Sunday, February 08, 2009

Blue in the face...

...and all the way to the tail. Including whiskers.

I've been prevaricating a bit. Spent the afternoon researching on how to write comics scripts (note the use of "comics" to ensure the clear distinction between a script that is funny and a script for a comic - this is important).

And then I tried writing some. Pretty nice actually (and Celtx does it all for you). Considering I never really want to be a Director it's also important to understand that, when writing comics scripts, that's exactly what you are because you select the shot to be used in each panel. (Of course the illustrator might suggest something else, and may well be right, but it starts with you.)

My illustrator, Rob, reads a lot more comics than I do but when I suggested one particular idea he said "nobody's doing that, it sounds great!". Gosh.

My Google Reader had run out of things to read so I thought I'd have a look at some of the suggestions, after rejecting a couple, I found "Blue Cat". Now I know many of you already read him but he's new to me. (I say "him" but no gender is indicated unless an inability to make coconut macaroons is a specifically male trait. Or indeed the ability to make biscuits encourages ignorant secretaries to accuse him of being gay.)

Anyway.

I have been telling everyone that I think the reason Demons was such drivel was mainly because the director is clueless and probably hates "genre".

I was very pleased to discover that from the insider's view, as provided by James and his blue cat, I'm right. Not necessarily in this particular, but certainly in general.

I didn't see the Demons finale but have been briefed on how they, once again, ripped a zombie show from the life of a script with potential.

Back to now: So this evening I want to complete a couple of pages of the Monsters comics script (hm, perhaps I should just call it OGN - "Original Graphic Novel", see I'm getting the lingo) and send those off to Rob and see if it makes sense to him. There's obviously going to be a settling in period, we were being very careful over e-mail saying things like "is it alright with you if I take a directorial stance" and "I don't want to squash any creative vibes but I think..." - have to see how it goes.

Then tomorrow I shall get back to Unit X. I really must finish this first draft, yes I know I said that yesterday.



What's on the turntable? "Gavotte & Variations" by Sky from "Sky 2"

2 comments:

Chris Regan said...

Sounds like you're doing okay without it, but if you're interested Alan Moore wrote a really good (and very short) book called Writing for Comics that I found really useful. That and Neil Gaiman's sample script in the back of Dream Country.

Adaddinsane said...

Ta for that.