We’re still not dead – we’re just re-writing

How long since my last post? Jeez – so much for “a page a week”!

As I write this, Mack is unpacking from a much-needed 2 week holiday, which is why there’s been no art for a while. Mind you, he still managed to send me a bunch of texts, including a New Idea and some angry rants about us stalling and not just getting the damn thing done.

He has a point.

A dear friend of mine and fellow-scribbler Saxon Bullock has just finished the mother of all rewrites and is suffering from the Finishing Blues. A crisis of faith that’s sent him heading for the Ice Cream and Jack Kirby collection.

But writing “The End” is the hardest line, as it means you’ve made a conscious decision to put down your pen, leave the keyboard alone. The work is now out of your hands, ready to get out there in the world.

And that’s a scary thought.

All writers are, on some level, control freaks. Why else would we spend so much time in our heads, playing gods? And to relinquish control takes a LOT of ice-cream and Jack Kirby collections.

It’s been said that no art is finished, merely abandoned. I’m not saying what I do is ‘art’ but that wrings true. At Mack’s suggestion, we’re going back to an earlier project and I’ve just re-read the script for Issue One (yes – I got as far as “The End”) and I’m still happy with the work, apart from one line of dialogue.

One line that’s changed a million times in the last year.

Sadly, if I pick the wrong version of this line, I’m convinced that the entire story arc will get stuck on the wrong path.

Oh FFS! It’s one line in 20 pages. Just one line in one issue of a larger story.

But try letting that go, when you still have time to edit. It’s damn-night impossible.

So, I’m back off to stare at a blank page until that perfect line bleeds out of my forehead and attaches itself to the page.

The new manifesto

Still no ‘new’ stuff from Mack, as he’s still head-down and tail-up on the super-secret job (good luck to him!)

So here’s something to distract and inspire. I know it’s already done the rounds on teh intertoobz, but it’s pinned up on my desk and is starting to work.

Bring me blank pages so I may smite them with my pen!

Some news

Mack’s going to be largely unavailable for the next few weeks, then possibly for the next few months.

Sorry!

Believe it or not, this is good news. 😀

He’s been approached by a bona-fide comic company to submit interiors for one of their titles. The gig’s not yet in the bag – he’s up against a couple of other artists – but my money’s on my favourite art-monkey.

Here’s the bugger – Mack has signed an NDA for this gig. He’s damn lucky that he’s living a few hundred miles away, or I’ve be squeezing his nuts ’till he spilled the beans. I’m itching to read the outline and see his art. Sadly, he’s keeping schtum on the whole thing.

Good lad.

So, while he’s working his arse off on this, I’ll try to keep you amused with the odd tit-bit.

For today’s entertainment, and in the absence of any Mack art, I’d like to point you in the direction of “Chesterfest” – C.B. Cebulski’s blog – where he tells a cautionary tale of being a Marvel talent scout, and the ‘characters’ he meets at conventions.

Enjoy!

Breaking the silence

Boy – have we been a couple of lame-o bloggers this last few weeks!

You don’t care if we’re nuts-deep in ‘real’ work and ‘real’ life – comics should ALWAYS come first and we know that as well as anyone.

I know we said ‘a page a week’ but… deadlines? I’ll show you deadlines, sonny-Jim!

Ok… so we might have been a little bit busy updating our CVs and planning world-domination. You gonna hold that against us?

Whatevs. We’re a couple of busy bastards.

Here’s an actual panel from the actual comic with some actual dialogue. And it’s still only Tuesday, which makes us a DAY EARLY by my reckoning.

The Black Dog

I remember seeing a documentary about Ridley Scott where his sons complained that he’d rearrange the furniture in their house every weekend that he was home. When asked about this, he said he felt that he was being followed by a Black Dog and, if he didn’t stop moving, the dog would get him.

This Black Dog is a staple of British folklore. An apparition, signifying death. A fear of stagnation that’s driven him his whole life. The burning desire to be out there, creating movies – a spectral force, pushing him along.

So where’s my Black Dog? Where are the hellhounds on my tail?

Quick Mack Attack

Comin’ atcha like an art-ninja, flinging out his scribbles on an unsuspecting mob…

Yeh – we’re all snowed-under and work-deadliney again. Don’t worry, though – we’re still firing all-guns on the comic.

First up this week: Jian got a haircut…

Jian & topknot

Next up: light roughs of pages 6 & 7. Very much a work-in progress, these ones, but Mack has sent me this pic twice, so I guess he’s fairly eager for me to post it.

page 6&7 roughs

See you in a week, if I tear myself away from Twitter long enough to order a Chinese, clear some junk off the PVR and write some all-new crap 😀

More layouts: 1-6

Just a brief “hello” this week and more layouts for iss.1 Here’s pages 1 thru 6. Page 7 is nearly locked and the ‘finished’ versions are already underway.

Layouts for pp.1-6

See you in 7!

Here come the layouts…

Mack’s playing with my mind. I just know he’s done more than just these two pages of layouts for the first issue. I’m sure we got all the way to page 10 when we met up at Xmas.

(BTW – great place to work on a comic and not look like a crazy person in Newcastle, the Intermezzo Coffee Bar at the Tyneside Cinema. It was full of media types, all raving about their latest project, but in a totally unassuming way, that you’d never find in Soho.)

Layouts pp.1&2

Mack’s a big fan of the process of making comics. Like anything in life, we’re all so used to seeing the finished product, we so rarely give much thought to the process. Have you ever watched a building being erected? I once lived in Manchester next to where they were building a multi-story car-park – perhaps the world’s least interesting piece of architecture, but watching it going up was strangely fascinating.

In the same vein, we’ve decided to show the process of building the comic from the ground-up. Sure, we’re not getting into the story-telling part just yet, but both me and Mack are the kind of guys who could spend hours in an art gallery, scrutinizing an artist’s preliminary sketches and largely ignoring the finished piece.

That’s not that weird, is it?

Is it..?

The second piece he’s sent me today is a little character study for The Corsican, who you won’t meet right until the end of Issue 1, so we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here, jumping from one end of the story to the other.

The Corsican

And the third piece he sent me today…

…well, that’s for our next project. Yeah, yeah – we haven’t even finished this one and we’re already talking about the next one. Hell, we’re talking about the next five projects. You didn’t think this was a one-shot deal, did you? No chance of that.

We’re thinking about posting some of our other work on a sister-site to this. URBN will stay our main focus for the time being but, whenever we’re working on a project, we always have a rush of other ideas – especially at this stage, where the initial story is written and I’ve got some time on my hands to work on other things while Mack perfects the character designs and before we launch headlong into the four full issues of SWRD’94.

Coverage

We’re back!

After a much-needed break, it’s all hands on deck, nose to the grindstone and other anachronisms standing-by as we lurch headlong into the new year with the first roughs of the covers.

That’s Jian, Shiv, Jo and The Corsican gracing the fronts of Iss. 1-4.

There’s one character noticeably absent from these covers, and that’s the City of Urbn itself. Mack assures me that she’ll be there in the final versions.

And for more of Shiv, here’s some early costume notes.

Like one of those actors who has to find the right shoes before they can find the character, Mack often works from the outside-in. “Clothes make the man” and all that jazz.

Mack said “Neon Gothic.” I fired back, “Victorian Punk.” Let’s see where that leads us…

How to write a comic book

(Don’t get too excited – I’m not going to tell you how to do it. Hell – I’m still trying to figure that part out)

Cast your eyes around T’Interweb and you can find all manner of sites who purport to tell you how you should be writing a comic-book. There are some who are just trying to sell you stuff and others that have the good sense to just say tell a good story and not worry about the rest.

I’m a creature of habit who’s spent far too long writing in screenplay format to get into all this “Panel 1” business. I’ve always written with the knowledge that it’s the Director and DoP’s job to stage the action and decide the shots. For all my years spent behind the camera (as a Grip in TV) I know I’ve got an eye for a good shot, but I also know that the DoP has a better eye – that’s why I’m pushing him around on the dolly, and not the other way around.

Isn’t it the same with comics? Surely it’s the Artist who decides how the story is told visually. Can you imagine Elektra: Assassin without Sienkiewicz? Can you imagine what went through Frank Miller’s head when he had to do his dialogue re-writes on top of that crazy artwork?

The mind boggles…