Lynda Barry Seminar 2009

Writing the Unthinkable

I'm on a roll now. 2008 started with an inspirational, ass-kicking symposium with Massive Black's Revelation event in Seattle, Washington. This year's ass-kicker was Lynda Barry's Writing the Unthinkable two-day seminar at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. Lynda was funny, informative, witty and a diligent taskmaster getting us all to write and write and write over two days. The goal was not to critique, but to write. Folks read their work (me too) without fear of attacks and the stuff was pretty magical for first draft, 8 minute, out-of-the-blue prose. It has given my vampire project a needed boost in the writing department. I have been writing dialog and scenes I like, but this has given me the insight (I think) to really get to the heart of the matter in these scenes. A great start to 2009 thanks to the Queen Bee, her badass self, Lynda Barry.


Me and Lynda Barry

Busy, Busy, Busy

It's been a month since my last post. Why, you ask? Well, three things:
• The Devil's Candy Store and the San Diego Comic-Con 2008
• WildClaw Theatre's second season promotion
• The First Fear



There will soon be a new website for The Devil's Candy Store as we venture into the selling of exotic contraband from impossible worlds. We are working with author, LA Banks, and using her Vampire Huntress novel series as our first impossible world. Tony Swatton of Sword and Stone building the vampire killing sword, Madame Isis, and its sister dagger, both to be displayed in San Diego this July. We'll be auctioning off the one of the kind hero sword and you can pre-order the dagger.



Craig Elliott, a Devil's Candy Store artist, is designing some Vampire Huntress based jewelry for the show and will be one the concept artists contributing to our limited edition book featuring characters, Damali Richards and Carlos Rivera of the Vampire Huntress series. Other artists planning to be in the book are:
• Dave Dorman
• Craig Elliott
• Tom Baxa
• Peter Bergting
• Cyril Van Der Haegen
• John VanFleet
• Eric Battle
• Alex Wald
• Ray Frenden
• and me



A new website is in the making for WildClaw Theatre as we gear up for our next set of productions and a couple of benefits. The first benefit will be June 22nd at The Four Moon Tavern. Stay tuned for the Pagan details.



And lastly, I had an excellent story consultation with Charley Sherman on my comic book (and possible play), The First Fear. The story is finally coming together into a solid narrative. Yeah, baby!

The First Fear Lives

It has been an exciting 2008 so far. I started with ConceptArt.org's Revelations art orgy in Seattle, did 8 large paintings and a big sculpture for the play, we opened The Great God Pan, in connection with that I interviewed Clive Barker and seem to be starting a biz relationship with Weird Tales magazine. Sue had her baby! We got a visit from Donna. The Devil's Candy Store is ramping up again. And...

I'm back on The First Fear story. I have a beginning, middle and end. I have a cast of characters and I have scenes. I have themes and character arcs. I will soon have sketches and dialog. All the research and all the sketching and thinking and writing came together this weekend.

What did it? Imagining how I would do it as a play in a little blackbox theater with a small cast and limited resources. The blessing and the curse of a comic book is it's limitless potential. You can have millions of characters, endless scenes, thousands of costume characters and it can go on for decades. A two hour, low budget play is quite another story. I've always worked better under restraints (or is that - in restraints?) and thinking this way is just what I needed.

more soon...

New Horror

One of my favorite things to do is create posters for the theater. I am currently working on one for my friend Charley Sherman's WildClaw theater troupe. It is an adaptation of the seminal horror classic, The Great God Pan. Here are some sketches showing some progress towards the final piece.



After reading the script (but before I spoke with the director/adaptor, Charley), I took a stab at an image that would capture the essence of the play. These elements seemed to be a Victorian leading lady with creepy monsters. The sketch is a lady with her face in partial shadow and monsters creeping from beneath her skirt. After showing this to Charley, we discussed the play and realized this image was wrong for many reasons, including possibly giving too much away. Plus, it wasn't a "grabber".



The next thought was much more "Alien" chestburster. More movement and more possibilities with composition. And Charley liked that it read HORROR play much more than the first.



Charley was wondering if we should place some monsters into the scene, as they would be in the actual play.



We wrapped up our two and a half hour discussion confident that I had a handle on several ideas for the poster. One issue was trying to find a POV for the lead character in the poster. Should she be looking straight at the viewer? I gave that a stab here to think about it. I don't always sketch the whole poster, just the part I want to play with.



It wasn't quite working, so I went back to thumbnails of the whole design and settled upon a centered image of the woman wrapped in monsterous tentacles that are reaching skyward. At her feet would be the other monsters in shadowy silhoutte.



I drew a larger version in pieces on tracing paper. This one is about 11" x 23". The proportions are off for the typical 11" x 17" poster, but it gives me the elements to play with. I took the monsters out, because they drew your attention away from the dynamic attention of her reaching up towards the title of the play.

I like this sketch and so does Charley. I think we're on our way.

Wizard World Chicago - Pre-show Press

Alex Wald and I were interviewed for a nice little piece by Michael Bonesteel of the Pioneer Press. Just in time for the old Wizard World. This link will take you there.

Inca Vampyr

The End of the Incas

Here is another iteration of a First Fear postcard sketch. The first pass is below (June 29 entry, top sketch), but I needed to go for something more dramatic. The mural in the original sketch was intended to give a place and time, but it is completely inaccurate to the time period in scale and intent. These postcards are meant more for mood and those in the know will recognize the Intihuatana Stone that she is standing on and place the mountain setting in Machu Picchu.

Currently no one knows why the Incas disappeared, in spite of many theories. Mine theory is simple - the Incas knew too much and were wiped out by aliens and their monster guardians. At the moment, the year 2012 plays heavily into the plot of The First Fear. Hmm...what did they know?

First Fear Thumbnail Wrestling

Wisdom teeth be damned, I'm moving full speed ahead now. I'm working out thumbnail sketches to take the script into the visual stage and using PostIt notes to do this. Those of you who think this is left over from my consultant days would be partially correct. I actually started doing this at the law firm, Freeborn & Peters, in the early 80's when I was creating my Ralph the Punk comic on their PostIts and copy machines as a lowly temp. (These were the days before they invented ways to track copy usage with key codes.)

I like the ability to move the sketches around easily as the story telling comes together (or falls apart).

First Fear - Mayan Bloodbath

Finally some news relating to The First Fear comic book. The script has now taken a shape that allows me to start drafting page layouts. Core story elements are falling in place and artwork will begin showing up again in this damn blog.



One sequence that is coming together well (and probably be the first to be seen here) is the Mayan Genocide story arc. It distinctly places our protagonist in a rather bloody light. This one will have it all - blood sacrifice, monsters, alien starships, and jungle temples lit by massive bonfires.

In other exciting news, I will be working with an amazing colorist on these pages. I won't name him just yet, I think we'll let the work do the talking, but I am thrilled at the prospect. His most recent work in the comics field is on an Eisner Award-winning book which should be going to press literally any day now. As soon as I can tell ya more, I will. Shh...

Sherman Part Three

The New Digs - 90% There.

The new world headquarters is in place and ready to roll. One more computer to add (plus some internet access), but there is plenty of work that can be done without those things. See you downtown!

Now We're Cooking

I started writing The First Fear in June, 2006. Today I finally broke through the myriad of story drafts with an intro I could work with. I have several intros and lots of background, but never really bought into my lead character nor the way I was telling the story to the reader. Until now.

I had been writing tons of exposition and scenes, but no cohesive story to hang a hat on. Or draw for that matter. I have devoured Will Eisner's books, Scott McCloud's theories and other writing tomes, but the one that really hit me hard was Alex Toth's critique of a Steve Rude story. Everything I was writing introduced the lead character waaay too late and took forever to establish the core of the story and where it takes place.

But now I'm in a happy place (for however brief that will be, it's good to find at least one happy place per project.)

The First Fear Ad

I'll be attending a small Comicon tomorrow in the western suburbs with Alex Wald and Dave Dorman, among others. I needed something to show for the work done so far on The First Fear, so I whipped up this screensaver.


The text reads:

They have always been with us.

Immortal.
Forever.

We have always been afraid.


And that's just the way they like it.

The First Fear
A graphic novel of horror and escape.

Alvamara

My work on The First Fear script has lead me to some interesting places. At this point the story opens with my own Norse myth revolving around an alien mountain lair near the coast of Norway. It involves Loki (AKA The Sky Traveller) and my lead character, who now has a new name. As I said in a prior post, Shakti (from the Indian goddess) is currently being used in the comic book world so I have named her anew.

The vampire protoganist of The First Fear is now called, Alvamara. 'Alva' being the feminine form of elf, which means eternal and 'mara' which translates to 'demon/evil spirit'. The 'eternal demon' works quite nicely for me.

First Fear Script - Thanksgiving Draft

People have been asking where I'm at with the First Fear comic book. Well, I'm actually at a pretty exciting place with it. I have been working on a new draft of the script and a much better story is coming together.

I had written a complete storyline and in looking at the whole I wasn't satisfied. It was a wall of cliches and fun scenes, but not much of a story. An 'interesting premise' entertainment does not make. I also wasn't happy with the lead character and tone of the piece.

A story about monsters can take many routes these days. Is it gothic horror? Buffy the Vampire Slayer - scary/funny/ironic/hip? Hellblazer social commentary/character study/bloody violence? Saw/Hostel/Chainsaw - all gore, all the time? Well, none of those appealed to me nor was I capable of writing one well. What is coming out now is historical science fiction meets Ms. Indiana Jones (as Cthulhu) covered in blood. Think of a bloody immortal running amok through Erich Von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods.

I had originally named my lead character, Shakti, but a new, high profile line of comicbooks with Indian heroines has put a kabosh on that one. Damn.

Writing in a hospital can also put a new spin on a project. My father, who is 89, fell last week and broke his hip. I have been spending about 10 hours a day with him and writing in his room when he sleeps. At least today, on Thanksgiving, I got to feed him pureed turkey and pumpkin pie and still pop home for a great dinner that Julienne slaved over.

Research 'Til Your Eyes Bleed

What? No drawings? Not yet, they're coming, but Ray's comment on research gave me an idea for a post. And here it is -



Research for The First Fear:
• The Lost Tomb of Viracocha: Unlocking the Secrets of the Peruvian Pyramids
• The Atlantis Encyclopedia
• Machu Picchu
• Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization
• The Alien Files (5 DVDs)
• Arctic Mission (5 DVDs)
And, of course...
• The Occult History of the Third Reich (3 DVDs)
• Plus, every History Channel 'Lost City...', 'Crop Circle...', 'UFO...', 'Wacky Theory...' episode.

And we're just getting warmed up.

The Story Begins to Come Together

After having a few 4 AM epiphanies, The First Fear storyline is beginning to become whole. Or whole enough that I can start looking at the overall structure for things like: flow; exposition; and dynamics in character growth, action and plot reveals. At this point the visuals will be challenging as the story spans both locations and time. It currently moves from the Arctic (thousands of years ago) to Machu Picchu (hundreds of years ago) to Europe and WWII (decades ago) to potentially a Nazi-run present-day/future, complete with alien technology and occult rituals.

Much of the story is now motivated by the question of what would happen if anyone with a domineering, non-inclusive worldview actually found an advantage that moved a global conflict from tit for tat to a brutal takeover? I want to take legends like the Spear of Destiny (whoever had it was supposedly invincible, and it is rumored that when the Allies recovered the artifact from the Nazis, Hitler died in his bunker two hours later) and expand that advantage to technology. Technology that is alien in origin. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

It is at this point in a project that one can either be elated at the flow of ideas or overwhelmed by the immensity of it all. Especially if you're planning on doing it all yourself (concept, story, art, production, new software, etc.).

I'm excited.

The Origins of the Story

I had not intended to write a vampire book. This all started out with my hope of fleshing out the Ralph the Punk, Burning City, story that has been around in various forms since 1984. But in working out details for that story I developed a background concept that I was too excited about to leave as a backdrop. I felt it was strong enough to stand on its own. And, with that, I moved on to vampires. And all things dark and spooky.

Essentially, these creatures of the night, legendary embodiments of primal fear, have a purpose and a function. An alien function that answers for me why they exist, how they survive and why they are immortal. It is those original base fears that interest me and that is the reason for the title, The First Fear.

As I have been writing, the story has become influenced by two events in my life. One is personal and one is happening on the other side of the world. The personal side is all about dementia and it's effects on both the person with the disease and the people surrounding them. (And no, the vampires don't get dementia. Nor any other monster.) The other event is the fighting in the Middle East. Most pointedly, the battles between Lebanon and Israel that have wrenchingly engaged the civilian population on both sides.

The exciting thing about these influences is that they've taken the original idea of a basic action adventure story and given some depth to the characters. It has allowed me to move beyond thinking about just getting characters from point A to point B and into a place where I have check with the characters first before the plot moves ahead. As I write the script I will not only be creating text, but sketches and visual narratives/storyboards/rough page layouts to help me determine if the story is working as a comic book. And to see how much of the story I can tell visually and not just through dialog and narration.

After this there will be more drawings and less talking.

Exposing Myself - Creating My Comic Book

My original intentions for this blog were to push and promote. 'Push' as in pushing me to get work done, because an empty blog is a sad blog and to promote some interest in what I was attempting to do with my creative output these days. Some events of my personal life have crept in to the blog and that's okay, but I am going to try and focus on the work more. This entry is an example.

I am in the process of writing a comic book. The book's final form, I don't know at this point. Self-published? If necessary. I am interested in putting as much of the process out there as it's created. Some of my fellow artists think it's a little nuts. I will try to be cautious of spoilers for the one or two people who might actually read the damn thing when it's done.

That said, I have been working on the script now for a few months in between other projects, like getting the Cafepress Burning City store up and running and getting ready for Wizard World. Well, those things are functioning or done and while there are always other distractions I am going to make the comic book a priority.

I would like to treat this like the ongoing production diary of a movie. Show the process, it's pitfalls, it's triumphs and, ultimately, how a project like this gets done. Or not.

I'm So Sick

The comic book I'm working on, The First Fear, has gotten another song in the 'inspiration' soundtrack. The band, Flyleaf, has a tune called, I'm So Sick, which works perfectly with where I'm going with the script. Their website has it streaming in the background, along with another song, Fully Alive.

Dementia has played such an integral part of my life the last several years I have decided to incorporate it into the story I'm writing. (And no, I am not the one suffering from the disease.) A meeting I had earlier today delivered the news that we were coming to a threshold I have been dreading for a while now. It's surprising how this phase of the disease has brought on an emotional impact that is far greater than I had imagined. You always think you're prepared.

I've not used my art as personal outlet other than to entertain, shock and amuse the viewer. After 35 years of making things, I appear to be at a crossroad where an emotional investment into this story may be of some use. We'll see.

Slow News Day

I probably shouldn't write about this ahead of it's time, but I am. Today's news from the Middle East (kidnappings, bombings, threats, escalation) began to bring a tingle to my spine like the NPR report I was listening to in the car at 8:45AM on 9/11. Just a sense of grand, terrible things in the works. Today was a capper to a week of horrendous news (kidnappings, bombings, threats, escalation in other parts of the world). With more to come.

That said, it did inspire an exceptional idea for a new story. This is a good sign. The ideas are coming fast and furious now. Like they should. Like they use to when I did this creative arts thing as a regular daily occurrence, like breathing.

Now I just have to keep my priorities straight and really maintain some discipline. I have put two or three projects on the backburner for the fall (the Sherlock/Shakespeare venture and Moreau, for example), but I'm very active on several more. These are: the Theater Poster Sampler; Ralph the Punk pieces; 'The First Fear' comic book; and the Burning City Store.

And now it appears I'm excited enough with this new idea to at least get the story down. It's a one-shot comic book that is a complete reaction to world events, tentatively titled, "This Is How It Begins".

All of these projects will be exposed here as they unfold, so stay tuned. I've even revived the old Burning City tagline, because it seems so appropriate these days - 'The Dream That Kicks".