It seems I've started another project.
A one-page comic book story.
The last time I did a complete
one-page story was almost 40 years ago. And I wrote and illustrated it, pencils and inks, in one day. Approximately within 11 hours.
So, I’m CAPABLE of doing this.
The main purpose for me writing this post was to try and come up with a one-page comic story plot-line and then try and finish it before 2019 and to detail my thinking process and progress. So, this is my little diary of how I'm trying to go from Point A (My Idea) to Point Z (My Completed Comic Page). That is my goal and that is my deadline.
This time, I actually have a little more space to work with. The space I worked with before was closer to a square, dimensionally, and now I’m using 50% more space than a square, my dimensions being 10”x15”. Also, in that first cartoon, I opted to add a “cover,” since it was a comic genre parody, and that also ate into my story space. This time, I’m devoting the entire space to the story. So, that should allow me a little more breathing room. I’ll take that as an asset.
Anyway, I’m going to try and figure out a beginning, middle and end to a story right now.
Okay, here was the original idea (SPOILER ALERT! Actually, this will be my last "Spoiler Alert" because I'll be giving away plot points left and right
throughout this post. So, hopefully I WILL finish this project and if I do, I'll post it and then add a link back to this post in case you want to read all the behind-the-scenes crap. So there.): A young, attractive, and spoiled couple borrow/steal a Chronocycle - a motorcycle time machine - and go joyriding through time. As they do so, they show their disregard for the past and anybody else. Finally, they visit pre-history, and while there, the young man is killed and the woman, who doesn't know how to operate the cycle, is left alone thousands and thousands of years in the past. The End.
Since then, I've been thinking about that ridiculous story line and I was thinking of making the woman a sort of pre-feminist, so perhaps setting the couple's original era is the 60 or 70s. And, also typically, I've been thinking of continuing the story, i.e. complicating my original creative intentions - a simple one-page story, natch! - which is how I typically, compulsively, perpetually start a billion ideas and projects of varying degrees of interesting potential yet NEVER FINISH ANYTHING.
So, in an attempt to stay on track, I'm allowing myself this out: this is the first episode. There! Easy-peasy! If I WANT to continue her story, it will have to be in a follow-up episode or episodes.
I've come up with the couple's names, Sergio and Francesca.
And then I impulsively and nonsensically decided to make them Italian and set it in Italy so that I can have them speak Italian! I think the idea of them being glamorous and fashionable just seemed Italian to me, hence.
But, then I felt I couldn't reconcile Francesca as this character I was thinking of, so now I'm contemplating a whole other
additional idea. Adding a third wheel, Beatrice, Francesca's childhood friend who now lives in the States and is visiting. Bea is not very confident and a more overt victim of gender politics and the general culture. But, for contrived reasons, all three wind up going back in time, and to Bea's horror, S and F get killed, and Beatrice winds up abandoned in a strange land and in a time nowhere near her own.
That seems more interesting to me (and maybe cruel, too, considering Bea's fate), but I can't cram that all in to one page. Or maybe even two, which is what my cheat was going to be.
So, I'm thinking...
I don't know what I'm thinking.
Okay, I do know
this. I want Sergio to be killed by a prehistoric, carnivorous kangaroo.
There. I said it.
Other inspirations/points of reference: Chester Brown's YUMMY FUR comic. The first issues contained short segments that seemed totally non-connected, but eventually they started to make connections and developed into the long-running story, ED THE HAPPY CLOWN. Part of me is considering doing the same thing with this story and maybe, eventually intersecting with yet another, and arguably more involved, time traveling concept of mine, TIME COFFIN: THE ETERNAL JOURNEY OF DR. ANACHRONIA SANDS.
Part of the YUMMY FUR attribution is the nonsensicality of the vicious Jurassic kangaroo, so to speak.
Anyway, no matter how nonsensical my ideas, for some reason I feel they won't seem as terrible when finally presented on the finished page. It'll just
be, you know? It is what it is. That's the theory. Sort of like the Indian Superman and Spiderwoman
movie from 1988. you look at it and wonder, understandably, "What the actual F?" yet, it is what it is and there is joy in accepting its weirdness for what it is.
Oh, also, I had this idea to have "Joyride" in Italian. When S and F talk, it's in Italian. Not translated, just leave it as is. Of course, I don't speak Italian at all, so the dialogue will all be badly google-translated Italian. Plus, I came across this link for Italian
slang, for additional authenticity.
December 23, 2:05 pm
OMG, I’m SUCH a loser!
Ah, I’m just kvetching about how hard a time I’m having trying to come up with a simple plot for this one-page story. Perhaps I can ask Laszlo for help.
I don’t know. I feel like I’m stuck on a perpetual loop of failure every time I want to do a comic book page, etc.
I’m trapped and I have to bust out. That’s the only solution. Even a really SHITTY comic book page would be a success. Start SOMEwhere. Then IMPROVE.
FUCK ME.
Alright, I have to go to work.
December 25, 11:42 pm
Hey, Merry Christmas.
Well, I seem to have survived getting to and through the holiday. But, boy did I spend money in the last couple weeks! I have to spend the next month saving money and also replenishing the funds I borrowed from our savings for the holiday.
Meanwhile, I really cleaned up loot-wise today. But, that’s not really news. Historically, I do well gift-wise on this holiday.
But, getting back to the subject at hand… re: this fucking comic page I’m trying to do.
December 28, 4:46 pm
Meanwhile, of the few fragmented 2018 resolutions I could possibly (maybe) complete, we still have housecleaning to do in preparation for visitors tomorrow after I get home from work. Oy.
I was hoping to have watched 100 films this year; I would have to watch 11 in the next 3 point something days. I wanted to have posted 50,000 words total on my various blogs; I’ve only reached half that amount. Argh. Oh, and also do a new one-page comic thing.
So, we’ll see if how many more films I can cram in (not eleven, that’s for sure). Let’s see if I can get to 30,000 words, maybe 35,000. And I’m still hopeful about the comic page.
Now, let’s do some vacuuming!
10:17 pm
Well, I did some vacuuming in our TV room and on the main floor of the house. Did some cleaning, some laundry, but was also kind of distracted.
December 29, 2:51 am
OMG, what am I still doing up??? I have to be at work at 7:30 this morning! Can’t believe I’ve been wasting time on the internet the last couple hours.
Plus, I should’ve washed some of my work clothes and I never did that. I’m such an idiot! I could’ve at least done THAT and then, even if I wasted time metaphorically jerking off on the computer, I’d at least have the wash done. Ugh! Stupid stupid stupid.
Okay, I just put a load of clothes in and in about an hour that cycle should be done and I can put it in the dryer. THEN I can go to bed and get up in a couple hours (around 6:00 am).
Alright, stay focused.
There are a couple things I can still do cleaning-wise while I’m waiting for the wash to be done.
Like…. Clean my bathroom and the downstairs litter boxes.
Okay. I’ll be back.
Oh, but first: another idea, “Segue”. I have an idea to do a page of just transitions, for lack of a better word.
I’m trying to think of an ending.
Basically, I start with one character and setting and then transition to another character and setting, yet the two juxtaposed scenarios are related.
The trick is coming up with transitions that don’t seem completely arbitrary.
For instance, I’m thinking of starting with a guy at his drawing board and he’s looking at a big fat blank sheet of paper (hmmm, wonder where I came up with intriguing scenario..?).
Then, we see the shadow of his nearby window cast across his drawing table.
It’s night-time but there’s a full moon brightly shining. The cartoonist turns to look out the window and his shadow is cast across the table. We see the shadow change from man to beast.
Then we see his feet walking.
December 31, 12:04 pm
Ah, screw it!
I’m apparently totally incapable of writing a one-page comic story!
I always keep adding ideas and complicating the basic concept. I don’t develop ideas, I make them more freaking convoluted!
Even when I compromise (i.e. change my own rules), like, “alright, maybe two pages, tops!” even then I can’t stick to my own guidelines.
So, I went from coming up with a non-linear story idea (more or less) and trying to keep it to just visual transitions, and now I have this much longer idea that also introduces my cats as characters. Then I tried to return to the one-page concept again by saying, okay, let’s make each page be a chapter. Or each two pages be a chapter. But the “story” is starting to get away from me, or should I say plot and introduction of characters.
In fact, now I’m thinking this might be my Apple Corps Comic story. Originally - well, actually, no, that’s not totally correct – when I last thought about my ACC story (that’s more accurate), I went from a sci-fi parody called “Close Encounters of the Furred Kind” which introduced my cats as characters as well, to a spaghetti western parody called “Once Upon a Time in the Backyard.” Aside from loose ideas for either idea, I hadn’t progressed too far with it. This supposed one-page story I was working on now, "Segue," which wasn’t going to be TABLE SCRAPS-related (TABLE SCRAPS being the title for my anticipated comic of stories featuring my cats), is now turning out to be yet another TS concept, but ridiculously I’ve gotten much further with it. So, I’m not killing two birds with one stone, I’m just slowly getting around to, uh, choosing a bird to kill in the first place, apparently. And, since the number of pages I need for my ACC story is (at least) 12 pages, I think this might be that story. For now, I’m still calling it “Segue.”
Cripes.
Alright, I have to fill the bird feeders and finish beta-ing a FROZEN fan fiction story by my friend Laszlo. I’ll be back. Oh yeah, I have a day off to end the year and a day off to start the year. Yay!
Oh, a weird idea. An obvious reference/homage to Acme products used by Wile E. Coyote, et al in the Warner Bros. cartoons, I’m going to have my cats use various products from the Chinese Li’l Xing-fu Toy Company. Visually, it’ll be modeled on Fisher Price products, but also part of the idea is Sanrio’s Hello Kitty products, which are ubiquitous and also weirdly far-ranging beyond just kid related merchandise. The Li’l Xing-fu (which means “joyful or happy”) logo/mascot is a perpetually laughing and joyous, chubby panda cub.
12:59 pm
Well, I did the bird feeders.
Since this one-pager is now a full-blown story and an intro to my TABLE SCRAPS comic, I’ll elaborate more on that universe. Here is the breakdown of the cat characters and some ideas I have for them or want to explore with them (so far):
ARGYLE – Modeled on our one male cat, Finn (short for Phineas, natch!). Argyle is fat and his main focus is eating. He’s also not the brightest bulb. Both of these ideas are based on the real-life Finn. I’d like to expand and elevate these ideas hopefully to more comic effect. In “Segue” I also wanted all three cats to be playing with some kind of Li’L Xing-fu product, and I had the toughest time with Argyle’s fixation. I thought about him wanting to put together a puzzle but he just has no clue how to do it. He doesn’t start with the frame or the outside of the puzzle - you know, looking for and putting together straight-edged pieces first - he just keeps picking up arbitrary pieces and then can’t match them. Mostly he buys these million-piece puzzles because he likes the pictures which are primarily of this glamorous feline celebrity he has a crush on, a seductive looking Siamese cat (no name, yet). So, that’s one running gag. When Argyle isn’t thinking of food, he’s thinking of this cat.
DAISYCAKE – Modeled on Minnie (short for Minerva). Daisy’s character looks the sweetest because she’s also dressed in pretty girly dresses and has a big decorative bow in her hair, but she’s clearly psychotic, gun and weapon obsessed, and hates mice. The mice in the comic are to Daisy like the Yancy Street Gang is to the Thing in the Fantastic Four. So she owns guns of various degrees left and right and is constantly practicing with them on mouse targets. Her guns are Li’l Xing-fu brand.
SPARKLE – Modeled on Velvet, our sweet, neurotic, long-haired black cat. Sparkle’s go-to expression is wide-eyed with her tongue sticking out based on the real-life Velvet. She likes to write fan-fiction, the specifics I’ve yet to figure out. She writes on a Li’l Xing-fu plastic typewriter.
NARRATOR/MONTAGUE FLAXBUTTER – The Narrator, a rooster inspired in part by Masterpiece Theatre’s Alastair Cooke and also the Mary Tyler Moore Show’s Ted Baxter. Namely, Monty would love to be Alastair Cooke in presentation and personality, but in reality and execution he’s more Ted Baxter. Fortunately, he has Hattie as an assistant. Vain and easily flustered, Monty wears a variety of toupees. I’m thinking of having a running joke where he interrupts the narrative constantly but from various specific perspectives: as archivist of the strip, as general foot-noter, etc. But each POV is a different get-up, so he’s constantly getting into different costumes, much to his sweaty consternation.
HATTIE - A young hen who seems somewhat relegated to assisting Montague constantly behind the scenes although occasionally spilling INTO the scenes. She’s much more together and composed than him, wears glasses, a bit chubby, sexy in her togetherness but not overtly glamorous. Eventually, you realize she’s got much more going on than Montague. Further ideas: she hosts her own horror show and dresses more vampishly, but still wears glasses. In fact, I had this weird idea where she doesn’t normally wear glasses, but when she does have to appear in the strip, self-consciously puts glasses on. It’s like her getting into make-up. Also helps Montague with various other behind-the-scenes tasks linked to the narration, like researching footnotes, etc., and a running-gag of him wearing actual different hats for different narration tasks which Hattie helps put on his head as she assists in his frantic costume changes (hence, “Hattie”). Although, I think she personally likes wearing different hats, so she’s forcing her fashion tastes on Monty. But she usually wears a cap behind the scene, and then something dressier when officially appearing. I like the idea of her character already but I’ll have to be patient and introduce Hattie later. I think I have too much going on already in this “Segue” story.
Arghh, I really should get to Laszlo’s story. Dammit!
January 1, 2019 10:31 am
Happy New Year!
OMG. So, I re-read this post in the hopes of wrapping things up, since it is 2019 now, and simply continuing writing about my work-in-progress efforts in another post or posts. But, I'm realizing I have two, maybe even three, different projects that I talked about here.
"Joyride" started out as a possible one-page story, then I stretched it into a two-pager, then it became a sequel to a longer idea: to clarify, I think "Joyride" would establish the characters of Sergio and Francesca and their impulsive, spoiled, amoral nature, then they find this time-traveling motorcycle and joyride through time recklessly and irresponsibly for the hell of it. I then thought about a darker ending to this story but it seemed like I needed more pages to accommodate such an idea. So, as a possible solution for the story, I added a third character, Beatrice. So, now I'm thinking "Joyride" could actually be a self-contained 2-page story, and then I continue the concept by adding Bea to the mix. But, things become complicated between the three characters during the time-traveling journey and they wind up in a prehistoric world. There, S and F will die and Bea will be trapped alone. How fun! Actually, the idea of this modern woman starting to experience the feminist movement in the 60s/70s and now thrown into a situation where she has to rely on herself to survive sounded like an interesting idea. So, that's the third idea, and I'll call it "Stranded" for now, with Beatrice trying to live and survive in this savage world.
"Segue" also started out as an attempt to be a one-page story, supposedly simpler in concept then "Joyride" and then, of course, it blew up big time and went in a completely different absurd direction. Now (I think... we'll see how long this lasts), it's going to be my Apple Corps Comic story, about 12 pages long, and also be an introduction to my proposed webcomic/comic series called TABLE SCRAPS featuring at least three cat characters based on my own cats [NOTE: We actually have four cats at home, but I have problems trying to figure out how to use our fourth cat, Pixie, as a character in the comic. Pixie's personality just seems different enough to be problematic. She's sort of the Zeppo in this mix, though for different reasons than the actual Zeppo, at least for now.].
So, where does that leave me?
Even though I started "Segue" because I had problems trying to end the "Joyride" story, re-reading my ideas and then considering "Joyride" as a prequel to a longer story with Beatrice in it, "Joyride" now seems like it could possibly be done as a two-page story, my original goal (well, sort of).
"Segue"'s weird evolution from a stand alone short comic to now the introduction to a regular comic series wasn't my goal, but it just worked out that way.
Therefore, I'm going to try and follow through on both "Segue" and "Joyride." I'll chronicle my progress on both counts via further Drawing Board Diary (DBD) posts, with the subjects being whichever story I'm working on at the time.
Let's see if I follow through on any part of this process, shall we?
Meanwhile, I did get to Laszlo’s story and he did post his latest chapter to his Frozen fanfic. You can check out Chapter 6
here.
(to be continued)
