book, the girls in their party dresses. Plus, joking around with a more emo nerd look.
[Joëlle] Jones does a nice job contrasting the seediness of Mercer's life with the high society in which Jennie lives, as well as showing how innocent Mercer once was and the change in him from the past to the present. Again, this is standard noir stuff, but Jones brings it to life beautifully. As the book moves to its climax, her pencils get a bit rougher and a bit more frenzied, bringing the mood up to where it needs to be. The book doesn't turn into a horror show, but bodies do pile up a bit, and Jones is able to match the intensity of the narrative with her art.
[...]
Although, as I mentioned, in many ways this is a typical noir story, I tend to like noir stories, so I like this. In other ways, it rises above the typical noir story, and that might appeal to people who don't love noir. Either way, it has a nifty little mystery that has a good number of twists, and it features art by a rising star.
| Important Things with Demetri Martin | ||||
| Brains - Greatest Minds | ||||
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is already on Amazon for preorder, though they haven't posted the cover yet. Nico is pretty far into it and on a steady course to finish, so this book is really rolling. We're in early talks to go with Oni to this show in Chicago and debut the book there. Hopefully all three of us: Nico, myself, and Joëlle.
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as a featured item.
Tom -
Ng Suat Tong's survey of mainstream writers and their approach to scripting made for interesting reading, but I think there are two things in regard to Brian Michael Bendis that should be noted. One is an observation, the other a correction of sorts.
1. It seems any meaningful look at Brian's work should have taken into account that he is an artist himself, and though he has all but abandoned cartooning since, by his own admission, draftsmanship was not his strength, one can clearly see a continuity between how he told a story on his own and how he does so in collaboration. While Brian's scripts can be sparse, his role as someone who thinks visually about page construction should not be diminished. Arguably, his arrangement of dialogue from panel to panel, page to page, has been one of the most influential developments in the last ten years or so.
2. In regards to the Daredevil Omnibus, I am pretty sure the image being shown on your site is the dust jacket cover prior to a replacement version being reprinted. The initial shipment had a (c) symbol smack dab in the middle of Daredevil's face, and when Marvel printed loose, corrected versions to ship to customers, Bendis demanded they change the cover copy to include not just the artists, but I believe the colorist, as well. Mr. Tong suggests that Bendis would not likely support such a divide, implied or otherwise, between the importance of the contributors, and that is indeed correct.
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Jamie S. Rich
was in regards to how Joëlle Jones and I collaborate. It's been bubbling through the zeitgeist for some time now. (Also: debates about the role of an editor, for example here and here.) In fact, I had become so conscious to the curiosity regarding this, it inspired that piece I did for Robot 6 where we showed the difference between my script and what Joëlle drew (revisit it here). As you'll see, I am blessed with an artist that doesn't simply rest at "conveying as little mood or sense of place as is present in [the script's] instructions," as Mr. Tong describes. (I actually object to the word "instructions;" that suggests more of authoritative stance than it should, like a writer just tells the artist what to do.) As I've said all along, I only get super visual when I think I have a layout idea or a suggestion of angle or technique worth communicating; that doesn't mean, however, that I am ignoring the nature of how a page works. I seriously doubt that some of the more maligned writers in this article do, either. Looking at Tong's examples, I actually find it interesting that what he considers one of the most successful collaborations, that of Frank Miller and David Mazuchelli, comes from some of the most sparse scripts of all. One need not write a page of script for every panel a la Alan Moore in order to have successful communication between word and image. (Confession of this comics fan: I'd reach for a Miller, Brubaker, or Bendis comic before I'd reach for a Moore comic any day of the week. Throw your stones now.)
, there are conversations between Steven T. Seagle and Tim Sale regarding the creation of the series, which had originally been published in 1989, just prior to the emergence of Vertigo. Seagle mentions how Alan Moore's Watchmen scripts had made all the writers feel they must get verbose, to the point where it was practically a competition to see who could write the longest manuscript for a 22-page comic. Eventually, Seagle realized how much he was bogging the artist down with useless information, which then caused things to swing back the other way for him. Sure, there is something fanciful about this idea that a writer can present every tiny piece of information pertaining to his vision, but what's the point if it's agreed on up front that it will never all make it to the page? That's a lot of work for the writer to put it all down and then a lot of work for the artist to cut it all out. To what purpose? Because it sounds neat that the script was so huge? I can either edit to the essential, or I can take the idea and write a prose novel. Trust me, I've never gotten exactly what I wanted in a comic book from overwriting, but I have from effectively communicating the goal.
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Bigger sizes through the click
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for the gallery show going up tomorrow at Floating World Comics. Though the show will mainly be pages from The Marquis and B.P.R.D., the zombie that emerges at the end of "Kago no Tori" fits in there pretty well.
How is this book something only the two of you [Jamie S. Rich & Joëlle Jones] together could do?
Creative chemistry is just so important. There are just certain things that happen when two particular people get together to make art. You know, like I’m Martin Scorsese and Joëlle is Robert De Niro. Or maybe I’m Paul McCartney and she’s John Lennon--or would that be the other way around? It’s hard to say what exactly happens, but it has to do with point of view, the philosophies we share and the ways we differ, and how those things intersect to make something unique. It’s also that level of respect for and excitement about the other person’s work. I know people think I am being facetious or self-deprecating when I say these things, but it’s true. I adore Joëlle’s drawing, and I want to write to meet her level of craft. It’s not a competition, but it definitely is a mutual challenge.
Spell Checkers is what I like to call a shower idea. I get these vivid ideas when I am in the shower, I don’t know why. I think it’s some curse, like I am doomed to have my best ideas at times I can’t write them down. When I’m exercising, too. A lot of You Have Killed Me arrived as inspiration on the exercise bike. For Spell Checkers, it was like the day after we had that conversation about the sketch that I was in the shower and saw the first three pages in full detail, and those are still the first three pages of the book. Same thing happened in You Have Killed Me, there is a scene at a horse race where Mercer thinks he has seen something, and the page where that happens, I had an image appear in my brain — which is not that different to what happens to Mercer on that page, when you think about it. It’s an important moment, a turning point in the story and definitely a turning point during the writing, where the book started to really come alive. Usually I thumbnail visions of those kind, I sketch them out, as it’s the fastest way to get them out of my head and stop thinking about them. I did it with Spell Checkers, I did it with the first page of “The Jailhouse Swing,” our story in Popgun volume 3. I never show those thumbnails to Joëlle, the most I’ll do is try to type up how I see it, explain the layout, and it amazes me, but every time it’s one of those scenes, what she draws is exactly what I saw. It’s uncanny.
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