Joshua Hale Fialkov

Purveyor of sheer awesomeness.

Joshua Hale Fialkov is the Harvey, Eisner, and Emmy Award nominated writer of graphic novels, animation, video games, film, and television, including:

THE LIFE AFTER, THE BUNKER, PUNKS, ELK'S RUN, TUMOR, ECHOES, KING, PACIFIC RIM, THE ULTIMATES, I, VAMPIRE, and JEFF STEINBERG CHAMPION OF EARTH. He's also written television including MAX’s YOUNG JUSTICE, NBC's CHICAGO MED and NETFLIX’s AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER.

Things going on less than a mile from my house that I'm not aware of.

January 31, 2008  /  Joshua Fialkov

Mailings to Scientology sites probed - Los Angeles Times

Mailings of a suspicious white powder to 10 Church of Scientology addresses prompted the evacuation of dozens of people and the closure of a major thoroughfare Wednesday as hazmat teams were called to examine the packages.The letters were sent via the Postal Service to Scientology properties in Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica, Glendale and Tustin. Police shut part of Glendale's busy Brand Boulevard for two hours before sounding the all-clear, while 60 people were cleared from buildings in Tustin, authorities said.

Welcome to Los Angeles, where crazy shit happens, and you never even know it.

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categories / Weird, World News

A Word About Formatting

January 29, 2008  /  Joshua Fialkov

Having been educated in traditional screenplay format, and then at some point drifting incredibly far away from it for my comic writing, I have what's become a constant back and forth on script formatting.  I'm one of those guys who finds that form can help dictate content, and so tend to morph what format I use to the project I'm working on. A few of the companies I do work for hire for have standard format (i.e. the Manga Adaptations I do) that I have to use, which is fine, and ultimately, that's become the 'voice' for that work.  Similarly, I began using a new, different format last month, which I sent over to Ms Marvel writer Brian Reed, and he found it totally unusuable, and today, after I asked him about how he formats he sent over a few samples of his formatting style.

What spurred it on is that I'm working on  a big action book for a publisher, and as I started working in my new 'standard' format, it just felt 'wrong.'  So, I applied Brian's more screenplay like style, and found myself humming along, more or less.  While working with Wheaton on our book together, I decided to use that comic book format because it's so radically different from screenplays, that I think it'll actually open him up to the uniqueness of the medium just by sheer nature of it being a different set of instinctual movements than using Final Draft.

I've been in that strange place as a comics writer where I'm working on books I wrote a few months ago, as well as stuff that's going out for the first time now, so I've really been going through these old scripts, and seeing the changes in what I do for either speed, clarity, or tone has been a bit of an eye opener.

There's also the issue of word processors.  I use four different word processors throughout my writing process.  I've been using Scrivener for projects with lots of research, or with a longer story arc, Pages for more 'straight forward' writing, Neooffice for formatting before sending, Final Draft for Screenplays or anything short in the screenplay format, and Office 2008 for drafting with integrated notes.  Now, ultimately, I'd prefer to be down to just one or two of those programs, but each offer some features that are unique.

The only one that technically could replace the bulk of them is Office 2008, but, thus far, I've found it to be a complete misstep in the old work horse of a program.  It's clunky, awkward, confusing, and managed to screw up my Mac when I installed it.  Hooray for Microsoft!  Lukcily, the track changes feature continues to be unmatched anywhere else, except maybe Final Draft, which is unfortunately not owned by most editors I work with.  Scrivener has an integrated screenplay format you can use, but, thus far, I've found it less intuitive than Final Draft, but, the research options make it a much more formidable program, and considering the tricks Brian showed me, it seems to really be getting the job done.  Pages is great for formatting... it does things in a way that's extremely intuitive, and frankly, I don't have to worry about it being wrong.  Neooffice seems to work well enough, but the tab system and general formatting usage ends up just confusing the crap out of me most of the time.  Both of them seem to not quite handle the track changes properly from someone working in Office.

It's still a bit strange to me that comics have yet to really settle into a style, but, I suppose as each writer's style and voice really do come through in their scripts (I mean, what other medium is it considered okay for a writer to draw in his script to describe something?), that's it's only neccessary.

The other thing that I've been noticing, at least for me, is that by using these different formats, it allows me to really distinguish, in my mind, between the projects.  As though, by switching up the how, it allows my brain to switch the what, and focus on the work I'm doing.

Mind you, I'm on deadline and writing about formatting, which might mean it's not quite working as planned.

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categories / Comics, Comics Business, My Comics, Writing

Where Have I Been?

January 29, 2008  /  Joshua Fialkov

It's been a long weekend.  I started having diabetes related ailments sometime last week, and they came into full effect by Sunday evening.  So, while I'm doing somewhat better now, I'm still not quite one hundred percent, and the new medications I'm on are having... interesting side effects, to say the least.  I'm going through a fairly strict 'no carbs' couple of days, to help bring my blood sugar back down, and it's starting to work, although, I'm pretty much starving constantly. Despite all of that, I've been working my ass off on a couple of different projects, and should have more news on stuff in the coming weeks.

Oh, and if I haven't mentioned it, you should go visit http://www.thesandwichkings.com 

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categories / Comics, My Comics, Personal

In Previews Now...

January 22, 2008  /  Joshua Fialkov

Friday the 13thFRIDAY THE 13th: ABUSER AND THE ABUSED #1

Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov Art by Andy B. Cover by Brandon Badeaux A special one-shot! Maggie’s life was never easy, but her abusive new boyfriend has pushed her over the edge. As her life spirals out of control, she hits upon the solution to her problems: use the local urban legend to “solve” the problems in her life. But what happens when she learns there’s very little “legend” in the reality of Jason Voorhees? On sale April 30 • 32 pg, FC, $3.50 US • Mature Readers

Place your orders. I'm EXTREMELY proud of how this book turned out. It's probably the best script I wrote last year, and I'm really hoping to get to do more sometime soon. The art kick ass, and it's a blood soaked blast. Please let your local retailer know you'd like a copy.

And you should be able to click the image for the full size, totally awesome cover.

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categories / Comics, My Comics