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Underground > Comic Books >

Non-comics writers writing comics

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08:24 / 08.10.04

Hahahahaha! Cartoonist's Union? We'd have to grow some cojones, first, and since when do you remember cartoonists standing up for anything en masse? We jobbed for Frederick Wertham, we'll job for anyone.

16:02 / 08.10.04

If I'm not mistaken, there was a stab at unionization made at DC in the late '60s that was swiftly squished. On the other hand, if so, this could explain in part why DC has been far more liberal in granting creators' rights than Marvel over the past few decades. Ironically, I can see a perverse backlash among certain creators if such a union were instituted; it's not hard to imagine some of the more radementoid b/w indie comics guys flipping out over the notion that they *had* to be a part of the union, or be branded a scab artist. Um...at least until one of them, say, got really sick and discovered that he couldn't pay his medical bills. NONE of which would be a problem if we just had socialized medicine like every other civilized nation on the fucking planet, goddammit! I swear to GOD, if we don't vote this evil motherfucker out--shit. Sorry. Wrong thread.

16:40 / 08.10.04

Approaching the topic from a different angle, I'd love to see creators, who aren't fanboys come in and write some comics. I read an interview with David Lynch from a few years ago where he was talking about doing a graphic novel. It hasn't happened, but I think that would be great for the medium. There's a ton of people in film who can't get projects made for whatever reason, and I don't see it being a bad thing if they chose to do the project in comics. It may be "settling" to some extent, but I'd rather see the story in one form than not at all. For example, let's say Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain never makes it as a film, I'd love to see it done as a huge graphic novel, same thing for Lynch's Ronnie Rocket.

XXII:X:II = XXX

17:03 / 08.10.04

David Lynch did have a comic strip: ANGRY DOG, where most of the action took place off-panel, portrayed in word balloons, while the mostly static image of the eponymous pissed pooch just stood there the whole time growling.

/+,

05:33 / 09.10.04

I've seen a couple of comics made from unsold scripts: "Cargo Zombies" and "Family Slaughter" spring to mind, Jack Kirby's indie projects "Captain Victory" and "Silver Star" were both adapted from unsold scripts.
It really has to be the right project, though.

19:46 / 09.10.04

I'd love to see David Lynch write a graphic novel, but I don't know I'd love to see it if he adapted it from an unproduced screenplay. I have a feeling it'd be a lot like reading storyboards. I'm not sure how else to put it, but he's a very cinematic director of...um...cinema; I can't believe I'm about to do this, but if you compare him for a minute to Kevin Smith (which is a bit like comparing Mozart to Avril Lavigne), you find that Lynch uses all the tools of filmmaking in a way that Smith either doesn't or can't -- a Smith movie is like a camcorded stage play, whereas a Lynch movie employs sound and music and visuals in a way that can't be reproduced in any other medium. So Smith, for what it is worth, can adapt what he's doing to comics without any real problem. A comics version of a Lynch screenplay, though, would probably feel pretty flat in comparison to what he does on the screen. I'm not even sure Lynch could equal his own cinematic abilities on a comics page, simply because what he's doing on film employs such a complete use of the medium...does he understand comics the same way? In any case, the result would probably be very dissimilar to one of his movies.

03:47 / 10.10.04

I once knew an insanely talented Japanese cartoonist, the kind of guy who draws a crowd when sketching at a con; not because he's a Big Name, which he wasn't, but because his art made you go WHOA! Powerful on the comic page, the original art at full size could make you dizzy- you felt like you could fall in.
Trained in film and archetecture, he had all these plans for revolutionising both Eastern and Western comic storytelling, using filmatic techniques. His editor quashed all that, making him adhere to a six-panel grid and the editor's own layouts. He probably wasn't paying him either, and the last I heard, scuttlebutt said the guy had snapped and torched the comic's offices.

12:47 / 10.10.04

Eddie Thirteen-

As an editor you should know full-well that writing jobs go first to writers the editor knows and trusts, then to those who are recommended by other editors. An untried talent from the slush pile is going to be at the bottom of the list. I’d actually argue that it is a sign of all-to-rare forward thinking that some editors have brought non-comic writers of proven skill into what we laughingly refer to as the comics industry.

I’m not trying to defend Chuck Austin, however I think it has to be appreciated and admitted that a great unknown will always have a harder time being taken seriously than an established writer who is merely average. There’s the truism that there are three basic thing a freelance writer needs to pursue a successful career. He needs to be good, he needs to be on time and he needs to be pleasant to deal with. Any two out of those three qualities will often be enough.

I think the nub of this animosity is that many comic readers harbor hopes of one day being paid to write comics – more so, it seems than most book readers (or indeed non-book readers) have hopes of one day writing a book. I’m not sure if it is more of an indictment on the quality of many comics being published by Marvel and DC or an indictment on fanboys who lack critical faculty regarding their own work.

Perhaps more importantly, I don’t think the door is actually closed to new untested creators. Editors, like most people, love free stuff. If you can create an enjoyable comic (that is a complete comic) that is about 10 pages long, your work will be noticed. If its really good you might get an email from an editor telling you how much they enjoyed your work. Things can then progress from there. There are no guarantees, but the door is not entirely closed to new creators, if you have the time, talent and tenacity to prove how good you are you can always establish your own track record.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

20:05 / 10.10.04

Possibly he's a natural, possibly he ius getting help on compositions either from a comics writer or indeed his artist (which, incidentally, I'm not criticising if he is - after all, he would have somebody on his TV shows to set up shots for him..), but in any case he does seem to be writing a decent comic...

Maybe it's the years of writing stories with beginnings, middles and ends that have to appeal to a lot of people who know nothing about the series you write on instead of writing years of endless sopa operas for hard core fanboys.

I have been reading a lot of mediocre and just plain shit writers complaining about this trend, yet none of them are hitting the core of it.

They learned how to write by reading comics. The people outside comics have had a LOT of people go over their writing, they know how to put a story together, and they areen't doing pure fanwankery.

Unless they are JMS, and then it has become sick, twisted fanwankery.

I LIKE the idea of novelists, screenwriters, TV show writers and the like getting into comics. They all seem to be better at the mechanics of writing than the hack who were infesting comics in the mid 90's, even if they plots do tend to be a bit off. Still, can you say Greg Rucka's Batman stuff was worse than Chuck Dixon's endless formula scrap?

01:07 / 11.10.04

So Smith, for what it is worth, can adapt what he's doing to comics without any real problem. A comics version of a Lynch screenplay, though, would probably feel pretty flat in comparison to what he does on the screen. I'm not even sure Lynch could equal his own cinematic abilities on a comics page, simply because what he's doing on film employs such a complete use of the medium...does he understand comics the same way?

This is true, a lot of the writers we're talking about here work in TV, as show runners, so they're used to coming up with stories rather than crafting whole films like Lynch does. I think if Lynch did a comic, it would be far from your standard comic setup, though it would probably take a couple of tries before he masters the medium like he has cinema, and sound is such a big part of his film work, it'd be tough to adapt that to comics.

Still, I'd love to see him try.

13:36 / 11.10.04

There's a couple of storyboard artists in comics- Paul Chadwick (Concrete) did Masters of the Universe and Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Synn, god bless 'im, and wasn't Aliens v.s. Predator drawn by a storyboard artist? Of course, Terry Gilliam went the other way, from cartoons and animation to feature films, and Frank Miller's had a taste of filmmaking now. (now that he's seen the potential of Rodriguez's green-screen technology, I'm hoping he'll get the bug for a big-screen Ronin or Hard Boiled or 300.)

13:42 / 11.10.04

Oh, that reminds me, that Miller/John Romita Jr. Daredevil origin series was based off an unsold script by Miller. I get the feeling "Frakes", the hitman, was originally Bullseye, especially the way he gets killed at the end.

13:59 / 11.10.04

And no’ let us ferget Steve Skroce and Geof Darrow working on storyboards and designs for the Matrix films. And, more lamentably for comics as it’s taken him and his talent away, Brendan McCarthy.

Returning to a point which I semi-made earlier, just started reading ‘Writers on Comic Scriptwriting 2’ this morning and Brian Azzarello says “If you just want to write comics, you’re doomed. You’re not a writer […] When I ask people what they want to write, they say, ‘Well I want to write about the Flash’. That’s all you want to do, is write about the Flash ? Really ? Okay, well go ahead, write about the flash but I don’t think you’ll ever do it professionally.”
… which I thought was a pretty fair comment.

20:43 / 11.10.04

Um, I do and I don't agree with the Azz thing...again, I think a lot of this comes down to a confusion between corporate-owned comics properties and comics itself. Maybe there are a few people who "only" want to write the Flash who really "only" want to write comics, and just lack the perspective to grasp this for themselves; in any case, I can't imagine many adults expressing such a view. I figure Azz must either be talking about teenagers he's met or just making shit up...surely, there aren't that many Steve-Daves in the world. God, I hope not, anyway.

And yeah, a lot of comics artists have also done quite well as storyboard artists. Which doesn't make comics and storyboarding the same medium. It merely shows that some comics artists have been able to change up their skills to be as or more effective in one medium as in another. I don't think it's a guarantee this would be true across the board. If the writer or artist in question understood that he/she was now working in a different medium (speaking here of a transition from any one medium to any other), and adapted his/her skills accordingly, then you've got something; if they don't understand this, you have an example of a medium trying to act like a different medium, and the result will likely be inferior to either. So it depends on the writer/artist.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:59 / 12.10.04

Perhaps "I want to write the Flash" is shorthand for "I want to be sufficiently successful in the comics industry that I can get to write the premium characters for the big producers, and also write the characters I love from my childhood - essentially, where Whedon is now, although he has got there by unconventional means"...

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:40 / 12.10.04

Maybe there are a few people who "only" want to write the Flash who really "only" want to write comics, and just lack the perspective to grasp this for themselves; in any case, I can't imagine many adults expressing such a view. I figure Azz must either be talking about teenagers he's met or just making shit up...surely, there aren't that many Steve-Daves in the world. God, I hope not, anyway.

Two words: Mark Millar.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:43 / 12.10.04

That's not just me being snarky, by the way: it seems Azzarello was talking about an actual conversation with Millar:

"I was talking to Azzarello about this a few months ago and he was saying I'm wasting my time writing stuff like The Ultimates and Wolverine and it's all just whoring, that I should just do creator-owned, but that would drive me nuts. There's this ethos that there's a purity in books that aren't superhero books or books that don't sell, but my tastes are very mainstream and, fortunately, the kind of book I like to read and write just jibes with what the public at large seem to want to.... Likewise, I see no shame in writing Captain America or Wolverine. The bulk of what I read could be described as superhero material and that's been the case since I was four years old. It's where my interests lie. It's why I got into this business. I didn't break into comics to write fairytales or crime comics. I have close to no interest in that stuff whatsoever. For me, THAT would be whoring because prostitution, at least in my definition, is doing something for money that you don't want to do. But this is what I've always wanted to do. I'd write Spider-Man for half my usual rate."

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