Once more into the breach, my friends, and once again I find myself kind of at a loss when it comes to what to talk about in this here blog. Then again, I was at a loss when it came to the presentation about comic editing to a group of about fifty real editors on Sunday, and that turned out OK. Turns out I actually can spend fifteen minutes talking in ridiculous, nit-picking detail about word balloon placement in two comic panels. And here I thought my wife was exaggerating…
I tried, dear reader, I tried to hard to find something new to enlighten or entertain you, and I came up short. I asked my writers if they’d mind being interviewed, and they didn’t reply. Mind you, I only asked them via e-mail twenty minutes ago, so maybe next week you’ll get to hear from them.
I asked the artists of the books I’m working on if they’d be willing to say a few words about the process*, and they both said something along the lines of, “We’ve got a hard deadline of the end of the month. Find someone else to do your job for you, you lazy #&$*.”
I asked letterer Ed Brisson** if he’d be willing to contribute to a post, but he still isn’t talking to me after that whole Page X lettering disagreement. And besides, he’s got about 400 pages of material to letter in the next three weeks, so he’s pretty busy.
I asked Matt and Jessica and Julian if they had anything they wanted to say–heck, I even asked them what the deal was with CCCN Phase Two, AKA the Big Money Screenplay Award, and all I got back was an e-mail that said, “Who wants to know?”
To which I replied, “Well, I do.”
To which they replied, “We’ll tell you, but only if you promise not to talk about it on the production blog. Or anywhere else.”
To which I replied, “Never mind.”***
Jessica went on to suggest that I talk about “grace under pressure and dealing w. real world deadlines- how to manage expectations w. concerns about quality while still hitting your markers and keeping artists heads from exploding.”
I appreciate her trying to help, but the problem with that topic is, I’m not qualified to talk about it. “Grace under pressure”? Hah! To paraphrase Douglas Adams, when the heat is on, I go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.
“Real World deadlines”? I’ve heard of this “real world” thing before–my father mentions it frequently in relation to my getting a “real job”****–but it sounds terrible, certainly no place I’d want to visit if it could possibly be avoided.
Managing expectations, concerns about quality, and still hitting my markers…
I’ve been kind of lucky, in this regard. On the one hand, I’ve got a fantastic group of people working to get these books done on time. Frank Grau had to take a few days away from BLACK JACK O’BREEN to take care of a fairly big piece that’ll get seen by tens of thousands of people, which got me a little worried. But on his return, he started turning in penciled pages at a furious rate–right now we’re one page away from being done with the pencils altogether.
And the weird thing is, the faster Frank works, the better writer John Sullivan and I actually like what he produces. I don’t know if he’s one of those artists who gets caught up in trying to get everything in a panel just right, inadvertently crushing the spark of creativity beneath the bootheel of perfectionism, or if he’s just hitting his stride on BLACK JACK, but he’s really been knocking the ball out of the park this last couple of weeks. Hitting the deadline is going to be tough, it’s going to be tighter than I’d like–but I believe it’ll be done, and, even better, done well.
I really can’t say enough about John Keane’s work on KNIGHTCAP: NOVEMBER’S SONG. He’s a workhorse, cranking out page after page of superhero romcom goodness without so much as breaking a sweat. Actually, he probably did break a sweat–he lives in Ottawa, which, as far as I can tell, was so hot this weekend it actually melted. But John continues to produce page after page with Terminator-like efficiency. We’ve got ten to go, with more than half of those penciled.
And he does it all with class, style and wit. The other day KC:NS writer Stephen Cmelak asked me to pass along his kudos to John. I did so, and got the following reply: “Glad he likes it. I shall add his kudos to my collection. It’s getting quite large, but I think some of them are going off, there’s a weird smell coming from the kudos cupboard.” *****
These guys are producing amazing work, and that leaves me at a loss. I might have something to say about grace under pressure, but working with guys like these, I’m not really feeling that much pressure right now.
I wonder what I’m missing…
Foley
* I didn’t actually ask the artists if they wanted to say a few words. But if I had, I like to think they’d have responded as I claimed they did.
** I also didn’t ask Ed if he wanted to contribute, and in actual fact, Ed is still talking to me. He’s going to start lettering BLACK JACK O’BREEN over Frank’s pencils, rather than waiting for colouring. This will hopefully help him when the inevitable flood of material to letter descends upon him in a couple weeks.
*** I actually did ask about the Greenberg Fund, and while I didn’t get the replies I said I did, I was told that I’m not allowed to talk about it. Jessica was probably feeling bad about that, which could be why she suggested the whole “grace under pressure” thing. That, and she’s never actually seen me when I’m feeling pressured…
**** My father doesn’t bother me about getting a real job. Not anymore, anyway. He’s pretty much resigned to me being a slacker layabout.******
***** This one is actually 100% true and a direct quote from John’s e-mail to me. Not everything I say is an awful lie, you know…
****** But that one was. My father isn’t resigned to me being a slacker layabout. It’s my wife Tiina who’s come to terms with that.
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