The Blank Stare Into Space, aka Writing

Where.

It's true that most of my writing, maybe seventy percent, happens in my head. Sometimes I'll randomly write notes, but more often than not, I'll just stare into space working over story ideas in my head before writing them down. The idea part of the blank stare can happen anywhere, but the scripting part happens in the office, this is a breakdown of what I like to have in my work space to write.

I asked my wife to randomly come in and take a picture of me while I was writing, this is what she got:



booya

Pay no attention to the right side, none of that has anything to do with my writing, that's simply me updating my podcasts on a box of diapers, next to a Mexican wrestling mask. Although I have done some writing while wearing the mask, I don't think it was an essential piece in my process.

The real stuff is on the left:

1. This is my notebook. All ideas are gathered and broken into an overall story idea, then issue by issue breakdowns with some description and possibly a little dialogue. In the issue breakdowns I'll usually make little brackets indicating what action will be happening on one page, this helps me find the "page turn" moments I want to end on.

2. This is a sketchbook. I am, without a doubt, not an artist, the sketchbook comes in handy as a way to fidget and waste time without going on the internet and falling into the black hole of non-productivity. Sometimes just doodling some random shapes can be nice busy work while I think about the action or the dialogue. I also used to sketch out the page layouts as I was writing the script, just so I could see that what I was writing would actually look like a comic once it was drawn. I try not to do this anymore, instead leaving it in the hands of the artists.

3. This is my monthly list. This only came about in the last few months, I took it from Ryan K. Lindsay from The Process podcast. The list is nice because at the beginning of the month I make a new one, see what I have to carry over from last month, see what new stuff I have to add, and I get a good look at what I accomplished in the last 30 days. I'm not a full time professional writer, so some months I don't cross off a lot of stuff, but since I've started keeping track, I've always crossed off at least two things, more often three or four.

4. These are books I'm reading. I need to keep books close, these ones are, The Incal and Three Shadows, both are highly recommended reading.

5. These are comics. Similar to number 4, but different because these are regular sized monthly comics. For whatever reason, sometimes I just need to stop and pick one up, I just pick it up and flip through the stories that I've already read but push me forward and inspire me. Sometimes I just pick up a book and hold it, something about the size and shape of a comic, I don't know, If I'm stuck on something, It really does help to un-stick me. Maybe It just helps to see that it's worth it to keep writing because comics do get made, it happens, if this comic in my hand can be real, maybe my stuff can be too. These look like, Punk Rock Jesus and the Free Comic Book Day Donald Duck Family Comic, with Morrison's Supergods sitting on top of Secret Agent Poyo.

Glimmer, published early 2010

Unless you meet me personally, there's not much chance that you're going to see any of the stuff that I've written that has been published. Actually, even if you did meet me, I have very few physical copies of the comics I've worked on left. For this reason, I thought I'd go over the stuff I've written and post the whole thing up here. Might as well show somebody.

Glimmer began as a character in a pitch for a much larger story. I had zero experience behind the scenes in the world of comics, and for some reason, I thought my 16 issue superhero idea would be my best bet to get my foot in the door. After years of starts and stops, I finally decided I was going to try and pursue writing comics. I asked a friend attending art school if she knew anyone who liked doing comic work, that's how I met Scott Kowalchuk. His style blew my mind and I knew I wanted my ideas to look like his pages.

At this point I had enrolled in the first on-line version of the Comics Experience writing class with Andy Schmidt. The plan was to come up with a five page story that we would work on throughout the course, refining and updating as we went. Being knee deep in my superhero idea (that turns out, may have been too long for a first project) I tried to find a character with an interesting back story to dig up. I ended up finding Olivia.

Her back story was already written, my notes for the other idea had origins for all the characters, but Olivia was one that wasn't going to really get explored, she was a perfect candidate for this. I was happy with the story, it set up her character and showed off some of her powers, basically setting up nicely for an actual series to follow it. I suppose there's value in telling a one-shot story, but I went with more of an introduction to something bigger.

Around this point, Scott was beginning work on The Intrepids, but through sheer charm and possibly pity, I was able to get him to draw the finished story. I've always wished I could draw with some kind of competence, but I was never as jealous of someone's talent as I was when I saw Scott's pages coming in, bringing my story to life. To see a world I'd thought up in my mind, now in front of my eyes for the first time, crazy.

The other 12 people in the class also found artists and got their five page stories produced. We put them all together in a book and called it Tales From The Comics Experience. If you don't own a copy of the book right now, you may very well never own one (I do have a few left). Here's my story. Thanks Scott.

  

"This medium...this genre!"

As strange as it seems to me now as I'm writing this, I've never really thought about comics. I guess there had to be a time when I thought about the idea of buying and reading comic books and decided that they were awesome, and made them my preferred form of entertainment. I'm talking about comics as a medium, sequential pictures on a page coupled with captions and dialogue, telling a story, any story. On a recent episode of the Inkstuds podcast, Evan Dorkin raised the question of people loving comics, the medium, or just superheroes, the genre. He wondered, if DC closed down tomorrow, how many people would just be "done" with comics. The medium, or the genre? I think, for most of my life, it was the latter.

The first comic I remember owning was Crisis on Infinite Earths number 1, it's not the first comic I read, because I'm pretty sure, though I almost wore that book out looking at it, I never read it. I probably wouldn't have understood any of it anyway, I was pretty young. I guess all I needed was the pictures- they sucked me in and I've been a comic book fan ever since.

Well...

A superhero fan, I suppose would be more accurate, lots and lots of superheroes. This was back when I was living in a small town where, for the most part, comics were hard to find. In the 90s we had a comic store for a while, but they were pretty mainstream oriented. Once they closed down, it was only the corner store, which actually did sell comics back then. My early comic collecting was pretty sporadic and based primarily on how much money I could save and how often I was taken to a shop in the city. I didn't buy a ton of books, but that was fine because I read each one hundreds of times. The stuff I really remember is Star Wars (specifically the Empire Strikes Back adaptations), Robin, Iron Man, Hulk, Daredevil, and lots of Spider-Man. If the art wasn't a mainstream style, it looked funny, if it was black and white, I walked away, If there was no costumed hero running around saving the day, no thank you!

I have never stopped loving comics, or thought that they were "kid stuff" that I had out grown, I never looked down on comics, but I did burnout on them more than once. Whether it was financial or boredom or a bit of both, there have been many times that I stopped buying comics completely. Thinking back, they almost all happen the same way: 1) Buy a Wizard magazine(RIP) just to see what's been going on. 2) Buy an issue of the hot book they talk about, maybe a few back issues if something I missed sounds good. 3) Add a few titles, start getting caught up in a big crossover event. 4) Start worrying about stuff like, does this story "matter" and do I "have" to buy everything to get the whole story. 5) Answer "yes" to the last question and add 10 more books to my pull list. 6) Fall behind on reading my issues, realise I haven't read "________" in three months 7) Continue on like this for another month or so before breaking down and not buying comics at all. 8) Wait 3-6 months and repeat.

The good thing about all these burnouts is that every time I came back, I swore I wanted to break out of my old habits and try something new. I'd come back and read X-Statics because it looked so different, I'd come back and find stuff like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns, I'd come back and read The Tick or Scud, I'd find Bone or Love and Rockets. Suddenly, black and white was beautiful, art styles could vary all over the place, stories could be about real life, and you could swear in these fucking things. It wasn't about comics (or me) "growing up", it was just about my eyes opening wider to the medium as an actual medium, not just a genre.

Superhero comics are fantastic and I love them, I've spent most of my life filling long-boxes and book shelves with them. There is also a direct correlation between me feeling overwhelmed by my own hobby and how many superhero books I'm buying a month. That may sound crazy to you, but I assure you, it's very true for me. This genre has done a lot for me and I know I'll never leave it, (I can't wait to read Remender and Cassaday's Uncanny Avengers) but it's this medium that I love, now that I can see it for what it is; sequential pictures on a page coupled with captions and dialogue, telling a story, any story, without limits.

(some of the last comics i've read that i've really enjoyed)

Post, the first.

As a comic book writer, self promotion is key.
I have been told that I should increase my "web presence".

This is that, this is me doing that. Boom.