air in the big bad City...The water rats are singing. The cock roaches are dancing. The homeless have emerged from the subway tunnels.
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Dateline: April 7, 2008, 4:45 EST
TAKE A LOOK
Some particulars on the new comic book: Jeff Clemens did the interior art (and hand lettering!)...there’s a 1960’s, House of Mystery vibe to his work that really fits the material well. Sam Hart did the cover art. We’re printing up a very small number of copies and bringing them to the NYC Comic Con next week. Book is 96 pages...laughs, tears, romance, sorrow...ect, ect, ect...
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Dateline: April 5, 2008, 9:01 EST
A STRANGE CULTURAL ARTIFACT
So we’ve been telling people that 40 years worth of research went into our next comic book...which might be a slight exaggeration...but it sounds good so we’re sticking by the claim. The new book is called Obsession. And how much time does this stray puppy take to read, you ask? Around two hours.
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Dateline: April 4, 2008, 11:28 EST
WRITER VS. READER
We would never begrudge / disparage any writer who accepts work from a corporate comics company (a.k.a. work-for-hire, freelance, paycheck work, whatever)...what many non-writers don’t understand is just how brutally hard it is to support oneself through slinging words. Conversely, we are quick to begrudge / disparage any non-writer who feels the need to comment publicly on a writer’s career decision. Pay heed, dear Reader: the ancient Art of Writing is not as simple as it seems. And you call for proof? Try locking yourself in an empty room with nothing but a pen and a blank sheet of paper for five hours a day...every day...for the rest of your life...
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Dateline: April 1, 2008, 4:21 EST
THE WISDOM OF JOHN RUSKIN (1878)
“Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.”
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Dateline: March 31, 2008, 3:35 EST
THIS IS LIKE PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH A LOADED ATOMIC BOMB
Recently checked out the original Challengers of the Unknown...what immediately jumped out to us was just how harmless, gentle, innocent it was. Granted this was a post-Wertham comic, but even the notion of the threat of nuclear holocaust was softened. Forget global annihilation, we’ve got four interchangeable white dudes in matching jumpsuits running around the world chasing...The Unknown. Measure this comic against the sophisticated, layered writing in Mary Perkins, On Stage (oddly enough, both debuted in Feb. 1957), and it would be like comparing The Hardy Boys to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Still, Kirby’s Challs is all about Kirby’s art and there are oodles of jaw-dropping panels. And the pages inked by Bruno Premiani kill...
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Dateline: March 30, 2008, 11:31 EST
MEDIUM VS. GENRE
Comics (or comix / comic-strip novels / graphic novels, whatever) are not a genre. Failure to grasp this hulking fact betrays an unmistakable ignorance of picto-culture. It is an art form, we say...a Form of Art. We vote NO on Proposition Genre. We vote NO on more self-limiting, somewhat artificial barriers (i.e. The Silver Age, The Photoshop Age, The Blog Age)...
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Dateline: March 28, 2008, 9:25 EST
HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL: LESSON #95
Think about location. Actually, we’ve been thinking a lot about location in comic books lately...and how the whole notion of a NYC setting has been beaten to death. There’s New York and Gotham and Metropolis...the cold cruel crooked city...and it all feels like such an affected, self-important cliché. The flip side would be “Regional Comics”: semi-realistic / slice-of-life comics where place doesn’t feel quite so lugubrious. Specifically, we’re thinking of Jaime Hernandez’s California, Harvey Pekar’s Ohio...or Chris Ware’s comics which have such a peculiar mid-Western sensibility.
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Dateline: March 27, 2008, 4:51 EST
HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL: LESSON #94
Consider the use of “prop panels”. We would define a comic book prop as an object that is used in multiple consecutive panels for purposes of telling a joke...a visual gag framed by object duplication and time elapse. Viz: the 2-panel light switch prop (off, then on)...or the 3-panel door prop (door closed panel one, open panel two, closed panel three)...or the 6-panel bouncing ball prop...or the 9-panel mirror prop. In effect, this storytelling device originated in daily strips [i.e.: Little Nemo in Slumberland (the unmade bed at the end of each strip) or Peanuts (Lucy’s football, Snoopy’s typewriter)]...and, while useful, our contention is that one full page of the same gag/prop should be the limit. Anything longer would likely be too much.
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Dateline: March 26, 2008, 6:32 EST
** ESSENTIAL VIEWING: TOP 5 JEAN-LUC GODARD FILMS **
5. MY LIFE TO LIVE (1962)
4. BAND OF OUTSIDERS (1964)
3. BREATHLESS (1960)
2. CONTEMPT (1963)
1. ALPHAVILLE (1965)
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Dateline: March 25, 2008, 3:11 EST
NYC IN NAME ONLY
Read a comic book over the weekend. Knew it would suck going in...and it didn’t disappoint. Among the many inaccuracies / problems: there was no sense of place, no sense of authenticity. For some reason, the writers chose to set the story in NYC (or to be more specific, Manhattan). Why exactly? It could just as easily been set in Manhattan, Kansas. And why is it always the big fat generic Manhattan? How about the Bronx? Queens?? Brooklyn???...Staten Island, if you must...
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Dateline: March 24, 2008, 11:54 EST
GENERICA AMERICA
And speaking of location, we’ve decided to pick up stakes and hit the hinterland for our next comic book, which shall be set in Anywheresville...or Boredom, USA. The first line: “Tonight, somewhere in America...”
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Dateline: March 21, 2008, 4:02 EST
PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
With a few notable exceptions, the corporate comics formula for using writers goes something like this:
1: Find a “Hot Writer” (a.k.a. a writer who is reasonably competent enough to be accepted by fandom).
2: Exert editorial control over “Hot Writer”.
3: Wait five years until fandom gets bored with “Hot Writer”.
4: Get rid of “Hot Writer”.
5: Find new “Hot Writer”.
6: Repeat formula for as long as possible.
In other words, the writer is as disposable as an empty tube of tooth paste or a flat tire. While employed, he is paid to worship at the altar...Property is God...Corporate Logo is Divine Spirit...
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Dateline: March 18, 2008, 11:22 EST
HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL: LESSON #93
Consider the applicability of action sequences. A comic book without action is like a ham sandwich with no ham. That said, a straight, uninterrupted, 96-page slugfest can get a bit gratuitous...and that said, we’ve recently had the idea for a straight, uninterrupted, 96-page cross-country fight scene between two cranky combatants, starting in L.A. atop the Hollywoodland sign and hitting every national landmark across the fruited plains, ending with a climatic battle over the Statue of Liberty where the villain gets impaled on one of those spikes coming out of Lady Liberty’s head. Dialogue would be along the lines of: “Sucker! You call that a punch?! Abe Lincoln hits harder than that...and he’s just a stone face in a mountain!!” Man...talk about the most all-time way-cool coast-to-coast ass-kicking comic in the whole entire history of human civilization...ever...
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Dateline: March 15, 2008, 2:08 EST
RAYMOND CHANDLER ON WRITING (1953)
“You know how a writer can tell when he’s washed up? When he starts reading his old stuff for inspiration.”
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Dateline: March 14, 2008, 9:02 EST
SOMEWHERE ON SOUTH MAINSTREAM STREET
So “Mainstream” is just another way of saying “Main Street”...which is just another way of saying “It plays in Peoria”...which is just another way of saying...
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Dateline: March 13, 2008, 11:39 EST
THE WISDOM OF JOHN RUSKIN (1876)
“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”
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Dateline: March 12, 2008, 5:54 EST
WILL EISNER ON CARTOONING (1994)
“The only way to learn in this business is to keep doing it...practicing and learning. You can make a mistake, you can do a stupid panel. Make mistakes and learn.”
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Dateline: March 9, 2008, 11:09 EST
WHAT TO SAY...
No idea what to say about our next comic book...except that its wrapping up and should be available fairly soon. It’s looking freaky, dark, unwholesome...there’s a wheelchair, a cat, a nurse, a Madonna statue. What to say, what to say...or as one of the characters in the book might say: “why that’s the greatest thing since seedless watermelons!”
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Dateline: March 8, 2008, 2:52 EST
HOW TO WRITE A GRAPHIC NOVEL: LESSON #92
Consider the use of “transition panels”. One of the advantages to graphic novels is the sheer number of panels the writer has at his disposal to tell the story. Given space constraints, transition panels were rarely used in daily comic strips of yesteryear. For example, we recently perused a reprinted Modesty Blaise strip where Character X was on the phone in Paris in Panel 1 and at a bullfight in Pamplona in Panel 2. The result was that of action awkwardly pressed together. This sequence could be handled much differently in a graphic novel...with three or four transition panels used in-between the scene shift from France to Spain: i.e., Character X taking taxi to Airport, looking out window of plane, collecting luggage, checking into hotel, ect. In a sense, it’s a matter of compressed storytelling vs. de-compressed storytelling.
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Dateline: March 7, 2008, 11:12 EST
MARY PERKINS, ON STAGE, 11/12/58
PANEL 1
MARY: Don’t you care that Alexander is ruining all these talented young people artistically?
JOHNNY Q: Haha! That’s their problem!
PANEL 2
JOHNNY Q: -Look! If Alexander wants to sit in his stone shack and play emperor, that’s his business! I’m not interested in art...
PANEL 3
JOHNNY Q: ...I’m interested in you!!!
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Dateline: March 4, 2008, 5:54 EST
LEONARD STARR ON WRITING (1971)
“You have seven scenes (one for each day) per act, and there are twenty four hours between curtain. Each day you have to recapitulate to bring the reader back to where he was the day before, you have to advance the plot, and then you have a curtain line to bring the reader back the following day.”
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Dateline: March 3, 2008, 10:02 EST
READING DICK IN BRIDGEPORT
Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick. Bridgeport, CT (if you’ve never been) is a merciless hell-hole. If ever a city was an excuse for the development of an off-world colony...
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