...nervous breakdowns?
I get asked the question every-so-often: "What does it take to write comics?" Well, if you are going to be a script writer you need to think on your feet and be creative. Back in the 1980s up until UK comics died in the mid-1990s I used to submit comic and series proposals weekly to "That Scottish company", Marvel UK, Fleetway and so on. I also submitted scripts.
Now, if you boil comics down (I've done that for a meal in the past) there are six main story plots. If you have not sorted out what they are then you are not ready to write comics! As a comic writer and artists agent I used to get between 40-100 packages per week and when you think about the total number submitting it is mind-numbing.
There were very basic problems when it came to artists. Yes, I did get the letters from students who wanted to draw comics and noted how their relatives, particularly mothers, told them how good they were. They were not but I never once wrote back: "Look, you are crap. Get lost!" I told them where there were faults and how to try to correct those faults and develop an art style. Now, these people very rarely included a form of return postage so that came out of my pocket so there was no need for me to respond but, you know, I'm such a great guy :-/
Some might write back rather furiously but I had already spent money on them so I did not want to become their pen pals (pen pals was still a thing back then).
There were any number of pages where a hand contained a hand featuring five fingers and a thumb or two left or two right feet on a character. The biggest fault was the material submitted. If you want to work in comics then you need to construct a page of panels to show that you know how to make a story flow and keep action going. I used to get a package of single page illustrations from people who wanted to be comic artists. I had to explain again and again, at my own expense, that editors were not interested in seeing single illoes. Some would send comic strip work in and in a number of cases it was very amateurish and yet they sent superb black and white and colour illustrations. In these cases I suggested that they try magazines that used illustrations and sci fi publications and that was all I could do.
Those people have vanished into the ether. Someone like Jon Haward I was more than pleased to promote and there were others. Jon thanked me publicly several times for helping him and in my collection is a copy of the Eagle (1980s) in which Jon drew Dan Dare -and it has a very nice thank you note written across the page. Others got their breaks through my efforts but later decided that they never knew me even though three of them were interviewed by me in the old Zine Zone as well as published in my new talent Previews comic!
Samples followed the usual pattern -The Evil Dead was a cult horror movie so there were strips basically ripping that off. In the 1980s zombies were big so zombie strips followed (yeah 35 years later nothing has changed. Originality went down the toilet) but the largest number of submitted hommage strips were Blade Runner based followed by 2000 AD inspired work. This should not be that surprising since artists tend to think visually and draw from things they have seen -John Cooper was chatting to me one day and told me that his One Eyed Jack character was based on his favourite tough guy actor -Clint Eastward and that is quite obvious if you look at the series.
Remember: these were people were looking to break into comics as artists and for some I did write scripts but the horror of what some of them did with those scripts....well, that is for another day.
With writers you expect them to know the basics. There was one who made an Alan Moore style detailed script look tame. The writer wanted a view through a bathroom door key hole where a body could be seen. He wanted that view to show all four walls and the details he demanded be put into each...including the back of the door the key hole was in.
It was not until two artists I sent his scripts to got back to me that I found this out -he had sent new scripts to them once he got their addresses and that was totally out of order. In fact, because the artists said it was impossible to draw all four walls through the key hole the remarked that they had no imagination and were not that good. I pointed out that what he described wanting in that panel -yes, through the key hole and all four walls in detail in one panel- would take at the least four panels and he tried to insist I was wrong so I told him to draw out what he wanted in that one panel roughly and we would see. He couldn't.
There was a definite ego problem in comics with people thinking that they would be the next Stan Lee "but better". I couled name four wannabe writers who wanted their own stable of artists and were quite open about the fact that were the comic drawn well it would be because of their superb writing skills. If you think that was a thing of the past well, in the 2000s I banned a certain writer from the Yahoo 360 version of CBO because he literally screamed at me that I had credited artists more than him. I warned him and I told the company he was working for. I moved CBO to another site and my review of a well known mystery play/movie he had adapted from the book was posted. Private emails that the artists "could never have drawn the scenes that well without my script!" He also got insulting but he was a star so what was I going to do? Simple, I contacted his publisher and explained that he had now achieved a life long ban and would never be mentioned on CBO again. They understood!
It has to be understood that you cannot have a comic without the writer just as you cannot have the comic without an artist. If you are writing for a career/living then stick your ego up your jacksy because it will hinder you. You may well write a superb story but it is how the artist visualises the story that will end up making it good or bad. Alan Moore's Watchmen is a good story, even with the odd bits lifted from TV/cinema but it is Dave Gibbons art as well as John Higgins' great colour work. Writer-artist-colourist MADE the book.
I once adapted a short story, Torch of Vengeance, a fellow whose art I liked named Terry Ford drew the story. I expected it to be well drawn but what was returned was superb. I have had people say that was a great story and I never fail to point out that it was a basic story that I adapted and that had it not been for the artwork it would have been an easily forgotten piddle in a dark alley. Comics are a visual medium and I think Will Eisner proved this and when people say "I loved that Spirit strip -it was a fantastic story" but ask them to explain more and they will talk about the dark alleys or gloomy rooms and sewer....and what happened. You see, they loved the story AND art. Would they be impressed with six panels on a page where the description of what is happening is written?
Any artist who has ever worked with me will tell you that I write the dialogue and what happens, however, when it comes to action sequences for instance I say "You know what the outcome is: you have two pages and make up as many panels as you need!" Art Wetherell enjoyed that aspect and I hope other collaborators did.
There are some that do make you wonder what they are doing in comics. An artist from the United States contacted me and I had seen his art pages for sale on a couple of the big comic art sites. So I wrote a full four issue mini series and sent it off to him. The opening scene was a huge tower block in the middle of a US city and on all four sides were huge clock faces that could be seen from where ever you stood. "I don't understand what you mean by a clock face on each side of the building" I sent back a jokey reply but found out he was serious.... Then the villain: half his body was human while the other half was completely robotic looking...."I really do not get what you mean" he wrote. In the end I drew the tower with clocks as well as the villain for him. Then he understood. After a month I got his email -he had completed the art for the first six pages. I opened the files...I thought I was looking at abstract art and where there were figures...well, uh, they were -just about. "I think we can go to publishers with this to sell the series!" he wrote.
I sat back and typed him a message. There was no "finished artwork" -had he sent the roughs by mistake? I then got the full story; the mess I saw WAS his "finished art" so I checked the site he was selling art on and it was slick -really good inking so what was going on? I pointed out that he had signed an agreement with me as I had with him -I wrote and did all the work out of my own pocket and he did the full art. He told me that he had three guys he used regularly and he sent them the pages he had scribbled (like to ones in my possession) and they inked. I breathed a sigh of relief and asked who he was getting to ink?
Well, it seems that all charged roughly $175-$200 a page so if I could get the full amount for the 24 pages he would approach one of the inkers. I needed to pay up $2,400 to someone who, to be fair WAS doing the complete artwork from scratch. Oh, the, uh, scribbler wanted to retain full rights to the art to sell of "as I usually do" to make money.
Therefore, my little US collaborator was breaching his contract with me in the fullest sense and had falsely presented himself as THE artist of the sample pages he sent me and was selling. He squiggle a few lines on a page and paid someone to actually draw what he described his scribble was from scratch and he then sold the art page to make his money and at least another 50% on top.
So I had, in a week, taken the time to type up a full 4 issue mini series of 24pp each for nothing. I have old photos of me with stacks of old reams of scripts covering just a year. For Fleetway/Egmonts Revolver comic I produced a total of 20 short scripts -one was used but the artist basically ignored the script so what was published was...nonsense. Other scripts were nabbed by another editor and character names altered and used as his work. That is 20 scripts that would turn into 4-8 pages stories once drawn over three months. Got paid once.
I wrote complete 6 issue mini series for Fantagraphic Books sci fi, monster, hard boiled and what ever the other imprints were -one accepted but Fantagraphics dumped the other lines quickly without warning and knowing full well I had produced the scripts. Freelance writer.
I wrote a number of Action Force stories for Marvel UK -two at least were used as the artists involved mentioned having drawn them -the titles were changed and I am not buying lots of comics to see what was stolen and not paid for. Freelance writer.
I wrote text features for County Magazines like Shropshire Life, Derbyshire Life, The Dalesman and so on. These are glossy mags aimed at the local squires and toffs but they pay nothing. A two page feature will get you £20 and when you think of the paper used and postage the £s drop off -oh, and you do not get the standard publishing contributors copy. You had to pay the £5 for a copy or get a copy and not the cheque. You have to do a LOT of those to keep eating but in the end I had a 26 cms high stack of article copies on my desk and I realised I was on a kicking to nowhere.
Freelance writer.
Some editor wanted a Gloucestershire ghost story - the "real thing" mind not made up- in two days. Fine. It HAD to be in a certain city/town. Okay. It had to be in a certain area.....okay I have enough books and archive material. Did they mention it had to be a pub ghost? And it had to be connected with the Civil War. Oh I got the item alright...ah. Some soqap celebrity I had never heard off was opening a branch of the Co-op. Story dropped to free up space.
Freelance writer.
Whatever the subject you are asked to write about you tell the editor "No problem" because you are a freelance writer. I gave up in 2010 because I realised that it was interesting but I needed money!
With comics you have to turn your hand to various genres: I have written single gag cartoons by the dozen -covering most subjects. I wrote a good number of scripts when the Warhammer comic was announced -it was a mess for artists (some very well known established ones, too) and writers were told "Nothing is restricted. YOU will be creating the mythos!" Then I heard one writer after another had scripts returned and had to do re-writes...which were then returned for more re-writes. I re-wrote five scripts four times and just asked them what they wanted? They had no idea. I jumped ship.
Please do not even mention the alleged 'humour' comic Triffik. Fax after fax from the editor who was re-writing EVERYTHING submitted with the effect of making it very unfunny.
Back in the late 1980s I was asked about a comic I intended to publish. I was asked "What would happen if--" an artist dropped out. A strip didn't work. This, that then another this and every single time I had a solution because I was taught to think on the spot and never panic.
For all of the Black Tower publications I have only adapted three old projects. Everything else is brand new.
Iget ideas all night and all day, every day. I do not keep notes and have given up sketching out the ideas. So long as my brain keeps going it is all up there. But I did take the challenge to tick down every time I had a good idea that could be developed. Last Saturday -8 ticks. Sunday 6 (I really was not well) and Monday I had 7 more idea and Tuesday four. The secret is to develop your imagination. I will give you an example.
A good few years ago I was challenged to come up with a full story idea for whatever someone came up with and never faltered. One person was obviously ticked off so decided to throw something that I could not possibly come up with a story idea for: "You are lying in the garden and see two blades of grass move"...hehehehe. I came up with a short silly idea that involved wind and two rabbits. The person was not impressed until I outlined a series of 15 events that began with a man with a petrol grass cutter and ended in a nuclear reactor explosion that made the two blades of grass move! That one needs drawing one day.
The trick is to keep challenging yourself when you see or hear something. One trick is, if you collect toys or items that can fit into a box. Lots of items in the box but, eyes closed, you take out a toy cowboy. You do the same again and this time you take out a toy robot. Too easy. Even pulling out a dinosaur toy is easy. But you have to think of a story involving that cowboy and the robot or the cowboy and dinosaur -I just look at items (figures etc) that are on my shelves and the story runs through my mind. You can make the story child-like, serious, horror, sci fi or humorous but the whole point is that you need to keep exercising the imagination
I get ideas all the time but I do not draw or write them down. I'm not being paid to create the stories so they amuse me. I have enough stories in my mind and some written down once to keep a 60 pages anthology title going for two years if published monthly.
Does it frustrate me that most of these stories are not published? In a sense, yes, but if you have read this article you will understand why I no longer tear my hair out (not having much helps) or scream and rage. And I have not even gone into the radio or TV work from 1992 on....you have escaped lightly!
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