Sunday, December 1, 5:00 pm
So... okay.
It's another weekend where I have Saturday AND Sunday off. I feel somewhat guilty about having such a scheduling luxury, but it's not my fault. The only day of the week I request off is Saturdays and the rest of the week, work can do with me what they will, so I'll take the full weekend off gladly. Especially since it was freezing rain today and there was ice everywhere (PS. I work outside).
However, my wife and I decided to have a relaxing "reading" day and I really didn't do much reading, unless you count reading on the internet. Okay, I said that as a joke, but I could have done some reading for research, so there could be genuine reading via the internet that I could've done, but I mostly didn't.
Anyway, back to this relaxing "reading" day.
Yesterday we went to the zoo... and it was cold! It was
good, but it
was cold.
But, having a day with "nothing" ostensibly planned merely accelerates the amount of nothing I'm going to accomplish. I mean, I can't believe it's after 5:00 in the afternoon already!
Although, I did finally figure out how to get rid of these pop-up ads I've been having appear on my computer. Took some time to look up how to get rid of this program that appeared one day on my computer and has hung around ever since. So, yes, I actually did some
productive research on the net to find out how to get rid of this adware/pop-up thing and I followed through and did it myself. Yay!
And finally, I decided I should try to write another post and attempt to make some kind of dent in my 50,000 words challenge for the year.
I was hoping to either write one or two posts, maybe work on my STELLARA ULTRANOVA idea, too. And by work, I mean, like, draw. I actually did some kind of drawing on the character last night just before going to bed. I started VERY late and wound up going to bed around 4:30 am. Jeez. But I did do some drawing.
As I mentioned in
Part 1 (although I don't call it "Part 1"), I've been trying to figure out what to do with this stupid character (and I say "stupid" because she seems formless at this point in her "development"). At most, I have a name, a moderately serviceable and blatantly derivative name. And I know what my
IMPULSIVE INSPIRATIONS are, or at least, what some of the obvious and early inspirations originally were:
1. "Emily," a glamour model whose photos and existence I happened to unexpectedly discover one day on the internet last week and she made such an immediate impression on me that I wanted to use her as a physical model for a comic book character.
2. And I wanted to set this character in the sci-fi/action genre. That's something I've been wanting to do for a while, but I just never got around to it. So, I guess seeing Emily was my sudden bolt of artistic inspiration to try and finally follow through on that impulse, to some degree.
That's about it. Since then, the more I think about it (and Stellara), my ideas keep changing and I'm filled with more self-doubt about the wisdom of my choices and abilities to pull her creation off successfully.
So, yeah, let me continue there, with my self-doubts and the decisions I'm making because of those self-doubts.
At the end of Part 1, I think I actually convinced myself that what I want to do is draw and create something that I like, that I would want to read. Hopefully, others will like it and would want to read it, too. There's a lot of presumption in those last two sentences, but I think my age is making me the most aware of such presumption and apparent arrogance. I think if I were in my 20s, I'd be more focused on trying to create the idea first. Yeah I need more of that youthful, ignorant impetuousness.
Meanwhile, dear reader, let me show you this really sketchy thing I did before I went to bed last night/this morning:
And a little closer...
Yeah, I know. Big whoop.
But, it's a start.
When I went to bed, the last thing that was filling my head was, well, a few things, but foremost was fashion. I'm trying to create a female sci-fi character and part of my desire to do this is a result of my male genes. So, the references I'm working with are from the focus of an adult who thinks like an adolescent, someone who likes the way
Jane Fonda of BARBARELLA and
Caroline Munro of STARCRASH looks. Basically, a hot babe with strange and revealing (and impractical) fashion choices. At the same time, I'm hoping some female readers would enjoy reading this supposed comic I'm creating, too. Yeah, in my mind I'm envisioning a Venn diagram in which two sets overlap. Set 1 = Quasi-Horny Male Sci-fi Geeks and Set 2 = Somewhat Discerning Female Sci-fi Geeks. My comic's imagined readership would be the overlapping areas. Unfortunately, I don't think the sets are willing to intersect, dammit! At least, not in
this case.
Ah, well.
I guess I should try to work on appealing to Set 3: Me. Let's see if I can make a comic that I would enjoy.
Anyway, so in that drawing above I was trying to create some kind of outfit for her and I wasn't too thrilled with where I was going. I just have to keep whacking away at it. I don't really design costumes, so I'm entering the world of, well, Get-Ready-For-Me-And-My-Shitty-Designs. Part of me is hoping that as I try things out and I'll inevitably hate what I've come up with, but
then I'll be able to articulate what I specifically don't like, and then I hope I can articulate
why I don't like this and/or that and then, hopefully, be able to address those specific issues by coming up with ideas or drawing goals and strategies to
improve these designs. Yeah. I hope.
In the same way, I need to just start drawing Stellara over and over again to be comfortable with how she looks, too. To just get comfortable with drawing the character, you know?
Which brings me to another concern. Getting back to E., there is no doubt that I definitely enjoy looking at her nude form and the few pictures I've seen of her clothed
completely changes that dynamic. Well, duh!
Of course. What I mean, though, is that in those pictures where she's dressed, she's
still definitely attractive, but I wonder at MY abilities to make her just as attractive and interesting on the comic book page by drawing her clothed versus drawing her naked or nearly naked form. Of course, I'm presuming my drawing her character naked would be worth looking at in the first place, too. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of presumptions going on here. But seriously, I have a lot of doubts as to how well I can pull any of this enterprise off, no matter how low or high my standards and/or ambitions. I guess we're talking about the Jean Rollin Effect, a phenomenon, by the way, that only
I refer to as the Jean Rollin Effect. Of the handful of European Horror/Genre/Exploitation directors I like or at least seem to drift to, Jean Rollin is one of them. He specializes in vampire films, but has done zombie films and other genre exercises, including porn, though under a pseudonym. Anyway, of the films I've seen, I like them and his best ones have a strange, even charming, fairy-tale fantasy quality to them. But I think it also helps (me, at least), that he often has nude, attractive women in them. That's the Jean Rollin Effect. The inclusion of nudity (specifically female nudity) ramps up the interest level in the viewer. I'm sure my interest in his films would decline significantly if he clothed his actresses more frequently in his films. So, getting back to Stellara, I'm wondering if the main attraction to this comic would be simply seeing Stellara scantily clad/nude most of the time.
(sigh)
Meanwhile, thinking about the fashion aspect made me dwell on how inexperienced I am with that, so a wave of insecurity gripped me and I just went to bed somewhat miserable and wondering why I'm pursuing this venture in the first place.
And that's part of an ongoing intermittent discussion I've had with myself re: the appropriateness of tackling subjects I have no experience with. Speaking as a 59 year-old man, why try to create a comic book protagonist who's a young woman? It seems I'm inviting failure.
Having said that, at the same time I understand the criticism of writers and creators of a specific demographic (let's say, for example, white men) attempting to write characters outside of that demographic (let's say, women or any characters of color), but there are positive examples where that potential liability of inexperience has been replaced by the writer's imagination and ability to empathize and to do research, etc. I particularly remember the criticism Lena Dunham started to get for the HBO series she created, GIRLS, which received rave reviews prior to its debut and then critical backlash shortly afterwards. Specifically, as noted in this Fresh Air
interview on NPR:
"critics charging that the show is narcissistic, lacks racial diversity and showcases whiny, privileged millennials complaining about topics only relevant to whiny, privileged millennials." And Dunham countered the criticism by saying she wrote what she knew and she was reluctant to write of characters who lived and worked where she had no experience. Well, Dunham articulates this much better:
"I take that criticism very seriously. ...
This show isn't supposed to feel exclusionary. It's supposed to feel honest,
and it's supposed to feel true to many aspects of my experience."
"I wrote the first season primarily by
myself, and I co-wrote a few episodes. But I am a half-Jew, half-WASP, and I
wrote two Jews and two WASPs. Something I wanted to avoid was tokenism in
casting."
"I really wrote the show from a gut-level place,
and each character was a piece of me or based on someone close to me."
"And this is a hard issue to speak to because
all I want to do is sound sensitive and not say anything that will horrify
anyone or make them feel more isolated, but I did write something that was
super-specific to my experience, and I always want to avoid rendering an
experience I can't speak to accurately."
I wish I could find the article I read years ago that was critical of GIRLS' lack of diversity, etc. I remember someone, a man (I believe) who commented on the article who dismissed Dunham's contention of wanting to write to something she knew of and he used one of the Marvel movies as an example of how people can write outside of their experiences successfully (because, obviously the Marvel filmmakers were not actual superheroes), so her response was essentially bullshit. He was using a superhero film as an obvious example of how it can be done, because obviously the real world doesn't have Iron-man and Captain America in it, so whoever was creating these movies successfully were writing outside of their area of experience. And I thought that was a cheap shot and poor example. Because in that example, we're talking about a fantasy film. We don't have real superheroes around to criticize the efforts of how non-superheroes attempt to depict their exploits. And that's a cheap argument to his cheap argument, but still, I think his example is actually a poor one, though it sounds clever at first.
Anyway, I understand Dunham's reluctance to try writing those characters (at least initially), but for her to be criticized for it after the fact (meaning after HBO okayed the idea pitched) seems incorrect to me.
Of course, this discussion is about half a dozen years old already, so this conversation has now moved onto other
developments.
But... bla bla bla... because: For whatever reason,
I seem more interested in creating female characters. Most of my ideas are for female characters. Who knows why.
In my case, I guess I feel like creating another male fantasy.
Hell. Whatever. I should just try it and see what happens. Fuck.
Coincidentally, today I decided to check out episodes of ABSTRACT on Netflix to see if they had anything focusing on costume design, and to my delight, they did and it was someone I heard of, Ruth Carter, who won an Oscar for her work on BLACK PANTHER and who also did MY NAME IS DOLEMITE (which I haven't seen yet, but I really want to).
And it turns out that Carter's her first job doing costume design was in college. She actually auditioned to act in a show and didn't get it and they asked her if she'd be interested in doing the costumes despite her having zero experience at it. So, she wound up learning on the job. And after that, she then wound up being the costume designer in further college plays.
So, she more or less blundered into the field and tried her best while learning on the job, and built on her early success and experience. That's pretty much how it goes, I guess. Yay! And FUCK.
What the hell is my problem, though? It's not like I CAN'T draw. I mean, unequivocally I CAN DRAW. Having said that, boy, is there mucho room for improvement in my drawing. And again, the way to improve is to just keep drawing, over and over again.
FUCKKKK.
Man, these pep talks are getting to me!
By the way, I like how I kind of muscled up (oh, so slightly) Stellara's arm in my sketch above.
Oh! Another source of encouragement is knowing that Adam Warren's EMPOWERED comic series (supposedly) began as commissioned sketches for a "damsel in distress" which then progressed to him doing some short stories in which Warren piece by piece developed the main character and also added her supporting cast and developed her universe.
In that spirit, I'm thinking of doing a short, non-sensical story to sort of "test drive" Stellara's character and some ideas. I thought I'd try a little scenario that required her to do some action poses, and I even checked out some
Jack Kirby fight sequences for reference and inspiration.
Also, as I continue to contemplate Stellara's character/personality part of me wants her to be various things:
1. An ACTION HEROINE.
2. A SEXY character, although to what degree, I'm not sure. Like, to the extent of her occasional fashion choices and how revealing/form-fitting they are, and perhaps a pin-up style variant cover? Or perhaps make a point of emphasizing that element to the extent that the sexy aspect is bonafide eroticism with more graphic elements of sexuality and thus, the comic itself needs to be treated more like an underground comic, like a sci-fi version of Spain Rodriguez's BIG BITCH comix, or Heavy Metal's FAKK2.
3. And now, part of me wants her to be kind of GOOFY, ABSURDLY RIDICULOUS and UN-SEXY (at times) because I think a funny woman is incredibly attractive.
So, I'm considering a bunch of elements to deal with creatively and I have no idea how well they'll all work out in terms of my execution and in mixing together tonally and narratively.
OMG. Is it actually
1:30 am Monday morning?
I haven't been writing this post ALL day, but I kept coming back to it, adding to it and also editing it in stretches.
UGH. Okay, I'm done with this one! In my next installment of kvetching about Stellara Ultranova I hope to have more actual drawing involved.
Stay tuned!
PS. Oh, I suppose I should also add this crucial piece of information as part of my IMPULSIVE INSPIRATIONS list above:
3. I decided to do the poster/DVD cover for Beaver Alley Studios' film, A CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY. It's due in less than 2 weeks and I haven't done actual shit on it, yet. Hmmm, typical. Meaning, with regards to Stellara Ultranaova, this whole obsession I have with her has nothing to do with impulsive artistic inspiration, etc., but in reality, it's simply me avoiding working on the CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY poster. AHA! J'Accuse, Kimmel!
