Greg Gildersleeve

I'm always a bit behind in my comics reading, so I just read CIVIL WAR # 1 and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 532-533. I normally wouldn't have even bothered with "Civil War" (another mega-crossover event. Ugh!), but it's made such an impression on my comics-reading friends and at comics events I've attended that I was curious. [Warning: SPOILERS follow.]

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MORE EXAMPLES OF FILM WRITERS CHANGING HISTORY TO SUIT THEIR STORY

I've recently discussed Dan Brown's alterations of history in The Da Vinci Code as an example of something most writers of historical fiction do. To demonstrate how widespread this practice is, here are three more examples from movies. Did the writers go too far? You be the judge. Be forewarned, however, that SPOILERS abound.

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Next week's blog will be the final entry in "The Write of Arting Comics," at least for awhile. I'll be spending July participating in a summer writing institute, and then August will be spent gearing up for another semester of teaching. I'll still post updates and occasional commentary, but this weekly forum for discussing, analyzing, and learning about the writing aspect of creating comics will close.

When I started blogging a year ago, I had no idea what to do with this forum Mark Stinson had graciously offered me. I posted a few entries over last summer, then abandoned the blog until December. Partly, this was due to a hectic teaching schedule (which is redundant: Is there any such thing as a non-hectic teaching schedule?). But also it was due to not having a specific purpose in mind. Too many blogs I've seen have become the "Seinfeld" of the Internet: Not really about anything, just stream of conscious ramblings about whatever the blogger deemed important that week (though not a fraction as funny as the old sitcom). I wanted to avoid falling into that trap, so I chose to post only when I felt I had something to say.

But then, a new purpose emerged as a result of teaching. One of the complaints I frequently hear about creators from other creators is that no one finishes what they start. I've tried to stress from the beginning of my involvement in the local comics community that writing and drawing comics is not just an occasional pastime if you aspire to doing it professionally. It involves a commitment to actually working on your story or art on a regular basis. For that reason, I decided to challenge myself to write a column based on comics every week for six months. As of next week, I will have achieved that goal.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading my blog and who has responded, either on line or in person. Feedback is essential for any creative person, but, more importantly, I've tried to inspire, inform, and motivate you to create comics. There's a local film group whose goal is to make "more films, better films." I'd like for our goal to be something similar: "more comics, better comics." I'd like to see a renewed sense of commitment in Kansas City to create "more comics, better comics." We've got the talent to do so. Do we have the drive?

CLEANING OUT THE IDEA CACHE: ON NAMING CHARACTERS

One of the writing sources I use recommends giving your characters simple names that are easy to spell. In comics, super-heroes have certainly followed that advice, as most names -- Peter Parker, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, et. al. -- are not only simple, but non-ethnic sounding.

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So, how do you go about creating characters, anyway?

This was the topic of last month's Northland Comic Book Writers Group, and will spill over into this month's meeting on Saturday at Starbuck's, N.W. 64th and Antioch at 2 p.m. As an exercise, I assigned the following homework, adapted from Writing Fiction by the Gotham Writer's workshop: to build a character in various stages. Part one of the assignment involved going out to some public place and observing someone for five minutes or so. Part two of the assignment involved deciding what this person was doing before he or she entered this place, and what he or she will be doing after leaving. Now, you could always go up the person and ask her, and assuming she doesn't think you're a pervert pretending and call security on you, she may even answer. But it's more fun and challenging to invent the reasons yourself. After all, this is fiction: there are no "wrong" answers, only answers that seem more or less plausible and more or less interesting.

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Perhaps it's appropriate to write about this topic on 6-6-06, a date which has satanic conotations in some quarters. After all, there are many critics of The Da Vinci Code who seem convinced that Dan Brown's novel and the film based on it are products of evil intent. One local TV preacher baldly accused The Da Vinci Code of being an attack on Christianity. Others, from albinos to members of the Catholic organization Opus Dei, complain that the film misrepresents them. Books are published that debunk The Da Vinci Code, and Internet sites point out geographical and factual errors in the book. Will it ever end?

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Recently, an artist friend was commiserating with me about a project he is working on with a writer. "I don't feel the same sense of ownership," the artist said. "He changed virtually everything we discussed about the project."

A few days after our discussion, I reviewed the work another artist is doing for me. He was extremely proud of one particular panel he'd drawn -- and it did look magnificent. The problem? The project consists of a seven-page story, of which he had laid out all of the pages, but hadn't completed most of the basic images in each panel.

Collaborations. They are both the blessing and the bane of comics creators. As independent creators, we want the final say in all aspects of our comics. Yet most of us are savvy enough, I think, to realize there are undeniable benefits to collaborating: Working with another creator can give you extra insight into your story. Another writer or artist can find story solutions that you are struggling with. A collaborator can also give you someone to be accountable to. Whether we want to admit it or not, we often need that sense of accountability. Otherwise, we may spend ten years on a project that becomes too personal to share with the world!

But collaborations don't always work out the way we expect. It's not hard to figure out why. Collaborating is a lot like marriage (based on my married brother's description of the latter): It requires a lot of negotiation, great communication skills, and a willingness for the writer and artist to let go of their natural desire to dominate the project.

Failing to negotiate or communicate properly can lead to frustration and anger. This in turn can result in abandoned projects and a desire to swear off collaborating in the future. Yet such solutions, while momentarily gratifying, serve no one, least of all the comics community or our potential audiences (who may never get to read the work we've put all our heart, soul, and sweat into). Furthermore, if one expects to find work with the "majors" (e.g., Marvel, DC, and other companies), then one must be prepared to collaborate with writers, artists, editors, etc.

So, what is a frustrated collaborator to do?

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"Characters are plot."
-- Lee Wyndham

"Make your characters real enough to cast shadows."
-- Gotham Writers' Workshop

Creating characters was the subject of discussion at the Northland Comics Writers Group yesterday. We enjoyed a lively discussion with four different points of view on what makes characters work and why. I always enjoy the discussion format in classrooms because people learn better from hearing a variety of views than if just one person is talking. Also, sometimes, the teacher (moi, in this case) can learn a few things.

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Just a brief post this week. I'm busy preparing for the NCWG meeting on Saturday.

I was not able to make it to Free Comic Book Day this year because of a teachers' writing conference. (At least it had something to do with writing.) But it sounds like it was pretty much business as usual. I'm glad to hear that Elite Comics had quite a number of creators turn out for the event and Mike Sullivan and Bill Hook (not Cook) represented the local scene at Pop Culture Comix. Special thanks to The Johnson County Sun for much-needed exposure, even if they couldn't get some of the creators' or comics' names right. (I shudder to think what they might have done with my moniker!)

The fuss and furor over The Da Vinci Code [SPOILER WARNING]: I just had to put in my two quid here. If you want your book or movie to get attention, just make religion the focus of it -- think of all the fuss caused by Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ -- particularly if it challenges long-held assumptions or beliefs.

What seems to be the major problem of some concerning The Da Vinci Code is Dan Brown's claims at the beginning of the book that his depictions of pieces of art and historical documents are accurate. Actually, this isn't the case. One particular gospel that he cites has, in his version, Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene on the mouth. Yet the actual fragment is incomplete (versions of it are available online) -- we have no idea where Jesus kissed her (the forehead, the hand, the cheek), or if this particular gospel is even credible. And is that really Mary M. sitting next to Jesus in The Last Supper, or is it a feminine John? Even if it is the former, what does that prove beyond the fact that Leonardo da Vinci had his own unique take on biblical events? (Note that Leo does not depict any (other?) women at the Last Supper, yet many had prominent roles in Jesus' ministry.)

It is this sort of historical fabrication more than anything else that has people up in arms. If not for Brown's claim of accuracy, it would be easy to dismiss The Da Vinci Code as just another piece of fiction. The book would probably still generate some controversy (as the film The Last Temptation of Christ once did), but nowhere near the cultural hoo-hah that it has.

I don't know if Brown intended for this hoo-hah to happen, but I can't imagine that he's too upset about it. For a writer to generate this much attention and discussion of his work is not all bad. If nothing else, it's created awareness of subjects that many in our pop culture-saturated nation wouldn't otherwise discover.

The second meeting of the Northland Comics Writers Group will be 2 p.m. Saturday, May 20, at Starbucks, N.W. 64th and Antioch (in the same shopping center as Price Chopper and Blockbuster).

Last month, we talked about the structure of storytelling and how Freytag's pyramid can help us plan our own stories. (Go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure for a reminder of what Freytag was talking about.) Please bring an example either from your own writing or a favorite comic book story (not an incomplete arc) for discussion.

Our other topic on Saturday, as time permits, will be character. We'll be using sources and exercises to help us develop characters that we (and others) will want to read about.

I look forward to seeing you on the 20th.

So, you're writing or drawing your story. You got started with a lot of excitement and a plan for how it's all going to turn out, and then, without warning, you're stuck.

Writer's block (or artist's block) can come on suddenly or slowly, and it's never pretty. It usually comes from having expectations of yourself that are too high, or embarking on some new venture (such as writing or drawing your first comic book story) without really knowing how it's going to turn out. After all, creative writing is taking a dive into the Great Unknown: It involves inventing something that has never existed before (unless you are consciously trying to make your work derivative of someone else's, but that's another discussion).

But even experienced writers and artists can reach that point where they just get stuck. John Rzeznik of the band the Goo Goo Dolls once described his writer's block in VH1's Behind the Music series. Having writer's block doesn't mean you don't write, he said. Rather, you write all the time but think that everything you've written is crap.

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Well, the Raytown School District's Young Authors Day has come and gone. It was the first time I've ever given a presentation on comics (or anything else, for that matter) to school children; it was a lot of fun and surprising in a number of ways.

For one, the students showed much more enthusiasm for comics than I expected. In the age of video games and action-packed movies, comics still elicited a sense of fun and open-ended creativity from the students. This was particularly evident in the activity Mike and I had them do. After giving our presentation on just how one goes about creating comics in the first place, we had them spend five minutes designing their own comic. Those who opted to share their creations with the class demonstrated an unbridled creativity that only kids who love comics can muster. I won't describe their ideas here (who knows -- one day, we may see them on the stands!), but it brought back a lot of memories. Comics are the medium of Why Not? More than any other medium, comics give kids the freedom to create whatever they want: All you need is a pen and some paper.

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Mike Sullivan and I will be at Raytown Middle School this Saturday, April 29, to lead a workshop on writing and drawing comics. The event is part of Raytown School District's Young Author's Day; other presenters will include a poet, a novelist, a newspaper columnist, and a cartoonist (technically, Mike and I are cartoonists, as well, so that makes three presenters from the comics end of things!)

I don't think the event is open to the public -- it's geered toward Raytown middle school students -- but I'm told that 38 kids have signed up for our two sessions. That's a lot of potential future comics creators!

I'm excited about doing this. Any time I get to share my love of comics with others is a good thing, but to be asked to discuss writing comics to school children is a very special honor. Most comics creators today started out loving comics as kids, but these days comics compete with video games and so many other forms of entertainment that it's no wonder our beloved artform is often regarded as a marginalized if not dying. But the high enrollment (20 students is about the size of the college courses I teach) in these sessions is encouraging: It means that comics are still in the game.

By the way, if anybody still wonders if these blogs serve any purpose beyond shameless self-promotion and meaningless musings, you can rest easy. It was through this very blog that the Raytown School District's library services coordinator contacted me!

I've been wanting for some time to say something about Sentry, Marvel's eight-issue series about a mentally ill super-hero and his alter ego (or egos, apparently), but I haven't found the right angle. For example, I was so taken with the complicated-but-not-confusing flashbacks in issues # 4-5, that I wanted to discuss them in terms of story structure. But I just spent three posts discussing structure, so I don't want to beat that equine to death.

I also wanted to compare the economical writing of Sentry to a certain other comic which is overwritten, but that approach seemed high-handed and judgmental. The other comic in question isn't necessarily bad, but it reads more like a blockbuster film -- something going on in every frame, and usually more than one thing happening at the same time -- than a comic book. While comics and film share much in common (not the least of which is that certain well-known writers -- Bruce Jones, J. Michael Straczynski, and Kevin Smith, to name a few -- have done both), one must remember that comics and movies are distinctly different media. Both have strengths and weaknesses, and the best writers understand the difference.

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This is a reposting from 2/28/06. The original post has been deleted because of spam infestation.

Over on Arie Monroe's blog, she laments about being away from KC, and often feeling "no love at all" while attending the Joe Kubert School in New Jersey. Things do seem to be looking up for Arie, however, as she's made friends with fellow student cartoonists who no doubt share her dreams of becoming a pro. A special relationship exists among students who are pursuing professional goals: I felt the same sense of connection when I was in college and (to a somewhat lesser extent) in grad school. It helps make the learning process bearable, particularly when you move so far from home.

Arie's post got me to thinking about my own journey.

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The Northland Comics Writers Group held its inaugural meeting last Saturday, and it was a smashing success. Our numbers were few, but the conversation was on target and enlightening. We even had an unexpected visitor when a colorist from the Universal Press Syndicate overheard us talking about Spider-Man and joined our discussion.

The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for May 20, though I'll post a more definitive date at a later time. We plan to hold meetings either twice a month or once a month as time permits, and to meet a total of six time. (Which means that if you didn't make it to this one, you have only five more chances to come!) The rationale behind the finite number of meetings is that, after awhile, some gatherings lose focus and fizzle out or become loosely structured social clubs. While getting together socially is a lot of fun, I believe we'll get more out of these meetings and our comics careers if we stay focused on a single purpose. If the meetings continue to go well, however, we'll discuss how we may continue them.

At this particular meeting, we talked about story structure, which has also been the subject of my recent posts here.

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This is a reposting from an earlier entry, which has been deleted due to high spam count.

As I mentioned last week, it's been some years since I was a regular reader of Marvel and DC. To be precise, I stopped reading Marvel's mainstays, the Spider-Man titles, in 1989, and the X-Men even earlier. Over at DC, I pretty much lost interest after Crisis on Infinite Earths gutted the DC Universe as I knew it in 1985. I still held onto some titles for several years, most notably JLA until 1994, and a few others until somewhat later.

But now, thanks to the generosity of a friend (which I mentioned in last week's post), I've been checking in on several titles recently. What I've found, overall, is that the more things change in super-hero land, the more they stay the same. I mentioned last week the sense of displacement I feel at reading characters who haven't changed much in the 10-15 years since I last followed their adventures. But what surprises me even more is that I'm able to enjoy the adventures of certain characters I'd given up on long ago. Unencumbered by expectations, I'm able to look at them in a new light.

Herewith is a mini-review of two recent series that, despite it all, I found myself enjoying:

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This is a re-posting from the Comix Club message board.

As an extension/spin-off of the Storyteller's Workshop, I'm thinking of getting together a group in the northland to discuss specifically the writing process of comics. This would be similar to the old Writer's Workshop, but in a more formalized, structured setting. Perhaps we would start out with a discussion on a writing topic (such as structure, dialogue, or narrowing the focus of your story), then share ideas on how we might solve story problems related to the topic. We could also share scripts, plots, and story ideas and specific problems we're having with them.

If you are interested in such a group, a preliminary meeting will be at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 15, at Starbucks, N.W. 64th and Antioch (next to Hollywood Video).

I hope to see you there.

This last week has been spent grading freshman composition papers -- a process that is akin to swimming in a hurricane with one arm tied behind one's back. It's not that the papers are bad; in fact, most students in Comp & Research at least have a good idea of where they're going with the topic and a good understanding of the fundamentals of compostion and grammar. Some papers even surprised me. (Hint for future students in getting an A: Teach the teacher something he or she doesn't already know.)

But swimming through 70-plus essays leaves little time to even think about comics-related topics. I did, however, want to say more about story-telling structure. Exactly what structure is and why it is important to all forms of story telling, especially comics, was addressed in last week's post. But how does structure apply to comics?

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This past Saturday was the inaugural meeting of the Northland Comics Writers Group, a new project I'm spearheading -- or rather, it would have been the inaugural meeting. Due to a message board snafu, the wrong meeting date was posted, and, as a result, only two of us showed up. So, the meeting will be rescheduled as soon as I can take a breather from grading freshman composition papers.

The non-meeting did afford me a chance to run through the topic I wanted to discuss, dramatic structure. An often overlooked aspect of story telling -- particularly in comics these days -- dramatic structure is nevertheless essential. Without structure, how does the writer really know when the story ends? (If you said, "When I run out of things to write," you just failed the course.) How do you know where the climax is, or how to begin the story? And if you don't know these things, your reader sure won't. This will leave the reader unsatisfied with the story and prone to blast you on message boards. (OK, they may blast you anyway, but at least they'll have fewer reasons to do so.)

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Justice # 3-4 (DC). I didn't care for the first two issues of Justice. Reading yet another "apocalyptic" Justice League story on top of Infinite Crisis was just too much. Worse, this series is set in an alternate universe (the pre-Crisis universe, perhaps?), where Barry Allen is still the Flash and Aquaman doesn't have a prosthetic for a hand. Now, I'm as much a fan of the Silver Age DC heroes as anyone, but what's done is done. After spending the last 20 years of promoting this "one" universe, where all the heroes live on a single earth, DC is now producing a variety of comics set in its old multiverse (or multiple earth concept, to put it another way), without really committing to one version of the characters or another. DC wants to have its super-cake and eat it, too.

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