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Underground > Comic Books >

Pitching to Epic

  
  

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Murray Hamhandler
21:54 / 21.04.03
a)writing Marvel scripts will teach you how to write better than figuring it out on your own...

I think both of these are utterly false and absurd, and I want to point out the alternative.

Respectfully, Cameron, the above is absurd in your world, but that doesn't make it necessarily so in the worlds of others. As has been pointed out somewhere above, everyone has different ways of tackling any given creative process. And people have different ideas of what they ultimately want out of a given creative pursuit. It's all about what works for you. If writing Marvel scripts doesn't tickle your wick, so be it. That doesn't mean that it isn't a perfectly valid means to an end (or an end unto itself) for others.

The argument can certainly be made that contributing to the Big Dos adversely affects the medium as a whole. That said, I've seen very few here who claim a desire to work exclusively for Marvel/Epic. Most peeps here seem to want to use this as an exercise, a jumping-off point, either just to get their writing mojo working or to move, ultimately, on to the bigger and better. I would argue that there are a lot of good minds here and that, if this is the catalyst that they need to get their arses writing, more power to them.

Also, it should be said that I don't think that anyone here is putting all of their eggs into the one basket that is Epic. I'm sure that the excitement is tempered w/a heady dose of realism towards the likelihood of anything serious coming out of this.

I'm not pitching to Epic because, hey, it's not my thing. But much love and support to those who are branching out and creating in whatever way best suits them at the moment. A starting point's a starting point wherever it lies...
 
 
The Natural Way
10:53 / 22.04.03
Yawn: I'm not sure I should speak for him, but I don't think Fly's main focus is character. His JE script seems to me to be more about a vibe and a good laugh than it is about people. Later issues will probably shoot this theory out of the water, but I'm concentrating on what we've already got. It seems to me he enjoys a good archetype as much as the next guy (how long have we known about Fly's passion for cool, hard girls fucking over the maaaaan!), but where you and I differ from him is on the question of ownership. Personally, I get a deep soulpleasure from dressing up in the MU's gaudy fic-wardrobe, but I can understand why some people wouldn't.

What I can't stand is being told it's a pointless and unworthy exercise. Grrr.
 
 
Sax
11:57 / 22.04.03
It would be interesting at this point to hear from the fanfic brigade, I think.
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
12:34 / 22.04.03
runce not wanting to speak for fly either, I reckon you've got a point - I can see wehat you meen about 'vibe' or atmosphere in the JE strip. I wasn't referring to that title tho, when I made my comments. I meant generally, in this discussion; the argument was about using corporate 'characters' and why would you want to do that when you could create and publish yer own. Perhaps I'm being pedantic.

On another note though, your observations about JE kinda prove my point. Jenny Everywhere is a character which can been used by anyone and dropped into any environment. The very nature of this fictional devices implies the character drives the narrative rather than the environment: ie: how would Jenny react if she was put in this place? or how would jeeny react if she was dropped on that planet?

Alternatively you could argue that the environment is boss in this equation. ie. How will the environment shape Jenny this time? etc...
 
 
Bradley Sands
02:52 / 23.04.03
The word is out that Epic is looking for kid's comics. If this is true, Epic is the antithesis of its original conception: being neither mature, nor creator owned. I wonder why they didn't just call it Tsunami?

From here.

Tony, the bearer of the news, has always seemed like a trustworthy guy.

If I had an eight year old, I would surely buy them Mark Millar's "Trouble."
 
 
moriarty
04:25 / 23.04.03
"The word is out that Epic is looking for kid's comics."

If this is true, it's the best damn news I've heard about Epic since this whole thing began.
 
 
The Natural Way
09:43 / 23.04.03
Well, considering Trouble is hardly going to fall into that category, perhaps it should read:

"Amongst other things, Epic is looking for kid's comics."

Ta da!
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
11:46 / 23.04.03
thank crud for that! I've never believed the lie that comics were for kids.
 
 
Spaniel
11:47 / 23.04.03
Well done, Mr Generic. You took the post right out of my fingertips.
 
 
Spaniel
11:52 / 23.04.03
In 27 years of sharing womb-space with Runce, I have never seen him bubbling over with so much creativity, and, perhaps more importantly. If it took Men In Pants to get him there, who gives a fuck?

Hopefully this initial rush will last long after Epic is dead and doo-doo.
 
 
moriarty
12:55 / 23.04.03
Ta da?

Sure, it's just a rumour, but I'm curious what the reaction will be if it turns out to be true that Marvel wants books aimed at a younger market. Millar has said that his title will be geared to a younger crowd. He wrote Superman Adventures, so he is capable of such a thing. Besides, such a restriction might apply to the open submissions only, as opposed to titles from creators they've approached.

I can understand if no one wants to speculate until it's confirmed or denied. I just think it's an interesting idea for a number of reasons.
 
 
The Natural Way
14:30 / 23.04.03
I just meant that I doubt they're looking for one thing.

And do you really think Trouble, a 'romance' book, is aimed at little kids? Teens perhaps, but I've got absolutely no qualms about writing for them....
 
 
moriarty
15:10 / 23.04.03
"Kids" is a bit of a tricky word. That's why I used the term "younger", which could include the pre-teen/tween/teen set.

Even Marvel doesn't seem to know what Marvel is up to, so saying one way or another is irrelevant. It's just that I can see comics created for a younger demographic being something tied to the Epic line. Marvel has made it clear that they'd like to aim a few comics at that market, but with their financial instability, it didn't seem likely that they'd take the risk. The low-risk conditions of the Epic line would make it possible for them to give it a try.

I'm sure you're right that they'll take a look at just about anything, but they may have a narrower focus on what they'll publish so as to fill in any niches they don't currently have covered.

And for the record, I'm not talking about comics that talk down to kids. I've read enough Little Lulu, Tintin and Archie to know that "kids" comics done well can appeal to people of different ages. A look through the Books and Literature section of Barbelith shows that many adults here are happy to curl up with something usually perceived as children's literature.

A better term to use would probably be "reading comprehension". I used to work in the children's section of a bookstore, and there were books for all interests and reading skills. It was my job to match the books to the children, and though the first thing parents would tell me would be the age and gender of the child, the first thing I'd ask the parents would be where the children were in terms of ability. From 13 year olds reading Mr. Men books to 6 year olds reading Harry Potter, I saw them all. The next thing I'd ask is if they were devouring them too quickly or complaining of being bored by the books they were reading. If so, they would jump up a level or two, usually within the type of book that they enjoyed. There were sports/fantasy/mystery/science fiction/etc. books for kids from kindergarten on up (the toddler books tended towards very basic, non-genre material).

I'm only bringing up all this thread rot because I know someone is going to say something like "I've never believed the lie that comics were for kids" or "kids just want to read what their older siblings read" or "well, if adult comics were good enough for me and my friends..." or some other pap that doesn't take into account that every other medium has material that services as many different levels of ability and interests as possible. Many fanboys seem afraid that creating more diverse material is going to affect the comics that they like, when in fact introductory comics aimed at people with lower reading comprehension skills (or even low comics reading comprehension skills) will enable those comics they love to live on and on. There's a vast untapped market out there for anyone willing to take the risk and lose some money on loss-leaders for awhile, as opposed to throwing in the towel at the first sign of failure.
 
 
The Photographer in Blowup
15:12 / 23.04.03
I sure wouldn't want to write a comic book for younger readers.

I've been working on a horror/mystery comic book to submit for the past weeks - i'm not gonna start all over again with a revamp of Power Pack or whatever.
 
 
The Natural Way
15:36 / 23.04.03
Down with horror!

Up with PP!

Horror's too well travelled/charted for me, really.
 
 
Spaniel
11:02 / 24.04.03
Think there's always room for a bit more horror.
We could do with a few less Constantinian grunge fests however.
 
 
The Photographer in Blowup
11:33 / 24.04.03
Yeah - the image/attitude of Constantine is getting old-fashioned, and everyone is still ripping it off.

Trenchcoat-wearing freaks with a nack for nicotine abound in comics lately: just check Warren Ellis' Strange Killings series.

even Marvel managed to turn Daimon Hellstrom and Hannibal King into sanitized copies of the scouse conjob.

Runcey - don't think i'm dissing lighter comic books like Power Pack; we certainly need funny and laid-back characters in the industry again, after the grim-'n'-gritty age.

But i'm just not into revamping Speedball or The Impossible Man.

Characters like Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider or Werewolf by Night, though, really spark my creativity.
 
 
The Natural Way
11:47 / 24.04.03
My PP are older, lighter and, well, darker too.

Just all round good.

I'm not really interested in confining myself to one genre. I'll set a general tone, but....

And the 2nd ish (I know, I know, but I can't help it!) is a right bastard to fit into 22 pages. Haven't had this problem before. Might have to lose some really nice scenes - or at least condense them a shitload. Aaargh!
 
 
Sax
12:54 / 24.04.03
So how many are you submitting, Runce?

I always thought there was a good story to be told with the Swordsman and Mantis from the old Avengers.

And that bald lass from the Defenders - Moondragon or summat?
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
13:00 / 24.04.03
funny, cos I was going to do Impossible Man as part horror, part love, part pop.

Yknow, he voyages to one planet which is incredibly warlike and ends up playing around there for a while making weird seige engines out of the humanoids who live there, splicing matter together etc. Generaly fucking around wit flesh atoms and making monstrosities etc. kinda like what the bad guys did to Earth in Zenith 4. Why would he do all this? Cos he's bored. Some great scenes of his lithe lime green body and purple attire draped over a fortess wall as he watches his creations rip thew shit out of eachother. He yawns. Then ponders what to do next to alleviate this terrible boredom he seems to be cursed with.

So he fucks off to another planet which is full of love and ends up conducting a mass orgy with the entire planet but soon gets bored, just like we do, when we've wanked an image to death.

Finally he ends up here, a planet caught somewhere between love and war, so he diverts his boredom threshold-o-meter to our pop culture, this weird device we've created to stave off transcendence.

Thing is, I don't know what he ends up doing here.

Oh, he's amoral, so he can have 'fun' mangling humanoids on the war planet and 'beasting' children, old people etc on the fuck planet.

I toyed with the idea of running his story in parallel with a bored teenager at school and then somehow their paths converge. It ressults in the bored nerdy kid taking control at school and gaining 'revenge' on the jocks and babes etc. Cept it doesnt turn out that way cos the Impossible Man gets bored with the bored teenager and the whole school end up humiliating the dweeb with the help of the bloke from pop-up.

It's got some good bits in it but yeah, I'm struggling......

The opeining sequence when the Impossible Man is ejected from the hive mind he's part of is down and I've panavision panelled it with these vast oceanic strip scenes of a bubbling, ovular, seed-sown intelligences which circle an almost fully plundered planet, the impossible man and his kin having exhausted it's resources and evolved into static intelligences indepenent of time and the rigours it imposes. The idea is they evolved to this state by doing the usual: eliminating time from the equation and seeing it all as it really is: one big, thorougly boring instant of matter and energy.

But, Impossible Man is this facet of the vast inactive living intelligence who has somehow retained a 'personality' and realises being in this state is fucking boring and yearns for flesh based adventure. This disruption is detected by the hive-mind and IM is ejected into the cosmos, in search of fun.

Popupians who have been ejected from their eternal state are in a difficult situation: they need to reconcile their ability to be aware of everything that ever was, is, shall be with being stuck in a 3d sequential environment dependent on something called time. It leads to all manner of confusion regarding the order of events, the placement of objects etc.

I'm also toying with the idea that the Impossiblre Man is actually really small as well, something to do with our gravity conditions. WHen I say small, I imagine him to be about 2 foot.

That's be cool. A 2 foot impossible man you could take to school.

ALl the shit about time etc - it's just background mechanics rather than story so dinnae worry boot that.

Worry about all the other shit I've told you instead.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:00 / 24.04.03
I think Moriarty makes some good points.

However, something you all should consider about the "tween" market is that they have been raised by media to expect most everything aimed at them to be created FOR them. I think that unless you're making a huge movie like Spider-Man or X-Men, you're going to be at a natural disadvantage if you are using characters with a history. To capture that market, yr better off making your own characters, because this is a generation that doesn't want hand-me-downs.
 
 
The Natural Way
14:11 / 24.04.03
Sax: I'm not sure how many scripts I'll submit, because I don't expect the Epic people to read ALL of them. However, it probably can't hurt...so....maybe. I don't know. I'll send the whole shebang to Marvel, though, that's for certain. Perhaps I'll send MarvelEpic two complete first issues and a complete PP arc. The first 4 issues are a kind of "where are they/what are they up to now?" thing, highlighting each of the main characters in turn and culminating in the Power Parent's wedding anniversary in 5. Alex is issue one. Katie is issue 2. Julie's 3...... I've got a great idea for Jack. I'm knocking them out so fast it hurts. It all needs neatening up, but still - I've got at least another month for that.

Yawn: My stuff's about as far from Morrisonian as it gets. Although the clipped dialogue's an influence.

It's a crying shame my PP will never see print. I'd dearly like to see it with pictures. And there's some lovely visuals....
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
14:16 / 24.04.03
oh, that's script's not going to happen now.

it's boring.
 
 
Sax
14:18 / 28.04.03
Well, I've finished my script. But I'm not letting Epic have it.

I've decided to pitch it direct to Marvel as a full-fat, top-o'-the-mornin'-to-ya, give-me-a-job-writing-funny-books proper submission. Then I shall sit back and let the bucks roll in. I might even recommend Cameron Stewart as artist.

I'll let you know what happens.
 
 
The Natural Way
14:40 / 28.04.03
Boboss used to get nice letters back from 2000AD. They were horrible to glassonion.

Ho! Ho!
 
 
Graeme McMillan
17:03 / 28.04.03
I once pitched an idea to 2000AD, only to get a ridiculously rude reply back telling me that 2000AD deals in science-fiction stories, not ideas that could be weak episodes of The Simpsons. When said idea then turned up, a year or so later, as Warren Ellis's "SuperIdol" on artbomb.net, I almost wrote back just to point and go "See? SEE?!? Other people obviously thought it was a good idea, you MOTHERFUCKINGLY ANNOYING SMUG BASTARDS."
 
 
The Photographer in Blowup
17:12 / 28.04.03
What was your idea, Smile?
 
 
Graeme McMillan
19:06 / 28.04.03
Viral mutating pop music that threatens the world. The usual, you know.
 
 
Dave Philpott
02:21 / 09.05.03

Cameron, I think you're underestimating the difficulty writers have trying to crack the market. It's well and good to encourage writers to draw, but face it, even really good artists have a hard time getting pro work. I could practice until my fucking arm falls off, but I'll never be able to do what you do. I'd rather take that time to hone the skills I have, not the ones I wish I had.

I understand where you're coming from, pushing the self-publishing route, but look at this from the perspective of someone who isn't already in your league. You have to admit that the offer seems pretty appealing: send in a written script, and if we accept it we'll find you an artist. We'll give you some dough, and help you put it all together. What wanna-be writer could resist that? I can't. And even though it's all probably a big jerk-off, this is why some of us are chomping at the bit.

I have many original ideas, fully-scripted stories, that just need artwork. But that's saying a lot "just needs artwork". I write scripts for free, but I can't find an artist worth a shit who'll draw for free. An Image artist (who has something coming out in EPIC, btw) really liked my work and said he'd like to draw my stuff, but he made me an offer I couldn't afford. Kinda hard to pitch a submission with no artwork. Kinda hard to self-publish a comic with no art.

But I agree with you, if enough creators got together we could pool funds and afford to self-publish. And someday, I'll probably do just that. In the meantime, I'll take my longshot, like everyone else.
 
 
Dave Philpott
02:28 / 09.05.03
I should add that I had a few stories published in the early '90's through independents, and that I've been told, from the horse's mouth, that "scripts with no artwork aren't worth the time to read."
 
 
moriarty
04:28 / 09.05.03
I don't recall Cameron saying anything about writers having to learn to draw. Unless you're confusing his statements with mine, where I said that being an artist would probably net you a better chance at Epic success. If you were trying to say that learning to draw would be necessary to self-publish, well, there are a number of people on this board who have found artists to help them on their scripts. You yourself have had a few stories published, so by your own account it's possible.

It's funny how many people think that artistic ability is based solely on natural born talent. If you had the kind of desire to draw that would make your fucking arms to fall off, there's a good possiblity you would get as good as Cameron, if not better. I'm willing to bet that Cameron, like most of us, has at some point looked through the perspective of someone who isn't already in that league, but he made a conscious effort to get better.

I'm not trying to be a killjoy here. Very few of us are. The truth is, no one knows for certain what kind of material Marvel will be looking for and how it will be produced. I think alot of people are assuming that there will be plenty of artists, letterers and colourists to go around. And from what I understand, you have to match yourself up with the artist through their site, they don't do it for you. This doesn't mean that you'll get your first choice, especially if the artist isn't interested in your vision. On top of that, I'm most curious about how the cash gets split up. Is the writer in charge of that? Will Marvel have a pay structure in place? How will they handle the inevitable disputes? And if there's minimal editorial control, how will they manage on keeping a schedule? What about fill-ins? How will they be able to ensure that the people chosen can stay the course? Etc. Again, I'm not bringing this stuff up as criticism. I'm just curious how they'll pull off something this ambitious, and how these factors might affect people's chances.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
08:40 / 09.05.03
I think what we're looking at here is a return to the good ol' sweatshop days of comic production, wherein a bunch of timid creative types are ruled over by a monstrous Noo Yawk editor who underpays them, abuses their talents, mocks their University educations and urinates on their Original Artwork before mercilessly destroying it to prevent them from recieving a single fucking penny more than their original fee. All in cramped Nike-style factory spaces chained together by the neck. I for one can't wait.
 
 
The Natural Way
11:59 / 09.05.03
Boboss, Onion and I will all slap you down for that later, while shouting about how "We're not timid creative types - we're big, strong, sexy men with muscles! FEEL THEM!!!"

Actually, Mori, Cameron did go down the draw-yr-own road:

"Easy for you to say - you're an artist," you say. "But I'm a writer, I can't draw." So what? Our own Ray Fawkes never set out to be an artist, but he decided to draw his own book because he had no other choice - he couldn't find anyone to do it for him, so he did it himself. And so he spent all of HIS free time, after HIS day job, *learning* how to draw. I know the guy, and he's dedicated like you wouldn't believe. And you know what? Spookshow and his other projects look pretty goddamned great for a guy who's never made any claims to be an artist. He just put the time in.

And I side 100% with Phil on this one. I'm still learning how to write - I don't have the time or the energy for art class as well.
 
 
moriarty
14:07 / 09.05.03
Apologies, Dave. I didn't look back that far.
 
 
Persephone
14:20 / 09.05.03
I don't think that *many* people think that artistic ability is based solely on natural born talent, honestly. I think that people say things like "I wish I was able to draw," and that gets up the hackles of someone who's working their ass off to be able to draw. Because I guess what it sounds like is, "It's easy for you," and yeah, some people probably do say that & it's stupid. But I think that most of the people talking in this thread are not stupid. I think that it would be true to say that for most people learning to draw is hard, and for some people learning to draw is impossible. And you know, for a few people --fuckers-- drawing is easy, I knew this kid in third grade who was... there's no other word, a natural. Am I making any sense? I'm just saying that people are coming from different places in this thread & it's like the hard people think that the impossible people don't understand the hard part and the impossible people think that the hard people don't understand the impossible part... you guys are tearing me apart, man.
 
  

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