IT'S ALL PART OF THE PROCESS

I thought it would be fun to look back at the inception of Spell Checkers now that volume 1 is out. So, I hunted through my moleskins and found my actual thumbnails for the first five pages of the book from January 31, 2007.

Click on any image and select "all sizes" to see larger versions.

Compare to Joëlle's original pages: 1 2 3

And look at Nico's in the book (I don't have good files of them), sorry.

Keep in mind, I never showed either of the artists these sketches, I just used them to write the script. It makes me think I must have better descriptive powers than I give myself credit for that the final product is so close.

These were basically drawn on the day when I first had the idea for Spell Checkers. Remember, it began as a sketch of three girls by Joëlle, which I then based the whole story off of. Once I had the idea to make them three wicked high school witches, I immediately thought of this opening. I sketched it out, and it stuck. Much of the dialogue never changed. I am pretty sure this is the day after we were out drinking and one of us had the notion to do a comic from the drawing. I remember getting the inspiration in the shower and having to get out to put it on paper.

Then again, maybe it didn't happen that fast. Here is the actual first note I wrote to Joëlle to tell her about the idea, it's dated a few days later. The notepad file is titled "Supernatural Mean Girls," and it seems to suggest I spent some time thinking about it:

"Once we talked about maybe basing a story around this sketch of yours (see attached). I've always kept that in the back of my mind.

I was thinking today that all of the stories about the snotty popular girls, from Heathers up through Mean Girls, there is always the nice girl who balances them out and is supposed to be the heroine and whatnot. But what if there was no nice girl? What if the series was about the mean girls and the nasty things they do to each other and to other kids in school. It could be a heightened soap opera of backstabbing and wickedness without the namby pamby moral message. Because we all really like watching villains, don't we?

Not that we need more stuff to want to do. J"

It appears I forgot to mention the magic part. I'm kind of baffled by that.

All of the Spell Checkers scripts have begun with a clear prologue. I have some very light notes for books 2 and 3 from whenn pitching started. I needed to come up with some idea of where the series would go and so pulled some plot slugs out of the air just to appease the powers that be. Those ideas stuck, but both volumes only really took strong root after I had the idea for how to start. The volume 3 prologue came to me just a couple of days ago while I was jogging, giving me reason to hustle home so I could write it down. Such is the way...

Current Soundtrack: The Pretty Things, SF Sorrow is Born



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