chiller blog

Posted Feb 18, 09 11:47 AM

On the Contrary

In March, Wizard World descends on the L.A. Convention Center. It’s a collective weekend where exhibitors, distributors and contributors stake booths. Graphic novel fans in badges roam wild for the latest comic culture fix. Actors and WWF performers do publicity turns, development execs visit, and even a producer or two (like From Hell’s Don Murphy) might stop by to snatch up the latest buzzed book – and return for extra copies (like From Hell’s Don Murphy).

For writers, it’s the coolest compliment. Casual acquaintances leave as new readers. (I adore fans, but my autograph? Hah! It still looks like how I signed it in fifth grade.) What also surfaces beneath the surface is another bonding – writers who are fans of other writers.

Enter Raven (Return to Wonderland) Gregory. I first became a Raven fan with his disturbingly satisfying work on Se7en: Gluttony; it turns out that he became mine with my trippy Se7en: Sloth. Raven mentions a project he’s editing for Zenescope – the Grimm Fairy Tales Annual, and would I be interested. His vision is to craft freaky back-stories to nursery rhymes.

Hello, graphic novel credit #18!

Raven sends me the prior year’s GFT Annual, so I can zero in on a tone and style because, really, that’s how the germ of an idea incubates. Let’s see. There’s Old Mother Hubbard running a sweatshop. Jack and Jill are embroiled in adultery and undead vengeance. Nice. (And I sincerely mean that.)

Raven and I trade brainstorming calls; he’s in Phoenix, I think (funny how collaboration knows little geography). Sometimes I can hear him being a papa, cooking pasta and pausing for asides with his kids. After a little search engine action, I pitch an idea for Mary, Mary Quite Contrary crossed with Motel Hell – you know, the 1980 comedy/horror where “it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.” Raven gets excited immediately when I suggest how this garden will grow.

Now to run it by Ralph and Joe at Zenescope. They weigh in. We bounce ideas. They weigh in. We rebounce. (Insert a long pause.)

Comic book assignments are a world of hurry-up and wait. In between supervising multiple titles (coordinating writers, artists, colorists, letterers, printers, distributors), traveling to conventions, once in a while writing their own stuff, and daring to have lives of their own, Ralph and Joe green-light the concept and the clock starts ticking.

For me, I like to wrap up a comic book script in a week, give or take a few days. Each issue is a three-act structure, usually running 22 pages. This is part of a collection, so I have to break it down in half that time. Not a problem. The only challenge for me is converting Rich Text Format from my Final Draft software, but I’ve finally mastered the concept.

Raven receives the script, weighing in on an extra line here or there to convey specific action/reactions. The cement dries on this one swiftly.

Raven puts me in touch with artist Axel (The Piper) Medillin, and I’m relieved. Axel’s a good guy that I’ve never officially met – reliable, respectful. And talented. He emails, asking about references to characters, clothes and settings. (The action is set in Liverpool, 1912.) I’m mainly concerned with a stained glass window, panel compositions, and angles. Besides, a good collaboration involves collective visions and interpretations working together. There’s no way I can ever recreate exactly what I see in my head. His pencils will channel the script.

Very few adjustments. Axel even suggests stylizing the violence on page 9, aestheticizing what would otherwise have been a more explicit scene. He’s absolutely right.

Enter Jason Embury, who will ink and add special effects to Axel’s renderings. I don’t want to restrict his artistry, either, but I provide bullet point correspondence:

“Color should slowly work its way into the story. The early pages should evoke a late night Jack the Ripper feel: dark, industrial, foggy. Classic ‘London at Midnight’. Inside, as it becomes daylight, the elegance is warmer but still muted. The first appearance of red – preferably – should be the stained glass window. In the attic, it’s shadowy and hazy. In the garden, that’s when the color palate should completely explode. The vegetation is phantasmic, so consider highly, extremely unusual colors for buds, stems, even roots. Possibly restrict red’s use to only the stained glass window and the blood. On the Titanic scenes, maybe a slight sepia for a newsreel/photo feel.”

(Yeah, I forgot to mention there’s a tie-in to the Titanic. It turns out my original ending was Ralph’s ending. What are the chances, eh?)

Jason goes to work, poor dude burning the midnight oil. He gets a sinus infection, and in between a few color tweaks and adding more and more fog to page 1, I impart my immunity cocktail: Airborne, wheatgrass, and zinc lozenges. Jason’s on the East Coast (again, the geography issue) so I don’t think he can score wheatgrass, but by the time the colors drain, tweak, and shadow, he’s feeling better.

We are set!

Uh… no. There’s an eleventh hour switch in approach. Raven messages the need to shift the tone to narration for heightened clarity, whereas my first take was a considerably quieter throughline. And I have a day to do it.

With a good story, I always say, there’s more than one correct way of telling it. Never compromise – which insinuates that one or more parties “settled” for something they didn’t want. Instead, find a better solution. This is Zenescope’s project. Give them what they want.

I love writing in period, and with a mocha or two, I’m kicking around new verses, didactic meters, and atypical metaphors. Boom. Done. Sent.

Raven responds quickly – and happily. NOW we are set.

No worries. Each project is different. Each adjustment opens up a new opportunity to try another approach.

And I absolutely can’t wait to start this whole process over!