Monday, February 23, 2009

 

comics / graphic novel artist wanted

I am seeking an artist to partner with on an original graphic novel suitable for periodical release.

Who I’m looking for: I know "ideal" may also mean "impossible." But to give you some idea of who I'm seeking, if you’re my ideal partner:
• You are skilled at drawing and at page layout. You understand how comics work because you’ve studied them. You’re passionate about this medium.
• You’re a responsible person who likes to finish projects. When you encounter difficulties, you communicate about them and address them rather than trying to cover them up.
• You like sci-fi and fantasy weirdness (see below for some examples of what I like) and are good at making up alien or fantastic creatures.
• You can draw convincing or appealing or cool looking scarecrows and dragons and robots and zombies and horses. (Actually, I don’t know if horses will be in the script, but if they are and you draw them poorly my wife will never forgive us.)
• You’re good at expressions.
• You want to be a collaborator rather than an employee. While I have a strong vision and strong opinions about stories in general and this one in particular, I want someone who will give me feedback and bring ideas to the table. I’m looking for someone who will enjoy building something together. (And someone who can afford to invest time into this knowing we don’t get paid until we sell the thing.)
• You’re cool with me exploring stuff about God and faith in the context of an adventure story. Whatever your personal beliefs, you don’t think it’s bad to ask serious questions and playful questions about metaphysical stuff, and you won’t be put off by working with a writer who’s a progressive Christian.
• You have a sense of humor that at least has some overlap with mine.

If you’re an “I can do it all” artist who inks and colors and everything, that’s great, but I’m perfectly willing to work with a skilled penciller who fits with me and the project. We can work together to find the rest of the team we need.

What you’re buying into: Here are the two pitches I’ve developed for this project at present. They may get refined as we work.
Short pitch: Chaos is a scifi/fantasy story of a group of misfits saving their strange home. It’s an adventure/comedy about accepting uncertainty and change. It’s conceived as a graphic novel but is suitable for single-issue release.

Longer pitch: Chaos is set in a strange world made up of a bunch of different, overlapping realities. Our heroes are a team called the “Salvage Squad,” a group of talented misfits gathered together to solve problems that the regular “Peace and Security Force” can’t handle. While their leader fights to get his team the support it needs to be able to operate, the squad stumbles across a plan to detonate a “reality bomb” that will keep the world from changing or, more likely, destroy it altogether. They overcome interpersonal conflict, departmental politics, a traitor in their midst, and zombies, robots, and various jerks to save the day.

At the moment I have about 40 pages scripted and a general idea of where the story goes. I’m working on a more detailed outline of the rest and will continue to produce script while I’m looking for a partner. I don’t think you’ll ever have to wait on me to catch up to you unless you’re some kind of superspeed artist.

Who I am: Here are a few relevant bits about me:
• I’ve always loved comics. I’ve been making a pretty serious study of them for about the past five years.
• I’m old enough to know better, which means I bring a certain maturity and stability to the table. On the other hand, it may mean I’m not fully in touch with the 16- to 24-year-old crowd.
• I’ve been teaching writing for over ten years and have written many things, including long projects. Although I don’t have any comics writing credits to offer you, I am convinced that I can do my part of this project, but I also realize that I will learn as I go. I want a collaborator, and I want to collaborate. And when I have someone waiting on me for something, I almost always beat the deadline.
• I’m going to list some things I like that each have at least one thing in common with this project. None of them are quite like what I’m trying to build here, and I’m not claiming that I’m near as good as any of these creators, but this list may give you some idea of my taste and my ambitions: Creature Tech by Doug TenNapel, The Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew, Firefly by Joss Whedon et al, Astro City by Kurt Busiek et al, Farscape, Mystery Men, Eureka. I have many, many other influences too, of course. But if you hate all of these, we may not be on the same page.
• I want to do something that’s cool and fun and funny and also serious and meaningful. I’d like to make writing comics my full-time job if I can because I think it’s exciting to create and because I’m increasingly convinced that real, powerful stories can do more good than most anything else I’m capable of.

Before I pick anyone I have to see not only sample drawings but at least 4 pages of sample comics work. Ideally these would be pages that you did from a script, so you can show me the script and the finished product. If you want to see something more from me, I understand and will try to comply.

If you’re excited about some of this but this particular project doesn’t appeal to you, I have a couple other ideas on the back burner that we could talk about.

If you’re interested, you can reach me at cymbaljack@gmail.com with questions or expressions of interest.

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Monday, February 02, 2009

 

They call 'em movies, not "newvies"

I have no observations on the Superbowl itself (game or the spectacle). I have observations on the commercials and particularly on the disturbing worldviews most of them implied (lots of misogyny and selfishness on display there), but I'm not going to bother.

I can't recall all the movies that got advertised last night, but three stood out to me because of what they had in common: Star Trek, Land of the Lost, and Race to Witch Mountain.

Yeah, they're all some form of remake of something old.

Now I'm totally geeked out about the Trek movie, which looks to be a lot of fun. (I'm not a J.J. Abrams fan, particularly, but there appears to be a lot to like there, especially Simon Pegg as Scotty.) And I'm not generally opposed to people revising old stuff. Some of the things I love the most are good revisions of old things. Battlestar Galactica is at the top of that list.

But it does seem like Hollywood is cranking out a lot of re-dos lately. It's not that people aren't making new and original and interesting things. But they don't often seem to come from Hollywood. And I notice that the two big comics publishers have for years mostly been continually ripping themselves off re-doing and re-re-doing etc. the same storylines with the same characters.

So I wonder if you have to be a little out of the mainstream, or a little out of the main money (at least) to do the bold new original and interesting things.

In any event, I wasn't thrilled with what I saw in the trailers for Land of the Lost and Witch Mountain not because they happen to be remakes or revisions, but because they look very much like they don't understand what the original had. You can re-do something old and do it right in different ways. You can remember what the original had and do that well, as we're all hoping Star Trek will do. You can honor what the original had while taking it in a different direction or poking fun, like the Brady Bunch Movie. Or you can discover the potential good that the original didn't fully realize, like Battlestar Galactica.

But Land of the Lost looks like they've thrown away all that was good about the original. Look, I know it had all the limits of Saturday morning 70s television. Acting wasn't winning any awards, and by even the standards of the time it wasn't sophisticated in special effects. But it drew in some serious sci-fi writers, and it was trying to be serious. It had some drama and some surprises. To turn that into a Will Farrell weird comedy vehicle seems like a failure of imagination.

Race to Witch Mountain appears to be in the same mold. While they haven't turned it slapstick, the new version looks for all the world to be a made-for-Vin-Diesel action flick. The original Escape to Witch Mountain was much stranger than that. It was about two kids who didn't fit in trying to find their real family. There was no need to put the whole world at stake (or whatever plot they've shoved on top of things). It was about ugly ducklings, outcasts who didn't fit. I'm not saying it was a great movie: it's actually been so long since I've seen it that I couldn't say. But it had a resonance to it that came from somebody dreaming up something original, something that meant something.

It's possible that either of those movies might be good in one way or another. But I think even so they'll grieve me. Not deeply, though. I know that if I look a little further off the beaten path, I'll find the original and interesting stuff. And one of the joys of our media-drenched age is that the originals of most everything are becoming more and more available.

Stories are becoming more and more important to me, so I'll keep watching for the weird, the original, and the true. I just won't usually expect it to have a big studio's name attached.

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