I’m working away on the script to Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer 2 and about have it finished. Took a break today to do some inking on the second Nebraska mini-comic.
This one is about myself and my best friend growing up. We couldn’t have been more different, but we were the only two boys in our grade, so there wasn’t a lot of choice. The main plot features an interesting battle that took place between my friend (armed with a Super Soaker) and a barn owl. I haven’t gotten much of that inked, so here’s a page from early in the story.
Just as an FYI, I’m working on Strathmore drawing board with Koh-i-noor ink and a Winsor & Newton 3 series 000 brush. The lettering is done by hand with a PITT pen. This is also a low-res scan without any touch ups.
On June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter. It’s a remarkable athletic feat made all the more impressive because Ellis was blasted out of his gourd on LSD while he pitched.
The reason I bring this up is that some talented folks went and made a really sweet video paired with Ellis’ voice recounting the game. It’s called an animated short but, in many ways, is more similar to what has been called motion comics.
In contrast to all other motion comics, it doesn’t suck. Probably because it was always intended to be animated, not forced to fit. Anyway, enjoy:
When Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer came out earlier this year, I became the latest in a long line of comics journalists to become comics creators. The revolving door between the two fields is like that between politics and punditry or coaching and sports announcing.
As I made the strange transition from interviewer to interviewee, I occasionally would be asked for advice on jumping from journalist to creator. The simplest answer is this: Don’t.
I didn’t get into comics journalism as a path toward having comics published. I did it because I liked comics and wanted to write about the industry. This came about when I was still a police reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. My dream at the time was to become a novelist, and in my free hours I was typing away at a novel (thankfully as-yet-unpublished). I began writing a comics column at the behest of the Style section editor, never thinking it would amount to something larger.
As I became more involved with comics, I gradually rekindled my interest in the medium from a creative standpoint (as a kid, I wanted to be the next Jim Lee). While I started writing for other outlets like Publishers Weekly, CBR and Comic Foundry, I was also developing some projects.
By that time, I had a lot of contacts throughout the industry and probably could have called in favors to get pitches in front of editors. But to be ethical as a journalist Keep reading →
I just finally had a chance to finish Weird Fishes, the new graphic novel by Jamaica Dyer. I guess you could call her a classmate or colleague of sorts, in that we both had books come out from SLG around the same time.
The book Weird Fishes reminded me the most of, at least in the experience of reading it, was Nate Powell’s It Disappears. This is not to say the books are similar at all in style, tone or substance.
It Disappears was my first exposure to Powell’s comics. While I immediately recognized the talent and uniqueness represented in his flowing, contrast-heavy art, I also saw the book as an early step. The storytelling was opaque in a good way, but it also left room for growth. Powell’s amazing Swallow Me Whole is the realization of that potential.
Back to Weird Fishes. It’s the story of, to be brief, a weird boy and weirder girl, their relationships with each other, themselves and the outside world. It’s dreamy and funny and just plain weird.
The art is, as with Powell, so unique and impressive that the book is worth buying for that alone. Dyer’s characters are full of motion and life. Every face conveys emotion, subtle or overt depending on the scene. Her use of watercolors and mixed media is skillfully messy, and the one downside of this collection is that the interiors aren’t in color.
As a storyteller, Dyer is still growing, and you can see that development as Weird Fishes progresses. It’s exciting to imagine the things she’ll be creating in the years to come as her mastery of the medium becomes more complete. For now, I’m more than content to enjoy Weird Fishes, a beautiful book on its own.
You can buy Weird Fishes online at the SLG Web site.
Those of you working on shorter comics projects are highly encouraged to send your stories in to the Plains Song Review. Submission guidelines are available here.
It’s really cool to see this happen, and I can only imagine we’ll see more lit journals following in the footsteps of Plains Song Review and the Virginia Quarterly Review, which has consistently published comics for a while now.
For those in the Atlanta area, you’ll have a couple of chances to get a signed copy of Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer! (And to hang out with me.)
On Thursday, 11/12, at 7:30 p.m. we’ll be having an Atlanta book-release party at Manuel’s Tavern. I’ll have copies of the book and my 3-foot-tall Pinocchio puppet. I may have some art from Nebraska #2 to show as well.
On Friday, 11/13, at 4 p.m., I’m doing a signing at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga. (just outside Atlanta). It’s a great store, so make a point to stop by Friday or whenever you’re in the area!
Dusty and I are just starting to figure out our plans for signings, conventions, etc. for 2010. We’ll be posting a slate of events in the coming months. For the moment, we’re both hard at work on the sequel. Hoping to get Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer 2 to our fans maybe as soon as winter, 2010.
Over at MTV’s Splash Page comics blog, Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer was recently listed in an Adapt This feature, calling for the titans of Hollywood to make a movie out of the graphic novel by myself and Dustin Higgins.
I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Pinocchio killing the undead on the big screen. How about you?
So, let’s pretend the titans of Hollywood care what the fans have to think. What do you say, would it work better animated or live-action? (Caleb Goellner writes in the Adapt This article to incorporate both.) Who would you cast for the various roles? Which director would you put in charge?
Post your suggestions in the comments.
Side note: Apologies for the slow updates. On the positive side, I’m hard at work at the PVS sequel and have three other very exciting projects coming along.
Rand, of course, is the author of books such as Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. But of important note is her establishment of objectivism, which has led her to become a heroic figure to some conservatives … and Ditko. Rand, the article explains, escaped from a Russia controlled by Bolsheviks and spent her life espousing hatred toward non-elites. Johann Hari writes of Rand’s influence in America:
In a country where almost everyone believes—wrongly, on the whole—that they are self-made, perhaps it is easier to have contempt for people who didn’t make much of themselves. And Rand taps into something deeper still. The founding myth of America is that the nation was built out of nothing, using only reason and willpower.
Interestingly, Rand pushed for the removal of government control while creating a life for herself in which she controlled and dominated all those in her inner circle. In essence, she became that which she opposed.
Rand’s influence on Ditko is well known but no particularly well understood, as far as I’ve read. This is in part because Ditko is rarely seen or heard from. His pursuit of objectivism seems to have coincided with his departure from being a major creator in comics, and the one fault I recall from the otherwise worthwhile Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko is that connection wasn’t fully explored.
For me, this day is the culmination of about eight years of work. It was that long ago that I decided to write books for a living. Pinocchio was the third book I finished and the first to be published.
It seems like it should be a big day, or that I should celebrate. While I’m very happy to have a book in stores, I feel more than anything that what I’ve learned from this experience is just how difficult it is to build a career as an author and how much more work lies ahead. In addition to a Pinocchio sequel, I have a handful of other projects in the works that I think will be a lot of fun.
Quickly, a word of thanks to those who helped make this project a reality: Dan and Jennifer at SLG, Todd Dezago, Ross and Mark at Boom!, Rob and Andy at Top Shelf, my awesomely talented collaborator Dustin, my family, and of course my wife, Amy, who makes it all worthwhile.
The Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer “What Lie Would You Tell?” contest winners have been selected by myself and artist Dustin Higgins. The winners are:
Matt Jackson, who lied, “Come with me if you want to live.” His play on bad action movie dialogue earns him an original page of artwork and a signed copy of the book.
Runners up, who will each receive signed copies of the book, were…
Dave Puskas: “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it’s going to hurt you.”
Mike Rende: “I did not catch a case of termites from that cute nutcracker Geppetto just carved.”
Thanks again to everyone who entered! And remember, the book hits shelves Oct. 28, less than a week away!
I just finally had a chance to finish Weird Fishes, the new graphic novel by 
