THE SAN DIEGO COMIC CONVENTION THURSDAY, 1993 MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN COMICS! Something a little more interesting is the Small Press Syndicate, based in Cincinnati. The Small Press Syndicate is "a group of self-publishers dedicated to publishing their own comics and helping promote and distribute them." They quote Neil Gaiman as calling them "fun and energetic." Would Death call them perky? In the small print (so small, in fact, that it's going to be unreadable to those without cybervision), it says that membership is "not automatic in some cases. Write for details." My guess is that they're deliberately keeping out Cartoonists Against Crime. If you do want more info, write to J. Kevin Carrier, Small Press Syndicate, 8913 Eldora Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45236. MOTIVATION IS SOMETHING THAT KEEPS YOU GOING What was I waiting for? Keeping Yourself Motivated Until You Break In. Turns out this is actually about breaking in to comics, but I think I'll stay. Societaly, there's no difference. The title quote is from Marcus David. He advises artists not to take it negatively when an editor tells you your work sucks. Trying to get into coloring in Marvel, he continually sent in samples, and continually was told it was "good, but not the Marvel Style (TM)." So he virtually copied the coloring from a contemporary issue of Alpha Flight. This time, the return read "one of the best color samples we've seen, but not quite the Marvel Style." Of course, we've suspected this all along. This was back when the Flight let in undesirables. From Dan Chichester: "Ninety-five percent of the time you're working alone in a room you hate because you're there so often." Dan's a writer, you see. A lot of editors, he says, well, there were no editors in the room, so perhaps he didn't mean that to spread around. Suffice it to say that you've got to be your own worst critic. And when you're a newcomer submitting, you have to be as good as the best, not better than the average. And when you're in? Well, editors feel that they need to earn their pay. They'd better edit something, whether it needs it or not. Steve Mattson is a penciller. He started out like most kids do-he drew what he liked, and let the rest happen. He liked ray-guns, helmets, and armor, and was torn apart by editors. His art included great ray-guns, but horrible anatomy. Nowadays, of course, Steve would be hired as an assistant to Name Withheld. This was supposed to be about keeping inspired, not braving the jungles of the editorial offices. Dan says to "keep looking for the things that inspire you." Then, the topic turned to proposals. Salesmanship is the key, he says. And proposals should be one page, double-spaced. Otherwise, 90% goes right in the circular file, and the rest goes into the toilet. Dan has been an editor. Is this his experience from that side? A one-page double-spaced proposal is a work of visual art as much as it is written. Each line is important, and the whole must show that you can articulate yourself clearly. "Editors," says Steve, "should be busy people." They're not going to look at lengthy proposals. Fifty percent of the writers trying to break in don't have an idea at all. The rest can't articulate their ideas. How do you condense a complicated six issue series? Every single line has to sing, says Steve. And Dan reiterates that you have to keep it to one page. "That's the key-if you send in more than one page, they won't read it." He then went on to explain that Terminator 2 and Aliens 3 were complex movies and could be reduced to one page. Remember that Dan has been an editor, so possibly his brain is just a little fried on this subject. And make sure you tell them everything in that one page! "They want to see that you have figured it out. Don't leave them hanging." Dan tells about a time working at Marvel: a prospective writer took the chips out of musical greeting cards-forty of them, one to each editor. A grand plan that failed miserably: instead of going off in the offices, they went off in the mail cart. Those chips were durable. You could stomp 'em and they'd keep on going. The disposal was singing until garbage day. But, he says, it was the right idea. "Be shameless!" Work with an artist, says Steve to potential writers. But all the good artists already have writers. You have to learn about art: learn enough so that you can detect potential. This, so the story goes, is how Mike Baron found Steve Rude. What about writer-artists? "Check your pride at the door," Dan points out. "Getting published is a great motivating factor. Paychecks are good too." Steve's cat pays the price for Steve's art. Steve recommends allotting at least 10 minutes a day to do nothing but create-write, draw, color, whichever you're aiming for. Do it for ten minutes, no less, and do it constantly, even if you can't think of anything. Write nonsense if you have to. And when you hear that plaintive meow, "the cat needs to be let out, but I can't let him out, because I still have three minutes to go." Good luck, Tabby. I recommend blues. "There's never any new rock'n roll songs written-they're all old blues songs." Dan advised ritualism. "Don't light candles or sacrifice animals," but set up a place to inspire yourself, a shrine to your creativity. An art table or writing desk, surrounded by things that inspire you, such as art prints, movie posters, inspiring quotes, and Understanding Comics. Scott McCloud is everywhere today, and we'll soon be sacrificing animals to him. While "the smaller companies are becoming bigger companies anyway," Marcus David advises that you've a better chance of getting in, and a better chance of getting feedback, from a smaller company. And a parting piece of advice from Steve: "Don't ignore assistant editors; they wield a lot of power in the office, and they eventually become editors." ========= THE SAN DIEGO COMIC CONVENTION, Friday, 1993 STAR*REACH Saw Barb Rausch at the Star*Reach booth. In the comics field, she's currently working solely on the Barbi comic, but she's also doing work for Cut-Out Doll magazines. She was handing out samples of the dolls; my roommate's niece will love 'em, I'm sure. I wouldn't play with dolls. Star*Reach seems to be reaching out. They had three handouts, just like BMI does. Star*Reach Submission Guidelines If you would like to submit a manuscript, please do the following: * All story ideas, scripts, or proposals have to be typed. * On the cover page, include name, address, and phone number. * On a separate page, list any comic book credits you have. * The format of the submission should include: * A "high concept" (2-3 sentence them) of your project. * A detailed plot synopses (2-3 pages). * Character descriptions and motivations (major and minor characters). * Short sample of scriptwriting (2-3 pp), if your work hasn't been published before in comics, or an existing comic if published. Note: If the package consists of more than 10 pages, it will not be considered. There you are. Star*Reach is popularizing the concept of "fun bucks." "IT'S ALL EGO-BOO" Daryl Mallett's seminar on "What to do after you finish writing" focused mostly on novel writing. Daryl is an editor and a writer. Credits include Star Trek and Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. He has appeared in four shows of The Next Generation, after auditioning for Wesley's part. Who should you write for? "Anyone who pays you. When I started out, I wanted to be a science fiction writer. Now, I'm a writer, period." Computers are a wonderful invention. "I used to be able to write a novel in a year," he says, "now that I've got a computer, it takes three years." "Don't criticize yourself," he says in contradiction to yesterday's panel. "Write it and have faith in what you're doing. You are going to be your own worst critic." Of course, yesterday, that was a good thing. "Don't ever ask, 'where do you get your ideas?' If you have to ask, you need to leave right now." For critiques, you "show it to another writer." But then, "you send it to an editor. Writers won't buy your material." As an editor, Daryl promoted himself by writing promos, announcing appearances at conventions for himself. Established writers would say to him "Daryl Mallet! I know your name. What have you written?" "Oh, press releases, about myself." "Know your market." Louis L'Amour used to go to bookstores, unannounced, as he traveled, surprising and pleasing the bookstore owners. On format, he recommends J. Michael Straczynski's Complete Guide to Scriptwriting. It covers television, film, and plays. "Format major important," he tersely states. You want it on white bond paper. "Amateurism is unacceptable. Learning is." And, "don't be original! You want your manuscript to look like anyone else's. If I have Ray Bradbury's book in there and your book, you don't want me to tell the difference." Presumably, of course, this assumes you're not Ray Bradbury. "Writers have to have cats. You can't write in a vacuum, but 90% of the time that's what it is." You have to have a place set aside just for you. "Shakespeare didn't have a nine to five. That's why he wrote such great shit." When submitting, he says he submits to people he knows first, people who helped him. Then he does it in order of higher paying markets. Finally, "I have Asimov's disease. I want my name on everything." WRITING IN AN ART-ORIENTED BUSINESS The panelists were Len Wein, Mark Evanier, Mike Barr, Peter David, Steve Gerber, and Marv Wolfman. I would've gone to any panel they were on, even if the discussion was genetically breeding turnips. Len: "I don't promise to answer honestly, but I will answer." Mark: "Is there anyone in this room who did not create Cable?" Peter David did a vamping dance to buy time for Marv Wolfman, who was so dedicated that he risked a heart attack running to this panel. He was out of breath for five minutes, though Peter didn't dance that long. Marv: "For a long time, people bought comics because they liked the characters, the stories. They got involved with the lives of the people, with what was going to happen next month. It seems to have become 'who's drawing the book' instead of 'what's in the book.'" Marv: "Let's start from the other end. Mike Barr, is there anyone to your right?" Mike: (looking right) "Not in this room." Mark: "There's Rush Limbaugh." Peter: "My name is Peter David, and I created Cable." I think X-Factor was based on these guys. Let's hope they survive the cross-over. The panel count has fallen in recent years. Steve says that the amount of content has been cut: even during his last days at Marvel, "a page was a scene." Now, a scene covers 4 to 5 pages. Films and television also tell less story. Movies often don't have any stories anymore; they're just a chase scene or a big fight. Where have we heard this before? Mike believes that this evolved out of the Marvel style of writing, going from plot to character. Mark pointed out that Carl Barks frequently spent a couple of pages doing very simple things, such as "getting Scrooge's foot out of a jar." In DC at the time, stories weren't necessarily plot- driven; some were trick driven. "The story wasn't about Jimmy Olsen. It was about the Trick." And the story was a vehicle to get to the trick. Comic book stories had to have an ending eventually, said Len. We're not telling stories anymore; we're doing soap operas. If there's a choice between advancing the story and advancing a character, we'll choose to advance the character. First, stories were paramount; then, with Marvel, characters were. Now, nothing is. Marv had trouble with his return to Dracula. The artist changed everything, to the point where there was no longer any plot there. Marv would find it impossible to make sense out of it, and would clip his original dialogue and script to the panel and send it back. Only one page was ever redrawn, however: and this was because Marv was somehow sent the original. So he erased the last page except for the first panel, in hopes of getting an actual ending. Do artists have a better time of it? Do writers need artists, while artists don't need writers? Writers can function without artists, points out Peter: it's called novels. Commenting about the success of Groo, Len joked about Mark and Sergio recycling their plots, "But geez, that's only one story." Mark popped back, "that's a lot more than most comics." Marv outlined a scripting technique he used once to give the artist more freedom, while hopefully retaining the writer's plot: He wrote the plot at the top of the script page, and the dialogue at the bottom, and simply asked that the dialogue be able to be fitted to the penciling. Peter advised that you should cater to what the artist is going to like. Todd McFarlane liked machinery. So, Peter called for machinery when Todd was on the Hulk. Dale McKeown liked drawing hot babes. So, Marlo came back when Dale came onto the book. And the current artist hates drawing buildings. This was part of the impetus for sending the Hulk into space. This, Peter and Mark pointed out, gets better art out of the artist. Peter did let slip the true origin of the Hulk stories: "Bobby Chase hasn't quit, she enjoys writing the book." ======= THE SAN DIEGO COMIC CONVENTION, Saturday, 1993 ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING Bradley Parker, Janet Tait, and Peter Glaskowski decided to show up in person; Matthew Costello and the rest were presumably there in virtual versions. Peter, who once worked for SuperMac, likes to use words like 'disublimation.' Brad is an artist. He's done work for computer games, as well as standalone fantasy art. He uses Photoshop, and prints out at Nash Editions, owned by Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They did their printouts at 300 dpi. He'd done the drawing at 72. Gosh, it's 11 by 17 on the computer screen. Why's it turn out to be 3 by 5 on the printout? Doing art on the computer to sell brings interesting points. He did a limited run of 50 copies of the pieces on display. But, "there is no original. The original is a bunch of electrons." It's a completely new area, says Janet. It changes the definition, and even the usefulness of the concept, of 'originals.' The Macintosh has been involved with color printing and color pre-press for a lot longer than the PC has. This makes it, according to Peter, better suited for the problems of converting screen art to printed art. Specialized programs to match the two mediums exist, currently, only there. Computer color is different than 'real' color. Computer screens produce color; in the 'real world,' color is reflected. "What you can't do on a computer is mimic the way your printout will look under a different light source." For hard copies, printers will bring you outside to check if the color is correct. "Sunlight," says Bradley, "is still the truest light." Things are beginning to move to electronic versions. Project Gutenberg has moved thousands of non-copyrighted works to electronic format, and has millions more in plans. A Hard Day's Night is available in QuickTime format on CD-ROM, in 8- bit gray scale. There's a video backbone on the net, though it's expensive. Text is easier, of course, Peter points out: we don't need to worry about resolutions. If we change formats, all we need to do is re-read them into the new format. For graphics, if we read it into a format that becomes obsolete, we need to re-scan from the original if we want to gain advantage of the higher technology. We don't know what we'll have on our desks in the future, but we know what we won't have. We won't be able to predict the weather. We won't have artificial intelligence. "The concept of electronic publishing is that we won't read printouts," says Peter, but the "best monitors are 150 dpi. Linotronics are 2,500." Most monitors are 28 to 40 dpi. Adobe has come out with Adobe Acrobat, which allows us to look at a document regardless of what application produced it. It's currently available on Windows and the Macintosh. Soon, it'll be available for DOS and Unix. MARK EVANIER ON WRITING COMICS "There are not a lot of rules in writing anything." Mark Evanier has a personal crusade in the comics industry: popularizing lots of different ways to do comics. "How much time do we have? An hour? Whatever it is won't be enough." "There's no place to learn comics in general. If you go up to Marvel, they'll teach you how to do what they need this month. They'll talk about style, shading, lines. What they're really saying is draw like John Byrne. At DC, you'll get the same thing, only they want you to draw like George Perez." Where do you get your ideas? All the good ideas come from inside. Write what you care about, what you're passionate about. Do not be a comic book writer. Be a writer that writes comic books. "Right now there's about eleven people who, if they don't like your work, you won't get a job." And, don't shoehorn your stories into comic books if they won't fit. If they're short stories, write them as short stories. If they'll fit best as a novel, write a novel. Write plays, poetry, or whatever other format works best for the story. THE BASICS OF THE FIELD: SCRIPTING THE TWO-COLUMN METHOD: In the beginning, this is the format that was used. In the left column, the panel was described. In the right column, the dialogue was given. For example: PANEL 1. Winnie-the-Pooh crushes BEES: ARRGH! TELL SUZY I DIED the bees in his hand. WITH MY BOOTS ON! WINNIE: I'M SHORT, FAT, PROUD OF THAT. PANEL 1. Winnie-the-Pooh eats BEES: NO! HELP ME! the bees with a look of extreme. WINNIE: TASTES LIKE CHICKEN! pleasure. SFX: CRUNCH THE SCREENPLAY METHOD: This is probably the second most popular comic book writing method. It's very similar to scriptwriting for the screen. You describe each panel in a row, with the dialogue beneath each panel. For example: PAGE 1. PANEL 1. WINNIE-THE-POOH sees PRIME punch PIGLET right out of the comic panel. POOH is horrified, PRIME is pissed, and PIGLET is gone. PRIME: TAKE THAT, YOU LUMP OF CARBONOUS TEXTILE! PIGLET: AAAAAAAAAH! WINNIE-THE-POOH: OH DEAR! WHAT IS THAT MUSCLE-BOUND CRETIN DOING TO POOR LITTLE PIGLET? PANEL 2. WINNIE-THE-POOH ducks behind a telephone pole. You can see his fat butt sticking out on either side. WINNIE-THE-POOH: THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR... THE FUNNY-ANIMAL METHOD: This is probably the most commonly used method, since it's used for most funny-animal comics. Carl Barks wrote this way. Disney uses it, Archie uses it, and Harvey uses it. The writer draws the panels on an 8.5 by 11 page, and sketches the characters in, then draws the balloons and puts the dialogue in the balloons. The penciller is not going to follow your layout. But it will give you an idea of what fits. It forces you to think in terms of simple pictures. "If you are writing something to be spoken, you would read it aloud. If you can't read something you wrote aloud, a professional actor can't. If you can't sketch your own script out, a professional penciller can't." THE MARVEL METHOD: This goes back to the forties. Writers at Marvel would get behind. The artists would call them up, needing the money, asking, "where's my script?!" They'd talk about the idea. The penciller would draw it, and the writer would dialogue it. In the sixties, this was standard practice between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Stan would tell Jack what was going to happen that issue, Jack would draw it, put notes in the margins about possible dialogue, and then Stan would write the dialogue. THE MODIFIED MARVEL METHOD I: In this version, the writer writes a full script, telling the penciller the full plot. The writer tries to give the artist as much input as possible. The artist then chooses what to draw, and the writer writes dialogue for it. Mark doesn't like this method, though, and most writers he knows don't like it. You end up with a co-writer. If your penciller is Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko, a great comic can result. But it's still not your story. THE MODIFIED MARVEL METHOD II: Mark didn't talk about this one, but it came up at one of the previous panels on a previous day. Marv Wolfman prefers to write the dialogue along with the script, but some pencillers simply won't work from a panel by panel breakdown. So, for a while, he tried this: writing the plot for the comic page at the top of the script page, and putting the dialogue on the bottom, and telling the artist to draw what's necessary, and to make sure that the penciling allows the dialogue. In general, Marv doesn't like this any more than Mark likes Method I, but it does overcome some of the problems with that method. THE MODIFIED FUNNY ANIMAL METHOD: Back when he was working in funny animals, he was writing the Bugs Bunny comic, using the Funny Animal Method. He was way ahead with the scripts and Bugs was popular, so they went from eight times a year to monthly without telling him. "We were way ahead of schedule, I thought." Then he got a call telling him they were out of scripts, and needed more. This combines the Screenwriting method with the funny animal method. Rule the page out, like normal for the funny animal method. Usually in funny animals it's a four-tier page, with eight panels and one double panel. Script in the action instead of sketching it. If the action is difficult to describe, sketch it. This forces economical panel descriptions. You can't talk more than there is space in the panel. Which method should you use? He recommends the screenwriter method. If you're going to be the writer, instead of a collaborator, this makes it your comic. "There are writers who try to impress editors by making their panel descriptions poetic." Give the artist your basics. What's happening. Who are the people. How are they dressed. Remind the penciller about continuity, if you feel it necessary. If Batman's cape is ripped, for example, the penciller might need to be reminded. Don't tell them too much, but if you have to make a choice, tell them too much. Make things easy on letterers. "I've had letterers get all the dialogue for page 7 on page 6." Double space the dialogue. If they can miss something, they will. They're in a hurry and underpaid. Comic books are one of the only two mediums that use thought balloons. Musicals are the other. Don't be too reliant on them. Save them for when you need them. While people may lecture themselves in their thoughts, or scold themselves, they don't generally tell themselves facts they already know just to bring readers up to par. Mark worked on Welcome Back, Kotter, and some variety shows. These teach you to deal with deadlines. "They'll come up to you and say, 'We're going on in twenty minutes. We need the monologue re-written.' This isn't a time for writer's block." Topical jokes are a great idea, but you have to be careful. Sometimes you've got a four to five month delay. It's good to take chances and try to predict what's going to happen. With Mighty Magnor, they're doing better. He handed Sergio the script today, and it'll go to the printer in a week. DOING YOUR STORY "I was looking at the comics I was writing, and I wasn't in them." He and Sergio Aragones write Groo, and it's fun. But he also has some stories all his own he wants to tell. How do you choose these stories? Ask yourself what you have an opinion about. What makes you happy, angry, or passionate? When he was working on Blackhawk, the sales were so low nobody knew it was being published. Even DC didn't know they were publishing it. Back then, DC was much more security conscious. He was out to dinner with one of the head honchos and Marv Wolfman, and played a joke: "The secret is out," he said. "The secret is out." "What? What is it?" asked the DC staffer. "They know you're publishing Blackhawk." "Marv Wolfman passed an entire diet 7-Up through his nose." Before his comics were so personal, he got his ideas from looking at other comics. "Bugs Bunny hasn't been in Istanbul recently. Let's send him to Istanbul." He cautions us "never" to write autobiographically. Use the feelings, the emotions, and the energy, but don't write your life story into comic books. Don't try to put your voice into other people's characters. Control your own characters, and use them. He believes that "in five or ten years, going out to write Superman or Batman will be the lowest jobs available. The hot jobs will be doing your own stuff." The best comics are made by people who are friends. Find some friends to work with, to do your art. This is how Mike Baron and Steve Rude started. There are two ways to break into Marvel: have a friend on the Marvel staff, or come in via small publishers. Since coming to this convention, he's "been invited to work for five new universes that haven't been announced yet." This is a case of art imitating life, as anyone who's seen issue 3 of Magnor will recognize. You cannot be the Batman or Superman writer for DC. Five people are writing Batman at any time. He has these recommendations for books: A book called Auditioning by Michael somebody, for actors. It talks a lot about stuff that's applicable to our dialogue. The Season by William Goldman, in which he examines why certain Broadway plays during a single season failed, and others succeeded. He also recommends as much Carl Barks and Harvey Kurtzmann as you can find. Look for the Silver and Golden Age reprints, and the Dr. Strange reprint. "Understanding Comics I disagree with greatly, but it's fascinating to read. We have so little in this field." "I don't think you'll learn a lot about writing by reading recent comics." Don't try to replicate Sandman! Swamp Thing was Alan Moore's best work at DC. Mark's not a big Watchmen fan, and feels The Killing Joke was the worst comic in twenty years. Read anybody you like: they'll inspire you.