I've been talking with several people over the last couple of months about doing freelance work for them. Obviously some have come to fruition as demonstrated by Cary's post over at RedHandedStudios.com, but others have been floating around waiting to get nailed down. One particular person, who shall remain nameless for now, is doing something really great in the tech world and needs a solid comic writer to help him tap into the market. That is where I fit in... Over the last several days, we have pinged back and forth, amassing a lengthy email string discussing possible stories ~ not just one, but a bunch of them. If things come through on that both as a freelance position for me and as a business in general, it could stand to be very lucrative for both of us, which is great! I'll update more as I'm allowed, of course, but for now I'm staying relatively quiet about the details so not to accidentally give away something that's not mine to give away.
Back on the Faction front, KT is finished with the sketches save one, which I should have in my hands this morning at some point. All of the final touches on formatting, bio's, etc, are being finished up today as well, to make sure everything is "purdy" before sending them over to Ian at DimeStoreProductions.com. I'm excited to see what happens with the voting tomorrow!
On other projects, things have been very quiet the last little bit... Denman is working behind the scenes on the horror mini as he has time. Sachin is working on the detective story, finishing up the submission package over the next few days. God, he's fast! There's also potentially another artist in the mix, but I won't name drop at this time... If we work out some details, I'll throw his name out there, because I'm very excited. We're talking about him potentially being the artist for my fantasy book. He is a known artist, having worked for several larger independeng publishers, but he hasn't done fantasy before, so it's a new challenge for him. Anyway, more to come on that front.
That's it from Erik-land for now... Once Ian posts our round 2 stuff on the dimestore site, I'll be sure to share things here, the Faction group on FaceBook, and anywhere else I can get away with it so everyone can check it out.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Just two more days until voting begins for SPI Round 2
The sand is running out to turn in submission for Round 2 over at Small Press Idol 2009 (http://www.dimestoreproductions.com/). I find that as things wind down, I'm double checking everything I've written (again and again), looking at the images for clarity and little errors, wondering if I'm writing too much or too little in the bios, etc... At some point you just have to resign yourself to the fact that no matter what you try to do nothing is perfect. The trick is to do your best, put your best foot forward and at some point stop tweaking it. While reworking the pitch for Faction after it was called out as too long by the judges and other forum members, I tooled and re-tooled it. At one point I turned in a concise pitch, but then I lost pertinent information from it, which made some details which were critical to the plot disappear. Point to that is that the more you re-work something, the higher the chance that something that makes it special is going to be unintentionally cut out in the guise of efficiency.
If you're reading this and haven't already done so, please go sign up at the dimestore site... Instructions are in previous posts on my blog, so get over there, sign up, and vote for Faction starting on April 1st. If you're registered, you get one vote per day, so go back daily to vote, it just takes a sec. Thanks!
If you're reading this and haven't already done so, please go sign up at the dimestore site... Instructions are in previous posts on my blog, so get over there, sign up, and vote for Faction starting on April 1st. If you're registered, you get one vote per day, so go back daily to vote, it just takes a sec. Thanks!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Comic book life, universe, and evertything in it - another rant
I’ve found myself thinking a lot recently about comics, writing, how they fit into the grand scheme of things within myself and society. I have been emailing back and forth with someone about another potential freelance gig and part of the discussion is what you can really get out of comics, how they can change people (or not), etc… I just wanted to elaborate on some of my thoughts.
Comic books are an interesting medium. For the most part, comic books published over the last number of decades are disposable mass-market entertainment. Is that a bad thing? Well, no, of course not. Millions of kids were raised on a healthy diet of the medium, learned things about people indirectly through the exploits of their favorite characters from Clark Kent to Reed Richards, from Peter Parker to Hal Jordan, from Ororo Munroe to Diana Prince, etc etc etc… Intentionally or subconsciously, the writers taught children the meaning of right and wrong, standing up for what you believe in, why prejudice was wrong, and other great things. Somewhere along the way, though, it became more about bigger and bigger battles, what threat is there to the universe this time, and which heroes can we get away with killing, bringing back, changing reality, going to the future, changing the past… Well, you get the idea.
Now, what has changed? Nothing for the most part, but there is a larger group of writers these days who challenge what it means to be a comic book, throw in more reality to the medium, often hidden within the pages but there. Now the question is, just how much reality do you want in the comic books? Non-fiction comic books are around, drama comic books are around, but do we need a comic book about literal modern struggles or should there be a separation between the two? Do we need to turn on the news to hear about all of the world’s problems and then open a comic book to hear the same thing? I would argue not… Any life lessons picked up from a comic book should be subtle. Any commentary on the world should be done the same way. Writers through characters, villains and heroes, inspired by the real world but not of it. Again, biographical and non-fiction books are different. Personally, I would be depressed reading about the real world in comic books. Now unlike the latest issues of South Park, which are often created in a very short span of time, comic books are often months in development. A hot topic now might be moot in two months (supporting NOT making comics too real).
My point to all of this? Make comics real to themselves, not to our reality. Create your own, even if inspired by real events, rather than forcing “reality” down people’s throats through yet another medium, as if the constant barrage of tv, internet, newspaper, radio, and water-cooler sources didn’t take care of it on their own. Life and death can be contained in comics and still have as much impact as reality would, but events can be driven to a point with a little more concrete black and white resolutions over the real world. In the new show “Castle” on ABC, the main character, Castle, often looks within the “plot” of murders, thinking that the truth isn’t telling a good enough “story”, so there must be more to it. Unfortunately, in the real world the story isn’t always there. Sometimes violence is done for violence’s sake and nothing more. Though I don’t want to see another fifty years of disposable comic books, I would rather see drama in the books between the characters and the events in their world, not ours.
Probably enough ranting for now… I’m not positive what point I was trying to make for this except that comic books, while not disposable all the time, should try NOT to be TOO real.
Comic books are an interesting medium. For the most part, comic books published over the last number of decades are disposable mass-market entertainment. Is that a bad thing? Well, no, of course not. Millions of kids were raised on a healthy diet of the medium, learned things about people indirectly through the exploits of their favorite characters from Clark Kent to Reed Richards, from Peter Parker to Hal Jordan, from Ororo Munroe to Diana Prince, etc etc etc… Intentionally or subconsciously, the writers taught children the meaning of right and wrong, standing up for what you believe in, why prejudice was wrong, and other great things. Somewhere along the way, though, it became more about bigger and bigger battles, what threat is there to the universe this time, and which heroes can we get away with killing, bringing back, changing reality, going to the future, changing the past… Well, you get the idea.
Now, what has changed? Nothing for the most part, but there is a larger group of writers these days who challenge what it means to be a comic book, throw in more reality to the medium, often hidden within the pages but there. Now the question is, just how much reality do you want in the comic books? Non-fiction comic books are around, drama comic books are around, but do we need a comic book about literal modern struggles or should there be a separation between the two? Do we need to turn on the news to hear about all of the world’s problems and then open a comic book to hear the same thing? I would argue not… Any life lessons picked up from a comic book should be subtle. Any commentary on the world should be done the same way. Writers through characters, villains and heroes, inspired by the real world but not of it. Again, biographical and non-fiction books are different. Personally, I would be depressed reading about the real world in comic books. Now unlike the latest issues of South Park, which are often created in a very short span of time, comic books are often months in development. A hot topic now might be moot in two months (supporting NOT making comics too real).
My point to all of this? Make comics real to themselves, not to our reality. Create your own, even if inspired by real events, rather than forcing “reality” down people’s throats through yet another medium, as if the constant barrage of tv, internet, newspaper, radio, and water-cooler sources didn’t take care of it on their own. Life and death can be contained in comics and still have as much impact as reality would, but events can be driven to a point with a little more concrete black and white resolutions over the real world. In the new show “Castle” on ABC, the main character, Castle, often looks within the “plot” of murders, thinking that the truth isn’t telling a good enough “story”, so there must be more to it. Unfortunately, in the real world the story isn’t always there. Sometimes violence is done for violence’s sake and nothing more. Though I don’t want to see another fifty years of disposable comic books, I would rather see drama in the books between the characters and the events in their world, not ours.
Probably enough ranting for now… I’m not positive what point I was trying to make for this except that comic books, while not disposable all the time, should try NOT to be TOO real.
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