Work in progress: EATING AN ELEPHANT - PART II

Eating an Elephant, part II

This is a meticulous description of how I work on a graphic novel. You can read the first part of three here.

After the script is done, I start breaking down the pages. I do scribbles along the way, letting images come to my mind as I go through the script. With “Stiletto”, I put together a binder of 60 sheets of white paper that I did the layouts on. Every time I had an idea how to do a scene, I pulled out my mock-up of the book (seen below). As you can see, the layouts are really loose, and make no sense to anyone but me without the script.

Having done the layouts of most pages, I start scanning my stick figures and putting them in an InDesign document. I put in bars between panels, so I wouldn’t have to waste time measuring up borders and gutters later. I copy the dialogue from my script and set the text, and turn down the opacity of the scribbles, so I can print out the InDesign document and sketch directly on the oversize print out. This is a great psychological trick that prevents the fear from sneaking in. After all, it’s only a crappy printout, so I don’t care about making mistakes.

Cleverly avoiding that dreaded blank page I transfer the borders and word balloons on a nice piece of drawing board. I ink the pictures in pencil, so there is still plenty of room for mistakes. With The Devil’s Concubine I wanted a slick, crisp inking. Unfortunately, that’s not what my hand wanted. It took forever, trying to get the damn lines just right.

So I’ll let my hand decide this time.

More in part III.

Top 10: TRAVELLING TIPS

I've been travelling a great deal lately, and I've tried to make the most it. Here's my top 10 tips for flying off to conventions.

• Carry-on luggage only. No need to worry about waiting time and lost luggage.
• Never pack more than one pair of - comfortable - shoes.
• Take off your belt and put the contents of your pockets in your bag before going through security. Saves you the time and the humiliation of having to fumble with keys and loose coins while people are waiting for you.
• Bring a book! Great for passing time on the flight - and even standing in line at the airport. Give the book away once you've read it, less to carry home.
• Sort business cards in useful and useless! Take notes on the cards, follow up by email or Facebook to important people, so you keep each other in mind.
• Leave wallet and home keys at the hotel, carry only credit card and loose cash around.
• Don't bring too many of your own publications for sale etc. Psychologically it's better to sell out than to carry half your load back home with you.
• If you have to bring a laptop, get the lightest one they have. An iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch can do most of what you need to do on the road anyway.
• Prepare. If you know there's someone you want to meet, Google their photo, so you know what they look like if you spot them at the convention.
• Set specific goals to what you need to do. Be realistic. Better to write down "talk to three publishers" than "sell my book". When you set achievable goals, you'll go home feeling good about yourself and won't worry so much about whether it was worth the trip.

Bonus tip: Non US-citizens; remember to bring your passport when going out! In some places they require this as ID, which I recently found out in New York.

Work in progress: EATING AN ELEPHANT - PART I

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

There are no shortcuts to writing and drawing a graphic novel. And believe me, I’ve looked everywhere!

I tend to let stories simmer for a long time, adding elements as I come across things that might fit in. When it comes to writing the script, I want to get a first draft done really fast. I skip around in the script, writing scenes and dialogue as I think of them, approaching the story from multiple angles. I tie up all my scenes at the very end, often with the use of staples and duct tape. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Then I put the thing away. For months, actually. I do other stuff, work, play with my kids.

Then one day I pick up the script, with sweaty anxiety. Surprisingly, reading my story again is usually quite enjoyable and fills me with enthusiasm about the project. Seriously! Maybe I’m just blind to my own faults, but I like reading my own stuff. Other writers tend to get depressed and start picking the thing apart halfway through a story. It’s never good enough, there’s always stuff you can change, do better.

Sure you can.

You can also look at the story, and decide it is what it is and finish the damn thing. For me, there’s really no going back. Of course I tweak and adjust and do some rewriting along the way, but the basics are all still there. You can’t keep changing your story, because you keep changing as well.

Get. It. Done.

Stubborness. That’s the secret ingredient for me.

More in part II.

Recommended: LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS

I was recently in New York for the Mocca Festival, where I met a lot of new friends last year and lugged home way too many comics. This time around I tried not to buy tons of books, but I did get my signed copy of Christopher Irving and Seth Kushners book Leaping Tall Buildings: The Origins of American Comics, a "who's who" of US comics, full of in-depth interviews and beautiful photographs of creators such as Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Art Spiegelman, Frank Miler, Grant Morrison, Chris Ware, Neil Gaiman, Dean Haspiel, Art Spiegelman, Howard Chaykin, Jill Thompson and many, many more. The above video is a sneak peek of this must-buy for comics fans.

Buy now from Amazon.com

Film School Confidential: ALL GREEK TO ME

This week has been a hotch-potch of different tutors and input. Tuesday we talked about loss and watched the first half of the Belgian thriller Calvaire: The Ordeal. Loss can be a powerful motivation for characters, as we tend to yearn for what we used to have or something we at least have had a taste of. The memories of the good old days can surface in dialogue or imagery, and the later in the film this yearning is shown, the further back in time it can go. The protagonist revisiting his childhood in the first sequence is usually not a good idea...

Wednesday we had a Q&A session with screenwriter Lars K. Andersen about his script for Danish WWII drama Flame and Citron. He talked in depth about his research and working methods, about respecting the subject and the people who were involved in the portrayed resistance movement and a time and place in history that was previously connected to patriotic heroism.

Thursday and Friday our teacher was Thomas Howalt, who has a background as a theatre writer/director and high-profile work in computer games, educational and online multiplayer games, and is now creative development manager at Square Enix Europe. Howalt gave us a crash course in Greek theatre tradition and mythology and we talked about why we write, what drives us - and what stops us! In particular we have to find a balance between the three parts of our creative self - The Dreamer, the Realist and the Critic. I personally think the Critic should only be let out of his cage at the very final stage if at all. He tends to put a stop to things rather than keep them moving, so let's all agree to shut that guy up.

I missed today because of sick kids. But today they're talking about Shakespeare, and I got knee-deep in that at University, so... Alas, no big loss, I hope. They get to watch different versions of Hamlet, I get to watch Aristocats for the millionth time.

I'll leave you with Harold Pinter's simple equation of drama, as retold by Howalt:

A single chair stands in the middle of the stage. Two men enter.


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Film School Confidential: MAN AND MYTH

It's film school week again, and I'm here early so I can get some work done. Yesterday was an all-day seminar with Ingolf Gabold, former head of national tv channel DR's drama department, where he was responsible for developing series such as Borgen, Sommer and Forbrydelsen (aka. The Killing, remade in the US).

Gabold took us through Milos Forman's timeless masterpiece One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I never gave thought to the fact that Chief is actually the main character, as he is the one who evolves the most in the movie, nor did I ever notice the Christ symbolism present throughout the story. MacMurphy is of course a martyr/Christ figure, sacrificing himself for the sake of his flock, and even has a "last supper" with his diciples, when throws a party in the ward the night before his death and subsequent ressurection - watch for the marks after his crown of thorns, when he returns after his frontal lobotomy! Oh, and the Judas, who betrays Christ and then kills himself? I'll give you a hint; he stutters.

Analyzing OFOTtCN was fun, although exhausting. Some of the methods, like the Actantial model, seemed a bit old school and I didn't neccesarily agree with every interpretation. What I take away with me is the inspirational stories from DR development meetings, a renewed respect for Milos Forman and the concept of adding subliminal layers for interpretation to my script - apart from the Christ myth, OFOtCN uses imagery that makes you think of fairy tales (Nurse Ratched = The Witch, Chief = The Gentle Giant etc.).

I'm not sure what we'll be doing today, but tomorrow we are supposed to discuss these three:




...And I'm supposed to have read them, although we only got them yesterday..!

So I had better wrap this up and get to it.

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Video: HARVEY PEKAR'S CLEVELAND

I hit the ground running when I came back from MoCCA, just now trying to gather my notes.
I shot this little clip at a talk in Book Court in Brooklyn and promised to put it up here. It's Harvey Pekar's widow Joyce Brabner and artist Joseph Remnant talking about Cleveland and Pekar's working methods . You can support the completion of the Pekar memorial statue on Kickstarter.