I fiddle with similar things every now and then. I wrote a three-page Elongated Man story a while back, which I plan to draw eventually.
Tonight, I was thinking of doing a short story about a hypothetical Thunderbolts Gamma team, populated with C-list villains that were picked up on non-violent crimes, and are put to work until their sentences are up. Armadillo gets popped for tax evasion, a very bored Leap-Frog willfully violates the conditions of his parole so he can join the team, Rocket Raccoon's nemesis Blackjack O'Hare is on loan from SWORD's holding facilities, Joystick is the team's unlikely straight woman, and Atlas begrudgingly oversees the entire operation, as a personal favor to the original Thunderbolts.
Really, I just want to see Atlas chuck Armadillo at someone.
There is nothing inherently wrong with fan fiction, and anyone who says so is an idiot. A lot of it sucks because a lot, no, most, of everything sucks. That's no reason not to try, which thankfully this thread has proven over and over again. Fan fiction is how I got my writing contract, same as pretty much everyone else who has written for the IP since the original creators brought on new folks.
The bitch of comics is that writers have to generally produce a finished product of writing and art, but doing nothing isn't going to get you anywhere and it its a good place to start in developing ideas and an appreciation for the pacing and construction necessary to making your own story, since that is what gets writers jobs. Its not like fan fiction is being used as a submission, mainly because editors cannot and will not read it, but if you want to write then just write. Something else will come along, and if it doesn't then perhaps that is something else of a concern. Writing begets more writing.
Plus Noh-Varr is cool. He deserves something to be done with him. I like my Marvel family idea, but I haven't worked on it since 2009. It's disappointing that he's on the big time Avengers team and yet not much seems to have changed.
I don't know if there is a lot in the Noh-varr character. He was an alien who based his opinion of humanity on a lunatic who tried to vivisect him. There were a lot of neat ideas in Marvel Boy, and some truly amazing sequences with phenomenal art, but the character is basically Namor 2.0
I'd like to see some insight into the mindscrew that comes with understanding his role as coming from a Skrull impersonating Mar-Vell. I'd also like to see how he interacts with Teddy, who also had an amazing conversation with Skrull-Vell, about their lifes and roles as symbols. More importantly, they have a certain destiny that has to come into play at some point in how the Kree Empire sees both young men.
Noh-Varr once burned the words "Fuck You" in city-block-sized letters in Manhattan and fought, holy shit, a lot of crazy things up to and including a sentient corporation. And, yes, at some point I would like to know who/what that "Supreme Intelligence" was that made him into Protector.
He needs to be in space battling threats from beyond time, space, and reality as we know it. He also needs a Thanos.
Dark Avengers Annual, Dark Reign: The List: Wolverine, Marvel Boy, Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways, and a couple of issues of Ms. Marvel including his backup piece in #50. It's not a big list, but it's a fun list. I'm not a fan of Reed (obviously), but the backup has some neat toys that come from the fact that there were like six different time-travel stories coming out around that time, and Reed had just done his 2099 crossover mini.
His future-version girlfriend's readout "Chronally insignificant" when she targeted a civilian in the fast food joint where she and Noh-Varr fight was hilarious.
Ah. The fastest way to my heart is through the anus. Not necessarily mine or yours, but butts are involved.
One of these days I'm going to be interviewed by the New York Times and they are going to have to ask me about poop. And I don't know if the smile on my face at that thought is joy or embarassment.
I'm moving onto the next one now, but I'll probably fix the second panel, before I ink all the pages. That vine/noose in the fourth panel's also needs work.
TCAF is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. It's an annual (previously biannual) creator-centric con-type affair held in Toronto. Bunch of cool guests this year, and a huge list of interesting people showing their stuff.
Yeah, I fixed Kookaburra's head and legs in that one. They looked kinda weird.
Also, I'm crawling ever closer to completion, having started inking the pages yesterday.
This is just a really quick/not final toning job, without my usual nitpicky digital corrections. But, it'll give you an idea of what the finished linework will resemble.
I'm not going to hit my self-imposed Saturday deadline, but all the pages should be inked by then. Then, I'll just have to do some digital corrections, toning, and lettering. I may leave the coloring for later.
One thing that kind of sucks, is that I hadn't used this brand of ink, on this brand of paper before. So, until I started inking these pages, I didn't realize that the lines would bleed slightly, due to the watery quality of the ink, and the strange absorbency of the paper. I don't think it's super-noticeable, but it's slowing me down a bit as I adjust to compensate.
I also decided to do digital panel borders. I'd originally planned to do them by hand, since I've heard some people remark they don't care for the overly neat, perfect look of digital borders. But I though the hand-drawn ones just looked like garbage.
How far in advance do you plot/outline your stories? I've read in a lot of interviews with various writers that they only know the start/finish of their story and they make up the rest as they go. I'm currently making an outline of my entire story, and then I will begin to script. Should I be more free in my writing?
Hey O! I've been trying to find inking and colouring tutorials recently, mainly cos i'm horrific at both, but found this Lettering Tutorial at CA that was really informative, thought it may help.
I generally don't think of endings for comic stories where everything is over
Because superhero comics don't tend to end, and I like that
Arcs need to have beginning/middle/ending but overall you never need to be thinking "and then this guy is going to die doing this" because that is just another story to get to later on.
Outlining is a useful activity, but it's not the only way to do things. Most of the writers I know do outlines but they don't worry about following them all that closely. I only got the outline for Old Man Hero nailed down in April, after 4 years of building it piecewise. I do find that having an outline puts a lot of stuff in focus, but it takes me a lot of work to get to the point where I can put together an outline that's worth anything.
At the end of the day, it's got to be organic to your writing process. If you start by building a narrative in detail, outlines will help a lot. If you start with 5 scenes and a couple of characters, it might be more useful to work on the universe of the story first.
A lot of writers are intimidated by a blank page, so I'll offer this simple practice I eventually adopted; maybe it will help. I have a word document that's broken up into a script template with all the pages my story will have and with five panels set aside on each because that is the ideal limit of panels, for me. Some cases will call for several panels, some pages need just two, but the point is it fills in and provides a skeleton I can start hanging muscle and skin on. Here's what it looks like...
PAGE FOUR
Panel 1/
CHARACTER:
CHARACTER:
Panel 2/
CHARACTER:
CHARACTER:
Panel 3/
CHARACTER:
CHARACTER:
Panel 4/
CHARACTER:
CHARACTER:
Panel 5/
CHARACTER:
CHARACTER:
Very simple, but you'd be surprised how much it helps. You can make one of these in a few minutes, there — take mine. I often have many more people speaking than two, often none. Next to the panel number I describe the scene because for me it works best to say what we're seeing followed by who is saying what.
And, here's a page I inked a while ago, with some slap-dash tones. I'm behind schedule further than I wanted to be, due to my real job (sorry TLB), but I only have a couple of pages left to ink.
Speaking of really helpful things... does anyone know of any decent Photoshop colouring tutorials or anything of that nature? I'm finally starting to scan and colour some of my stuff but I have ZERO experience with Photoshop.
Posts
Same thing, different names
It's good scripting practice
but it's fanfiction
I feel so dirty
Tonight, I was thinking of doing a short story about a hypothetical Thunderbolts Gamma team, populated with C-list villains that were picked up on non-violent crimes, and are put to work until their sentences are up. Armadillo gets popped for tax evasion, a very bored Leap-Frog willfully violates the conditions of his parole so he can join the team, Rocket Raccoon's nemesis Blackjack O'Hare is on loan from SWORD's holding facilities, Joystick is the team's unlikely straight woman, and Atlas begrudgingly oversees the entire operation, as a personal favor to the original Thunderbolts.
Really, I just want to see Atlas chuck Armadillo at someone.
Tumblr Twitter
Plus, it's about time the kid learns the Supreme Intelligence isn't alive.
Really, I am shocked Marvel hasn't put out anything with Noh-Varr. They had a back-up in Ms. Marvel 50 and that's it.
No one-shot, no miniseries, no nothing.
Give me something, Marvel.
A worthy cause
brother
Also fuck yes I want more Protector stuff Marvel you hacks
The bitch of comics is that writers have to generally produce a finished product of writing and art, but doing nothing isn't going to get you anywhere and it its a good place to start in developing ideas and an appreciation for the pacing and construction necessary to making your own story, since that is what gets writers jobs. Its not like fan fiction is being used as a submission, mainly because editors cannot and will not read it, but if you want to write then just write. Something else will come along, and if it doesn't then perhaps that is something else of a concern. Writing begets more writing.
Plus Noh-Varr is cool. He deserves something to be done with him. I like my Marvel family idea, but I haven't worked on it since 2009. It's disappointing that he's on the big time Avengers team and yet not much seems to have changed.
He was a rebellious arrogant teenager who was forced to grow up very fast.
Need to know who is wrong here
Banking on blank
You choose ... poorly.
Noh-Varr once burned the words "Fuck You" in city-block-sized letters in Manhattan and fought, holy shit, a lot of crazy things up to and including a sentient corporation. And, yes, at some point I would like to know who/what that "Supreme Intelligence" was that made him into Protector.
if you loved him in Marvel Boy then you'll probably not like what he has become
if you loved him from Secret Invasion on then you will probably dig the hell out of it
Dark Avengers Annual, Dark Reign: The List: Wolverine, Marvel Boy, Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways, and a couple of issues of Ms. Marvel including his backup piece in #50. It's not a big list, but it's a fun list. I'm not a fan of Reed (obviously), but the backup has some neat toys that come from the fact that there were like six different time-travel stories coming out around that time, and Reed had just done his 2099 crossover mini.
He needs to be on Earth, with the Avengers.
Kree Heroes are a dime a dozen in space.
On Earth he'll have time to live up to Mar-Vell's legacy.
But even battling dudes beneath Dr. Doom's stature is a waste of his abilities.
even Thor gets into a fistfight with Grey Gargoyle sometimes
But seriously, that is exactly what he would say too.
I started writing a story set in the Fallout universe in South Dakota. I felt a little dirty for that.
The characters are my own creations at least.
Also there's poop jokes.
JordynNolz.com <- All my blogs (Shepard, Wasted, J'onn, DCAU) are here now!
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
One of these days I'm going to be interviewed by the New York Times and they are going to have to ask me about poop. And I don't know if the smile on my face at that thought is joy or embarassment.
I'm moving onto the next one now, but I'll probably fix the second panel, before I ink all the pages. That vine/noose in the fourth panel's also needs work.
Tumblr Twitter
@oldmanhero .programming .web comic .everything
@oldmanhero .programming .web comic .everything
Also, I'm crawling ever closer to completion, having started inking the pages yesterday.
I'm not going to hit my self-imposed Saturday deadline, but all the pages should be inked by then. Then, I'll just have to do some digital corrections, toning, and lettering. I may leave the coloring for later.
One thing that kind of sucks, is that I hadn't used this brand of ink, on this brand of paper before. So, until I started inking these pages, I didn't realize that the lines would bleed slightly, due to the watery quality of the ink, and the strange absorbency of the paper. I don't think it's super-noticeable, but it's slowing me down a bit as I adjust to compensate.
I also decided to do digital panel borders. I'd originally planned to do them by hand, since I've heard some people remark they don't care for the overly neat, perfect look of digital borders. But I though the hand-drawn ones just looked like garbage.
Tumblr Twitter
As in
I'll think up a scene or an idea, and mold a story around it
Could be the end
Could be the beginning
Could be something that happens five pages in
Then I just kinda jump around until I have enough for a whole story
Because superhero comics don't tend to end, and I like that
Arcs need to have beginning/middle/ending but overall you never need to be thinking "and then this guy is going to die doing this" because that is just another story to get to later on.
At the end of the day, it's got to be organic to your writing process. If you start by building a narrative in detail, outlines will help a lot. If you start with 5 scenes and a couple of characters, it might be more useful to work on the universe of the story first.
@oldmanhero .programming .web comic .everything
we will be making stuff eventually, but we're starting out with character designs for my thing tonight
And, here's a page I inked a while ago, with some slap-dash tones. I'm behind schedule further than I wanted to be, due to my real job (sorry TLB), but I only have a couple of pages left to ink.
Tumblr Twitter
Tumblr Twitter
...know the fuck outta msPaint though.
you can't list me as a reference, however