Comics in my Inbox

Big movement on the comic with Ander. Had a bunch of sketches and layouts in my inbox this morning, and just couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

First of all, cannot begin to express how impressed I am with the artist. Ander is incredibly talented, really professional, and savvy enough to point out some of the problems with the proposed layouts in my script. Which, though it may sound surprising, I'm really glad he felt comfortable doing. It's actually why I script the way I do -- the whole simple 4-5 panels per page thing was a trick I picked up reading about how Dan Jolley and James Robinson liked to script for Tony Harris [no idea if Vaughn also employed this with Ex Machina... but damn, that would be cool]. It's fairly useful, as I'm sure Justin can probably attest, as it gives the artist as much leeway as they need to layout the page -- if it can get done in four panels, wonderful, if you need as many as the Gibbons Nine, go nuts.

Number of pages have swelled a bit too, which I also think is a good sign. Ander asked for three, I did up four, and in the end my four page script looked a whole lot better as five. And the only reason I shoved as much as I did into only four pages was because of the time crunch, which from the level of completion Ander's layouts have, I don't think will be a problem at all.

Without gushing too much, this has been great. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have gotten back to doing more prose, I love blogging, and screenwriting might well be my go-to medium. But I love comics. I grew up with comics, and no matter what I'm writing, while I may not be picturing a page, I am most definitely picturing that moment frozen in a panel. It is as much a part of me, as much a part of my passion as that weird, rhythmic dialogue I'm always chasing. And just like when Justin sends me pages from Calamity Cash, it was so good to have this e-mail, with these .jpgs with my words in comic form, and these characters, Mia and Ben, that I saw in my head just on the page [and I didn't even give much description for the characters to Ander, and still, it was like "Yes! Yes, that is exactly what they should look like!"].

It don't get to do comics as often as I'd like, because it is really hard pinning down an artist to that sort of commitment. But every time I do, there is just this freshman rush of excitement. I don't know if that will ever go away. Twain tells me it will. Don't see a lot of blog posts from Grant Morrison or interviews with Alan Moore where they rave like this.

I've gained a lot of ground when it comes to being jaded. But I'm young yet, nothing wrong with enjoying this feeling while I still can.

And big thanks to the Modern Mythology guys. If not for Eric's zine, I doubt Ander would have even contacted me in the first place.

It's been Thanksgiving for about 30 minutes now, though if you were on the internet at all today, you might think everyone is having it Wednesday instead. At least if felt that way to me. Very disturbing for someone who felt like it came on too fast... and I don't even really have plans.

Probably be another entry tomorrow. Thanksgiving day posts have happened before, after all, and it seems a shame to break with tradition.