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...but is it a comic?
Comic books are a fascinating medium. Of all the ways to tell the stories that play out through my mind, comic books are the most compelling. In the getting to it, I have worked with artists:
House of Senl: Seng in Hell - a comic book storyline written in prose form about a wizard trapped alone in a far distant future who sends her parasitic alter-ego to
another reality in search of food, energy and help. In the new reality she finds friends who are very much like her own family - but different, too. She
has to find new ways to deal with old baggage and bad relationships from her past.
I also wrote a formal script for a graphic novel, which I have been showing to artists and publishers alike:
Wings - an adult graphic novel, entirely scripted. It is about a romance between a detective and a woman with large leathery wings. The hero finds
himself caught up in a mysterious war that takes place just out of sight of "normal" society.
And finally, I have also proceeded on my own with text comics. These are the most difficult to shop around. I have encountered some predictable barriers. But I believe that if comic enthusiasts can get their heads around the concept, they may find that they enjoy them in the same way as standard comics.
I ask one favour before you visit the comics I'm about to list. Either read the rest of this page first, or at least come back and read it if you find yourself questioning the validity of the issues I've posted.
Bones Of the Magus - a four part comic book series about an ambitious wizard prince who wakes up dead, and how he deals with his new isolation, the
ends of his dreams and the complications of being a skeleton.
Seng Atuesc - a long comic book series (issue one is completed) about two young girls who survive a pirate attack on an interstellar cruise ship. They stow
away on the pirate ship, only to find themselves trapped in a distant sector, trying to stay out of slavery, and then trying to escape it.
...but some readers said
"It's not really a comic book."
When I started the first comic in this form (Bones of the Magus) I was trying to be practical. I had been inspired by an episode of Prisoners of Gravity, a Canadian SF and comic book TV series, to stop putting my projects off just because I couldn't find an artist who would commit and live up to it.
Harlan Ellison was the interview guest, and used his usual tact. He didn't exactly say "Get up and just start writing", it was something more along the lines of "Don't walk up to me and call yourself a writer if you don't write for a living", but I realized that he was right, and I needed to get on with it. I didn't quit my job. I suppose he might be disappointed with that.
Another influence was postcard stories. They have been a fascination of one or two of the professors at the University of New Brunswick. The concept is simple: write an entire story, with a plot and characters, a beginning middle and end - all in the space of a postcard. The challenge to create images in the mind that carry the story forward without all the usual stuff of prose stimulates creativity.
I had the first half of the first issue of Bones of the Magus done before I encountered my third influence.
Prisoners of Gravity's host, Rick Green, mentioned Scott McCloud during one of his shows. He talked about the book Understanding Comics, but I missed the author's name, and got the title wrong when I went rushing around the house looking for a pen and paper. It took an off-hand comment from a comic shop owning friend before I picked up on the real name and was able to buy the book.
Until I read what McCloud had to say about comics, I had been apologising to everyone about the lack of "art". I really liked drawing with words, but I knew that nearly everyone else believed that it wasn't a comic unless it had pictures (graphics), and I resigned myself to thinking the project was incomplete. I feel that Understanding Comics gave me permission to write the pictures out my way.
McCloud says:
Words -- are the ultimate abstraction. Most American comics, notably comic books, have long emphasized the differences between words and pictures. Writing and drawing are seen as separate disciplines, writers and artists as separate breeds--and "good" comics as those in which the combination of these very different forms of expression is thought to be harmonious. But just how "different" are they?
(Understanding Comics p.47)
The two samples I have posted on this site are my first projects.
If there still needs to be defense of the form I work with, then I propose this argument: as non-traditional as the presentation is, I've still kept to some fairly tried and true comic book definitions (I adore the alternative approach, but I have a point to prove here).
My comics have a lot of very typical comic-booky things going for them:
- They tell comic book type stories. There's an SF line, some fantasy, strange powers, gimmicky gadgets, odd looking heroes some KA-POW violence, some goofball antics and surprise discoveries from time to time.
- They have comic book pace. Like daytime TV, comics are a soap opera of character growth. My stories have long arcs and smaller (issue sized) plots.
- The panels and the pages are part of the pace. I read Will Eisner's book Comics and Sequential Art before I read Understanding Comics. I comprehend the importance of using the page. These stories have moments and movement expressed through the panels with a focus on the image created.
- Narrative boxes move the story forward. They help with which panel to read in what order.
They're even yellow.
- Thought bubbles, dialogue balloons and captions: They fit the panels and don't exceed the moment of the image they are in.
- Within the panels themselves, the moment being described is kept singular. The panels move the story forward moment by moment.
I'm interested in feedback about my work. I'd like to hear what you have to say about how I write. I have no intention of backing down from my claim that they are indeed comic books, but I like debate.
Contact: Tristis Ward by writing to comm @ houseofjanus.ca (just remove the
spaces)
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