The horse is dead. Long live the horse.
Just for kicks, I designed a hall pass for The Monk's sixth grade class. I've also been reading the completely wonderful The Devil in the White City, which focuses on Chicago's 1893 fair, the World's Columbian Exposition. So, yes, my inspirations are obvious.
I made two passes for her and, of course, each is individually numbered.
As projects mount* and I become increasingly agitated slash despondent over the fact that none of my projects are getting finished, I decided at long last that I needed some sort of organizational record to help sanity reign once more. Now, the thing is, I loath and am considered one of the worst enemies of Organization. I don't take notes. I don't fill out calendars. I don't keep a day timer. I don't plan activities usually until the week or day of the activity. I don't keep a tidy work area.
Still...
So I bought a little white board, mounted it on the side of my behemoth computer and created project bars for a number of projects. I hope to see magically over the next months these bars steadily eat their way across my computer's lateral expanse. And to add a little zip to the theory, I thought I'd post a weekly up dat of those progress bars here. Perhaps to shame myself into working better. After all, that kinda worked when I was posting page counts on my graphic novel's script.
Anyway, here's the start of it:
And also, I'm going to try posting every week day over the next month and see if that's even possible.
*note: due mostly to the fact that I am incredibly forgetful and so agree to take on new work or create new projects for myself...
Labels: projects
Work on the graphic novel has stalled at the art stage. My thumb has not gotten better and may be progressing toward the other direction. The torn ligament seems to have healed and built up scar tissue inside the ligament itself. I have little strength in the thumb and can only draw or write for an hour before my hand is a throbbing mess. I have drawn exactly one panel of my 280-page story and that alone was a lot of work. I'm seeing a hand therapist once a week and if therapy and a splinty-contraption doesn't work, then they want to try a cortozone shot. If that doesn't work, then... surgery? All I know is that I can't work with my thumb as it is. I wanted to carve a watermelon for 4th of July, but that may not even be possible either. I'm grumpy.
So I have this dilemma thing. Over the past year or two, I've paid an increased attention to the complaints against the fairly-plain, sexist nature of comic book fiction. Things in the realm of comics (and especially in the genres of superhero fiction and many of the genres native to Japanese manga) are a bit antique. Every month, there seems to be a fresh target upon which to vent one's righteous indignation against the indignities disproportionately bestowed upon the female character. There are entire sites devoted to women's issues in comics (with most that I've seen focusing on the ins and outs of the American mainstream affairs). The main point, however, is that things are not great.
Which puts many female comic readers on edge, looking out for these breaches of egalitarian principle.
Which is where my dilemma comes in. The graphic novel on which I've been working since November features a female as the lead. I think she's a pretty good character and engaging. Strong in some areas, greatly flawed in others. Kinda like real people. Or so I intend.
The problem is that in delving into this feminist subculture of the comics subculture, I get the feeling that no matter what I write, I can't win. Along with all the good critique I've read, I've also been pretty taken aback at some of the grossly inadequate critique out there. For every feminist out there who's giving things a fair evaluation, there are those who operate on assumption rather than evidence—tarring, feathering, and dismissing with a description that becomes so common that it begins to lose all strength: misogyny.
What worries me is not the reasonable critics. It's the ones who don't need to be reasonable. One of the dangers in taking on the identity of a critic is that one tends to feel the need to find error so deeply that one is not satisfied if error is not found. I see this all the time with burgeoning young proofreaders and editors (yes, part of my skillset is that of a master editor!*). After a few weeks of proofreading and editing, they become so anxious to find mistakes that they begin seeing them everywhere. Even things that are not mistakes. When they become especially attached to their role, it often takes some fierce discussion to convince them that they are not seeing what they imagine they are seeing. I'm gathering that a portion of the feminist (note: not female) comic-blogging atmosphere is suffering from such a malady.
For every honest appraisal of sexism in comics, we're getting hit with over-reactions and presumptions. Or maybe that ratio's off. Maybe it's 3 reactions :: 1 overreaction? Or 1 reaction :: 2 overreactions? Or 10 reactions :: 3 overreactions? I don't know. What I do know is that its dangerous to put out a book in this kind of environment.
What I mean when I say "this kind of environment" is a charged environment. Feminist momentum in the realm of comics-blogging is picking up. And as that momentum picks up, the sightings of Jesus in a tortilla will be picking up as well. Things that deserve ire will garner it—but what about the innocent stuff that gets caught in the sweep?
I'm essentially the poster-child for American privilege. I'm white, male, Protestant, blond-haired, blue-eyed, not fat, and I grew up in Laguna Beach. The only count in my favour is that I didn't grow up rich (as my father was an artist—and not one of the $2500-per-work kinds either). I've got all the marks against me that screams: "How can you write a ____ character? You don't know what it's like to be me! You've never endured the struggle or prejudice that I have!" And it's true. My struggles have nothing to do with speaking English as a second language, being discriminated against because of the colour of my skin, being dismissed because I don't have a Y chromosome, or being hated/feared because my sexuality deviates from norm.
All the same, I like stories—and think I have one worth telling. One about a woman.
After having written it, I'm worried that I will be perceived as misogynistic Not by the reasonable—I have no fear of my acquittal on their part. But it's the ones looking for trouble that worry me. One of the things that makes the reception of a creative work such a dicey proposition is that I see some feminists praising a specific instance in a book while other feminists revile the same instance. And both groups cite their feminism as the basis for their decision to praise or revile.
Colour me baffled.
Really, it shouldn't surprise me, as people constantly cite ideology as the fuel for their evaluations. I knew people who voted for Bush because they were Christians and couldn't, in good conscience, vote any other way. I knew people who would not vote for Bush because they were Christians and couldn't, in good conscience, support his presidency. I know I shouldn't fear this dynamic, but ideologies are powerful (and often unpredictable) things. And this book is dear to me and I don't want to see it sacrificed to thoughtlessness.
I count myself fortunate that I'm just in the first year of a four-year project and that the climate may have been entirely mellowed and resolved by the time I'm ready to present my story. But if its the same? Or worse? How can a creator win?
I don't believe there is anything in my book that should offend readers to the point that the story is tainted. I do believe that some will be offended and the story ruined for them. I did my best to craft not just a believable woman (which would be inadequate) but to craft a believable person. Bad things happen and she doesn't come out completely rosey. I think a good feminist/humanist/what-have-you could read my story and be satisfied that I did a good job with what she's looking for. I guess the current climate just worries me is all.
*note: don't take my blog writing as evidence that I'm a bad proofer, everything on this site is first drafted and though it could use a good proofing, I'll save that for my serious writing.
Some resources discussing women in comics:
Labels: comics, projects, sexism, social issues
After taking a couple months off after finishing my script, I thought it was about time to start getting more serious about beginning the art for the book. So I thought I'd doodle around a bit, maybe start sketching to get the drawing side of my brain back into gear. One problem though.
My thumb.
Remember how last September I tore the tendon in my right thumb? Remember how it looked all swollen and knobby even months later? Well, it still looks about the same. And while about 90% of its mobility and about 70% of its strength have returned (I still can't release a tightly set emergency brake), stamina is severely lacking. Friday night I doodled up a lady drinking coffee, whittling away an hour at the local Starbucks, and by the end of that hour I wanted to cry from pain. My hand was on fire. Monday night, I decided to write up a four to six page scene to add into the script at about the 2/3 point. I didn't have a laptop handy so I just began printing the scene by hand in my sketchbook. Within an hour, I wanted to die.
This is a real obstacle for me. If this doesn't heal up, I may have to abandon trying to do the art myself. Or just turn the book into a ten-year project. As it is, I'm expecting to work maybe eight hours per page. For a 300-page book, that's a lot of hours. If I can only work an hour at a time on the art, I'm sunk.
I'm going to see about getting some physical therapy. Losing my drawing hand would be a tragedy for me. I'm not sure what the lesson is here:
Don't do things for others as you'll only get hurt in the end?
...or maybe...
Don't slip and fall while playing ultimate frisbee with juniour high students as you'll probably just ruin your thumb?
Well, here's a doodle to pacify you:
You may or may not have noticed, but I've finished the first draft of my script. At final count, it'll chop out to 271 pages - a good medium respectable length for a graphic novel. Currently, I'm preparing a few review packages to send to various and sundry persons who are both critical and able to be mean. The packages will contain the entire script, an introductory letter, and a few samples of art. The art samples won't be from the book itself, but may be indicative of the approach and mood I'm leaning towards - and will hopefully help bring the script to life (there is little so dry as a comic script; they're even worse than movie scripts).
Below is a sample of one of the possible art styles I'd go for in the book. I'll almost certainly be using models and photoreferencing for the book's art - since that's the kind of mood I'm going for. And I'll probably be using a more painterly approach to the book's colouring. It may not end up looking anything like what I've got going on in this sample, but I'm just testing around right now. (I can't really start the art until I get my script critiques back anyway.)
p.s. please note that the photo reference for this image was ripped directly from Deviant Art and so, is not actually the main character of the book. I just needed something quick to play with. For the real deal, I won't be ripping off other people's art to bolster my own ^_^
p.p.s. Yeah, I know I left off her foot. I didn't have time to finish it before I slapped it together to post here this morning. That's also why the background is just a stylized shot of the ET20 rather than an actual drawing.
Labels: projects
The last few weeks have been incredibly busy. Pretty much immediately after work, I've been heading down to the local Stabbuck's to work on my graphic novel's script. It's a lot of work and slower going than I had originally presumed. If it was just writing, it'd be a piece of cake, but since I have to remain conscious of page layout and per-page-turn pacing, it involves far more planning than a mere novel. But even though my progress is going slower than I'd like, I still feel - at the end of each night's work - that I've really done pretty well. When I had written the prior post last Wednesday, I had scripted up to page 45. On my lunch break today, I had put myself up to midway through page 74.
The other thing keeping my busy is Guitar Heroing. I don't know who said that Wii was the party game that gets non-gamers into games, but I was instantly drawn into the GH-mania. Monk, my roommate, got me the first Guitar Hero for Christmas and a couple days later, I picked up its sequel so we'd have a second guitar.
We had a big game-playing festival at the house on New Year's Day. It was mostly board games (Puerto Rico and Scotland Yard), card games (Dutch Blitz and Bang), and one or two party games (Trivial Pursuit: Genus Edition and Wise and Otherwise). The rad thing was that Guitar Hero was infectious. As soon as anyone got out in whichever game they were playing, they'd head back to the TV room to indulge in a little Boston, Franz Ferdinand, or Sabbath. The game is simply glorious.
We also found that those practiced in guitar or piano were better equipped to play the game. My left forearm has been burning pretty steadily since Christmas (burning guitar leads hurt so sweetly). Both Monk and Johnny T (piano and guitar, respectively), however, were largely immune - having developed both reach and muscles in their regular musical habits.
But anyway... that's why I've been so busy.
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