After working on comics for a few years now, I finally decided to start my blog.
One reason I haven't' started it till now is that I've been working on writing comics. lets face it, notes and scripts aren't terribly interesting to read. The most entertaining thing I could do is to put my inspirations on here, movies, art and ideas that get my creative juices going, though if I did that it'd kind of be a jumbled mess like my mind is. And besides I already do this on Facebook.
But now I have a reason for starting this blog. In March someone asked to publish a comic idea I had. It's a comic I call the Minks.
It's an idea I came up with when I first decided that I wanted to make comics. The idea was to have a comic inside a comic. I had seen this before in Kurt Busiek's Astro City and Alan Moore's Supreme among other places. My interest in comics is extremely varied. I love superheroes, Golden Age as well as Modern, Underground, 80's and 90's alternative, crime, romance. The only genre I haven't gotten into much is Manga, but I suspect that's because only the most popular and sterilized ones come over. All the cool ones are left back home. Anyway, the idea in a nut shell was to have a teen age girl skater, after reading an old golden age comic, be inspired to put on a mask and help out her friends. This way I can change up the art styles and jump from genre to genre. It'd have a little Golden age Superhero action, Modern hero action, a little teen angst, and skating (a personal interest).
Well things happened and I got involved in writing a comic for an on-line friend. The comic is called The Brilliant Bella. The idea was to do a campy take off of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman because 1. the artist is a woman and I love how women draw women. Men always make women look vulgar. Women draw women super hot without being vulgar. and 2. I love Golden age women heroes (if you hadn't guess yet). I wanted to keep things simple because it's really easy to undermine yourself by biting off too much. We started off with the simplest premise possible. Bella has to stop a bank robbery. Of coarse it's being perpetrated by a mad genius, Dr. Bott and his monster robot.
Well the idea was to do about 4 pages but as expected it was much more complicated than I had thought it would be. Remember, I was a beginner writer learning the mechanics of writing. It's not a terribly original work but one that was very important to my development.
This went surprisingly well. Tiina, the artist was very fast and though the story flow had some major hiccups the art was pretty good. So I was encouraged to do another one with her, this time with a little more guidance with the continuity to make sure that the pictures adequately told the story.
For the Next I chose the the mad biologist ala Frankenstein for my subject, also campy as hell. With this story I gave her a group of friends named the Calender Girls after Wonder Woman's Holiday girls, though these girls were named after the months (May, June, April...sooo clever huh?)
This story went really well. I'm very happy how it came out. In fact I made it into a comic through one of those print-on-demand places. Though for some reason the company wont put it on their site for sale which leaves me the option to buy a bunch of copies at my own personal expense and peddle them. Unfortunately I have very little income or time to peddle them so that was that (though if you want one I can get one for you).
In any case I was already on to the next big project. Tiina, a Jewish girl, wanted to have something Jewish in the comic. I dug through their myths and found the Golem of Prague a fascinating Jewish legend to incorporate into a story! I was also hugely interested in old and modern Film Noir which I wanted to incorporate into it as well. What I came up with was Feet Of Clay!
This was planned as a 60 page graphic Novel, a much bigger endeavor than we had done till then, but I had read that Graphic Novels sell much better than single issues and I wanted to make something that we could sell. Also I felt that, judging by Tiina's previous work, she could handle a bigger project. Well things went well for a while but between Tiina's money problems and her health our comic went on hiatus. WE still may finish it but right now we are not working on it.
I started work on other ideas that interested me. There is always something in the back of a creative guys mind nagging him. I created a few other heroes to play with.
Then I came upon an idea I really liked. It was a noir story told with a kind of popular comic book twist. I called it Dusk and Dawn.
I call it a hard-boiled, supernatural mystery. The basic premisput on Facebook. I don't want to get too explicit (sorry guys, no penetration or felecio) but I don't want to censor my posts here. So we'll see how that goes.
One reason I haven't' started it till now is that I've been working on writing comics. lets face it, notes and scripts aren't terribly interesting to read. The most entertaining thing I could do is to put my inspirations on here, movies, art and ideas that get my creative juices going, though if I did that it'd kind of be a jumbled mess like my mind is. And besides I already do this on Facebook.
But now I have a reason for starting this blog. In March someone asked to publish a comic idea I had. It's a comic I call the Minks.
 |
This is the first drawing I ever did of the Minks in 2008. |
It's an idea I came up with when I first decided that I wanted to make comics. The idea was to have a comic inside a comic. I had seen this before in Kurt Busiek's Astro City and Alan Moore's Supreme among other places. My interest in comics is extremely varied. I love superheroes, Golden Age as well as Modern, Underground, 80's and 90's alternative, crime, romance. The only genre I haven't gotten into much is Manga, but I suspect that's because only the most popular and sterilized ones come over. All the cool ones are left back home. Anyway, the idea in a nut shell was to have a teen age girl skater, after reading an old golden age comic, be inspired to put on a mask and help out her friends. This way I can change up the art styles and jump from genre to genre. It'd have a little Golden age Superhero action, Modern hero action, a little teen angst, and skating (a personal interest).
Well things happened and I got involved in writing a comic for an on-line friend. The comic is called The Brilliant Bella. The idea was to do a campy take off of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman because 1. the artist is a woman and I love how women draw women. Men always make women look vulgar. Women draw women super hot without being vulgar. and 2. I love Golden age women heroes (if you hadn't guess yet). I wanted to keep things simple because it's really easy to undermine yourself by biting off too much. We started off with the simplest premise possible. Bella has to stop a bank robbery. Of coarse it's being perpetrated by a mad genius, Dr. Bott and his monster robot.
 |
| This is page 1 from the first Bella story, Bella meet Dr. Bott and his Mechanical Monster, written by me and drawn by Tiina Birgitta Räisänen. |
Well the idea was to do about 4 pages but as expected it was much more complicated than I had thought it would be. Remember, I was a beginner writer learning the mechanics of writing. It's not a terribly original work but one that was very important to my development.
This went surprisingly well. Tiina, the artist was very fast and though the story flow had some major hiccups the art was pretty good. So I was encouraged to do another one with her, this time with a little more guidance with the continuity to make sure that the pictures adequately told the story.
For the Next I chose the the mad biologist ala Frankenstein for my subject, also campy as hell. With this story I gave her a group of friends named the Calender Girls after Wonder Woman's Holiday girls, though these girls were named after the months (May, June, April...sooo clever huh?)
 |
| This is the cover for Bella meets Monster Rex! drawn by Tiina Birgitta Räisänen. |
This story went really well. I'm very happy how it came out. In fact I made it into a comic through one of those print-on-demand places. Though for some reason the company wont put it on their site for sale which leaves me the option to buy a bunch of copies at my own personal expense and peddle them. Unfortunately I have very little income or time to peddle them so that was that (though if you want one I can get one for you).
In any case I was already on to the next big project. Tiina, a Jewish girl, wanted to have something Jewish in the comic. I dug through their myths and found the Golem of Prague a fascinating Jewish legend to incorporate into a story! I was also hugely interested in old and modern Film Noir which I wanted to incorporate into it as well. What I came up with was Feet Of Clay!
 |
| This is the cover for "Feet of Clay" drawn by Tiina Birgitta Räisänen. |
This was planned as a 60 page graphic Novel, a much bigger endeavor than we had done till then, but I had read that Graphic Novels sell much better than single issues and I wanted to make something that we could sell. Also I felt that, judging by Tiina's previous work, she could handle a bigger project. Well things went well for a while but between Tiina's money problems and her health our comic went on hiatus. WE still may finish it but right now we are not working on it.
I started work on other ideas that interested me. There is always something in the back of a creative guys mind nagging him. I created a few other heroes to play with.
 |
| This is me doing the Eisner thing. Ever see the Spirit? |
 |
| This is my steam punk hero. No it's not terribly original but everyone's got to have a steam punk character to play with! |
Then I came upon an idea I really liked. It was a noir story told with a kind of popular comic book twist. I called it Dusk and Dawn.
 |
| This is my Mignola-esque version of Dusk and Dawn. Voodoo priestess Mambo Callie is floating in the background there. |
Glad to see you take this step.
ReplyDelete