This is going to be a different type of post. I’m “in the weeds” right now. One of my favorite sayings. I’m too focused on some big projects, so I’m going to write about what I’m thinking about, especially in regards to storytelling. It all connects. But this represents how I think. This is a good gauge of what is all in my head at a given moment.
Twenty-five Pages of Comics, Coming Up
I’m nearing the end of completing twenty-five pages of comics. It’s a commercial job, and it should be appearing soon. I’m at that late stage of the game though, and I’m beat. I have eighteen pages done and the finish line is in sight. I get like this towards the end of comic projects. Because the work is so time consuming, it ends up feeling like all I do is draw. Just draw, draw, draw. As soon as I get home from my job, I sit down and start drawing. I’m doing this project by hand. I rule out the panels, then do my lettering, then my rough pencils, and finally I ink it all. If nothing goes wrong, I can get a page done a night.
Unfortunately, 2016 has been a bear. Something is always going wrong. You don’t notice when things are going right for you. And you think to yourself, “yeah, I can do this huge project.” Then life gets in the way.
Buying a new car is a hassle
Cars stress me out. Anything else you buy, it usually appreciates in value. Not cars. I haven’t had a car payment in years. But it finally happened. Cars die. Or get to the point where putting money into it leads to diminishing returns.
I am happy with my new car though. I’ve been side-eying the new Subaru Legacy for a long time. They live up to the hype. It’s a rock solid vehicle that has a lot of luxury car features. Quiet. Almost no road noise. Smooth ride. The all-wheel drive is wonderful. I’m so used to driving shitboxes that it’s weird when I take a corner and I don’t fishtail a bit. When I got in for the test ride, I just couldn’t believe I could buy the car for real. I’ve only owned circa 1993–2000 cars my whole life. And car technology seems to have evolved dramatically. It feels like Buck Rogers arriving in the future.
Apple Music
One of the best features of my new Subaru is the Bluetooth connection to my phone. I recently bit the bullet and subscribed to Apple Music. Definitely getting my money’s worth out of it. I think I’ve downloaded near 20 albums since I joined1. Much cheaper than buying albums every month. Plus, having the ad-free Radio channels has been wonderful to set it and forget it while I work.
Go Cubs, Go!
Baseball is back! Last night, I had the Cubs/Diamondbacks game running on my iPad while I was drawing. If you haven’t tried drawing to a baseball game, I recommend it. There is something so zen about baseball. When the first iPad came out, MLB’s app didn’t have video yet (maybe it did and I just didn’t subscribe to it). One of my most favorite times in my life was drawing a backup Lydia comic and listening to the Cubs. It reminds me of the present. Same conditions. I’m trying to bang out a comic in a month, it’s April, it’s beautiful out, and the Cubbies are helping me out. Though this year, they seem unstoppable.
The Wrong Quarry
Again, like that last frenzied run of comics, I can’t just stop and go to bed. I have to decompress for an hour. Before, I used to sit in my garage and smoke a cigar with a beer or scotch and enjoy the cool spring nights. I can’t do any of that shit now or my cardiologist would kill me himself. So I sit down with a good book and drink Sleepytime Tea (don’t knock it). And I finished The Wrong Quarry (Amazon Affiliate Link) by Max Allan Collins this week. I love Hard Case Crime books. You know exactly what you are getting. In general, I love crime fiction. Love it. I’ve been actually poking around at a crime novel in my free (ha ha) time.
Something I thought about reading the book: Collins doesn’t make his protagonist a superhuman. Look around at most protagonists in crime fiction anymore, be it movies, comics, TV, or books. Most of them are all ex-SEALs who are “on the edge” and are “alcoholics.” Yet when the need arises, they are goddamn supermen. And sure, maybe, if your story works in a weird hyper-realm of believability, that can play. Crank, or John Wick come to mind immediately. Fun stories. But they also are doing it with a wink and a nudge. The creators, they know. They work it well.
But mostly, these superhuman protagonists magically solve any conflict in their path. Despite their underlying problems. These characters are wish-fullfillment male power fantasies. And man, it’s time to stop. Just make real characters. Real stories. Or go all in on the fantasy. And if you do, make it fantastic.
The Wrong Quarry balances all this well. It’s fantastic yet completely believable. And Quarry, our guy, he isn’t a superman. He’s just a guy out in the world trying to make a buck. It plays.
Genre rules everything around me.
Let’s get back to comics for a second. I’m working on a graphic novella, as those of you who have been reading here know. The Walk. It’s part of a planned trilogy of small graphic novellas. I’m working through genres in all of them. This will be my sci-fi story. I had an idea to package them all up like a collection of EC Comics. I even planned drawing like those cats, but we saw how that turned out.
Anyway, genre. It’s fun to play with. The big comic I’m working on right now has a great romance chapter in it. It makes me think I should stop with the crime comics and jump all in to the romance comics.
I love rom-coms. This may happen.
I wrote/drew an awesome “meet cute.”
Midnight Special
I’m taking a small break tomorrow to watch Midnight Special. I’ve been looking forward to this movie ever since the first trailer came out. Jeff Nichols. Man. That guy is a hell of a storyteller. Watch Shotgun Stories. Watch Mud, the beginning of the McConnaissance. Just beautiful, down to earth stories.
I read an interview with Nichols recently. He talked about how he structures his stories. As in, there isn’t one. He starts with an image and constructs the story around that image in his head. Which is what I do. Every story I do has one powerful image in it that I build the story around. We diverge in the sense that I try to apply a simple three act structure to the story. Gives me enough room to manuever, but not enough to dilly-dally. Which is an issue I have. I have to have a bit of structure. If not, you, the poor reader, will read strange passages that go no where. I got to have some rules.
Jessica Abel
Speaking of storytelling, creativity, and rules, Jessica Abel is killing it. Her website should be gospel for cartoonist content marketing. She is firing on all cylinders. She is doing everything I would love to be doing with my website. Except she’s brilliant and I’m still muddling through the cave. I’ve always admired and adored her work as a cartoonist. But this new phase of her career is utterly fascinating and incredible.
Seriously, sign up for her newsletter if you are a storyteller of any stripe. Listen to the podcast. Amazing guidance from a master cartoonist.
NXT: Takeover Dallas, Storytelling, and Shinsuke Nakamura
Last Friday was NXT: Takeover Dallas, and the debut of Shinsuke Nakamura. And holy crap. Imagine if you combined Michael Jackson, Pokemon, and a brutal warlord into a professional wrestler. I am amazed at the storytelling in wrestling, because it is by the seat of their pants every night. I think that would be the most stressful job, being a writer for professional wrestling. And yet, they do it. Mostly well. But you need a good actor.
Shinsuke Nakamura had maybe 3 mintues of build before his debut. Just an iPhone video that he was coming. Then his entrance music hit. Everyone stood up and thought “what in the hell is happening oh god this is awesome?”
And then he and Sami Zayn (one of my favs) told a whole story in a wrestling match. No one spoke a word. But it was a story. Man. Wrestling is awesome.
More to come
I didn’t mention the other projects on my docket. I complained about 2016 being a crap year. And it is so far. But so much opportunity. There are a lot of things happening in my life that I can’t wait to share. More projects. More news. More comics.
But the Cubbies are coming back on. These West Coast games are killing me. I’m not sleeping a wink. And it’s time to get back to work.
See you on the other side.
- I’m listening to the Midnight Special soundtrack while I’m writing this post. ↩︎
