Clipboard

After just using this metaphor to an editor, I thought maybe I could use it to talk about my writing process.

I’ve got a huge project that I’ve spent the better part of December putting together with a collaborator.  I was given a green light to go to script, which was then pulled back a day or two later.  So, okay, I move on to other work… EXCEPT-

My brain doesn’t quite work like that anymore.  I imagine my brain as a clipboard.  It’s a notepad filled with all of my ideas for the script/project/thingy I’m currently working on.  So, if I move off of that project and onto another one, just like with your computer’s clipboard, you’re going to lose that data.  You’re going to get a lot of links to cat pictures and think pieces on Fight Club. 

And yes, I have systems in place that allow me to hold multiple projects in my head at once, but, and I mean this literally, so much of what my process is amounts to conceptualizing (in head/notes) and then typing the finished product.  Not writing it.  The conceptualizing goes so far as to actually be my writing process.  I understand what a script is saying or means, I understand what well over 2/3rds of the dialogue will be, and then I start writing.  

I equate my process, to some degree, with automatic writing.  I hold so much of the process in my head prior to typing, that once I actually set about trying to type it out, it’s closer to an edited second draft than it is to what would appear to be stream of consciousness. 

Which is, in all honestly, probably a short coming of mine.  I don’t like working a story out on paper. I don’t like grinding away at draft after draft.  I like to conceptualize, contextualize, understand thoroughly, and THEN i like the typing part. 

But, in the meantime, the project that’s taking up all of my clipboard is on hold, and I gotta work on other stuff in the meantime. Because that’s the job.

Three Birthdays - Sablik, Chamberlain, and Infurnari

This week is the birthday of three people I’m extremely close with.  One is someone i’ve worked with before, one is someone I’ve worked with for almost a decade, and the third is someone I’ve only known for a couple of years, but has changed my life completely.  I wanted to talk about each of them and what they mean to me.

Filip Sablik filipsablik

I met Filip Sablik when he was a rep at Diamond Comics.  He was the guy who all the small publishers talked about because if you had him on your side, your book had a bright future.  He wasn’t my original rep (that was the equally awesome Robert Randle), but he was a fan and a huge supporter in my self-publishing days.  

Our paths crossed properly when he arrived at Top Cow.  We became fast friends, and eventually, when Filip moved up to EIC of the company, he became my editor.  He did something that few editors do, and he did it instinctively.  He trusted me.  When we’d talk story or ideas, he’d think it through, raise his concerns, and then let me go and do what I do.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that ECHOES remains one of my favorite books.  A lot of that was from Filip giving Rahsan and I free reign to do a weird book in a peculiar way.  Every project I did at Top Cow, Filip had my back and taught me that collaboration can be a very, very good thing.  

Sadly, he’s out of the editing game and is instead riding high over at boom studios​.  They’re immensely lucky to have him. 

Kody Chamberlain   kodychamberlain​

There are few people on earth I like as much as Kody.  We come from wildly different backgrounds, have wildly different political views, and disagree about a lot of things.  There’s one thing we both believe in.  Craftsmanship. We believe that part of the job of being an artist in any medium is taking responsibility for your work, and doing it in a reliable sturdy fashion.

What amazes me no end with Kody is how manages to do that but also imbue everything he does with sheer genius.  He’s got ideas pouring out of him, and into his hands.  He enhances every project he’s on, from the most mundane work for hire to the insanity of his own work.  And, while I love our book together, PUNKS, the one that really knocked me on my ass was SWEETS. 

Kody takes the workmanlike attitude in a really peculiar way in Sweets.  He trusts that anyone who buys the book is willing to go for the ride.  He trusts his own storytelling and craftmanship so much that he lets the audience actively play a part in the storytelling.  He never tells you what you just read or pulls together the various threads into a conventional sweater.  Instead, he worries about the emotional life of his characters, and lets his deft hand do the rest.  

It’s an inspiration beyond words, and something I think about every day with every one of my scripts.

Joe Infurnari joeinfurnari

I met Joe through the comic book equivalent of Kevin Bacon, Dean Haspiel.  Dean thought Joe and I could do some cool work together on an anthology that was being put together, and introduced us.  It was love at first read.  Joe and I exchanged books, and each read them on the way home from Baltimore Comic Con.  About ten pages into TIMEFUCKER, I was in love.  

The thing about Joe’s work that really pushes my buttons is that he ground everything in reality.  Even a book as absurd and over the top as Timefucker has rules that it lives by, and those rules always work.  And when they don’t, there’s a damn good reason for them.

He brings that process into our collaboration for THE BUNKER.  Joe is singly focused on making the best product there is.  He’s fearless that way. He gives me notes that are more well thought out, more full of brilliance, than most any editor I’ve ever worked with.  

There’s a bunch of stuff on the internet these days about Writers taking advantage of Artists, and, I have to say, with Joe and I, I’m definitely taking advantage of him.  Not only does he provide some of the most insanely inventive art in comics today, but, he’s also helped me through some of my hardest plot walls with grace, dignity, and brilliance.  Working with Joe is like a two for one.  You get a brilliant artist who’s also a brilliant writer. 

In fact, that’s true of all three of these guys.  Each of them goes so far above and beyond the simple description of their jobs, that they make everyone around them not just look better, but actually be better.  

That’s a better gift than anyone could ask for. 

Happy birthday my friends. 

criterioncast:

Watch Terry Gilliam talk about Time Bandits in 1982 with David Letterman.

2014/2015 - Into the Light - Or Thoughts on the year that was and will be.

2015 will mark my 14th year making comic books.  It will also mark the first time in almost seven years that the bulk of my income will come from elsewhere. 

I made a decision last year to take a break from work for hire comics to focus on my creator owned work.  That had a strange side effect, it wound up leading me down a very different path.  

It’s not much of a secret that I’ve been working on THE BUNKER tv show the past year or so, and, it’s been an immensely pleasurable (if slow) experience.  I’ve learned a ton, and become a better writer (I think) for it.  Alongside writing that pilot, I’m a few inches away from selling a second tv project that’s a dream come true. 

If that wasn’t enough, I just found out I’m going to write a few episodes of an upcoming animated series that’s a favorite property, that I’ve done some other work on over the past year that isn’t yet announced. 

I’ve found myself suddenly back to work on my young adult novel that has been simmering in the background as a passion project for a few years now.   

I’ve worked on video games and cartoons and TV/Film projects, short stories and the occasional SyFy Channel movie.  I’ve done web series (see above) and interactive stuff.  But, that was always a sideline.  2015 marks the first year that, well, doing all that stuff is my job.  

Working at Marvel and DC had it’s ups and downs, but to some degree, there was always a feeling of being trapped by my circumstances.  I love those characters, and I got to work on some incredible books with even more incredible people.  But, the grind of monthly work for hire comics is, well, a grind.  I had a baby and a mortgage and every decision had to be couched in that.  Including the one to quit DC and leave one of my favorite franchises before a single issue had shipped.

If I fell behind or got fired or left a book, that would have catastrophic consequences for my family.  That made every choice I made terrifying, crippling even. But I had to do what I had to do for my family. 

I set about this year doing what I can to make a living outside the mainstream by doing books that speak to who I am as a person, and to what I want out of the medium.  And I’ve found success in doing just that. But it’s success with a catch.

It is certainly an age for independent comics right now.  Books are selling substantially more than what they were even a few brief years ago.  BUT, that’s not true across the board.  Truth be told (and this is the catch), while I’m creatively as satisfied as I’ve ever been, the sales on THE LIFE AFTER and PUNKS in particular have been…. anemic.  

Let me back up a second.  THE LIFE AFTER is not in any actual danger.  Oni looked at it as an ongoing series from the beginning, and we’re all waiting for the performance of the first TPB to really make a decision about how long we’ll go.  It’s going to be at least four arc/tpb’s.  I’d love for it to go on forever, but, economically it might not be feasible.  Oni has been simply incredible in their dedication to both THE LIFE AFTER and THE BUNKER.  More than I could ever wish for, honestly.  (I should point out that for a limited time, in the direct market only, you can get THE LIFE AFTER TPB for a measly $10. Please, please, please pre-order it.)

PUNKS on the other hand, is a bit more of a worrier.  It’s such an odd book, and it certainly found more of an audience then we ever thought it would, but, the numbers have gotten low enough that we’re having very serious discussions about continuing or letting it go.  The hard part about having so many great indie comics is that a lot of them get ignored.  PUNKS and THE LIFE AFTER have both suffered that fate. 

I worry that saying all this and seeing what may happen with those books that I’ll wind up accused of moving on from comics. Of abandoning ship, or whatever nonsense they say about people who crossover to other mediums.

BUT —

I will always make comics.  I will always make MY comics.  I’ve got two more creator owned series launching next year, we’ve got lots more BUNKER on the horizon, and even more PUNKS and THE LIFE AFTER.

I make comics because I love them.  I love the medium.  I love what it can do.  Working on the pilot for THE BUNKER has been an experience not just in terms of strengthening my muscles in another medium, but in reminding me of the amazing things comics can do that no other medium can.

Comics are my art. Comics are the core of who I am as a creative. But, that doesn’t mean they’re something that will always support my family and pay my mortgage.  

Everyone moonlights.  From the biggest writers in comics (Geoff Johns and Brian Bendis both, technically, have day jobs.  They’re just, y’know, incredibly awesome ones), to the little guys trying to eek out a living doing customer service while grinding away at their self published mini-comics.  It’s just a reality of the medium.  

Hell, to be honest, work for hire comics are a day job, too.  Again, just a super awesome one.

I got off track somewhere. 

All of this is to say, thank you.  This year, the support my friends, family, and fans have shown have taken me on a wild adventure I could never have predicted.  I’m getting to work with people I’ve respected for years, even a few I idolized as a child, and all of that is because of those sixteen pieces of paper stapled in the middle and folded into a pamphlet.

Thank you so much to everyone who’s followed me from indie to mainstream and back again, or any part of that journey whatsoever.  Thank you to the wonderful people at Oni Press, Image Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dynamite, Dark Horse, IDW, and anyone else I’ve been lucky enough to work with the past few years.  Thank you to ComiXology and Chip Mosher who backed Joe and my wacky idea for a business model and gave me the strength and impetus to launch the next phase of my career.

2015 is going to be an amazing year, thanks to all of you.