Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A Bit About WOODY
Hi everybody!
I am working on my graphic novel WOODY: THE HERO OF ZIRCON CITY, and I wanted to talk a bit about the format. The story is told in 3 vertical panels over 3 pages.
The usual comics page is a 9 box grid. The reason for this is that the natural length to tell a comics story is 9 panels: 3 to establish the story, 3 to add some flavor, and 3 to bring it to a full conclusion.
The 3 godfathers of the comic strip are Hal Foster, Alex Raymond and Milton Caniff. On TARZAN, Hal Foster used a strict 9 panel grid, as he was adapting ERB's novel. Alex Raymond certainly used the same format with FLASH GORDON. And Milton Caniff did the same with TERRY AND THE PIRATES.
My vertical panels each represent 3 events, depicted by a single integrated illustration, so I'm elongating the drawing while compressing the narrative. Why? Because comics have started to EXTEND the narrative and MAGNIFY the illustration, which is ridiculous. There is a natural balance between words and pictures, which is the format that WOODY employs.
That's all for now! Be good!
Brad
I am working on my graphic novel WOODY: THE HERO OF ZIRCON CITY, and I wanted to talk a bit about the format. The story is told in 3 vertical panels over 3 pages.
The usual comics page is a 9 box grid. The reason for this is that the natural length to tell a comics story is 9 panels: 3 to establish the story, 3 to add some flavor, and 3 to bring it to a full conclusion.
The 3 godfathers of the comic strip are Hal Foster, Alex Raymond and Milton Caniff. On TARZAN, Hal Foster used a strict 9 panel grid, as he was adapting ERB's novel. Alex Raymond certainly used the same format with FLASH GORDON. And Milton Caniff did the same with TERRY AND THE PIRATES.
My vertical panels each represent 3 events, depicted by a single integrated illustration, so I'm elongating the drawing while compressing the narrative. Why? Because comics have started to EXTEND the narrative and MAGNIFY the illustration, which is ridiculous. There is a natural balance between words and pictures, which is the format that WOODY employs.
That's all for now! Be good!
Brad
Monday, November 16, 2009
Monetize, Lads and Lasses!
Hi Everybody!
I have decided to submit my WOODY: THE HERO OF ZIRCON CITY pages initially to IMAGE COMICS and DARK HORSE COMICS, instead.
I figure since I'm going to put a heck'of'a'lot of effort into making these pages great, I might as well try to get paid, as well.
It is intriguing that many comics publishers are not soliciting original material or accepting submissions.
I was reading some comments by Jim Steranko about his working relationship with Stan Lee back in the 1960s, where Steranko produced some of the most enduring comic pages ever. Stan Lee was resistant to Steranko's innovations but, to this day, Steranko's pages are reproduced as prime examples of comics art; as much as Jack Kirby and Neal Adams. Steranko only produced about 25 comics in his career, compared to the thousands by Kirby and the hundreds by Adams, but Steranko always makes the reprint cut.
WOODY is part of my 4-tiered process to get Brad Product into the mainstream, along with my novel POCAHONTAS: SECRET LIFE, JSA: THE MODERN and, of course, THE WONDER WOMAN PROJECT.
My POCAHONTAS book is about how without Pocahontas, the Democratic Experiment of America might never have taken hold. More on that, later!
The JSA: The Modern essay will review how the recent Justice Society of America relaunch by DC Comics produced the best superhero team up book ever. As an avid comic book collector, it's good to put my critic's hat on now and again. We'll see how that pans out!
Basically, I've been in print, before. Getting paid is the goal, now, bringing value to the marketplace!
I hope to have 6 pages of WOODY done by month's end so I can send them out to IMAGE and DARK HORSE to review. Please with me luck, thank you!
Hope that all is going well with you, out there! Be good!
Brad
I have decided to submit my WOODY: THE HERO OF ZIRCON CITY pages initially to IMAGE COMICS and DARK HORSE COMICS, instead.
I figure since I'm going to put a heck'of'a'lot of effort into making these pages great, I might as well try to get paid, as well.
It is intriguing that many comics publishers are not soliciting original material or accepting submissions.
I was reading some comments by Jim Steranko about his working relationship with Stan Lee back in the 1960s, where Steranko produced some of the most enduring comic pages ever. Stan Lee was resistant to Steranko's innovations but, to this day, Steranko's pages are reproduced as prime examples of comics art; as much as Jack Kirby and Neal Adams. Steranko only produced about 25 comics in his career, compared to the thousands by Kirby and the hundreds by Adams, but Steranko always makes the reprint cut.
WOODY is part of my 4-tiered process to get Brad Product into the mainstream, along with my novel POCAHONTAS: SECRET LIFE, JSA: THE MODERN and, of course, THE WONDER WOMAN PROJECT.
My POCAHONTAS book is about how without Pocahontas, the Democratic Experiment of America might never have taken hold. More on that, later!
The JSA: The Modern essay will review how the recent Justice Society of America relaunch by DC Comics produced the best superhero team up book ever. As an avid comic book collector, it's good to put my critic's hat on now and again. We'll see how that pans out!
Basically, I've been in print, before. Getting paid is the goal, now, bringing value to the marketplace!
I hope to have 6 pages of WOODY done by month's end so I can send them out to IMAGE and DARK HORSE to review. Please with me luck, thank you!
Hope that all is going well with you, out there! Be good!
Brad
Monday, November 2, 2009
Christmas is Over, Ho Ho Ho!
Hi Everybody!
I got the Christmas card drawn, ho ho ho! It's benifited from the works of J.C. Leydecker, Andrew Loomis and Windsor McCay, because I am the good thief! If any of you want a Christmas card attachment sent to you, please let me know! :)
Now, I am working on my superhero comic strip called WOODY, which is based on a character I created back in high school. I had shown it to Geoff Boucher of the herocomplex webpage at the L.A. Times several months back and I hope that when I finally finish the first series of comics his offer to post them still stands!
Having studied everything from The Yellow Kid to The Rocketeer, I've decided that the best way to draw WOODY is on a series of 7x10" Bristol paper pages which will probably be shrunk down about 75% to fit on the webpage. I'm looking forward to some Steranko, lots of Good Girl art and the wittiness that has won me legions of blank stares all the world over!
You may be thinking I should be working on the Wonder Woman Project instead of these other things, but I'm just too talented to be tied to just one woman! :)
More good stuff coming soon, be good!
Brad
I got the Christmas card drawn, ho ho ho! It's benifited from the works of J.C. Leydecker, Andrew Loomis and Windsor McCay, because I am the good thief! If any of you want a Christmas card attachment sent to you, please let me know! :)
Now, I am working on my superhero comic strip called WOODY, which is based on a character I created back in high school. I had shown it to Geoff Boucher of the herocomplex webpage at the L.A. Times several months back and I hope that when I finally finish the first series of comics his offer to post them still stands!
Having studied everything from The Yellow Kid to The Rocketeer, I've decided that the best way to draw WOODY is on a series of 7x10" Bristol paper pages which will probably be shrunk down about 75% to fit on the webpage. I'm looking forward to some Steranko, lots of Good Girl art and the wittiness that has won me legions of blank stares all the world over!
You may be thinking I should be working on the Wonder Woman Project instead of these other things, but I'm just too talented to be tied to just one woman! :)
More good stuff coming soon, be good!
Brad
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
NOBODY'S PERFECT
Hi everybody!
I just reread LOST GIRLS by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. Now, Alan Moore is the greatest writer to ever grace the comics medium. Unfortunately, illustrator Melinda Gebbie is as anatomically-challenged in her way as WONDER WOMAN artist H.G. Peter was in his. H.G. Peter had a peculiar ability to draw a specific type of attractive woman, and all other people he generally depicted as grotesqueries, which gave the overall comic an effect comparable to your typical Tijuana Bible. This H.G. Peter artwork supported the subversive qualities in the WONDER WOMAN comic which William Moulton Marston concentrated his efforts on. With LOST GIRLS, Alan Moore looks at the dirty underpinings of Alice In Wonderland, Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz and Wendy from Peter Pan. However, instead of the effortless erotic draftsmanship of, say, Milo Manara, Alan Moore is teamed with the exaggerated delineations of Melinda Gebbie. Unlike H.G. Peter, not even Melinda Gebbie's women are particularly attractive, which is troubling for an erotic distraction like LOST GIRLS. Alan Moore explores incest, molestation, bondage, bestiality, name your sexual poison, but it largely comes across as an academic exercise instead of a passionate reverie. As boring as having your grandfather talk about sex is, the illustrations in LOST GIRLS make the story appear undernourished, as well. Alan Moore is never entirely without insights, but LOST GIRLS becomes more about bad sex than revealing truths. Similarly, after the initial burst of original ideas that fueled the original WONDER WOMAN comics, Wiliam Moulton Marston largely ignored telling credible stories and overindulged his symbolic obsessions. Let me give a movie analogy: the dirty kick of Marilyn Monroe playing to type in SOME LIKE IT HOT is lessened by the complete lack of chemistry between herself and Tony Curtis, and almost completely obliterated by director Billy Wilder's epilogue suggesting that Jack Lemmon in drag could do worse than by marrying the homely male suitor who has fallen in love with him. The only recent cinema I have seen that has allowed a young girl have big adventures without being punished for it is THE GOLDEN COMPASS.
Sorry to be so explicit and depressing this time around. However! I am beginning work on this year's Christmas card for one and all, so I'm feeling more cheerful than usual.
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad
I just reread LOST GIRLS by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. Now, Alan Moore is the greatest writer to ever grace the comics medium. Unfortunately, illustrator Melinda Gebbie is as anatomically-challenged in her way as WONDER WOMAN artist H.G. Peter was in his. H.G. Peter had a peculiar ability to draw a specific type of attractive woman, and all other people he generally depicted as grotesqueries, which gave the overall comic an effect comparable to your typical Tijuana Bible. This H.G. Peter artwork supported the subversive qualities in the WONDER WOMAN comic which William Moulton Marston concentrated his efforts on. With LOST GIRLS, Alan Moore looks at the dirty underpinings of Alice In Wonderland, Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz and Wendy from Peter Pan. However, instead of the effortless erotic draftsmanship of, say, Milo Manara, Alan Moore is teamed with the exaggerated delineations of Melinda Gebbie. Unlike H.G. Peter, not even Melinda Gebbie's women are particularly attractive, which is troubling for an erotic distraction like LOST GIRLS. Alan Moore explores incest, molestation, bondage, bestiality, name your sexual poison, but it largely comes across as an academic exercise instead of a passionate reverie. As boring as having your grandfather talk about sex is, the illustrations in LOST GIRLS make the story appear undernourished, as well. Alan Moore is never entirely without insights, but LOST GIRLS becomes more about bad sex than revealing truths. Similarly, after the initial burst of original ideas that fueled the original WONDER WOMAN comics, Wiliam Moulton Marston largely ignored telling credible stories and overindulged his symbolic obsessions. Let me give a movie analogy: the dirty kick of Marilyn Monroe playing to type in SOME LIKE IT HOT is lessened by the complete lack of chemistry between herself and Tony Curtis, and almost completely obliterated by director Billy Wilder's epilogue suggesting that Jack Lemmon in drag could do worse than by marrying the homely male suitor who has fallen in love with him. The only recent cinema I have seen that has allowed a young girl have big adventures without being punished for it is THE GOLDEN COMPASS.
Sorry to be so explicit and depressing this time around. However! I am beginning work on this year's Christmas card for one and all, so I'm feeling more cheerful than usual.
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad
Sunday, October 11, 2009
BULLETS & BRACELETS, BRICK & MORTAR!
Hi everybody!
Just to reiiterate, the WONDER WOMAN comic has never established a home city or a strong supporting cast for our hero. WONDER WOMAN has no deep relationships with other people or to a reality-based place. Her strongest connection is with mythical Paradise Island and her fellow imaginary Amazons, where she does not live except while on vacation, which would be like Superman only having a strong connection with Krypton, which is destroyed; or with Krypto, who is a dog.
The WONDER WOMAN comic has had 68 years to build an emotional and physical infrastructure for our hero and has chosen for various reasons to not do so.
Of course, the only city in our actual reality that has a real-life heroine in charge of it is Chicago IL with Oprah Winfrey. How would Oprah look in a WONDER WOMAN costume?
My point is, for all of her years in our collective imagination, WONDER WOMAN remains largely an unexplored canvas of infinite possibility.
That is why our Wonder Woman Project is very necessary!
Keeping it short, for once! :) Talk to you soon, be good!
Brad
Just to reiiterate, the WONDER WOMAN comic has never established a home city or a strong supporting cast for our hero. WONDER WOMAN has no deep relationships with other people or to a reality-based place. Her strongest connection is with mythical Paradise Island and her fellow imaginary Amazons, where she does not live except while on vacation, which would be like Superman only having a strong connection with Krypton, which is destroyed; or with Krypto, who is a dog.
The WONDER WOMAN comic has had 68 years to build an emotional and physical infrastructure for our hero and has chosen for various reasons to not do so.
Of course, the only city in our actual reality that has a real-life heroine in charge of it is Chicago IL with Oprah Winfrey. How would Oprah look in a WONDER WOMAN costume?
My point is, for all of her years in our collective imagination, WONDER WOMAN remains largely an unexplored canvas of infinite possibility.
That is why our Wonder Woman Project is very necessary!
Keeping it short, for once! :) Talk to you soon, be good!
Brad
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Polanski Towne!
Hi everybody!
Roman Polanski is the antithesis of the message we are trying to send with The Wonder Woman Project.
While people accused director Alfred Hitchcock of cinematic sadism, it is Roman Polanski who mastered that art.
REPULSION is an elegant but unrelenting study of a woman's descent into isolating madness.
ROSEMARY'S BABY is about a woman who is forced to give birth to the spawn of Satan.
CHINATOWN concerns an incest survivor who gave birth to her father's child and is killed by her father, who then raises her surviving sister/daughter. "My sister, my daughter, my sister and my daughter!"
There is a relentless pattern of illegal/immoral behavior serving as the foundation of his studio movies.
Further, under Polanski, horrific crimes routinely go unpunished. Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne famously argued over the ending of CHINATOWN, with Polanski prevailing that the offending father get away with pedophilia. Coincidence? "It's Chinatown, Jake."
Polanski; had he stayed with studio movies; would have lost his "snap" as the measured perversion that he favored fully gave way to "blockbuster" fare like JAWS, STAR WARS and ROCKY in the 1970s.
Our popular culture did not suffer much in Polanski's absence, yet he is still lionized in the creative community. This is a false regret, because Robert Evans and the rest of the crew from CHINATOWN culminated in the "COTTON CLUB" murders several years later in Hollywood. Jack Nicholson had already won an Oscar before CHINATOWN, and his star has continued relatively undimmed, but the last gasp of studio "creative edginess" heralded by BONNIE AND CLYDE effectively ended with the release of CHINATOWN.
As to Polanski having violated a 13 year old girl while staying at Jack Nicholson's house following CHINATOWN, let us recognize that on the personal level Polanski proved to be far more perverse than his movies.
We see with the publicity surrounding MacKenzie Phillips' memoir how devastating such events can be. MacKenzie's father John introduced her to heroin (old news), had a "consensual" sexual relationship with him and after he impregnated her paid for the abortion of their child (which is recent news).
Incest never goes away. Child rape never goes away.
Society failed Polanski's victim: her mother drove her to that photoshoot then did not stay with her to supervise. The "responsible" adult figure; Polanski; drugged, disrobed and debauched her. The legal system had plead Polanski's jail sentence down to time served and still he fled sentencing when released on his own recognicence.
Polanski's fugitive status is now seen as a badge of honor in Hollywood, but Polanski is a slayer of childhood and a coward of epic proportion. Polanski by taking a 13 year old girl and molding her to his extreme sexual desires like so much clay proved himself to be a completely remorseless skidmark of a man. Polanski's running away from any responsibility was contemptible: to call any of this a miscarriage of justice against himself remains ludicrous.
I used to be 44 years old, myself; as Polanski was when this crime against nature was committed; so if he had not yet learned how to control his base impulses by then, he never had any discernable self-discipline to begin with.
It is unseemly for Polanski to keep invoking his Holocaust survivor card, his Helter Skelter survivor card, his hounded by the blue noses card. Polanski is a practicing pedophile and should go to jail for the full nickel! Period. Case closed.
Security begins within the civilized heart. When we carelessly throw our precious children to the ravenous wolves like Polanski, then we reap the whirlwind. It does not matter who stops the cycle of madness against children and women as long as the cycle is stopped.
Wonder Woman is here to represent the necessary intervention to improve the general welfare of women and children!
Little girls are severely mutilated in nations like Africa, are married off to brutal strangers before they lose their baby teeth, and die of malnutrition long before they see any of their own children reach puberty.
The Wonder Woman Project will prove a tonic to such toxic fare as Polanski has left us, to such toxic behavior as Polanski has modeled for us.
Wonder Woman shows us the wonderfulness inside all of us!
It's a wonderful world and Wonder Woman is here to keep it that way!
Down with Polanski! Up with WONDER WOMAN!
Talk to you all, soon! Be good!
Brad
Roman Polanski is the antithesis of the message we are trying to send with The Wonder Woman Project.
While people accused director Alfred Hitchcock of cinematic sadism, it is Roman Polanski who mastered that art.
REPULSION is an elegant but unrelenting study of a woman's descent into isolating madness.
ROSEMARY'S BABY is about a woman who is forced to give birth to the spawn of Satan.
CHINATOWN concerns an incest survivor who gave birth to her father's child and is killed by her father, who then raises her surviving sister/daughter. "My sister, my daughter, my sister and my daughter!"
There is a relentless pattern of illegal/immoral behavior serving as the foundation of his studio movies.
Further, under Polanski, horrific crimes routinely go unpunished. Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne famously argued over the ending of CHINATOWN, with Polanski prevailing that the offending father get away with pedophilia. Coincidence? "It's Chinatown, Jake."
Polanski; had he stayed with studio movies; would have lost his "snap" as the measured perversion that he favored fully gave way to "blockbuster" fare like JAWS, STAR WARS and ROCKY in the 1970s.
Our popular culture did not suffer much in Polanski's absence, yet he is still lionized in the creative community. This is a false regret, because Robert Evans and the rest of the crew from CHINATOWN culminated in the "COTTON CLUB" murders several years later in Hollywood. Jack Nicholson had already won an Oscar before CHINATOWN, and his star has continued relatively undimmed, but the last gasp of studio "creative edginess" heralded by BONNIE AND CLYDE effectively ended with the release of CHINATOWN.
As to Polanski having violated a 13 year old girl while staying at Jack Nicholson's house following CHINATOWN, let us recognize that on the personal level Polanski proved to be far more perverse than his movies.
We see with the publicity surrounding MacKenzie Phillips' memoir how devastating such events can be. MacKenzie's father John introduced her to heroin (old news), had a "consensual" sexual relationship with him and after he impregnated her paid for the abortion of their child (which is recent news).
Incest never goes away. Child rape never goes away.
Society failed Polanski's victim: her mother drove her to that photoshoot then did not stay with her to supervise. The "responsible" adult figure; Polanski; drugged, disrobed and debauched her. The legal system had plead Polanski's jail sentence down to time served and still he fled sentencing when released on his own recognicence.
Polanski's fugitive status is now seen as a badge of honor in Hollywood, but Polanski is a slayer of childhood and a coward of epic proportion. Polanski by taking a 13 year old girl and molding her to his extreme sexual desires like so much clay proved himself to be a completely remorseless skidmark of a man. Polanski's running away from any responsibility was contemptible: to call any of this a miscarriage of justice against himself remains ludicrous.
I used to be 44 years old, myself; as Polanski was when this crime against nature was committed; so if he had not yet learned how to control his base impulses by then, he never had any discernable self-discipline to begin with.
It is unseemly for Polanski to keep invoking his Holocaust survivor card, his Helter Skelter survivor card, his hounded by the blue noses card. Polanski is a practicing pedophile and should go to jail for the full nickel! Period. Case closed.
Security begins within the civilized heart. When we carelessly throw our precious children to the ravenous wolves like Polanski, then we reap the whirlwind. It does not matter who stops the cycle of madness against children and women as long as the cycle is stopped.
Wonder Woman is here to represent the necessary intervention to improve the general welfare of women and children!
Little girls are severely mutilated in nations like Africa, are married off to brutal strangers before they lose their baby teeth, and die of malnutrition long before they see any of their own children reach puberty.
The Wonder Woman Project will prove a tonic to such toxic fare as Polanski has left us, to such toxic behavior as Polanski has modeled for us.
Wonder Woman shows us the wonderfulness inside all of us!
It's a wonderful world and Wonder Woman is here to keep it that way!
Down with Polanski! Up with WONDER WOMAN!
Talk to you all, soon! Be good!
Brad
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