The People’s Publisher

Well, as my esteemed, soon to disappear mysteriously never to be heard from again, colleague Robert noted on his blog, yesterday was my birthday. I spent the bulk of the day lying in bed, either sleeping or watching movies. Which would’ve made it my ideal birthday, if it wasn’t for the excruciating back pain that sent me to the ER for a long, long wait and a short but bliss-filled shot of demerol between midnight and 4AM Tuesday morning.

I can now get myself out of bed without assistance, and a walk to the bathroom, while unpleasant, no longer fills me with the horror it did for the entirety of Monday (and 12:00 to 4:00AM Tuesday.) However, thanks to my deeeelightful regime of painkilling medication, along with the frequent resurgence of the pain it’s trying to kill, my current level of functioning could charitably be called “suboptimal.”

And so I am going to keep my work on this week’s blog to a relative minimum.

BUT!

You will not be without something to read, oh no. After last week’s dog and pony show, I thought it would be neat to get some input on the blog from the writers I’m working with, KNIGHTCAP’s Stephen Cmelak and BLACK JACK O’BREEN’s John Michael Sullivan. I sent them a handful of questions that were intended more as springboards for a conversation that we haven’t yet had, partly because, y’know, I’m really dizzy.

And so I give you something that makes my skin absolutely crawl: the raw, UNEDITED Q+A between me and John. May God have mercy on our souls. Or at least mine.

(In case it isn’t obvious, in the following exchange, I am “AF” and John is “JS”, which somehow seemed preferable to the technically more accurate “JMS”)

AF: How long have you had the idea for BLACK JACK/KNIGHTCAP, and what inspired you to create them?

JS: Black Jack was originally created as a movie pitch about a year ago – it was the best of a half dozen ideas I ground out as pitches aimed at a pretty specific target. A producer was looking for sci-fi/creature movie ideas. They wanted them to be based roughly on properties that were in the public domain, so they didn’t have to pay anyone, but still had some name and concept recognition. Basically they wanted stories and characters from faerie tales and folklore updated into very action-y B-movie formats. So I came up with about a half dozen ideas from folklore and thought about how to make a modern action movie out of them. The nucleus of Black Jack was the Wild Hunt. They seemed spooky and cool, but instead of just getting taken away by them, I figured an action movie format would have somebody facing them head on, with heavy weapons and explosions and stuff. I dabbled with doing it as a modern piece with an elite commando squad, but it didn’t feel right. A cowboy, on the other hand, taking on pagan gods with his six-shooters, that felt cool. And everything else just kind of grew from there.

AF: In your ideal world, how long would Jack O’Breen and Knightcap’s stories be? Are the stories you’ve begun telling the only ones you have for the characters, do you have other stories but a finite number with a set ending, or would these be the lead characters in an ongoing, potentially unending series?

JS: Well, there’s a definite arc for Black Jack – I don’t know how many actual comic book issues that would be if it were actually going to be a print comic, but there’s an endpoint where they stop the bad guys and rescue Jack’s brother. But that doesn’t mean the character’s done. Assuming anyone wants to continue the story, I’ve got ideas for other stories featuring Jack as kind of the gunfighter to the faerie court, mixing his increasing magical capability with the only cold iron shooting revolvers under the hills. If the market is there, I could definitely see Jack’s adventures as an ongoing franchise. Of course that’s an enormous if…

AF: Both your title characters take action largely in reaction to situations involving other members of their family. Without getting too personal (I’ll let you decide what qualifies), how have your families affected your creative lives? How does your family feel about the fact that you won a contest and are having comics you wrote created?

JS: I can’t say mine has. My family has always been a very, very small number of people, and I’m kind of mystified by the dynamics of big families. It’s something I explore in stories, but I have very little to draw on in that regard. As for reacting to my CCN win, I don’t think my Mom fully understands what this is all about. I seem happy about it, so she’s happy for me, but I think it’s going to take some explaining once the book comes out.

AF: Each of your stories also contain a romantic angle. Where does love fit into the grander scheme of things in your stories?

JS: Well, love and romance are great character motivators, aren’t they? We all want those things in our lives, and often we have to struggle to get them, and that equals story. In Jack’s case, it was one of the later dominoes to click into place. I realized fairly quickly that it couldn’t just be pure chance that it was Jack’s brother who was taken by the Hunt. There had to be a reason, and that implied a connection with the faeries from his days back in Ireland. And I realized that Jack’s story was largely about coming home again to deal with all the crap you’ve tried to put behind you. That seemed a very happy thematic fit for a character out of the western myth, where everything is simple and plain and your past was left back east somewhere. Westerns almost always seem to me about characters trying to reinvent themselves as new people in this new landscape. They’re always running from something, or else to some idea that things will be better out west. They’re always leaving something behind. And since Jack – having made that break and become the cowboy/gunfighter of the wild west – has to go back where he started and deal with a situation he thought he’d escaped, it just made sense to have the rest of his life be a huge, untended mess as well. So Jack’s wanted by the law (another appropriate element for this misplaced western genre), his family relationships are a disaster. And there’s the girl he left behind.

AF: What’s the most unexpected thing you’ve experienced so far in working on your Z2H comic?

JS: The visual element, easily. I’m confident enough in my storytelling abilities, but I have absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever. I mean can’t even draw a stick figure doing anything except standing there. It’s truly pathetic. And, while I imagine scenes, place myself in them and see them, my mind’s eye is incredibly abstract – able to simultaneously see a half dozen different angles at once. Of course that doesn’t work so well when someone has to actually draw what I’m describing. So I know it’s occasionally been frustrating for the people I’m working with, but it’s been a definite education in a field I never really expected to be studying.

AF: What writing or comic work did you create prior to winning CCCN, and how did those experiences affect the creation of Black Jack and Knightcap?

JS: I’d sold a bunch of short stories, I’d worked as a journalist, I’d written, co-written and rewritten other people’s screenplays, so I had a bunch of writing experience. But almost no comic experience whatsoever. I’d been hired by Zeros2Heroes last year to do some development work and write several short comics “trailers” for a project called BiosFear. It’s one of the beta projects Zeros has used to ready the online launch. The story and character work I was very comfortable with, but the actual scripts were literally the first comics pages I’d ever tried to write. If anything, the visualization process on Black Jack would have been even more difficult without that shakedown. And thankfully the people I was working with on BiosFear gave me the room I needed to thrash around and figure things out. I’m actually pretty proud of what we came up with there, and I hope people will check it out when it goes up.

AF: If you could actually meet a character from your story in real life, which one would it be, and why?

JS: Oh, Jack, no question. He’s the one that’s safest to be around. I mean sure the faeries are fun, but hopefully if you take nothing else from Black Jack O’Breen, it’s that faeries are not cute, harmless little scamps, like flying puppies. They’re ruthless, deadly little forces of nature, red in tooth and claw. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or a limb. Or a thousand years.

AF: If you could only have one form of narrative entertainment in your life (comics, novels, films, videogames), which would it be, and why?

JS: God, I don’t know. Probably novels just because they seem to me to offer the most immersive, detailed experiences. Yeah, they’re less fully realized, but you can do a lot more in a novel than you can do in any of the others. They put more weight on you engaging with the narrative, but that pays off if you can do it.

AF: Is it better to burn out than to fade away?

JS: You’ve got to get the fire lit before you can do either one. That’s the tricky part, isn’t it? At that point, burning out or fading away is generally something the universe will decide for you.

***

OK, that’s it for this week, hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to John for saving me in my hour of need. I’m going to go towards the light, now.

Ever upward, readers (after Monday, there’s no place to go but up…)

Foley

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.

I’ve got nothing to say this week. Which is problematic, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is, I’ve got a production blog post to write. And then, in a couple days, I’m supposed to do a fifteen minute presentation on comic editing at the Editors Association of Canada Conference 2008. And I am not ready.

This is partly my fault, but only partly. Technically speaking, I knew I was going to be part of a panel at the conference for several months. A couple weeks ago, I spotted a flyer for the thing and thought, “Hey, is that the thing I’m supposed to be doing a panel at?” In a fit of cosmic synchronicity that could only be explained by the fact that the panel was going to be happening in the foreseeable future, when I got home I found an e-mail from the person who invited me to the panel in my inbox. He wanted to get together with all the panelists so we could discuss our presentations.

To which I said, “Presentations? Uh, what presentations?” I’ve been on a number of panels at various conferences over the years, and they’ve all been run the same way: everyone sits down, the moderator asks a question, and the panelists talk about it. Or, depending on how much some of the other panelists love the sound of their own voice, they at least try to talk about it. Presentations are a whole other thing. I don’t do presentations well. Never have.

I’ve figured out how to do readings–I’ve only done a few comic readings, but I’ve enjoyed every one of them. I had the privilege a few years back to see cartoonists Seth and Ben Katchor do readings at a local art gallery, which taught me almost everything I needed to know about how to do a good comic reading (as a public speaker, Katchor was amazing) and how not to (Seth was…not so amazing.) But a reading, to my mind, is a form of entertainment–and I actually like to entertain people.

A presentation is something else–it’s intended to inform, educate, or sell something. And these are things that I’m not particularly comfortable with, especially when it comes to doing them publicly via something other than a keyboard. If I wasn’t so bloody tired from the insomnia I’ve been suffering as I try and figure out what I’m going to talk to these editors about for fifteen minutes, I’d be panicking about the presentation right now.

And if I wasn’t panicking about that, I reckon this is a reasonable time to start panicking about deadlines. Specifically, Z2H’s rock-solid, drop-dead deadline of the end of June for the completion of BLACK JACK O’BREEN and KNIGHTCAP: NOVEMBER’S SONG (and every other Z2H book, though I’m not going to panic about those until I’m done panicking about the books I’m directly involved with). There was a Big Editorial Meeting on Friday where all the editors updated each other and Jessica about the state of our books. It was almost a presentation, but I didn’t mind that one, because I actually felt pretty confident about the way things were going.

John Keane’s a consummate pro and I’m convinced the only way he’d miss his KC: November’s Song deadline is if an asteroid fell out of the sky and demolished his house with him in it. Of course, by typing those words, it’s pretty much a cosmic certainty that this will now happen. Sorry, John.

Frank Grau, Jr., is plugging along on BLACK JACK O’BREEN. We’ve refined the approach a little. Now he’s doing all the pencils, then going back and doing all the painted colour. This will theoretically let him build up a rhythm with a specific artistic discipline and cut out any lagtime jumping back and forth between penciling and painting might cause. Frank knows the deadline, and he knows I’m on edge about it, and he still seems confident we can achieve the desired goals without cutting corners on quality.

I hope he’s right. Because, unfortunately, my job as editor is not to help my creators put together the best book possible. My job is to help them create the best book possible under the circumstances. I’ve been on jobs where deadlines forced creators to compromise on quality, and it’s not a pretty sight. Nobody wants to do less than their best work. It’s a poisonous situation for a creative person to be in, a real soul-killing scenario. But when the deadlines loom and the gas bill’s due, sometimes something’s got to give.

I’m not saying that’s going to happen on my books, or any of the Z2H books. Every creator I’m working with has hit the ball out of the park so far. The two Johns, Stephen, Frank, and Ed are making me look like I actually know what I’m doing. But as I said to Z2H office manager Alisia the other day, if I didn’t have something to worry about, I’d just be worried that I was missing something I should be worrying about.

And, you know, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad quality in an editor. I remember awhile back I was complaining to a colleague of mine about the paper stock a publisher had elected to use for one of my books–without consulting me or my collaborator, even though they’d agreed we’d have a say in it. This associate of mine was of the opinion that I was worrying too much about something that wasn’t that important. The phrase “It’s good enough” was bandied about.

Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels once said something to the effect that “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30.” Sooner or later, a creator who aspires to be a professional has to put the work out in front of an audience. Sometimes, they have to do it before they’d like to. And if, as a creator or an editor, I end up having to put something out before I’d like to, the idea that “it’s good enough” won’t offer me any comfort.

What MIGHT offer some comfort is the idea that next time, I’ll do it better. And part of the reason for that is because next time, I’ll have a better idea what to worry about.

Foley

So, how about that last post, huh? That sure got people talking. A couple people, anyway. And the question remains: What lettering approach did the creators of BLACK JACK O’BREEN and I finally decide on?

Well, you’ll have to read the book to find that one out. Ain’t I a stinker?

One more quick lettering thing before I move on–here’s a page from Stephen Cmelak’s KNIGHTCAP: NOVEMBER’S SONG, drawn and lettered by the incomparable John Keane. John’s got a bit of a weird sense of humour, sometimes. He realized there was something off-kilter about panel 2, and he left it this way anyway…

Yep, that dude’s butt is screaming.

John agreed to change the placement of the balloon tail in that panel, but there was a sadness in his voice as he agreed to do it, because more than any artist I know, John likes a good screaming butt gag. Who doesn’t, really?

Moving on. While the responses to last week’s post were all interesting, the one that’s stuck with me was this comment, from Mariathedreamer: “I think its (sic) a mistake to underestimate even the newer comic reader and certainly not the best strategy to cater to that newby reader.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I read it. I wouldn’t take any issue with it at all if the subject under discussion was, say, creating depth of character, or an intricate plot. Those are things editors or the companies they represent have been known to stifle, on occasion, something I believe is disrespectful to readers and creators both.

But that wasn’t what was under discussion–what we were talking about was placing word balloons in such a way that any English-speaking reader would intuitively know which one to read first, while retaining the storytelling flow and obscuring the least, or the least important aspects of the art.

And when it comes to that, I actually think that, yes, the best strategy IS to cater to the newbie reader.

Let’s say for the moment that my call on the lettering was correct for the reasons I believe it was correct (I know some of you disagree, but let’s pretend): it’s the optimal placement to allow a new reader to comfortably read the dialogue while taking in and appreciating the visual elements of the piece.

In that case, one could argue that my wanting that placement was an attempt to cater to the newbie reader. What I don’t see is why that would be a problem.

Is a veteran comic reader going to throw down the comic in disgust on seeing my pandering to someone who isn’t used to reading panel by panel? The dialogue’s identical. The only possible difference is the perceived cadence of the conversation–something that relies largely on the perspective of the reader and which I’m not convinced is controllable via balloon placement in any but the most extreme circumstances.

So I just made it easier for a new reader to enjoy the comic I edited, and I can’t imagine doing so lost me any long-time comic readers. I can’t imagine many long-time comic readers would give such a balloon placement much thought at all. Nor should they. The only time an average comic reader–whose primary requirement of a comic is that it be entertaining or otherwise worth the time and cost–will notice a balloon placement is if it isn’t working.

There are a lot more people who aren’t used to reading comics than are. If it doesn’t interfere with the storytelling goals of the creators, why not make a book as readable for them as possible?

As for the perils of underestimating the newer reader: when it comes to creating an accessible reading experience (strictly in the formal sense of, you know, actually being able to read the dialogue in the correct order without having to reread panels), I believe the mistake would be–no, I believe a recurring mistake among many comics editors today IS–to overestimate them.

Several years ago, I got to see comedian Steven Wright perform live in a theatre that seated around six hundred people. In the middle of the show, he told a joke. Well, he told jokes all the way through the show, but this joke landed differently than any of the other ones. I don’t remember the set-up or the punchline; all I remember is that it hinged on the audience knowing that French Post-Impressionist painter Henri de Toulous-Lautrec was short.

At no point during the joke did Wright actually mention Toulouse-Lautrec’s stature. As it happens, I was aware of this trivial tidbit of information. I got the joke, thought it was funny, and howled with laughter…

…Laughter that echoed through a hall that was otherwise dead silent. As far as I could tell, I was the one person in that 600 watching who understood why what Wright had said was funny.

As I see it, one of two things happened on that particular night with that particular joke. Either:

1) Wright overestimated his audience’s knowledge of French Post-Impressionist painters, and the joke failed because of it, or

2) Wright knew not many people would know about TL’s height, and told the joke anyway. Maybe because he thought it was funny, maybe because he wanted to reward those few audience members who’d know what he was talking about. Doesn’t really matter. It especially doesn’t matter to me, because I got the joke.

This means that either the joke failed (because it overestimated the audience) or it succeeded on its own terms, but those terms were created with a different motivation than comedians usually have with their jokes (to get the biggest laugh possible.)

Some comic creators might want to make a book so formally obscure that only a certain kind of reader will be able to follow it. I’d argue that James Turner’s NIL and REX LIBRIS have that sort of quality, as well as much of Dave Sim’s later CEREBUS work and now glamourpuss. Hell, I think some could lump THE HOLIDAY MEN in there.

If Mark and Jessica came to me and said, “Andrew, we don’t just want the books we produce to be solid pieces of entertainment, we want to make sure it’s not going to entertain a non-comics reader,” well, the first thing I’d do is tweak the lettering to make it harder for the non-comic reader to follow.

Actually, that’s not true. The first thing I’d do is try to contain my immediate negative reaction to the idea and ask why they’d want to do that.

I can’t imagine why a company that’s building a community around work that’s not in the traditional North American comic format or genre would want to risk alienating any potential new comics fan. There’s no readers to gain in such a move, and plenty to lose.

So, again strictly on a reading accessibility level, I see no harm in underestimating the potential readership. I do, however, see a great risk in overestimating the ability of non-comics readers to intuitively grasp what long-time North American comic readers have been trained to accept as natural. And I see my own annoyance when I as a reader encounter lettering that hasn’t been given proper consideration in regards to any reader, new or old alike. It’s exactly that sort of annoyance that I want to avoid with my Z2H projects.

Hey, who put this soapbox here? Never mind, here’s some BLACK JACK O’BREEN pencils from Frank Grau, Jr.:

Ever upward, heroes, ever upward.

Foley

The Two Ways I Considered Starting This Post:

1) Fear not, gentle reader. The thunderous silence in response to my last post has been heard. Never again shall I try to bestow upon you the wisdom learned over my years, years I say, in the comic industry. I tried to give you the benefit of hard-learned lessons, but clearly it was seen as a dry and useless exercise. I only do this for a living, I’m sure I’ve nothing to offer people in a community who also want to create for a living. It’s OK. I’m a little hurt, but I’ll get over it. (sniff!)

2) Oh, thank god, there’s finally been enough progress on the books that I can start showing some finished art and stop desperately filling entry after entry with the mind-numbingly boring minutiae of the comic creation process. I wonder if anyone’s still reading these things, now? I wouldn’t be…

Whichever beginning I chose to go with, including 3) all of the above, which is what won out, the end result is the same. No more endless rambling from ye olde editor. Instead, I bring you the delicious toppings of our comic book banana splits, the art.

Specifically, I give you the approved pin-ups for both my books. I was seriously tempted not to post the BLACK JACK O’BREEN pin-up, just because I know artist Frank Grau’s dying for the community to see it, and it’s always a good policy for editors to actively aggravate their artists.

Oh, wait, no it isn’t. OK, so you get the BJO pin-up, by Frank, as well as this:

The KNIGHTCAP: NOVEMBER’S SONG pin-up by artist John Keane.

And that was the long-awaited Z2H debut of the BLACK JACK O’BREEN pin-up (can I please have my cat back now, Frank?).

If these images aren’t enough for you, well, good, because I’ve got more. The official Z2H KNIGHTCAP: NS and BJO galleries are now live. Feel free to pop in and take a look at what we’ve got there.

I wasn’t joking when I said as an editor I do as little as possible. And to prove that, and the fact that I don’t absolutely HAVE to type ridiculously long posts (I don’t, I just like them, I don’t have a problem I’m not listening to you lalalalalalalala) I will sign off…

Now.

Foley

Sadly, ye olde editor is under the weather this week. Sadly for YOE, anyway; Stephen, the two Johns, and Frank all probably see my current suffering as karmic payback for what I’ve inflicted on them over the last few weeks. Even if it isn’t true, I shall wreak horrible vengeance upon them for this perceived slight.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at another of the Things Editors Do (When They Can’t Do Nothing.) Last week, I showed an example of how difficulties arise when writers who are used to thinking in terms of dynamic media have to think in static visual terms. This time around, we’re going to look at another fairly common problem new comic writers run into when approaching a comic script, involving how dialogue and other text can negatively impact the finished comic if the creators involved aren’t entirely familiar with the requirements of the comic page.

And so, I give you the script for Page Five of Stephen Cmelak’s original script for KNIGHTCAP: NOVEMBER’S SONG #1 (then called simply NOVEMBER’S SONG #1):

PAGE FIVE (five panels)

Panel One
A large introductory shot of FUGUE, floating in the air and smiling cheerfully down at KNIGHTCAP without a care in the world, despite the gas station threatening to explode around her. She should be majestic and adorable all at once, like Mary Marvel but with more gravitas. She is surrounded by musical notes (the sound that KNIGHTCAP hears as she hovers there).

FUGUE
WOW, THIS IS QUITE A FIRE YOU’VE GOT GOING, HERE! I WAS ABLE TO HEAR THAT EXPLOSION FROM THIRTY THOUSAND WHOLE FEET UP!

FUGUE
WOULD YOU LIKE HELP PUTTING IT OUT BEFORE IT’S TOO FAR GONE, OR IS THIS THE RESULT OF SOME INSURANCE-RELATED ARSON?

FUGUE
I ONLY ASK BECAUSE, ON SOME LEVEL, THE YOUNG MAN OVER YOUR SHOULDER SEEMS TO BE OVERJOYED AT ITS BURNING DOWN.

Panel Two
A tight shot, angled down, of KNIGHTCAP (still with the COUNTER JOCKEY over his shoulder) staring up at FUGUE (off-panel) in shock and wonder. He’s so taken with her appearance that he seems to have momentarily forgotten about the fire around him. A so-far-untouched gas pump or two should be just visible in the background behind him.

CAP 1
OH WOW, THAT’S FUGUE. THAT’S ACTUALLY FUGUE.

CAP 2
HERE. IN SCARBOROUGH.

KNIGHTCAP
UH…

CAP 3
BE COOL, ERIC. DON’T GO ALL DROOLING FANBOY ON HER.

CAP 4
SAY SOMETHING PITHY.

Panel Three
A reverse angle of panel two, with the gas pumps in the foreground and a recoiling KNIGHTCAP and the hovering FUGUE in the background. A stream of fire shot by KID INFERNO (off-panel) connects with one of the gas pumps, causing it to explode upwards in a geyser of flame. KNIGHTCAP screams as he hurls himself (and the COUNTER JOCKEY he’s carrying) away from it. FUGUE looks at the explosion with a blank expression, but otherwise doesn’t react.

SFX
FWOOOSH!!

KNIGHTCAP & COUNTER JOCKEY
(in unison)
AAAAHHHHH!!

CAP 1
OR, Y’KNOW, SCREAM LIKE A LITTLE GIRL. THAT’LL IMPRESS HER, TOO.

KID INFERNO
(off panel)
WELL, LOOKIT THIS! ANOTHER CAPE!

Panel Four
A tight shot of KID INFERNO striding cockily through the fire, with his flaming fists clenched and held out to either side of him. He sneers up at FUGUE (off panel).

KID INFERNO
AND ONE OF THE JCC, TOO! I MUST BE BIGGER THAN I THOUGHT!

KID INFERNO
AFTER I BARBEQUE YOU, BABE, I’M GONNA BE HUGE IN THIS TOWN!

Panel Five
A two-shot of KID INFERNO and FUGUE, with KNIGHTCAP dragging the COUNTER JOCKEY to safety in the foreground. KID INFERNO holds both his flaming hands up at FUGUE, preparing to roast her, as FUGUE descends gently towards the ground, smiling at him patiently. Musical notes trail after her as she descends. The gas station continues to burn out of control around them.

KID INFERNO
NOW JUST HOLD STILL…IT’LL ONLY HURT FOR A SEC—

FUGUE
IT REALLY BOTHERS YOU THAT YOU’RE NOT, DOESN’T IT? BIG, I MEAN.

FUGUE
IT SHOULDN’T. YOU’RE EXACTLY THE SIZE THE UNIVERSE NEEDS YOU TO BE.

KID INFERNO
…

KID INFERNO
WHAT?
________________________

Pretty funny stuff, huh? I think so, too. Here’s the problem: this page is, as the kids say, ten pounds of awesome in a five pound bag.

Following this script would result in one of two things: images cropped by word balloons and captions (if the artist and editor weren’t paying attention) or five panels with images the size of postage stamps, drawn to accommodate what is, by modern comic standards, a massive amount of text.

‘Twas not always so. In the days of my youth, North American mainstream comics typically held what is, by today’s decompressed standards, massive amounts of text. It still takes me half an hour to read every word of a mid-run Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four issue, probably twenty minutes to hack my way through a Claremont/Byrne Uncanny X-Men.

Now, if the dialogue in those comics was given the kind of care a Brian Bendis or an Ed Brubaker, say, give their dialogue, this sort of textual density might well be considered good value for money. But unlike Bendis and Brubaker, Lee up through Claremont saw comics as kids stuff, and in many ways they wrote down to the perceived twelve-year-old male reader. They were also working in what’s become widely known as the Marvel Style, which solves one big problem and creates a bunch of new ones–ones that can (mostly) be fixed with the liberal application of lots of text.

Basically a way for writers to foist a lot of the hard storytelling work of comics off on their artists (it allowed Lee to write 8+ titles a month), Marvel Style comic writing has the writer supplying a plot for the story (could be one page long, could be three, could be a phone call, could be a note…), which the artist then interprets, fitting it into a 20-whatever page format as they see fit.

At the time, the writer would come in after the pencils were done and write the dialogue *around* the art–using dialogue and text to explain things that didn’t make sense in the art , adding subtext, and, I sometimes think, generally trying to prove that they were actually contributing something substantial to the creation of the comic by putting more words on a page than were, strictly speaking, necessary. If the panel shows a guy flying in a window, and the caption says “With a shower of glass, a guy flies through the window…”, do we really need the character thinking “I’m flying through a window!”?

It would seem some writers thought we actually did.

Not even Marvel uses the Marvel Style these days, and I thank the Comic Gods for that. Now, instead of having characters explain why there’s suddenly a dinosaur in the bathroom (truthful answer: because the artist likes drawing dinosaurs), the artist is given a fairly detailed breakdown of what’s going to go on a page–a script that generally includes panel breaks and dialogue. In theory, this approach will prevent things like important visual elements being obscured by word balloons. But the theory only works if everyone knows–or, more accurately, if everyone’s in agreement about–how much text a page or panel of a comic can comfortably contain.

There are various rules of thumb for this. In the Z2H Editorial guidelines, editors are advised to suggest writers not have more than fifty words in a panel and no more than 25 words in a given balloon. Personally, I generally try to limit myself to 35 words or less a panel on an average page. There are exceptions to all this, of course–my webcomic, THE HOLIDAY MEN, was approached with a fairly aggressive disregard for what is generally considered acceptable text density for a modern comic panel. But both I and my artist knew that was the approach, and by having the text available prior to the artwork being done, he was able to create art that would work in harmony with, rather than against the text to create what was hopefully an enjoyable reading experience.

My read on Stephen’s original script is that this sort of textual density experimentation wasn’t the effect he was aiming for. I believe that, in an effort to maximize the comedic elements of the first issue, he tried to jam as much funny text into a page as he could–without taking into account how that much verbiage would affect the artwork.

I consulted with Stephen, who, if he didn’t agree with the notion that the dialogue would have to be spread out more than it was to begin with, at least didn’t object to my taking a pass at the script with an eye towards maintaining as much of his text and intent as possible, while creating a framework that would result in a finished product that was more in line with the modern comic storytelling aesthetic.

Or, to put it another way, I was going to, ahem, strongly advise breaking up the final panel of Stephen’s Page Five into at least two panels–one so that Kid Inferno could say his first piece of dialogue with an appropriate visual, and another with him visually, as well as in dialogue, reacting to what Fugue says. (In the end, I believe we actually split that panel into three or four separate images…)

To do this, I broke out the “Track Changes” function of Microsoft Word. Over the years, I’ve come to see this function as a positively indispensable tool for anyone doing anything resembling editing. For those who don’t know, if you set Track Changes right, it makes the text you add to a document a different colour from the normal black. It also doesn’t erase anything that you’re changing–when you delete, it crosses the text out with a line, but leaves it visible. Later, the writer or whoever can go through and accept or reject the changes, making them black, or add more comments of his/her own, which appear in a third colour. It’s a really neat little tool, actually.

The downside of the neat little tool is that it doesn’t reproduce in a blog. So, rather than showing you my redline version of what became Page Eight of KNIGHTCAP: NOVEMBER’S SONG, I’m instead going to show you Stephen’s revision of the script based on my notes. On three. One… Two…

Page 8 (5 Panels)

PANEL 1
A large introductory shot of FUGUE, floating in the air and smiling cheerfully down at KNIGHTCAP without a care in the world, despite the gas station threatening to explode around her. She should be majestic and adorable all at once, like Mary Marvel but with more gravitas. She is surrounded by musical notes (the sound that KNIGHTCAP hears as she hovers there).

FUGUE
WOW, THIS IS QUITE A FIRE YOU’VE GOT GOING! I HEARD THAT EXPLOSION FROM THIRTY THOUSAND WHOLE FEET UP!

CAP 1
OH WOW.

PANEL 2
A head-and-shoulders shot of FUGUE, still hovering in mid-air and smiling happily down at the off-panel Knightcap.

FUGUE
WOULD YOU LIKE HELP PUTTING IT OUT BEFORE IT’S TOO FAR GONE, OR IS THIS THE RESULT OF SOME INSURANCE-RELATED ARSON?

CAP 2
THAT’S FUGUE. THAT’S ACTUALLY FUGUE.

PANEL 3
We pull out to a profile threeshot, FUGUE continuing to hover as she gestures to the COUNTER JOCKEY slung over the shoulder of KNIGHTCAP, who holds his stunned pose from the previous page, and stares up at FUGUE in open-mouthed wonder.

FUGUE
I ONLY ASK BECAUSE, ON SOME LEVEL, THE YOUNG MAN THERE SEEMS OVERJOYED IT’S BURNING DOWN.

CAP 3
HERE. IN SCARBOROUGH.

PANEL 4
A tight shot, angled down, of KNIGHTCAP (still with the COUNTER JOCKEY over his shoulder) staring up at FUGUE (off-panel) in shock and wonder. He’s so taken with her appearance that he seems to have momentarily forgotten about the fire around him. A so-far-untouched gas pump or two should be just visible in the background behind him.

KNIGHTCAP
UH…

CAP 4
BE COOL, ERIC. DON’T GO ALL DROOLING FANBOY ON HER. SAY SOMETHING PITHY.

PANEL 5
A reverse angle of panel two, with the gas pumps in the foreground and a recoiling KNIGHTCAP and the hovering FUGUE in the background. A stream of fire shot by KID INFERNO (off-panel) connects with one of the gas pumps, causing it to explode upwards in a geyser of flame. KNIGHTCAP screams as he hurls himself (and the COUNTER JOCKEY he’s carrying) away from it. FUGUE looks at the explosion with a blank expression, but otherwise doesn’t react.

SFX
FWOOOSH!!

KNIGHTCAP & COUNTER JOCKEY
(in unison)
AAAAHHHHH!!

CAP 5
OR, Y’KNOW, SCREAM LIKE A LITTLE GIRL. THAT’LL IMPRESS HER, TOO.
_______________________

Because this post is already seven pages long and I’m about to lapse into a coma I’ve nicknamed Sheila for reasons too mind-numbingly uninteresting for me to even think about inflicting on you, gentle reader, I’m not going to go into the exact reasons why I chose each basic panel shot, or Stephen’s reactions and changes to my suggestions, or my revisions of those reactions. Instead, I’m going to, at long last, cut to the chase.

Because now we get to start creating an actual comic, rather than the blueprint for a comic. And that’s going to be a lot more interesting than me talking comics craft (which a non-comics fan friend of mine once described thusly: “You know the expression ‘as boring as watching paint dry?’ When you start talking about this stuff, it’s as boring as listening to someone TALK about watching paint dry.”)

It’s time for the wordsmiths to step aside and let artist wunderkind John Keane do his magic. If you’ve stuck it out this long, well, I hope you got something out of the previous rambling, but if you didn’t, you’re about to get the good stuff.

First, John’s rough layout of Page Eight, which is, not entirely coincidentally, KNIGHTCAP’s Page X:

And here’s his inks:

While I was typing this blog entry, John actually sent over the coloured version of Page Eight. But for reasons I’m too dopey to figure out right now, all I can make appear here is a thumbnail that leads to nothing. So…yeah. I’ll try and get that up somewhere when I regain consciousness.

I’m coming Sheila, baby, just a few minutes more…

Next week…I dunno. Maybe I’ll get into some of the even more nit-picky elements of comic craft, like word balloon placement (don’t get me started–seriously) or thinking in terms of page turns and reveals. Or maybe I’ll write something interesting. Hey, anything could happen.

Ever Upward, Heroes, Ever Upward.

And to all, a good night.

Foley

Wow, has it been a week already? Really? My calendar isn’t erring on the side of caution and it’s actually Monday or something?

…

No, huh? OK, OK.

As I recall, when last we met, I was regaling you with the joys of being an editor (the joys revolving mostly around not doing anything.) This week, if memory serves, I was to give some examples of the sort of thing I do to earn the pile of special Zeros 2 Heroes money (or Z2Hbucks, as they’re known around the office) that I roll around in every morning prior to jumping out of a tree and scaring the postman.

And so I shall! Well, one example, anyway.

It seems to me that one of the big things Zeros 2 Heroes offers writers unfamiliar with the craft of comics creation is access to a Real, Honest-to-God Comic Editor. Or, in the case of John and Stephen, to me. You win some, you lose some, boys.

I got lucky; the first professional editor who showed any interest at all in me actually showed a lot of interest. It was a year or two before he gave me my first paying assignment, but during that time he taught me a lot about the craft of comic writing. And then, after I slew him in bloody combat in accordance with the Pennsylvanian Editorial Rite of Passage, I went on and learned a few other things. Strange and useful and frightening things. I learned enough that my fragile ego blossomed into monstrous megalomania. I had reached the state of mind of…An Editor.

Now, anyone with a brain can tell you there are as many ways to write a comic book as there are writers. And, as J.D. Salinger said, “If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she’s late. Nobody.” At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that the final, finished piece is as good as everyone involved could make it be given whatever constraints they’re working within. But I do believe there are some basic principles that will make the process easier on everyone, including the writer, the artist, and most importantly, me. And it is these basic principles that I try to convey to writers who don’t know them.

What are some of these basic principles? I’ll show you one in action. Here’s the original panel description for the fourth page of BLACK JACK O’BREEN:

Panel 1: Big splash page. Title at the top, credits at the bottom. We’re on the deck of a sailing ship, off the Irish coast on a dark night. The sails taut in the wind, like pale white ghosts. A couple pinpoints of light from the shore.

Standing at the railing is JACK O’BREEN in boots, long leather trail coat and a battered cowboy hat. Jack’s in his late 20s, tall and slender, a windblown look about him, and a sadness in his dark eyes. At his feet sits a big leather duffel bag.

Beside him, a sailor, MICKEY. Good lad, but a touch thick.

CAPTION
Six months later.

MICKEY
There she is, Jack. The isle of Erin. How’s it feel coming home?

JACK
I’ll let you know.

_______

If I understand things correctly, John’s writing experience has primarily been in the field of screenwriting. There are principles to be applied in that field, too, and he applied one of them in his panel description: he described a scene in an interesting but concise manner. So what’s the problem?

There may not be one. An artist may read that description and interpret in a way that may make the writer happy. But any happiness the writer would feel would be a lucky happenstance, because whatever ends up on the page, it’s not going to be the panel described. It’s pretty much impossible for an artist to draw a panel set at night that includes:
-a boat with ghostly sails,
-the coast with pinpoints of light,
-Jack standing at a railing (presumably looking at the coast in the distance, though that’s not specified),
-with a duffel bag visible at his feet, and
-a windblown look about him, and (and this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, really)
-sadness in his dark eyes

You try and draw it. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

…

See?

Part of the Z2H editorial process is doing rough panel and balloon placement thumbnails based on the script. Part of the rationale for that is to give inexperienced writers an idea of how much text can comfortably fit in a panel and on a page. John really didn’t have a problem with his dialogue–he kept things lean, rarely if ever overloaded a panel with more text than it could hold. But he did, on occasion, write panel descriptions as though they were scene descriptions–and while that won’t necessarily lead to tears, the possibility is there.

And that’s where I come in. Here’s my thumbnails for Page Four of BLACK JACK O’BREEN:

It’s a bit more detailed than most of Z2H thumbs tend to be, but I did it that way for a reason (a reason other than the fact that I’m a compulsive doodler and can’t help myself). Rather than simply telling John something wasn’t going to work, I wanted to offer him a different option–or at least get him thinking in terms of breaking up his scene into drawable panels.

Here’s the revised script for BJO Page 4:

PAGE FOUR (3 Panels)

Panel 1: Across the top. We’re at sea, nighttime. Dramatic angle from water level up the hull of a sailing ship moving through choppy seas. The bowsprit and lines stabbing the night sky, taut white sails a ghostly presence in the moonlight.

CAPTION
Six months later.

Panel 2: Rest of the page, noting the inset Panel 3 below. Title and credits. At the railing with his back to us stands JACK O’BREEN - boots, long leather trail coat and a battered cowboy hat. At his feet sits a big leather duffel bag.

Beside him, a sailor, MICKEY. Good lad, but a touch thick. They’re looking at the Irish coast looming out of the dark. The moonlight glowing on the sea.

MICKEY
There she is, Jack. Ireland. How’s it feel coming home?

Panel 3: Small square inset in Panel 2. Very close 3/4 view of Jack’s face. He’s in his late 20s, a weathered look about him. Quick eyes, but a sadness. He looks out over the water.

JACK
I’ll let you know.
_________

Note that John went one step further than I did, and included a close-up of Jack so we could get a view of his quick, sad eyes. I’m not entirely sure “quick, sad eyes” is something an artist can communicate visually inside a static image–but at least he’s got a fighting chance of doing it inside a 3/4 close-up.

And that’s the sort of thing an editor does. Or at least the sort of thing I do when I’m editing.

More examples may be forthcoming, depending on what the next few days brings.

Foley

I don’t know if the other Z2H editors’ experience is the same as mine, but now that it’s widely known that I am the latest editor, it’s not unusual for people to ask me, “What does an editor do?”

It’s not the most common thing I’m asked. That’s “How does one become an editor?” Second and third most popular are, “Someone made you and editor?” and “Really?”, respectively. (My father, who has no aspirations towards editing, actually started with those two.)

The answers to the first three questions are fairly brief and kind of boring, but here they are: 1) “I’m not entirely sure”, 2) “It’s crazy, isn’t it?”, and 3) “Yes, really. Geez, you remind me of my Dad.”

The answer to #4, in an ideal world, would also be short: “Not much.” I don’t live in an ideal world (I do, however, live in an almost ideal bedroom), so my almost, but not quite as short answer is “As little as possible.”

Unlike 98% of the things I post online, the preceding paragraph was not intended as a joke. Well, not really. I suppose I could clarify it a little, expand the answer to, “As little as possible, while still fulfilling the requirements of the job.”

What is the job, then? Well, I’ve got a very detailed list of what I’m supposed and allowed to do for Z2H’s creator clients. Somewhere. Not here. And if I had it here, I’m probably not supposed to talk about its specifics without getting the Chief’s permission, which would be hard to do and still make my deadline (silly Andrew, forgetting Wednesday is editing blog day…). So I’ll just tell you what I think the job of editor is–or at least should be, again in my hypothetical ideal world:

Help everyone involved produce the best comic possible.

It sounds simple, and it sometimes is. If everyone (creators to company and back) agrees on what qualifies as the best comic–that helps. If everyone knows exactly what they’re doing–that helps too. If everyone performs their assignments inside the agreed-upon deadline–that helps a lot.

And if any of that stuff isn’t happening for any reason–then I help.

How do I help, you ask?

Tune in next week, and I’ll give you some examples.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of quick character sketches whipped up by KNIGHTCAP: NOVEMBER’S SONG artist “Peachy” John Keane:

Foley

PS: I’d consider it a personal favour if you refrained from telling John I called him “Peachy.”

(How to start, how to start…

OK.)

Hey there, Zeros 2 Heroes. You’re looking might fine today–have you been working out?

(No, too needy. (I’m a Gemini, by the way.))

Holy Moley, it’s Zeros 2 Heroes’ newest editor Andrew Foley!

(Well, hell, if I’m going to rhyme I ought to be able to do better than that. Let’s see…)

There once was an editor named Foley,
Whose shape varied from roly to poly,
Z2H gave him a job,
That lucky fat slob,
If Black Jack’s bad it’s his fault solely…

(No, that’s not right. If BJO does end up being anything less than great, the editor should take the blame, just as if it’s the most amazing comic ever, the credit must go entirely to the creators, but it’s not TOTALLY on my shoulders…)

Hi there. Andrew Foley, the latest addition to Z2H’s editorial team, here. In addition to helping make DocNaberius’ BLACK JACK O’BREEN and Ruroshen’s NOVEMBER’S SONG’s first issues as great as I can, I’m also obligated to write an editorial blog. Which is problematic, as anyone who’s read my previous Z2H blog postings knows, I’m not big on posting and never know what to say…

(Will everyone see the irony in that? I mean, how many of them could actually have struggled through one of your Oddyssey-length blog posts? Who’s got that kind of time or masochistic streak, really? Wait, wait, I’ve got it!)

This is your humble correspondent, Andrew Foley, reporting live via blog from the front lines of the Zeros 2 Heroes creative process. It’s been an exciting couple of weeks here in No Man’s Only Editors’ Land, with your intrepid reporter landing two plum editing assignments in the form of the Fairytale Shoot-em-up BLACK JACK O’BREEN and the wildly funny superhero comic NOVEMBER’S SONG. I’ll be holding my position here in the thick of things, making regular dispatches for as long as I’m able…

(Sure, Foley. Why not start with that, it’s not like they don’t already know you’re a huge flake…No, no, chin up, chest out. You’re an Official Zeros 2 Heroes Editor now. Time to start acting like it! You can do this! You can write a simple introduction!

…

…

OK, maybe you can’t. My God, you’re a loser.

…

All right. How about this: take all of your aborted intros, make snarky remarks after each one, and get the basic point across while maintaining a safe ironic distance so nobody can tell you’re jumping up and down like an ADHD teenager on a suger high over coming on board Team Heroes.

No. That’s just stupid.

Sleep on it. I’m sure you’ll come up with something better by tomorrow.)

Foley