In an elevator once with Rebecca Sugar during the first season of Steven Universe she was talking animatedly about comics, and different approaches. I was surprised by her enthusiasm, and asked her what it was about comics that got her so excited.
She thought about it for less than an instant before answering with one, weighty word.
“Freedom.”
I smiled, and nodded. As much success as I’ve had in animation over the years, and as much difficulty as I’ve had working in comics, people are often surprised by my interest in the page and panel medium. But Rebecca nailed it with two syllables.
Freedom.
No notes. No interference. No following trends. Just you, and some paper, and… magic.
There are Gatekeepers everywhere you turn in LA. A terrific visual example is the picture of a famous writer with his feet propped up quite high on the spec scripts he’d written over the years, while proudly holding out his first sale. Most people see that as the key to success. Diligence. Sacrifice.
I look at that picture and it makes my skin crawl. I think of that pile of imaginative ideas no one will ever see.
One of the worst truths about selling ideas in LA is the fact that in order to pitch an idea you must love it. Be passionate about it. Believe in it wholeheartedly.
And then put it in a drawer when no one wants to buy it. Or pile it atop the other ideas you’ve loved, been passionate about, and believed in wholeheartedly, to use as a footrest.
But those ideas remain in your subconscious. Forever. And eventually there’s a logjam of material vying for time and space in your brain, none of it getting out or being seen, and after a while it eats at your brainpower, and your soul. I get queasy just thinking about it.
Consequently, my first rule of advice for anyone asking about selling their idea is “finish it!” If it’s only in your head it will eat you alive, and no one will ever have a chance to know the wonder of it.
Which brings me back to comics. And freedom.
I’m a visual storyteller. It’s how my head works. So comics are a natural fit. But they are expensive to produce, and your sales are limited to comic book retailers who want to carry your book. You’re lucky if you can sell a single copy in today’s market. Even back in the day when I was publishing WorldWatch it didn’t pay it’s bills, and that was almost twenty years ago.
But it haunts my brain, sometimes.
The idea was a superhero team as if they existed in reality. Superheroes as Rock Stars, a satire on the superhero genre, the sexism inherent in it, and the medium as a whole as it had developed—similar in tone to The Boys.
(Aside: WorldWatch, appeared 2 years earlier, in 2004. And I’m not claiming any infringement. I believe in the cosmic unconscious, most superheroes were tending ‘realistic and dark’ at that time, and I only wish the brilliant Garth Ennis would steal from me. Please, Garth, steal from me. The story of WorldWatch was very different, anyway. In the fourth issue the main characters lose their powers, and it would have become a human thriller about former superheroes battling against super powered monsters who had once been their friends.)
I wanted to find ways to finish the damn thing off, mostly to get it out of my brain where it no longer belonged.
Which brings me to digital. And even greater freedom.
Years ago I met this really interesting guy named Mark Badger. He had an idea for ‘publishing’ comics on the computer by making the panels into frames of a Quicktime. You would load them all sequentially, save the QT, then step through it frame-by-frame to read the story.
It was a bit clunky and awkward (and really small, at 320 x 240), but the idea felt like gold, to me. As a comics creator for some years already, I hated the idea that readers could see some big story point on the facing page, long before you were supposed to know about it. Or worse, that people could go into a comics shop and self-spoil all the good bits by thumbing through the latest issues. (Did anyone actually get that full page splash of the nude Betty Page in the Rocketeer home before someone showed it to them? Usually the second you walked into the store?) Badger had found a way to give you back the ability to surprise a reader, a storytelling necessity that was missing from print comics.
I played with the idea a lot, but could never make it work for people. With the help of some friends I even built an early ‘slideshow’ version of the first half of the first issue of WorldWatch. People thought the idea was fun, but saw no potential. Most everyone I knew preferred to read comics in print form, preferably on the toilet. It was that nostalgic feeling they loved. The texture. The smell. Pulp paper and cheap printing, I mean. Not whatever was going into the can.
I even switched over to using CG for the art in an effort to make it more “realistic.”
Still a ‘no go.’
And yet this way of delivering comics stories is why I was so excited about Guided View. I thought ComiXology had cracked that nut. Sadly, they cracked it for people who prefer their nuts uncracked. The nostalgic ‘fun on the toilet’ people. Even if they used ComiXology, the general fans still read their comics in full-page mode. Didn’t matter that the reading experience was far superior in Guided View, when the stories were well told.
That’s even how we pitch storyboards to preview episodic storytelling in animation. Text, and images, one frame at a time, onscreen in the same format the final show will also be seen.
Comics.
Far superior to the old process of pinning the boards on every wall—IMHO—if you want a genuine audience reaction to your work. Having everyone come in to review (spoil) your boards before the pitch always seemed like insanity to me. How can you gauge audience response if your viewer has seen all your best jokes, and dramatic moments? That method always felt like—as a writer—watching people thumb through new comics off the rack. People will say “No Spoilers” for every movie, but this is how they pitch boards? And then go into a shop on Wednesdays and scan every page of a comic before buying it? Really people? I mean… really?
Leap ahead a few years, and the ‘adult’ animation industry is flowing along in the success wake of Love, Death, and Robots. Netflix was supposedly interested in something similar, but with more solid story content that could reach an even wider audience. So I took some of my old comics ideas and made a few rough CG animatics from them as a pitch tool for a romance series to be called Love—with very little death, and only the occasional robot. As you can see by the two covers here, it was profoundly inspired by that brilliant flash of Simon and Kirby lightning called Young Romance.
But almost as fast as the Netflix query got put out there, it was withdrawn, and I had what you’ll find linked below as my first attempt at an adult, fantasy fairy tale romance story that could easily be animated in CG, hopefully well beyond that strange little place out on route 69 we all fear to visit… The Uncanny Valley.
I still like this method as a way to tell comics. No animation needed, no weird Valleys in sight.
So we’ve come full circle.
But…
But.
The world is a different place, now. People routinely read on their devices, and prefer them to paper. Print really does seem to be dead. It’s too expensive. It’s heavy to ship. It’s too expensive. Consequently the low-selling American Market is boned and dry. Could the world finally be ready for Mark Badger’s genius?
I believe so. WebToons is making it work. But it could be done better. Check it out and see for yourself. Imagine it with music.
Even if you decide it doesn’t work for you, think outside the box. Come up with ways to make money on your project, no notes, no interference.
Freedom.
Did I mention this was a pitch for the adult animation market of Love Death and Robots? I think I did. So Be Warned. Nudity and foul language ahead.