Comix: The Solace of You

When I need to get away for a little while. When I need to see something bigger than me. When I have to learn something that no one else wants to teach me. When there are things that need to be addressed. When no one else is around. When I have nothing else to do at the moment. When I want to tell a story. When things need to be black and white. When Technicolor won’t do it any more. When I need something real in my hands. When I want to be young again. When I want to see what I’ll be like when I’m older. When I need to explore my feelings. When everything’s going great. When everything’s in the toilet. When I need to identify. When it needs to be worse for someone else. When I need to laugh. When my time’s up. When I have all the time in the world. When I have the money. When I don’t have the money. When I need to relax. When I’m at work. When I’m on the road (but not driving). When I’m walking alone. When I’m dreaming.

You’re always there.

Deep Talk 7

Do some digging if you're not caught up.

“Sort of a weak sister, isn’t he?”

“Give him a break, he’s been pretty traumatized already today. A brick to the head not being the least of it.”

“What good can he possibly be? He’s got nothing we need.”

“Yeah he does. He’s got the Will.”

“Won’t do him much good against a bullet to the head.”

“Nope, but we’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen, aren’t we?”

“What makes him so special? I’ve got as much will as he does.”

“Your power is what fuels your will. Take your power away and you’re less than him. I mean, he took a hard shot right between the eyes and he got up, ready to rescue me.”

“Not that you needed it, but I would’ve done the same thing.”

“But it would have come from a different place. His will comes from down somewhere in the ground and he pulls it up through his feet, his guts and his heart. You’re bigger, stronger and more skilled than he. Experience has dulled your will a bit. His is raw, unchecked and we can use that to win over in the end.”

“So he’s really just a pawn then?”

“Only inasmuch as we let him be. I intend for him to make it back and find some way for him to resume something like a normal life. He’ll only be a pawn if he lets someone else use him the same way we are.”

“He’s awake.”

Erin sat on the bed next to me, took my hand.

“How you feel?” she said, actual concern in her voice.

“Like I’m being rooked,” I whispered back. I was laid out flat on the bed, covered to my chin by a comforter that lived up to the title. The room had stopped spinning but now was bobbing and weaving like Gary Busey looking for the bathroom on a Tuesday night at the House of Blues. Why did Dennis Miller just say that in my head?

“Don’t try to talk, Marv. Rest up a bit more. We’re perfectly safe here.” She looked puzzledly at me. I was trying to indicate the asshole who called me a pawn. The jerk with the beard I saw in the bar earlier. Mr. Studly. “Him?” she said. “This is Gordon. He’s kind of a pain and sometimes says things he shouldn’t. Basically he’s okay.” The guy waved at me.

I grimaced.

Erin tried to comfort me. “Really, go back to sleep. We’ve got the memedocs working on you. You’ll be good as new in the morning. Meantime, Gordon and I will come up with a plan that’ll set those tin bastards back to the Stone Age. You’re going to help, and you’re going to come back alive and whole. I promise.”

The last thing I saw as my eyes closed again was her smile. Cheshire…

Copyright 2005 by Jason Arnett

Do I Look Fat in These?

Would you say this is a large blog? I wonder every time I post and some times it takes a while, and other times it doesn't.

Just curious.

The Home Office

How many of us wannabe creators actually have an office in their homes to work out of?

I do, and I find it's a fairly important part of the process when I need to get something done in a hurry.

Of course, it's filled with distractions like a CD player, a couple hundred CDs (more downstairs in the living room), a DVD player and the Star Wars trilogy, the Matrix trilogy, some Fleischer Superman and all the cool Pixar films, as well as the Hallmark version of The Odyssey.

Then there's the RARELY used Nintendo 64 with MarioKart. That game ruled my life for a couple of years, because it was so fun to play drunk. Now I like to play Riven, but not drunk. It's way too hellish to try that.

However. We were talking about the home office. Now that the laptop is in play at home, I can move from room to room as I need to, but I can still hole up in the office and hide while I'm creating. There's a drawing table over on my left that is really a catchall right now, but I fully intend to turn it back into a drawing table with the addition of a scanner to my home desktop. Watch out world, there's Arnett webcomix coming. Not as fast as I'd like, but they're coming. Tax day is supposed to be my first deadline, innit? I'd better check...

Anyway, there's pencils of all descriptions, pens, ink, stacks of 'reference' of varying types and piles of comix that need to be filed with their brethren in the short boxes occupying the closet. I like that I can go down to the dining room and look out a large patio door into the parking lot next to the apartment. But I like the fact that when I'm in the office, I look up and see only sky, gray, blue or otherwise. Despite the distraction of the room, it's pretty conducive to the creative process, having been ultimately designed that way. Over on the wall by the door is a Matt Wagner sketch of Hunter Rose as Grendel and on the wall next to the desk is the original page from Green Arrow #3 that Ande grafitti'd my name on in one panel. Svetlana Chmakova sold me a set of book marks that I haven't dared to separate yet, either. She's gonna be hot, hot, hot when Dramacon comes out in September from TokyoPop. At least I think it's September.

So that's kind of an overview of what I have here at home to look around at when I'm supposed to be writing. But some times I envy Warren Ellis the ability to go to the pub and write.

Deficit

As I sift through the comix websites every morning, I’ve noticed something: there’s a lot of buzz, a lot of chatter but not much substance. This shouldn’t surprise me, or anyone else acquainted with the explosion of the Comix Blogosphere, of which B & E is a part, I suppose. However, the industry could really use a good interviewer, a Barbara Walters, if you will, willing to ask some questions that might enlighten and entertain rather than simply be promotional hucksterism.

But would anyone care? Do the readers of such sites (which include pros and wannabe pros) want to know about Mike Carey’s parents and his childhood? Does that really add any dimension to the work he’s killing with in Lucifer? It might. It could add some insight to how his process works, where the ideas came from. It might give a reader of such an interview a deeper understanding of the underlying issues at play in the stories that Carey writes. It might offer a chance for the average reader (should he really exist in the world of comix) to IDENTIFY a bit more with the themes of Carey’s stories and maybe push that Average Reader into telling others in his life about the book, instead of just pretending that those things don’t matter.

They do.

I’m not saying we have to get invasive and know a whole bunch of personal details of the creators, but if they’re willing to offer, we should be willing to listen. However, I’m not aware of any interviewer who’s willing to ask such questions. I would like to read such interviews and add subtext to my favorite creators stories.

When a new creator is trying to promote his book on the incestual message board systems of the comix world, they need to tailor their message to each board. For instance, don’t try and promote your serious superhero book at Oni’s board with the same message you’d use at Comic Book Resources. Find an angle you think would fly there and re-write your ‘release’. Be a presence after you post your message, and show a little of yourself by answering other posts at the site. Let people get to know you a little. Then they’ll pay attention. Same thing should work for ‘name’ creators. The thing is, the ‘names’ don’t want to alienate any readers, because there are really so few and we’re all competing for the same dollars no matter what kind of book we’re putting out there.

And when you’re creating your book, remember that no one’s paying attention, so do what you want to. Make some crazy idea work and let it fly. Don’t let the Martha Stewarts of the Ether, those Arbiters of Internet Decorum and Protocol pull you into their morass of self-loathing by Shouting you Down when you post to promote your book. Ignore the Shouters, but realize that they can be used to call attention to your book, too. Worked for Aerosmith, it can work in your favor, too.

When you feel only slightly uncomfortable about it, create your own niche on the ‘Net, like I have here at B&E. Rest assured that you’ll pull others into your orbit and they’ll pull others into theirs, as well. When folks realize that Jason Arnett is the Second Coming of Warren Ellis, you’ll see what I mean. We’ll crash the entirety of the Blogger servers with our massive overuse of bandwidth, which Ellis will contribute to when he tell the Bad Signalers that Arnett’s the Man.

You’ll see.

You’ll all see.

Listening is not the same as Hearing

This is the first version of the Deficit post above. I was having issues with Blogger not apparently posting stuff for me this morning, so I ended up re-writing this post, but I find there's some value in keeping this version on the blog, too. If you've read Deficit, you don't need to read this, but there are a few differences. I think Deficit is better-worded and more intelligent. This one is very stream-of-consciousness. You've been warned.


As I sift through the comix sites on the web, there's a lot of buzz, a lot of chatter.

But no one's saying anything of substance.

Some are simply reporting what they've been told, or have on a press release in front of them or repeating what they've culled from another website. Others are trying to offer opinions on what they think, but because they are working from press releases and personal prejudices, you're not going to find much real 'news'. When a creator is interviewed, no one says much. They're not even given an opportunity to say anything of substance about their book, which supposedly they've poured their creative heart and soul into. This is because the groundswell of the comix blogosphere over the last year and half has burst open and revealed that not many of the so-called 'names' in comix actually know how to talk up their books. And the folks commenting on the books or interviewing the creators don't have the imagination to ask questions that might reveal something a little deeper. Thankfully, we don't have a Barbara Walters interviewer in comix, but maybe we need one. Someone who will DO that 'very special interview'. What do you think Mike Carey would say if he was asked questions about his parents? Does the average comix reader care? I always like gaining some insight into how the works are created. I think a lot of people do, otherwise they wouldn't be laying out major money for 'special edition' DVDs with 'hours and hours' of extra shit.

Comix are a job, but no one's really in charge. We're all working for ourselves. Notice us, the self-employed. It's a lot of work to get the damn things out, and a lot of time. When it's done, though, the work is only just beginning.

When no one's paying attention, what do we do? Um... We don't shout, we don't yell, we don't do anything to say "Hey! We're over here!" Partly this comes from our own self-loathing that we don't want to seem pushy, or overbearing, because no one likes a huckster. That self-loathing comes from a few folks on a few message boards making others trying to promote their comix (some admittedly in stupid places and in stupid ways) on message boards. It's up to the creator to be smart and only promote in appropriate places and to tailor those promotions to each place instead of just cutting and pasting a generic 'news release' about their book. The Shouters on the message boards that have carved out their niche on the electronic slates of the 2000s are merely idiots who don't create their own works and resent other folks who actually do. The Shouters have made themselves the Arbiters of Taste on the Internet. They are the Martha Stewarts of the Ether. New creators are afraid of pissing them off, for whatever reason.

I call Bullshit. Stan Lee made a career out of it in the 1960s in his editorial pages in Marvel Comics. If the internet had been around, you can bet that Stan would have been all over every message board in creation hawking his comix. The way to do it, is to put some sweat in and find online reporters and columnists willing to give some space to indy creators. It's not as hard as you think. Find a forum where you can hold court, or create one from scratch, like I have here. When the world finally finds that Jason Arnett is the second coming of Warren Ellis, they'll flock here in droves. We'll crash Blogger with overuse of bandwidth.

It'll happen. You'll see.

But in the meantime, think about this: when you work for yourself, who's the boss and why isn't he doing anything to make your job easier?

Comics on Demand

We can get anything we want 'on demand'.

Except comix. For comix, we have to go to the shop, or order through the ether or down to the local chain bookstore.

Why can't I get the latest issue of 100 Bullets in my home, from my computer?

Think about that. If publishers put their monthly material (in addition to printing it up and making retailers pay for shipping) in PDF formats on a single website and charged 99 cents per download, how many titles would you buy each month? I'd be tempted to buy a lot more than I do. And you know what? It might lead me to actually purchase the TPBs when they're available, if there was proper advertising in the monthly downloads.

You can still have color comix, you can still make money on them. This would be strictly IN ADDITION to what their already doing. But put some creative advertising campaigns behind the books, and you'll soon have readers who can't get to the shops, or have never had a desire to set foot in a Direct Market comic shop reading books as diverse as Grendel, Powers, Books of Magick or Battle Hymn.

If each download site paid the copyright holder as little as, say, forty cents per download, and gave the creators 25 cents of each download, and you got five thousand downloads in the first month alone, that's 1250 bucks in the pockets of the creators. Now imagine a book like Expatriate, where Clay Moore and Jason LaTour own the book and get that forty cents directly in their pockets, but 10,000 people download the book because they didn't want to shell out $2.95 to try it in the retailer's shop.

$2K each.

If it's good enough, people keep coming back to read the book each month. Or better yet, they go to the brick and mortar store and pay AGAIN to buy the paper copy. More money in the pockets of the already-established distribution system, and more in the pockets of the creators.

But Clay Moore can work this to his advantage and get folks to do what he wants them to. He's good at it. For the average creator, the idea of making a comic and actually seeing a return on his investment might be appealing. Done correctly, this could actually GROW the readership of the comix industry. Bring in new readers who don't care about the Tired Icons. I mean, what can we really bring NEW to the table? where the Icons sit? Why do you think folks don't care about them any more?

Comics are ephemera. They disappear after they're read. Either into bags and boxes or into the trash. Let's move beyond the collector mentality and actually READ the damn things again. Come on, you know you want to.

Ah, it's Monday, innit?

AGH

I have been trying all day to get SOMEthing done. Something productive that will justify my having taken yesterday pretty much off to have an Easter celebration, but I'm just not feeling it today. Part of it is the frustration at not being able to translate the Illustrator versions of my lettered pages to the stupid internet. This means that I'm not doing something right, because they look like hammered dog shit stuffed sideways into an envelope and then stomped on and run over by a giant dump truck.

sigh.

Maybe it was the comment I got yesterday on a private message board about Occupation being too close to another property that's taken me off my beam, but I hope not. I'm just throwing this out on the B&E in order to actually write something, hoping to grease the wheels again and start over tomorrow or Tuesday.

There's the big Planet Comicon this coming weekend, and I've got to go. I've got to have these pages to show in order that I can begin the submission process. Get the rejections before the Major Con Season starts. I know I have to send paper copies, and I can manage to get those printed off at home, but on the inkjet. I need laser copies to make them look really sharp. Frustrating, I tell you. I'm tempted to put the Adobe Creative Suite on my credit card so that I can do all this the way it really needs to be done, and not some half-ass thing like I've been doing the last two years.

Time to grow up, put up or shut up.

Pitch Bits: Occupation

Here are the bits that I'm putting together for the pitch for Occupation:

_________________________________________________________
The Concept

Occupation is the story of Lucas, an amnesiac time-traveler, who remembers that he has to protect Holly or his mother will be killed, only to discover that Holly is his mother and Emily, the woman Lucas trusted to help him, is the one sent to kill her. Thematically, Occupation is a story about the strength of the bonds of love between parent and child, as well as the every day bonds people establish in order to survive.

The Proposal

Occupation can be presented to the public as a sixty-six-page graphic novelette or as three twenty-two-page monthly comics with backup features. If successful, there are two more sixty-six-page stories (one that reveals the man behind the events of Occupation and one that ends that man’s quest for world domination) that would comprise a trilogy, perhaps suitable for collection in trade paperback upon conclusion.

The Audience

Intended to appeal to people who enjoy films like 12 Monkeys and read comics like Enki Bilal’s The Beast Trilogy, Occupation is a sci-fi story that has elements of action and romance mixed with a little mystery. The art should appeal to fans of Euro comics and Eduardo Risso.

The Plot

Issue 1 (“Garden”) opens with Lucas leaving a hiding place where he was watching Holly and ‘accidentally’ encounters Emily. Lucas’ obsession with Holly is shown in his apartment where pictures of her are everywhere and his memories are akin to nightmares. After witnessing Holly fire a chef in her restaurant for sexual misconduct, Lucas beats the man and is arrested the next day. His lawyer Emily, a public defender, gets him released until trial and Lucas that night he enters Holly’s apartment while she sleeps. She wakes and he goes out the window, only to find Holly’s husband dead in the alley.

Issue 2 (“Ocean”) picks up minutes later with Lucas running back home, where he calls his lawyer. Emily insists that Lucas stay in her apartment until she can sort out if he’s a suspect or not. Lucas’ memories follow him wherever he goes, filling in for the reader that Lucas was sent back in time. He wakes in the night to find Emily in the middle of a strange phone call. Unable to not know where Holly is, Lucas leaves while Emily’s gone during the day and returns to his apartment. Emily is there, the police having just left with all his pictures of Holly and him as prime suspect in the husband’s murder. As Emily pulls out a straight razor, she tells Lucas her plan to kill Holly…

Issue 3 (“Deep”) starts with Emily trying to hurt Lucas in his apartment. She gets the best of him, but doesn’t kill him, confident that he can’t stop her. Lucas comes to remembering that Holly is his mother and the world is in danger if he can’t stop Emily. Finding Holly picking out the day’s produce when Emily approaches her, Lucas watches in horror as the two walk away together. He calls the police and tries to follow them, only to be chased by the two detectives that arrested Lucas before. The final confrontation leaves Emily dead, Lucas gravely wounded and Holly telling the police that Emily confessed to killing her husband. Lucas whispers to a detective and he tells Holly she won’t believe a word of anything he was just told.
__________________________________________________________

Okay, now you've read through. Tell me what it sounds like to you. I've heard an opinion that I disagree with, but I'm curious what you guys think. Does it remind you of any particular story?

Thanks,

Jason

Buyer's Remorse

I'll try to keep this short. I should be working while I'm on vacation since there's no one around to bug me about anything, but it's been such a stressful time that I'm finding it difficult to concentrate and would rather be doing research for a project that isn't even fully-formed yet...

I'm going to stop reading comix.

Sort of. What's going to happen between now and April 30, is that I'm going to not seek out new material (despite Rob telling me over lunch yesterday at Jason's Deli (great egg salad, btw) about a couple of things I'd really like to try) and only read the books that are really exciting me currently.

Those books include:

Nightwing beginning with #107 where Hester and Parks take over on the art.

Books of Magick: Life During Wartime because Dean Ormston's art is terrific and I'm loving the way Si Spencer is scripting from the story he wrote with Neil Gaiman.

Ultimates 2 because it's Millar, Hitch and Neary.

Gotham Central because I falsely believed I wouldn't continue to like it. Gaudiano's art is very nice, though I hear Kano is coming on board as the regular artist. Not sure, but the stories have been great and I suppose Kano deserves the chance, right?

The Losers because Diggle and Jock do GREAT action stuff.

And The Expatriate even though I really liked the first issue of Battle Hymn, I'm choosing this over that to read.

Which will leave me more time to pursue reading things that DON'T relate to comix, like the latest issue of WIRED I picked up at the grocery store; or one of the many books stacked in my 'to read' pile by authors whose work used to really move me. I'll still look in on the comix being posted online, because Parrish Baker, Chris Garrett and Mike Sullivan are talented folks whose work is inspiring to me.

And I'll continue to see Rob's art development on things like MURDER! I want to know where his story's going, and it's my hope he won't give up on this one, too. I liked 22, Three Sixty-Five alot. Let him know you liked it, too.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Click here or point your browser over to http://www.comixperience.com if that doesn't work.

I just need some space from comix that aren't really moving me and I'm only really buying to see if they get better or not. Books like Catwoman, Green Arrow, The Outsiders, Powers and others whose names are escaping me at the moment. Time to see what matters to me and what doesn't. I've got things just aching to pop out of my head and onto the paper that I've got to trim time somewhere. Maybe this is it. I don't know.

Maybe more later. Maybe not, if things go well today.

Daddy Took the T-Bird

So I visited warrenellis.com and found this. Give it a whirl and let it build up a bit.

Jason

Deep Talk 6

Start from the beginning and get caught up.

Part 1: The Beginning of Something
Part 2: Something Continued
Part 3: Something More
Part 4
Part 5

Ready? Here we go...


I'd been walking by myself for the last three miles, and my leg was feeling a little better, but my back was screaming in agony. Erin noticed that every once in a while I'd wince but I never slowed the pace she set. Even walking, she moved quickly and whole and healthy I would have had a hard time keeping up. Adrenaline must have been near empty by now.

"We're here," she said, pointing to the great white mansion. It was famous in town as being part of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War and seemed a bit obvious to me as a base of operations for resistance to an alien invasion. I opened my mouth to ask Erin about it, and then thought better of it.

"Come on. They're expecting us inside." She saw the question on my face and put my arm across her shoulder, taking some weight. "Ten miles on a bum leg and holding true to your promise earns you an answer. But not until we're inside, okay?"

We were on the extreme south edge of town, far from the klanging I'd heard near the river, and that had stopped half an hour ago. We hadn't run into any further trouble since campus, either. I didn't know what to make of it. My head was whirling and confused and, Jesus, my leg hurt. I was concerned I couldn't feel my back any more.

Erin brought us through the front door of the elegant home, all white and columned across the front, by speaking a word I didn't understand as we gained the porch. The door swung inward silently and the hall was dark and full of the echoes of her footsteps and my now ragged breathing. The door then closed quietly as it had opened and I heard a rush of air and what must have been very large bolts throwing themselves into place. Erin put me on a bench in the hall and said what must have been another word in the same language. "Lie down," she told me when the lights came on. "I have to get the medkit from upstairs."

Sitting there, I started to look around, since I'd always wanted to see the inside of this house. The woodwork was spectacular and still original, never having been painted. The wood floors showed the typical signs of wear and reclamation and the wallpaper was tasteful, not like the Laura Ashley crap that so many noveau riche seemed to favor. This house was classicly Southern, but not oppressively so. I lay down and noticed that the ceiling was spinning now, and I wondered how they could get that effect and still let people on the second floor not get thrown to the walls by the centrifugal force of the spin....

Copyright 2005 by Jason Arnett

Oh, never mind.

I can't figure out how to keep the damn image from spilling off like that. What am I doing wrong?

Jeez.

Covered

I got this last night, and Shawn Geabhart says it's not finished, but I can't wait to share it with you. I think it's really, really cool...



I love the colors he chose. Near perfection, Shawn, thanks!

Einstein Reads Comix

Not really, but it sounds good, doesn't it?

Alan Lightman, the author of Einstein's Dreams, is one of my favorite modern authors. His works have had a great impact on how I think when I'm writing and has given me a human approach to my work that had previously been lacking. I wish I had more time to read right now, but I think I'll have to make some for a book I didn't know he had out there called Reunion. Below are some things Professor Lightman has said in interviews (do a Google search for him, if you're interested) that I think we can apply to comix. His quotes are followed by my thoughts.

"Because every reader is different the book is completed in a thousand different ways... A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life… Not only will two different readers get something different but so will a single reader at different points in his life."

Couldn't agree more. Especially true in prose novels, but even in Graphic Novels, there's room for interpretation, isn't there? Just look at the end of From Hell. Alan Moore lets the reader make his own decision on the validity of the claims made in his book and how things might have ended. I believe that your interpretation SHOULD be different from mine, but that when we meet to talk about them, we should be able to see the other's viewpoint, even if we disagree. If we both read the book four, five or ten years later, would our viewpoints change? Sure, we're at different places in our lives, as Lightman suggests. I try to reread Stranger in a Strange Land every couple of years. Last time I read it, I found myself indentifying more with Jubal Harshaw than I did with Michael Smith, as I did the first three times I read it. The fact that I could begin to do that shows how great a book it really is. Experience is a great teacher.

"…we've lost our way, we have lost our centeredness. We don't have the time, literally, to think during the day. To listen to ourselves think. To think about where we are going, who we are, what's important. I would bet most people don't have thirty minutes in a day where they can just sit down and think. Or maybe they don't have to be sitting, they can be walking... We have become disembodied. By being always somewhere else we are nowhere... So many of us are not even aware of the frantic pace we are living. We just sort of sped up incrementally over a period time... I feel like I need some time for my mind to fill up again. I feel empty. Right now."

Lightman blames the societal overuse and overdependence on cell phones and email for this. I can't blame him, and say that he's likely right. If you read these words closely, there's a graphic novel in there. A man who's having a power lunch with three colleagues realizes that all four are talking on their cell phones at the same time. He leaves the lunch feeling empty and decides to turn off his phone, unplug the computer and take his TV to the curb. He takes two weeks vacation and simply stays home. When he wakes up on the Monday morning he's to return to work, he finds he's been left behind by the rest of the world when he opens the newspaper and finds that the year is now 1985. Panicked, he tries to return to his life, but can't without some technology that doesn't exist yet. You could call it Nowhere Man, but that'd only be a working title.

As to how this applies to modern comix, folks won't take the time to really ask the big questions behind the stories we write. They're only concerned with the small ones (like 'why did his clothes change all of a sudden?' or 'can't you guys learn to spell correctly?'). No one cares about themes any more except reviewers and publishers. Readers aren't serious. Or rather, there aren't very many serious readers of comix any more. Thus the wail and moan about the lack of real criticism of comix. If there WERE real criticism, the industry would be taken far more seriously in the book world. I'm not saying that I'm the one to do it, nor anyone I know, per se. However, until the average reader of comix starts seeking out such criticism, publishers will continue to maintain the status quo of characters that are cash cows.

"A writer is someone who has a one-man tent in the desert and occasionally he sees the footprint of another writer — in the form of a review or something...and then knows that another writer has come near him. And then he goes back to his tent... Artists may think in a different way than biologists or chemists, but you can learn something from that."

I've pitched my own tent on the edge of what's popular. I want to write stories that one might find in regular fiction outlets, rather than the spandex fight fantasies that are the bread and butter of comix. I am deliberately taking a road less traveled, and it's a hard one. Especially without making a lot of time for the day-to-day necessities of such a path. However, it's personally rewarding in that I am not compromising any of my ideas and they keep getting bigger and more interesting. Phil Hester one time told me that my ideas were comparable to Warren Ellis'. After thanking him and thinking that I needed what Phil was smoking, I realized that someone like him wouldn't say something like that without knowing a little about it himself. Phil is friend, and treats me the same. When we talk about my comix, my stories and such, he treats me as a colleague, not just an enthusiast. My mentor Ande Parks has said many of the same kinds of things to me, that I'm a serious maker of comix. I wish that I could put the time I did five years ago into a new series, but I just can't. Both of my friends make me feel that I'm not just some schlub trying to break into comix by trading on my relationship with them. I've never asked them to do anything for me, but I am pretty sure that if they could find the time in their own busy schedules, they might do their best to really help me.

"…books are sacred objects. A book represents another world, another mind and it's something precious. Books are what connect the generations of humans over thousands of years."

And maybe that's why some fans are hanging on so hard to the icons. However, just because the icon still exists doesn't necessarily mean that the character is still relevant. Steven Seagle's It's a Bird... (with the brilliant artist Teddy Kristiansen) is the perfect example of coming to terms with one such Icon. I could do a review here, but really, it's going to mean more to you if you read it for yourself. Suffice to say that Seagle has trouble trying to reconcile his modern ideas to the apparently outdated ideas of Superman. Really, read it. It's a great book, and one that should be on every comix creator's bookshelf, next to your tattered copies of Watchmen or whatever.

I've been thinking a little bit, since I've been sick for about a week, and haven't really found the energy to write until today, when I feel about 90% human. I thought alot about alot of things, but reading through Alan Lightman's comments this morning inspired me to take his comments out of context and apply them to how I think about making comix. You can do the same thing with your favorite writer. Lightman, in one interview, says he likes the idea that Doctorow posited that writing a novel is alot like overdriving your headlights.

That's an image that any writer worth his salt should be able to run with, innit?

Not So Shitty Sequels

So, I'm listening to the new Moby album 'Hotel' right now. It's...eh. I mean, it's solid, but it's just not exciting. I wasn't expecting another 'Play', or even another '21', but this is still a bit of a letdown. If you're tired of your whalesong or running brook CD's, this would be a good alternative.

This seems to be a real trend with music right now.

I first noticed it with Radiohead's 'Hail to the Thief'. Again, a solid album, but just not that exciting. Compared to 'Kid A', though, what could be? I got a little excited by Groove Armada's 'Lovebox', because I felt it was a stronger piece than their prior two outings (and I LOVED 'Vertigo'). But then I thought back to Paul Oakenfold's 'Bunkka', and kept thinking how it didn't hold up to 'Tranceport'. The biggest crash and burn of the trend was easily The Beastie Boy's 'To the 5 Boroughs'. If I'm not the biggest B Boys fan in the world, I'm easily in the top ten, but this album was just sorta 'eh'. But compared to 'Paul's Boutique' or 'Check Your Head', what wouldn't be? Fatboy Slim's 'Palookaville', while a very solid album and very entertaining, doesn't hold a candle to 'You've Come a Long Way Baby' or 'Halfway Between the Gutters and the Stars'. Josh Rouse's 'Nashville' is one of my new favorite albums, but there's no way it could reach the heights '1972' did.

The only standout that's bucking the trend is the Chemical Brothers' 'Push the Button', which if it doesn't raise the bar on their prior output, definitely keeps up the same level of quality and excitement.

I don't think this is a new thing, though. Bowie's always been in the shadow of 'Ziggy Stardust'. The Clash couldn't ever top 'London Calling'. Don McLean never wrote another song as great as 'American Pie'. Guns 'n Roses never again reached the zenith that was 'Appetite for Destruction'. Clapton's gonna have a hard time doing better than 'Unplugged'.

I see this in other media, too. Even if 'Summerland' had been the kind of story I enjoy, there's no way Chabon could have written a book following the same level of quality as 'Kavalier and Clay'. While I actually like 'Promethea' better than most of his body of work, Alan Moore's always been shadowed by 'Watchmen'. Azzarello's never written anything as good as '100 Bullets'. 'Shadow of No Towers', while a really good book, even Spiegelman admitted it's no 'Maus'.

Sometimes I wonder, do we only have the one Really Good moment in us? And if so, what do you do afterwards? I like the Frank Miller and Alan Moore answers, "Whatever I feel like doing."

Real-Life Darkness

Something I noticed while watching the penultimate episode of Carnivale's second season: the lighting. Most of the interior shots of Brother Justin's house are very dark, and the natural shadows that fall across our eyes and cheeks are accentuated by the lack of light in the rooms of the house. There's a stylistic reasoning to it (watch the show if you're curious or check out the homepage for the show at hbo.com), but I noticed because that's the way it is in real life.

Think about it and pay attention next time you're in a house in full daylight and no lights are on. Look at people's faces, can you see their eyes? I call attention to this because in MOST movies and TV shows, the lighting is so oppressive that it detracts from some believability. Whether it's so that the show will 'play in Peoria' or to stroke the fragile ego of C- and D-list actors that their FACES will be seen, I don't know. But I know that when SE7EN came out, my circle of friends remarked on how dark the film was. I noticed the brownness of it. But looking back, the actors were less concerned with 'face-time' than they were about telling the story.

How often do we forget to serve the story, rather than show off our fancy artwork we slaved so hard over? How often would the story be better by simplifying some things and not worrying so much? Can you tell a happy story with dark lighting?

These things hit me out of the blue, you know.

Blues

Sometimes I get melancholy.

I want so badly to make comix and get these stories out of my head onto a page. When I don't have the time, or don't feel like working, I begin to despair a little. But when I'm done wallowing in self-pity, I pull myself out of the misery I've swum in and dry off. I push a little and make myself pay attention to what's going on around me.

I buy a magazine and flip through it, looking for ideas. Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker or something like that, Discover. Something that will give me a root, a base to work from. Then I write a short something or other, three to thirty paragraphs about an idea, just to get the juices flowing again.

And Flow is an important idea. Remembering there are things I can't control and focusing on the things I CAN control or even influence helps add to the base I've been trying to establish. These ideas can be about anything, a flower, an architect, a musician, a writer, a terrorist. Searching for the central conceit of the article and then extrapolating it into a Big Idea. Exploring. Spelunking.

Then I put it away, because nine times out of ten it's crap. I don't throw it away, only set it into a file. It might be useful later on, but right now, it's just to get the wheels greased so I can get back to the things I was working on before.

Like I have to do now.

The Buy-In

“But we’ve always done it this way.”

That’s the last thing I want to hear as a manager, and in terms of creating work-for-hire comix, it’s probably the last thing you want to hear, either.

Most of us taking a stab at creating our own comix aren’t willing to settle for the status quo any more. No, we’re actively taking the other fork in the road, aren’t we? We don’t WANT to do it the way it’s always been done. We’ve read that a thousand or more times, each and every month that Superman never told Lois who he was. A thousand more when Peter Parker was worried that Aunt May would figure out that he was Spider-Man. (Thank god the movies have given her a little more thinking power than the comix ever did, at least until JMS came along.) A thousand more when Bruce Wayne decided he couldn’t love anyone because of the danger of him ‘losing his edge’.

Take your pick, actually. The problem with company-owned characters is that the powers-that-be want every thing to stay the same. That’s why the Dark Phoenix Saga was such a news-grabber. Remember we talked about this in the post about Change?

Yeah, it’s over there in the Archives, if you don’t remember it. Look it up.

For a creator to reach a reader of comix, the reader has to be willing to suspend any disbelief, right? For a creator to make these kinds of comix, he has to suspend his OWN disbelief and take the paycheck. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to write a character you love or have an affinity for, nothing at all. (I want to write exactly ONE Superman story, and that’s about the only company-owned character I’d LIKE to take a stab at, I think. I might be convinced to take a shot at Spectre or Phantom Stranger, or even Doctor Strange, but Supes is the only one I’d actively pursue, given the chance.)

I can throw out ideas for company-owned characters all day, and maybe find one idea that the PTB would like.

Or, I can throw those ideas into NEW characters in NEW situations with NO history and see if I can execute them. I’m also NOT limited by what Hollywood wants to see from these characters, and thus the PTB are actually me. I’d own the characters, I’d own the stories, and if Hollywood were interested, they’d come to ME. Not an editor or executive at one of the Big Companies.

I mentioned The Incredibles last night, and I think that’s a great instance of paying homage to great stories and characters by creating your own work. Your own world. With elements of the Fantastic Four, Star Wars, James Bond and classic Saturday matinee fare, this movie takes those things it loves and builds on them. What it does not do is simply retread all the old tropes, it simply uses them as a foundation to update them all and tell a great story in the process.

We agreed that Kirby tried to do this, but it was Will Eisner and now Enki Bilal who have done it extremely well. Eisner, in particular, built the foundation that Kirby tried to build on, but foundered a bit. Jack had so many great ideas, he couldn’t stop them coming one after the other. He didn’t want to. And what happened was that he churned out crummy comix in some cases. He got so overrun with the good stuff, that he started believing his own hype and failed to recognize the crap.

Eisner went slower, was more deliberate, and owned his work. Yeah, he OWNED EVERYTHING. Kirby couldn’t do that. He took the paycheck in favor of running his own ideas his own ways. It does not, in any way, lessen Kirby’s godlike status in the comix community. But which of the two has an industry award named after him? Which of the two is the best example for us lesser creators to follow?

Eisner.

And Enki Bilal is the Franco-Eisner. His books sell HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of copies. Hundreds of thousands. Eisner didn’t do that. Kirby could, but only in the 60 s and 70s when there were only two major publishers and no real distribution system, let alone hundreds more titles to compete against. Bilal sells 66-page OGNs, a model that’s just beginning to take hold here in America thanks to visionary publishers like Image Comics. But it will take retailers buying into the fact that it’s possible to sell many copies of quality work in the current environment and readers telling them that they want to read them.

It’s up to creators to sell their product to readers so that they can sell their retailers on the risk to buy extra copies. But if no one buys into the idea that this is possible, let alone likely, it won’t matter WHO is the visionary, and who is not. We’ll simply be doing things the way we always have.

Occupation Art page 6

More to come...

Not Good Enough

My Jayhawks just lost in the first round for the first time in 27 years.

Fuck.

Jump Start

The seniors aren't about to go out like punks.

Intentional foul called on Bucknell means two FT and possession.

FT sunk (thank you Michael Lee!)

Now let's see what they do with 19 on the shot clock.

Foul for Langford. 59% FT shooter. We're down by one. Their point guard is out.

Jesus. Where's my heart? It's stopped somewhere on the Hill

Langford sinks the first. Tie game. Now we're up by one.

More tomorrow.

This Awful Feeling

My Jayhawks are not playing at all well in their first round game right now. There's three minutes left and KU's down by 3.

All season long, they've played only well enough to win. Unless they start the game before noon, local time. However, they've come through with some really great, strong wins.

Shit, now we're down by four.

Credit to Bucknell, they're a good, well-coached team and if they knock the Hawks out of the tourney in the first round, my hat's off to 'em. I'll miss our four seniors (Wayne Simien, Aaron Miles, Keith Langford and Michael Lee) and hope to GOD that JR Giddens will learn to slash to the basket next year and shoot some free throws.

Free throws are our only hope to win this game tonight. Bucknell hits a three like they want to win. They're not intimidated by the KU reputation. This comes from the awful, awful loss at Villanova, where the entire country saw that KU was vulnerable to any kind of Zone Defense.

How does this apply to comix?

Look what I'm doing instead of writing, like I should be. Less than two minutes to go.

More tomorrow.

Swab

Taking today off. More stuff tomorrow. Likely something to do with the art for Occupation, which is done and I'm figuring out how to letter it.

Got the scanner working, too, so now I owe Schamberger his letter for the Comixperience banner. An E still okay?

Plus I've got five pages to write for the Secret Thing Rob and I are working on together.

So--- g'way.

Come back on Saturday.

Watch the Incredibles on DVD and tell me about it. I'll have some commentary on THAT tomorrow, too. Or Sunday.

What do you want from me? I try and try and try and all I get is "Where's my B&E?"

Take this bit of advice: if it breaks while entering, you're screwed.

Be Amazed

A master at work.

http://www.michaelzulli.com/progress.htm

When you're done drooling, you can unplug your keyboard and wipe it down real good.

Deep Talk 5

“I told you to be quiet, didn’t I?”

Erin came out of the darkness and I was relieved. Struggling to my feet, I put out a hand to her hoping she’d help me up.

I over-balanced myself and fell on my face. I turned my face to her and it was hard. Scary hard. I’d never seen Erin, the sexually adventurous bartender, look like this. I gasped.

“If you can’t make it, tell me now,” she said in a voice like stone on bone. “I don’t have time for you to be doing things I tell you not to. This is the last time you’ll get a second chance. Do you understand me?”

Without response, I pulled myself to my feet and stood up, trying hard not to wince at the angry digging I felt in my legs and back. I looked back at her.

“Good,” she said. “Now let me carry you the rest of the way, willya? And do what you’re told.”

“All right,” I said with relief as she picked me up and slung me back over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Erin.”

“Don’t be sorry, you asshole,” she said breaking into a soft run back up the hill. “Just do what I tell you. Whether you believe it or not, there’s a reason for everything. You said you could trust me. Next time, I’ll leave you. You can trust that.”

“Got it.”

She made great time, covering the three blocks between the ambush and the administration building of the state university in about five minutes. All uphill
with a 250 pound man as dead weight.

As she made the edge of campus, we hid behind a large bush, looking across the boulevard. “Stay here,” Erin told me and gave me a withering look that said it all.

“Yeah.”

I watched her run across the street and into the shadows of the building and began to panic a little. Still in the distance I could hear the sounds of klanging and gunfire. Big gunfire. These were sounds I’d heard in movies and on TV, but in real life, it’s something completely different and entirely frightening.

“She told me to stay here,” I said softly. “Stay here or she’ll leave me here.” KLANGGG! “Jesus, is that closer?” Every instinct, every fibre of my being was shouting, screaming at me to run, run, RUN goddammit! Run out and away where they can’t find you and you can be safe.

But with things that big, would I really be safe? They can crush buildings by virtue of their size, but what if they fell over? I wouldn’t have a chance to even TRY to get away. Better to just stay here, like Erin told me. “Christ this is scary,” I said out loud again. Again, Erin surprised me by coming up from behind and touching my shoulder.

I turned and jumped about six feet up, but her other hand reached up and covered my mouth so my scream was muffled. “There’s trouble in the building,” she whispered to me. “The aliens have already rooted out one of our caches. We’re going to have to keep going on for a little while longer.”

Copyright 2005 by Jason Arnett

Heresy

Was all Jack Kirby’s stuff really that good?

I submit Jimmy Olsen Adventures and Captain America: Madbomb for consideration.

And I say they’re not all that good.

Yeah, the art is nice and full of power. Obviously Kirby is a very good comic book artist, despite Vinnie Colletta’s inks. Mike Royer seems to do him the most justice, in my opinion, but what does that matter. I’m saying it’s Jack’s writing that leaves a lot to be desired.

His dialogue is so stilted at times that it’s nearly impenetrable, and at others it’s so expository as to be redundant to the panel it’s filling up. I’m not in a position to cite specific examples, yet, but I just want to throw this out there and see what you all think.

In the introduction to volume 2 of Jimmy Olsen, Mark Evanier tells us that Jack was so full of ideas and that DC was reworking his art so hard (having Murphy Anderson and Neal Adams ‘fix’ Jack’s Superman heads) that even if an idea was golden, it wasn’t being executed to its full extent. Jack was a creator of infinite vision and talent. He could make you believe that Galactus COULD be real and a threat. He could make you believe in Scott Free enough to disbelieve the improbable traps and impossible stunts.

Jack Kirby could make you believe a young man could flame on and fly.

But the bad dialogue of his later work-for-hire is a killer for me. I can’t get past it to appreciate the great art.

Tell me I’m wrong.

Thought Balloons

Check out this blog by Kevin Melrose for some interesting things happening AROUND THE WORLD in comix.

Sometimes we get a little TOO focused on local and forget that there's a larger world, don't we?

And I'm just as guilty as everyone else.

Thought Balloons: http://thoughtballoons.blogspot.com/

The Curse of Language

This post contains language. If you are offended by words, I recommend you not read any further. If you think you can take it, but discover that it's too much for you, you were warned.


It's interesting that so many folks get so cranky over words. I mean, yes, there are words that are offensive, that derogate others, and those words are not to be used in polite company, are they? No. Those words are used in situations requiring strong language. Some call it cussing, or cursing. It's slang, all the way, and part of the language.

When words are overused, they lose their power, so choosing to use words that offend sensibilities in polite company must be done with an ear for the language. It must be natural, and if an everyday occurence, then it must portrayed as such. This means that you might lose readers who are offended by words.

Words in and of themselves are not offensive. Rather, it's the connotation that the listener puts to them.

Stay with me. When I use 'fuck' in a sentence, it's usually to describe an emotion. Most likely frustration. I realize that some folks are upset by that word, and I try not to use it in situations that require me to uphold the agreed-upon social contract. However, it's a word that can mean so many different things that using it as an interjection is fairly harmless. 'Fuck you' on the other hand, becomes much more personal. (We're not going to explore a whole bunch of options here, I'm only illustrating one point with possibly the most-used 'curse' word in the English language.) This is something that I really try not to do, which is make the 'cussing' personal. When you're 'cussing' AT someone, you're trying to hurt their feelings, and that's just not in my natural makeup. Doesn't mean I haven't done it, only that it's not natural for me to do so. I really don't try to make anything personal, because that's offensive to me.

'Cussing' in and of itself isn't bad or wrong, it simply is. Some folks do it very naturally, as part of their dialect. Others studiously avoid such words in their everyday lives, and I commend them. I 'cuss' indiscriminately outside of work. So if I offend you in person, it's not intentional, and I'll be good for a while, say if we meet at a convention. But if we go out for a beer afterwards, "don't be surprised" is all I'm saying.

But personal connotations on the part of the listener are part of the language. Take this for example:

What's a four-letter word for a woman ending in 'unt'?

Those of you that are still here will know that the word is 'aunt', but some maybe clicked away because of the above discussion. I know you all thought of the other word, didn't you? That word is one that I find personally offensive because it diminshes half of the human race, same as 'dick' does to the other half. However, because men generally ARE 'dicks', it's okay to refer to a man as one. It sure wouldn't be nearly as effective calling someone named Smith a 'johnson', would it?

"You crazy bastard. Quit being a johnson."

Hm. Has some humor to it. Might use that somewhere.

Any way, 'curse' or 'cuss' as you like, I don't care. But don't use the words AT someone. Using them in general to communicate a feeling is okay, in my book, and I won't think less of you for doing it. Taking a word that's almost universally offensive and owning it, the way some parts of society do with certain words, is okay, too. But if you're not part of that social sector (not class, but sector, meaning if you grow up in the area and have the same background, it's probably okay, but I'd think twice about it) don't use the words in the ways that others use them. I'm pretty sure that you can figure out which word I'm referring to, but I won't type it, because it has a power that other words don't, and I give it the power because it should have it. This word doesn't refer to a race, as far as I'm concerned, but that's the agree-upon defintion of our Polite Society. To me, that word is a slang word that should only be used to describe someone who is so low on the rung of the social ladder than one step back makes them an animal.

And no living human is that close to being an animal, to me.

For Cecil

I went to my son's 3rd grade music program tonight, which was amazing all by itself. The children really participated in singing songs from Stephen Foster and then some modern stuff, too, including a rap called I Missed the Bus. Really entertaining.

But the most interesting part of the night was a young American Indian man you danced a Grass Dance to music of his tribe. I don't remember which one, but it was brought up that Choctaw were in the area 150 years ago, so maybe that was it.

But this young man's movements and the music he danced to brought up old memories of my friend from high school, Cecil.

Cecil and I were never CLOSE friends, but we often shared a laugh or two during marching band or over lunch with mutual friends. He was a good guy.

He died only a few years after graduation under --- let's say mysterious --- circumstances. I can't point any fingers at anyone, but I can tell you that Cecil did not commit suicide. Granted I didn't know him all that well, but I think I knew him well enough to know that he might get drunk, but not so drunk he'd do himself in or even so drunk that he'd ACCIDENTALLY do himself in.

Regardless, I attended his funeral and was moved beyond just tears. The death song for Cecil sits hard on my soul. It haunts me on occasion. I can hear the drums and the tremorous voices of the elders of the tribe singing Cecil on his way. One of the happiest guys I knew was going out in style, according to the tradition of his people, the Creek.

I'm tearing up a little just typing this. I'm not kidding, it was THAT powerful.

And the power and the beauty of the young man's movements brought all that back. I hadn't thought of Cecil in several years.

After the program was over, I approached the young man's aunt, who was waiting for him, and told her how much it meant to me to see him dance. I don't know if she'll tell him, or if it'll matter to any of them, but it affected me tonight, and I wanted to share that feeling with you.

I miss my friend.

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Automatic Writing

As I said last week, this blog has become an obsession, a daily need. I have to write something every day, no matter how insignificant or drivellish it may be. It's something that just has to be done. Even if I don't actually post something on a given day, it's only because I was unhappy with how it came out, or Bobbi told me that I wasn't to say things like that. She's a great arbiter of taste and what's good and right. She's the reason I'm even still trying to write anything.

Here's an article on channelling spirits for 'real' automatic writing, if you want to look it over.

Me, I sit down to the keyboard and the characters in my head start to vie for attention and some even pout when I can't talk to them on a given day. I guess it's not really all that different, is it? Something to think about.

Also, I recently enountered a spat of racism couched in religious belief and I don't know if I can really let it go. I'm not sure I would like to be associated with it, but then again, my participation in the project I encountered the racism from is something near and dear and I'm not sure I want to be run off by a newcomer with bigotry in his heart. I wanted to believe he was just joking and might be reasoned with, but I don't know. I'm in a quandary. My beliefs are very different from his, and I just wonder what the group's reaction will be. I guess that will tell me whether or not I want to keep on. I would miss the camaraderie, for sure. There's no money in any of it, either, only the love of the project.

Anyone got tales of encountering a racist in a project you loved and didn't want to give up? Lay 'em on us.

pWuOzRzKl

The new PowerBook in the house has been a challenge. Figuring out who has access to what and why and how the new operating system works is sometimes frustrating. Balancing act over a hot fire pit surrounded by Republicans with long, pointed sticks. I'm just beginning to grasp most of the new things (I was previously operating under System 8.5 which predates time, I'm told, and even USB) and they're not that hard. I did buy the Dummies book that has been near at hand every day since last Thursday.

So the challenge has the blood boiling today. Actually took most of the day off (compeltely from the day job) after spending the entire weekend trying to get copies of my old programs off of the ZIP disks (no USB back when I bought THAT peripheral, remember) and onto CDs. Finally gave in and went to Kinko's, where their machines were totally screwed and paid for only twnety minutes instead of the ninety it actually took to complete the whole operation. Watched Deadwood and Carnivale (only two episodes left in this thought-provoking and compellingly-written season) with a clear head and enjoyed my evening.

I need to get back into the habit of solving Merl Reagle's crossword puzzles in the Deadwood Edition of Lawrence.com. You, of course, can find them at www.lawrence.com under 'puzzles' or something.

Not much today, got lots of business to attend to. Thinking about writing some essays on unpopular subjects like Marriage, Religious Zealotry and the 'n' word. Told that when a white man writes something about that one, there's never going to be anything right with it.

There might be others, too. I might not publish them here, though. You might have to wait until I'm dead for those.

Margrave

A margrave is a German title that means 'Count of the March'.

That's a story, and a character name.

Oh, boy, I'm gonna be busy this week.

Patronage

There's been some ruckus on the subject of film music on the radio this week. A musician for the Chicago Symphony has apparently idiotically opined that film music is only for the moment in the film it's used and not a 'real' composition.

He's been disabused of that notion by simply pointing out that the soundtrack for Schindler's List is one example of fantastic compositions and performances even if it had never been written for film. I agree, or I wouldn't have written that line above. I'm pretty sure that our few regular readers here will recognize that and I won't have to point it out again.

So I told Bobbi that the vast majority seems to have forgotten that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and MOST composers of note worked for a living. Bach created his most important works at the behest of his Patrons, which included royal folks (what's a margrave?), positions as court organist and cantor of the church. These guys had jobs, and were given specific parameters to work within, meaning that they were told to evoke a feeling or pay tribute to something. No matter whether you like the music or not, it was created as a work-for-hire and has become an internationally-recognized piece of history. Does the fact that it's WFH make it any less important? No, not really.

But what about Spider-Man? Work-for-hire creation. A piece of history? Yes. Important? Eh. Who knows? We won't be around to ever find out. The important compositions are made so because of the many and varied interpretations by scores and scores of people over hundreds of years. Many renditions, redfinitions and reinterpretations have given so many listeners joy over the years that if you told me your favorite recording of The Barber of Seville, I'd probably like a different one.

In comix, the patrons are the publishers. Some patrons give their creators a long leash, if any. Others are required to not make any major changes but rather to maintain a certain status quo. Fair enough. Can we identify any potential stories from comix that might be recognized like Toccata and Fugue in D Minor? Apples and oranges, maybe, and maybe it'd be better to say that an eight-page story isn't really a musical composition as it is a chapter in a book of stories, but I think it's not really so dissimilar.

Creators who make art simply for their own personal enjoyment and are accepted by others are working without patrons. Jeff Smith, Terry Moore are the two who immediately pop into mind. (BTW, doesn't the complete Bone in one volume look great? I might shell out the $40 for that one...) Everyone else is working for a patron. Even the Image guys. The patron there just doesn't have a leash on them creatively, right? However, they're still a patron because they front the money for printing. Thnk about it, and you'll see what I mean.

Patrons are not a good or a bad thing, just a thing. That's all. Who's your patron? Would you like to have one if you don't? What would you do if that patron asked you to create a work that you disagreed with but you needed the money or the credit?

Seen Girl With a Pearl Earring? You should, if you haven't. Excellent study on the effects of having a patron.

Sunday, innit?

SmartBomb

I like to run against the grain.

When I was a musician, I was making Collective Soul-styled songs in a town that was heavily Grunged out, in the early 90s. Terramaks (that was the best band I ever played in) never had a chance, and none of us was really all that anxious to go out on the road to prove that the songs were good. Still, we laid out the challenge to the locals and they gleefully overlooked us. The band broke up in late '91 or early '92, I think. We reformed a couple of years later to play a couple of gigs to great reception, but it never went anywhere else. I spend another five or six years trying to capture that magic again, without any success. Wrote some cool songs, though.

Flash forward to '98 or so. I wanted to start writing comix because I had this creative urge crawling in my belly and I had to let it out. So in the back of Sandman: Dream Country, there was a copy of a Neil Gaiman script. I began my comix career with a terrible 48 page script that I still have laying around somewhere to remind me where I started. I have great rejection letters from all the publishers except Marvel, because I just don't want to play in their sandbox and never sent them anything.

In late '99, I began what became the Jackleg Comics run, which ended in mid-2001 or so. What I did there was create ten pages MONTHLY and mostly on time. Mini comix to that point, as I understood them anyway, were more likely to be one-shot, self-contained stories rather than an ongoing or limited series. I did fourteen issues, with a couple of giant-sized books (one 32 pages, another 24) in the run. I collaborated with folks and learned an incredible amount of information that will be included in the I Make Believe collection to be published by Sonic Comics later this year. I did two more one-shots over the next two years, both 24 pages, and was hailed as having created 'epic' mini comix with 'meat on the bones'. It seemed odd to me that the length and style of stories weren't all that different from what the mainstream was doing. I just wanted to mimic what I was seeing there and challenge myself to get better. I wanted to learn my craft. It never occured to me that I ws doing something different than other creators of minis.

So I want to keep up the idea that minis and mainstream comix aren't all that different. The only difference is that one is printed at home or at Kinko's and the other is printed at Morgan or Quebecor. It's an attitude that makes it professional. It's the idea that you're not just hacking something out. You'll win respect for taking the form seriously by making good comix. I have also recently said that I don't believe that the average reader is as stupid as the spandex fight fantasies would have us believe. I think the average reader has become desensitized and must be reminded that stories are stories are stories no matter what form they take. A good story will entertain and provoke you to think.

I won't lead a reader by the nose, like the spandex fight fantasies. I won't tell you exactly why things happen in a story. There has to be something for you to chew on when you're done. If I've done my job as a writer properly, you'll still be thinking about that story the day after you've read it. I'm not consciously trying to create 'classics'. I'm attempting to write to the level that I believe readers to be at, rather than making Common Denominator Tales. Yes, there are elements of all stories that are Universal (boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights monster to win girl back) but that doesn't mean that when I'm telling you a story that you need every single bit of information to enjoy THE STORY.

I'm willing to take the risk that by thinking you're smart, you might not want to play along with me, but I'll have created my art my way without compromise. So let's not get wrapped up in continuity or the minor details. If I've done my job, I know the details and I'll drop clues to you leaving you to make the leap yourself. You're a smart reader, and I know it. Now I just have to prove it to you, don't I?

The Mermaid Cafe and Other Myths part one

The beach is perfect, the sky is perfect, the water is warm and clear. The island doesn’t appear on any map, and is only accessible by knowing who to get a boat ride from. The restaurant on the island is small, with only about ten tables, and only two seats at each table. Inside, the décor is simple, vaguely deco with a couple of original pieces by Alphonse Mucha. The owner won’t reveal how he got them, and he won’t let me photograph any of it. His people took the camera away and told me to sit out on the beach until he was ready to talk to me. As I write this, there’s an absolutely stunning young woman dancing on the beach about thirty feet from me. She doesn’t have any headphones on, and I can’t see where she’d have an iPod or something because she’s nude, but that’s not why I noticed her. No, she’s moving in ways that, while erotic, are far more primal than anything I’ve seen. I want to talk to her, ask her where she learned to dance like that, why she isn’t body-conscious like so many of the other tourists I saw on the big island.

“Let her dance, Jason,” I’m told. “She’s here to relax, and it’s taken about six months for her to get to where she begin to express the grief she had when she got here.”

Jimmy Cavanaugh sat in the beach chair next to me and handed me a Singapore Sling. He had one of his own. For those of you that don’t know, Jimmy is a master chef who usually disdains any publicity, but he and I are old friends. I know him better than just about anyone, and when I asked for this interview, he was reluctant. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “I’ve been away for so long, I don’t think anyone’ll remember me.”

“Sure they will. Your name is still synonymous with great food, Jimmy. Why do you think Gourmet and that Emeril guy are bugging me about you?”

“They are?” Jimmy was always blissfully unaware of how popular his creations are. He has a way of making food that causes folks to forget. Not the important stuff, just the stuff they need to forget for a while. Jimmy’s food really makes people happy, which is what a chef’s goal should always be. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” I said. “Even Alton’s been calling lately on Emeril’s behalf. I can’t believe he would, but there you go.”

“Alton’s a good guy,” Jimmy laughed over the phone. “I like his show.”

“Yeah, I do, too. How about the interview?”

I’m here because Jimmy flew me to the big island and then had me wait two days. I knew better than to ask the locals anything about him, but the temptation was great. Last night in the hotel bar (it was a nice hotel, and Jimmy picked up the tab, which was also nice, but still, he kept his oldest friend waiting like a chump) I met Kyrin, a local barmaid and very, very nice. She told me that Jimmy was a hero around here because of the way he kept everyone fed. You’d think a tourist island wouldn’t be depressed, but the parts the tourists don’t see are often very, very bad. I knew this from experience so it didn’t surprise me. It did surprise me that she said something, though. People who know Jimmy don’t talk about him much, because he prefers it that way. Except me, of course. I talk about him all the time. I mentioned Kyrin to Jimmy before sipping the Sling.

“Hm,” Jimmy said. “I didn’t know she’d talked to you.”

Puzzled, I asked him if that was a problem. “Not really,” he replied. “But Kyrin must’ve sensed something about you to talk like that. She’s someone whose word and instincts I trust, y’know?”

“Are we going to do this?” I asked him, finally. “I mean, it’s bad enough me being away from work for this time, but having to leave Bobbi behind, too, is gonna give me trouble for years.”

“Call her and tell her there’s a ticket waiting for her at the American desk at KCI. Then we’ll get on with the interview.”

Jason: All right, here we are on a beautiful island with perfect weather. I guess I don’t have to ask why you’re here, do I?

Jimmy: That’s all surface stuff, Jay. You know that.

Jason: So, you hiding here?

Jimmy: Not at all. Just not keeping a high profile any more. That last business with that damned charity auction caused me enough grief to last several lifetimes.

Jason: You’re talking about Barbara Kasom who was stalking you because you didn’t have sex with her after she ‘won’ you at a charity auction of eligible bachelors, right? How did that all that get resolved?

Jimmy: She finally decided that she needed to rest for a while. Or it was decided for her, I don’t exactly remember. I’m just glad that I don’t have to run from her or her friends any more. That was really cutting in to my cooking time.

Jason: Why did she think you’d have sex with her?

Jimmy: Some people have a thing for celebrity, you know? I never promised anything, but the ‘date’ she won was not going well and her behavior wasn’t --- eh, look I’d rather leave this one alone. Do you mind?

Jason: All right. But I’m warning you that I’m not Jeff Gannon. I won’t lob softball questions at you.

Jimmy: I’d expect no less of you, my friend. Let me tell you, though, that some personalities are very different in intimate settings, right? And by intimate, I mean one-on-one, not necessarily anything sexual or even sensual. Just in conversation, some things tend to show up and sometimes they ain’t all that pretty.

Jason: Been there, done that. Let’s talk a bit about your TV career.

Jimmy: Uh, oh. Careful, man.

Jason: Sacha Driessen. There were rumors for years that you and she were an item, and pictures to prove that you were friendly. You often appeared on her morning show and there was an obvious chemistry. She didn’t give any other chefs the attention she gave you. Care to dispel or confirm those rumors?

Jimmy: I’ve known a lot of women in my life, and Sacha is a saint. Her husband, Arthur, and I are good friends, and they’ve been here on several occasions. There’s no truth to any rumors about Sacha and I being anything but close friends. I can’t believe you asked me that.

Jason: Jimmy, this was one of those things that folks wrote drove you out of the limelight. And you didn’t mention that Sacha and Arthur were actually separated shortly after you dropped out. I’d be a bad interviewer if I didn’t ask. Now that they’re back together, you don’t want to tell the public that you weren’t the cause?

Jimmy: I don’t see any reason to, no. People think what they want to think. I just don’t care enough to ‘dispel’ any rumors. I’d appreciate them not being spread in the first place, but gossip is something that’s been around forever, innit?

Jason: All right, then, tell me about your early career in Ireland.

Jimmy: What makes you think I’m from Ireland?

Jason: It says so on the dustcover of your book, Worth the Effort.

Jimmy: Oh, please, y’can’t b’lieve anything you see in print, can ye?

Jason: If that’s an affected accent, I’m Isabella Rossellini.

Jimmy: Loved you in Big Night. Wish you’d do more sexy roles…

Jason: That’s enough of that. Ireland or not?

Jimmy: Long enough ago that now I’m not from any where. How’s that?

Jason: Well, with your base of operations here, would you say that you’re still running from something, just not a crazed fan?

Jimmy: I like the quiet. It makes me happy, and it makes others happy for me to be happy. That’s why I’m here.

Jason: Did you just say you’re settling down here? Perhaps with someone?

Jimmy: You’ll have to check the tape when you get back to the hotel. I’m admitting nothing further, if at all.

Jason: Come on, Jimmy, you invited me here. What did you want to talk about?

Jimmy: (frowns) Maybe I just wanted to see my friend and the only fucking way I could do that would be to give you the damn interview. What do you think of that?

Jason: ???

Jimmy: Don’t act all dumbstruck, Arnett. You know how I am, almost better than anyone. Stop the tape a second will you?

 2005 by Jason Arnett

When Your Head's Full of Snot

Streaming audio at www.kjhk.org. Lots of cool stuff, especially in the mornings.

Jason

Your Ears Will Bleed

If I tell you before April 29, I would have to kill you. But Rob and I are going to be busy over the next month, as long as he's still interested.

We got a potential gig that will fire your imagination...

Jason

Hard on the Heels

This blog has become a passion, almost an obsession. I love writing in it, I like the idea that someone might comment back, even though it's not necessary for me to keep on writing. As a result of the blast of posts here, ideas are coming fast and furious. Before I started the superbursts (sorry, Warren) I had ideas. Now I've got Ideas, and I can begin sorting the Good from the not so good. All ideas have merit. All ideas are good, whether you use them or not. Some just can't be used, and that's a limitation, but they can be mutated.

My head is swirling this morning. I don't know what's up, but I'm going with it.

Jason

Contact!

No, not aliens.

(And as an aside to something I wrote on another day, you can't do a First Contact alien story at any of the big companies. You'll be challenged to do it believably on your own if you choose to self-publish one. Most of us came to the party about 50 years too late to do really good First Contact With an Alien Race stories. Maybe more on this later...)

Rambling...

Just contact in general. Think about how you talk to people. On the phone. Over the internet. On a blog. Via snail mail? (I can't imagine many people write actual LETTERS any more, unless maybe you have a loved one abroad who doesn't have access to the internet.)

I suspect that we all are looking for the easiest way to stay in contact, that we'd rather talk than write. Look at how successful Hallmark Cards has been over the last century. They pioneered the short message. But what about the good old face-to-face contact? How often does that happen? The world is opened up for us, because of things like the Internet, and cell phones allow us to stay in constant contact (even at inopportune moments) with our circle of friends. All these advances have given us things that are valuable, but we don't value them because we spend more and more time alone. Yeah, emails are coming in, the cell phone is ringing, but when all that stops, what do you have?

How many people actually stop by for a cup of coffee or a beer? Just to visit for a while? We're becoming a more impersonal society, and it's something that we should be aware of. Young people (with obvious exceptions) are willing to take less personalized service because they don't know any different. In the mid to late 80s, (the Me Decade, remember) there was a distinct shift away from the paradigm of a grocer knowing all his customers towards the Wall Street-modeled power-hungry creep.

And where has it gotten us? Has society as a whole had to 'dumb down' to still be viable? Are we really satisfied with how things are? Isn't it irritating that the vast majority think they are more important than everyone else?

And then the aliens come, so different from us, so cold. With no individuality. Borg-like, because we recognize that from watching Star Trek in the 90s. No one want to remember that all ST shows are really thinly-veiled commentary on our own society.

Thank you, Gene Roddenberry.

Jason

Secret Language

Read Steven Grant's latest column and gain insight.

To that end, here's an idea that struck me yesterday while driving to pick up my son from school:

Four of us in high school wanted to be storytellers of some kind. Two wanted to be musicians, one a writer and the fourth an illustrator. We were all pretty good at what we wanted to do (Mike, the drummer, was a devotee of Neil Peart; I thought Jack Bruce was a god of the bass guitar; John was infatuated with MC Escher and Craig was studying Hemingway, Hunter Thompson and Stephen King). Mike and I played in bands together, I marched in the friday night football games with the rest of the 'band geeks' and John had a studio set up in his mother's basement. Seven or eight times a year, we'd all spend the night at someone's house and tell stories to each other, explore our inspirations and throw out ideas of all kinds. I loved Craig's stories, because he told them with such gusto and obvious ability that, once, he made us cry at the beauty of the tale he'd told.

You know what the kick was? Craig's a mute. He told us the story with his hands and his body language. Over the three years of high school, we'd all become masters of Craig's storytelling language, a kind of shorthand sign language. A secret language that only the four of us knew and understood. Yeah, he made us cry. Three big seniors in high school.

He was the best of us.

Copyright 2005 by Jason Arnett

Overused Language

There are words in the common parlance that are used far too many times to clarify someone's feeling on something. A choice few include, but are not limited to:

Brilliant. Thanks, Guinness.

Genius. Albert Einstein, Alan Moore, Stephen Hawking. Not many others.

Awesome. What inspires awe? Not this word. Find another.

Madman. Ever since Pulp Fiction. Stop it now.

Crazy. Patsy Cline, that's it.

Any combination of War and Terror. Terrorism is not Terror, nor is Terror a place, person or thing. It's a state of Being, like Denial.

Fava Beans. Lecter's dead now. Let's let the performance live only on film, okay?

Just about anything from Seinfeld that's now in the dictionary.

Just about anything associated with The Apprentice.

All things associated with being 'voted off'. We had our chance last November, now America's gotta live with it.

One word that's not overused, is fuck. Always appropriate, especially in regards to War, Terror and voting. Not always to be used in earshot of youngsters or anyone who might be offended easily. You know who those people are.

Edited to add:
Smokin'. Or any other word used to describe a 'good-looking' woman. Beauty is, of course, subjective, but when a magazine like FHM infects the dialect in the ways that it has, it's going to be wrong. Can't good-looking women (or men) be described as 'good-looking'? What's wrong with beautiful, handsome, gorgeous, stunning and most of all, REAL? Also, if you tell a woman she looks edible, you'd better mean it.

Who's got one?

Something Retitled: Deep Talk ep. 4

This is the fourth installment of a story I'm writing a little bit each weeek. I've struggled to name it before, but now it's going to be called Deep Talk and will be accompanied by a number telling you which installment it is. I'm not sure where it's going, or how long it'll take to get there, but you'll get something new each week, at least once.

“Come on, then,” Erin said and put her hand out to help me up. I grabbed it and her grip was like iron. I was surprised and the look on my face betrayed that to her. “Trust me, I said.” She pulled me to my feet and my head swirled with the sudden rush of blood.

“Last chance, cowboy, if you think you can’t make it.”

I gritted my teeth and stood up straight, wincing only slightly at the pain in my back, head and now my leg, too. “I can make it. Don’t try to keep me from making it.”

Erin smiled and propped me up enough to help me down off the remains of the back wall of the bar. “That’s my boy,” she said. “You’ve the spirit to make it. I’ll have to hold you back from hurting yourself, but that’s all.”

She helped me out to the street, and I nearly fell back down. Buildings everywhere were burning, half gone and just plain rubble. I could see the robot thing I’d only glimpsed before and the small figure flying around its head must have been the man in spandex I met earlier. They had to be a couple of miles off, judging by the size of him and the obvious monstrous size of the robot. On the other side of the river, maybe. But what drew my attention back was the sheer scale of destruction around us as we walked past the pancake my car had become, going the other direction.

“Don’t we need to help that guy?” I asked limping a little and daring to put some weight on my bad leg.

“Nothing we can do to help him,” she told me. “He’s got the experience and the smarts to beat that thing without much effort. I think he’s just having some fun before finishing it off.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“No,” Erin said firmly. “Right now, I’m having enough trouble just getting you to where we can get your body repaired and find out how widespread the battle really is.

“So, really, Marv, just stay quiet and let me carry you, okay?”

I kept trying to put my weight on my leg, and the pain was just too much. I did my best to work my good leg more as Erin and I wound our way through downtown and then up the hill to the university. “Where are we going?” I asked, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to.

“Top of the hill, to the admin building.” She hitched me up off my feet and slung me over her shoulder. “Sorry about this, but we’re not making good enough time.”

“S’okay, Erin,” I said. “I kind of like it.” She laughed and began to run.

I wondered why we hadn’t seen any other people around, especially since a half-naked woman with a guy on her shoulder should attract some kind of attention. Being able to concentrate on what was going on around us, rather than the pain of trying to walk helped me understand. Folks were hiding. We get tornadoes here, and every hundred years or so an earthquake, but this was way beyond anything we as a culture had experienced. Nine Eleven was far away. Giant robots (I’d seen a couple more on the far horizon to the west) were out of our league.

The shots fired barely missed us.

Erin threw me to the side and crouched down. “Get under those bushes and stay out of sight. Move if I can get him to shoot at me.”

“What if you can’t?” I said crawling away from her as fast as I could. The lilac bush didn’t offer much hope of cover, but there was an old oak a little farther away that would work well if I could get it’s trunk between me and the bullets.

“It won’t matter much.”

At least she was honest. That was one of the things that always made her attractive. Since I had my back turned to her, I could only imagine what Erin was doing, but I hoped it involved getting the shooter in a headlock and then breaking his spine. I made the brambly base of the bush and curled up, turning so I could see her last position. She wasn’t there any more.

I saw a muzzle flash and then I heard a muffled scream and a loud snap. There were other voices, too, but they were farther away. “Erin?” I didn’t want to shout her name, but I wanted to know what happened. “Erin? You out there?” A long silence. Damn, if the dark didn’t bring back a whole bunch of bad childhood feelings. Thanks a lot, Stephen King.

“Erin?” I called out a little more loudly, a bit more boldly.

No answer.


Copyright 2005 by Jason Arnett

Premature But Exciting Nonetheless

I have a meeting this week regarding the possibility of...

Fill in the blanks, you great walking piles of imagination.

I'll say it's something you'll hear about if it goes through, and it might have something to do with this.

Or it might not.

Filling the Boundaries

What's a boundary?

How much time do I have? Okay, thanks.

Is it the red lines on either side of the notebook paper, or the edge of the paper itself? Is it the box of thoughts on my desk, or the atmosphere above it? Is it the blue lines mechanically imposed on the drawing boards or is it my ability to translate my own script into pictures? Is it the community's idea of what's Safe or is it one noisy person's idea of what's right? Is it the imaginary box on the word processor's page mystically labeled 'margin' or is it the speed with which I can get the ideas down on the electronic page?

We don't make the things that hold you back, we blow them the fuck out of the water.

That's what a comix creator's attitude should be, quite honestly. Take, as Larry Young calls it, the Third Option. It's not Play or Go Home, the third option is to ignore the rules and start your own game. Larry's full of good advice if we listen to him. Yes, he's an inveterate self-promoter, but so is Warren Ellis. So was Stan Lee. So is Clay Moore. So what? You can do it, too. You can get out there and preach your own Gospel to anyone who'll listen. The trick is getting them to listen. Use foul language, use nice language, but use consistent language that communicates your idea. When your idea is met with disdain, decide if you believe in it. If you do, then push it. It may not be the right time, but when is it? Don't use that boundary, it should be retired like Aerosmith should be retired from all rock radio for a period of three years.

You can create your own boundaries based on the artificial ones set before you by others who are only interested in Making Money or Making Art. They are not mutually exclusive, mind you. If you Make Art, you can Make Money. It's not impossible. But usually those who Make Art first are those that are pushing the bounds of what's Moral or what's Right. Are you ready to walk out on that Edge?

But know what that edge is, and what the local consequences are. If you're willing to risk it, it will pay off. I know that balloon only holds so much air, but keep puffing and pretty soon you'll have the biggest balloon on the block.

Jason

Sunday 6 AM

I love Sunday mornings.

No, really. I’m an early riser due to years of being a breakfast cook, and I’ve found that with getting up even at 6.30 or 7 on a Sunday, the day goes better, and I get more done. I don’t begrudge folks who want to sleep all day, but when I’m asleep, they’d damn well better be quiet after 11 pm.

My days include listening to NPR, where I get a puzzle from Wil Shortz (editor of the NY Times puzzles) and interesting articles on things like Oscar-nominated soundtracks.

Which is why I’m actually writing this piece today. (I worked yesterday, beginning two more pieces for B&E, so I didn’t really take a day off of working, just posting, I guess.) Over the last two weeks, the last thing on Morning Edition Sunday was a study of the nominated music for films like Finding Neverland, A Series of Unfortunate Incidents and three others.

I think Thomas Newman is a great composer of film music. The argument that film scores aren’t really music isn’t one I want to get into today, but I’d rather explore what it is about Newman’s music that I love. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s done scores for American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Finding Nemo and the Lemony Snicket thing mentioned above, as well as the theme music for HBO’s Six Feet Under. You’re probably familiar with the music and not so much his name, but now that you know who he is, maybe you’ll pay more attention? I hope so.

Back in the 80s, Danny Elfman broke up the fairly successful Oingo Boingo and began concentrating on film scores, notably anything directed by Tim Burton (the best Batman films, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure) and became pretty synonymous with Oscar-noms. With Newman, the same thing is beginning to happen. He’s getting more and more high-profile work and it’s getting better. Also like Elfman, Newman is learning from those who have gone before. Except Newman gets the benefit of having heard Elfman, too, and Philip Glass.

Usually he begins a piece with some sort of underlying monotone or syncopated rhythm, and it’s very quiet. In the TV theme, it’s a hit on the keyboard that sustains a little and then fades away, but is layered with cool strings on top of it. And that’s really Newman’s style: layering. Like Philip Glass, Newman might be considered a minimalist, but with the combination of Elfman’s influence (among many, many others including the GREAT Bernard Herrman) Newman takes the minimalist framework and makes it more accessible to the average listener. Check out Jude Law’s character’s theme in Road to Perdition for what I’m really talking about. Next time you hear one of his pieces, listen close. Listen when you’re watching Finding Nemo for the 400th time with your kid, especially when Nemo is taken to the boat. That’s a work.

So how does this apply to comix? Only in that by looking closely at things outside of your normal range and thinking, really thinking, about how they can be applied to your storytelling (and I’m prepping a bit on storytelling for later this week, too). With Newman’s music, it’s evocative and telling. His themes for characters are spare but inviting. He does his best to pull you into the character by giving you a tune to associate with that character. John Williams does this masterfully, and has for some number of years, but Newman is a composer for the 21st century. He’s doing his best to keep the film music interesting and relevant. Think about where you can go in your life and pull that kind of inspiration towards you, so that you can twist it, roll it around, chew on it, think about it, forget it and then pull it out again when you need it.

You wanna know where ideas come from? Everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention.

Jason Arnett

Something More

Part 1: The Beginning of Something

Part 2: Something Continued




So I stopped her swabbing my face and tried a hard look in her eyes that made her laugh. I tried to hold the look, but broke out into a grin and a snicker, too.

“I’m sorry, Marv,” she said, still smiling, “but that was just about the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. Very unlike you.” She went back to cleaning me up. “I wish I could share what you want to know, but there isn’t anything I can tell you that you won’t find out yourself when it’s time. Right now, though, it’d just sound like crazy talk. Think you can trust me?”

Deep breath held. “Yeah. Yeah, I know I can.”

“Good answer,” the smile still extant soon departed with another quick dab at my forehead. “Because you’re going to have to follow direction if you want a chance at anything like a normal life again. Your instincts will serve you well. But when I tell you something that seems to go against what your gut tells you, you’ve gotta do it. Tell yourself that Erin has the experience to get you through it, okay?”

“Sounds hard,” I said.

“It will be.” She sat back and put her elbows on her knees. I looked away because her body was uncomfortably close to my fantasy of her, even with a tattoo that I didn’t recognize but still strategically placed. “Listen, if you don’t want to come along, you don’t have to. You can take your chances out there, and there’s a possibility you’ll make it. You’re a smart guy.

“Marv, if you come with me, it’s guaranteed to be more dangerous. But you have to decide. I can’t do it for you and I can’t kidnap you. I can’t bend you to my will or anything like that, okay? You have to decide.”

I struggled to my feet and tried to look anywhere but right at her. God, she’s beautiful and I really don’t want to stare…

“I’m with you,” I said. “How often do I have a chance for an adventure like this anyway?”

Erin stood up and pulled off what remained of her blouse, brushing the dust from her arms. “In my line of work, every day’s an adventure.”

Copyright 2005 by Jason Arnett

Chasing the Fugue

Pounding the keyboard with random words in the vain hope that something gemlike will be revealed amongst the roughage. These are things that you have to do ass awriter to convince the Muse to come on over to the House and have a drink, relax while you pick her brain. Of course, if you’re Neil Gaiman, it’s a little harder because you’ve exploited that well for a story already, and boy did the Muse pay the price. Wow.

However, there are things in your head that you can release by just putting hands to keys or pencil to paper and forgetting the world around you for a while. Easier at home than at work, but if you can type three or four paragraphs at work in fifteen minutes (and you should be able to just to keep the internal gears on their tracks and free of rust) and then post it somewhere convenient for later (like a blog) then you can go back and read it, in the hope that you’ll re-stimulate that part of your brain that had been awakened earlier in the day or the day before.

Chasing the Fugue, I’m calling it. I can slip back into it by just turning back to the keyboard. The glow of the monitor, even in full flouresence, is still compelling enough to switch my brain over to the writer-side. Maybe not always effective, and thoughts that were just bubbling up to the surface can pop without me noticing and escape into the ether, but then when I dream later in the day, I hope that I’ll be able to recover the errant idea. I find that my vocabulary, my love of words and their origins is different than my speaking voice, and that’s a cause for concern because there aren’t that many readers any more who understand the Writer Voice and prefer to read the Speaking Voice. A problem in the literary community? That’s for someone else to decide and not me and my particular Muse.

Toccata is Italian for touch. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by whoever, Bach I think, maybe Beethoven, one of the Germans, anyway, means Touch the Ever to me in this state. I’m not even looking at the monitor, and I’ve learned to type one thing while listening and carrying on a conversation with others. Not a particularly nice talent, but being able to talk on the phone while writing a story or a paragraph or something to change later on is valuable, nonetheless. Where’s my speaking voice? Why can’t I write Stream of Consciousness like Hunter did? Well, Hunter’s particular gift was for exaggeration, like any good storyteller, despite being essentially crazed his entire adult life.

There’s more, but I really have to walk away and do some work now.

Thanks for playing along.

Jason

Open-Ended

Do you want to be led through a book or would you rather let the story just be revealed in its own good time? I mean, are impatient readers, those who just have to know what's going to happen NOW, a reason to write down? I said earlier on that I like to tell Truth in the Abstract, and I really mean that. I'd rather discover as I go along what's really True about a story than be spoonfed the plot. Fast reads are not necessarily easy reads, and likely even hard writes, know what I mean?

Do you need to know EVERYthing about a character, or just the things that are important to the plot? Isn't it more fun to invent some details on your own without things being spelled out A-B-C for you? I've always thought that being able to PUT some of myself into a character I'm reading is preferable over being able to RECOGNIZE myself in a character. Part of what made Sherlock Holmes so popular at the turn of the century was the simple fact that he was mysterious. Name another popular character in comix who WAS mysterious.

Okay, it's Wolverine. He was popular BECAUSE people wanted to know more about him. How old was he, was he born with metal claws, who's his father, what's his Backstory? All these things were important to readers throughout the late 70s, the 80s and into the 90s. That is, until Quemas and Marvel decided to do the Big Reveal and tell us all and a little more. Plus is sold in huge numbers, so it was successful, but--- Was it necessary? Really? For that matter, did we really need to know that Holmes was a drug addict? Did it really ADD anything to the character?

No. All it did was take away the Questions that made the characters really interesting and even compelling. Do writers have to lay out everything to be successful? I don't think so, but I'd like to hear what you think.

Jason

All Hell 2

All Hell part one.


The explosion was massive and indicated a heavy fuel load behind him. The ground shook.

The fire plume lit up the tarmac he was laying on, showing the bodies around him. The man he didn't know, but the woman's face rang a bell. Not that he could place her right now, but she definitely looked familiar. His elbow propped his back up off the ground, flaming debris was beginning its descent and ending up uncomfortably close. The man's chest was pierced with a large triangular piece of metal and didn't move at all. Obviously dead.

"One in a million hit," he thought and laughed. "Never see that again."

Secondary explosions came, then, like a supermachine pistol from his favorite pulp novels. At least he imagined they fired that fast. Current tech, he knew, was way beyond the paltry speeds imagined by the likes of Dent and Gibson as they spat out page after page of male fantasies between the Great War and the second one that changed the world forever. It was that world that occupied his attention now, as he heard voices from behind.

"Stay on track," he muttered as he rolled to his side. "Get up and out."

The voices weren't a language he understood. That meant he was in a bad place.

"Now!" Unsure if it was his voice or another's he continued to struggle to his feet, gaining one knee and both hands in a grotesque tripod. His other leg was stiff, but he didn't dare look. Just keep focused on standing up. The foreign voices behind him were getting closer and seemed more insistent but nonetheless still gibberish to him. His brain wasn't up and running yet, so whatever happened must've been pretty awful.

Blood dripped from his mouth to the tarmac and pain shot through him from his bad leg. Unbalanced by the immediate distraction, his hand slipped in blood and he crashed onto his shoulder. He began the superhuman effort he'd just expended to rise again.

Another big explosion deafened him to the bullets now dotting the tarmac with alarming accuracy. His field of vision was suddenly wiped away by the invasive white light that struck him like a heavy fist.

Intimidation

Fear.

George Bush: There's no money for Social Security, so we should take our money and invest it in the ever-stable, always-reliable stock market. Joe Quesada: There's no money in original graphic novels, so publishers should keep on with monthly singles as loss-leaders.

Oh, stop it. Take three Spider-Man titles (Amazing, Ultimate and Whichever you like), kill them as monthlies and have the creative teams do 66-page stories released every three months. Still getting 264 pages of Amazing Spider-Man every year, and you can buy a Spider-Man title every month if the releases are staggered (Amazing one month, Ultimate the next and the third last, then start over) properly. You've got a 66-page book that you can charge $6.95 for and people will pay it. It's not so far out of line that folks won't still impulse-buy, and if the right creators are on it, you'll sell in bigger numbers.

Come on, Joe. Haven't you realized that readers prefer to read in bursts?

Even this way, you're still getting your money. Granted, the three months in between releases, you're paying creators whose work isn't on the stands, but then you've got a large influx of cash every quarter from three titles. Currently, three issues of Ultimate Spider-Man costs the reader $6.75. Add the twenty cents for a snappy cover, or don't, and the company is making MORE money off the title. The titles can still be collected into trades and hardcovers, but I'd probably be more likely to buy Bendis' Spider-Man if he 66 pages to stretch out in four times a year. You think readers would really complain? This benefits everyone: the writers and artists are still getting paid as they deliver pages, and they can still have monthly deadlines, but they get to tell a slightly more complex story with less constraints and the readers get better stories and art. Theoretically, of course, until you hire Joe Madureira to draw the book for you and even then he still can't make a deadline.

As Steven Grant says in his latest Permanent Damage column, there's no real fiscal model for Marvel to put out OGNs, and even if there were, it's not their business to do that. I totally agree. But Marvel can lead the way by killing the monthlies, if they wanted to. Again, as Grant says, there's no reason for them to innovate because they are simply caretakers of icons. And icons are what Hollywood really wants. Not good stories.

If it ain't familiar, they don't want to look at it.

Same song, different verse.

Jason

NFC

New Fucking Classics.

You realize there hasn't been a 'classic' comic story since the late 80s?

I'm talking the ilk of Dark Phoenix- the Kree-Skrull War- the Death of Capt. Marvel- Crisis on Infinite Earths-type stuff. This of course springs out of the latest installment of Casey and Fraction's rather uneven, but still entertaining, Basement Tapes column over at CBR.

What they didn't address in their column is the fact that no one was really paying attention to comix in the late 70s through the mid-80s. No one. Just us fans. And fans were beginning to leave in droves as they 'grew' out of comix. A common complaint to be sure, and current fans in their 40s (which I can say I'm not there yet, but it's not THAT far off) often decry that comix never really 'grew' with them.

Let's think about that word, though: Grow. What does 'grow' mean any way? You know the answer so I don't need to open another window and get a definition from an online dictionary, do I? No. Grow means 'to change', doesn't it? And what do stories like Watchmen, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Dark Phoenix have in common?

There's a massive change that affects nearly every character in the story. Just like life. How is it that comix companies aren't doing this?

Hollywood dollars.

Can I get an 'Amen!' from the choir? Because I know you know what we're talkin' 'bout, Willis!

It used to be that comix would write off a truly magnificent story (like the one where Talia has Bruce Wayne's daughter) as 'An Imaginary Tale'. Yeah, THAT'S a cop-out. Can you imagine Batman today, in continuity, as being written by Frank Miller for Neal Adams to draw with THAT hanging over his head? Now that would be a 'classic' story.

But what else? Sandman is a saga, and should be equated as a 'classic', but it doesn't grab the nuts of the reader like a shorter 'saga' did in the old days. You know, one about six or eight issues. Within the Sandman realm, there are classic stories, like the 24 hours in the Diner or the Serial Killer conventions during the 'A Doll's House' arc. Some of the best comix ever, those. But those are characters that aren't INGRAINED into our comix-reading psyche. Miller's run on Daredevil had a classic story in Born Again, but it's not recognized as much as Miller's Death of Elektra. Too bad. In a lot of ways, it's better. Again, Daredevil isn't an Icon like Spider-Man or Hulk or Captain America, even. And surely not like Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman. The only reason Dark Phoenix qualifies is because a hero of long standing murdered an ENTIRE PLANET and then had to stand tall before the wagon in the end. That took a lot of the non-comix world by surprise. Heroes weren't supposed to be bad, were they?

Actually, that's the point where the industry started to get a little more notice and then the Formula Babies started to try and copy it. Small publishers were doing things that were selling large numbers, too, and when TMNT comes along, we end up with more clones and bad titles like Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters. (That's a real title, too, folks!) The culmination of the clone movement is not in the Star Wars saga, though. No, it's in the pages of an Icon. The Clone Saga in the Spider-titles is easily the worst attempt at a 'classic' story that ever graced the shelves of my favorite LCS.

I will admit that I paid for it, too, to satisfy my collector's mentality. I learned my lesson and started trimming the monthly books right after that. I have subsequently donated those issues to my local library for them to sell in their semi-annual booksale. At least they held up a table in the tent, I saw.

So where's the classic material? It's in my head. It's in yours. You can write it down and draw it. Learn the lesson from the old guys and make a New Classic. It may be your only contribution to comix, but at least you'll be able to say you did it.

Jason

All Hell

Thought it'd be fun to do a little marathon writing. I'll do a snippet, you'll continue, I'll throw in some more, etc. Here goes:

Joe started to get up. Well, not get up, so much as force his neck to lean forward, fighting the aches and the stiffness. Hopefully his back and ass would follow. He didn't much remember how he got here, but that wasn't anything new. Joe has had several mornings like this, over the years. He was feeling really old, for being such a young man. Supercompressed lifestyle. That's what his ex called it. Living life to the fullest, that's what he called it. "I could be dead tomorrow, but at least I'll know I won't be the only sum'bitch going down."

He'd never actually said that, but he was able to force a grin after thinking it. He might start using it as a regular mantra, if enough folks laugh when he says it. On second thought, no, he probably won't use it. Pretty lame.

His spine was giving some motion now, following the arc started by the discs in his neck. He was sitting up now, and he didn't like what he saw. Not one bit. Sitting there on the ground amidst the blood, the sweat, and the oil, he knew he didn't like where he was at.

But pretty soon, his ass was gonna get up. A little bit after that, his hangover was going to clear out. And then? Then some hell is gonna break loose.

That got another grin out of him.

The Britney Factor

Responding to Jason's last post, about voting with your dollars:

That mouth-breather that should have been sacking your groceries? He's the type that watches CSI and thinks it's a good show and realistically done. He's the type that buys the latest Nelly album and thinks the guy's a hip hop master. He's the type that buys Uncanny X-Men and thinks Claremont's the best writer going today.

And there's a lot more of him than us, Jason. Let's call his type the Red Readers. We'll be the Blue's. The Red's, they just say, "Hey, this is what everyone else is into, so it must be good." The Blue's, we say, "How the hell can you stand that dogshit?!?"

The inherent problem, of course, is that both of us are right. We're consuming what we like. It's just some of us have better taste, I guess.

I know I'll be buying the Miller/Lee Batman, for instance (and especially the follow-up arc drawn by Neal Adams). Do I think it'll be a 'High Taste', or 'Blue' comic? No, but I'm buying what I know I'll like.

Bottom line? Britney Spears may top the sales charts, but we all know she's awful.

Silence of the Damned

If we say nothing, nothing changes.

For instance, I spend my money at a grocery that is supposed to bag my items for me. I pay a little extra over the 'buy in bulk' chains for this service, plus the store is close to my home. Last night, there weren't enough sackers to bag my groceries because the lone mouth breather performing this task I pay for was busy jawing with a pretty cashier and the other pretty cashiers were too busy to be bothered with a couple buying their week's groceries. They had sexual conquests and upcoming dates to talk about.

As we left, after I bagged my own groceries just like if I'd gone to Food 4 Less, I told the gaggle of geese standing around comparing personal shavers that there were six more big carts in the other lines away from them and that it would be advised to get some help coming. They sort of acknowledged me and I left. Bobbi gave me a look and I said "Listen, if I didn't say anything, they'd've kept up with their conversations and no member of management would tell them to do their jobs. It's important that we speak up."

"Yeah," she said, "but what about the guy you flipped off last week?"

Oh. Him.

This guy cut me off by blowing a stop sign. The real kick is that he LOOKED RIGHT AT ME before he did it. He knew I was coming and blew the stop anyway. Fine. So I honked my little squeaky Honda horn and flipped him the Double Bird.

Dig this:

He stops in the middle of the street and opens his door, wanting to fight me all of a sudden for flipping him off.

Jesus Christ.

If he'd just stopped at the sign LIKE THE LAW SAYS HE'S SUPPOSED TO, he wouldn't have gotten an angry driver behind him. If he'd just FOLLOWED THE RULES, no one would have called him on it. But he wants to be angry for someone calling Bullshit on him for running a stop sign and impeding the progress of another car in possession of the right of way. Then he wants to fight me. "Just drive, man! Christ!"

He was too chickenshit to actually get out of his car, and I'm sure he felt like the Alpha Male, but the hell with him. I just want to drive my car to my house and kiss my wife.

So I say the more we call Bullshit, the more we tell all service industries and individuals that the rules are there for a reason, the better off we'll all be.

Same applies to comix. Tell the companies when you're disappointed in a product. Tell the creators that you're not going to buy the crap that they're churning out and why. Don't be mean, but DO tell them that it's not what you want, if you don't want it. Then STOP BUYING IT. Vote with your dollars. Encourage your friends to get out of this collector's mentality and bad comix will go away sooner.

The real trouble, though, is that your bad comix are someone else's good comix. But that's a topic for another time.

Jason