Strippers!

This is a timely thread, in that I've just started quietly working on doing a regular strip with BBT Magazine. Since I can't draw, you can guess what my part is.

Thus far, my "scripts" have been small and simple, and I think they need to be. I could, in an hour, script fifteen or sixteen individual strips. Easy. The artist does the hard work here, I'm afraid. I just supply the words.

That said, if it's comedy (like ours is) then it gets tricky. You need punchlines! They need to be funny! Agphth...!!

Our own John Zakor has experience writing for strips (he did Rugrats, for one thing; I enjoyed the Rugrats strips). I've been talking with him about this in e-mail. I wouldn't mind if he offered insight in this 'yere thread. I'll drop him a line. That way he can continue his "blame Pete" theme.

Study the work of Milton Caniff.

He's the only teacher you'll need.

Steve Canyon, too.

Checker Publishing has been reprinting the strips for about three years now in TPB format. You can probably get some deals for them on Amazon.

I learned more about pacing and striking the proper dramatic balance from Milton Caniff than probably anyone...I even applied it to my Outlanders series...in fact, I dedicated Hydra's Ring to him and Will Eisner.

Oh shoot. I was looking for tassels and stilletto heels.

Comics? Thought this thread would be about refinishing furniture.

With all due respect to Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff was the artist that two generations of comics artists aspired to be. Not only was he was a terrific cartoonist, he was also a great writer and a master storyteller. He knew when text was necessary to move the story forward and when to drop it, as in this great two-panel example from Steve Canyon.



The man is gone, but to this day artists and writers alike still imitate and learn from him..and if they don't, they really should.

http://www.animationarchive.org/2007/03/comics-milton-caniffs-steve-canyon.html

wordmonkey said:

He's got the idea in his head that he wants to do the thing in strip format. The idea would fit. We were going with something that has a serious retro feel, and he was thinking of doing something like the old Flash Gordon news-strips.

...

I can see that on a daily basis (even weekly) you might want a hook ending or a cliffhanger, but then it seems to me that you do that, it gets collected into a print version (which would be a later goal) and the cliffhanger every four panels or so gets real old, real fast.

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As you must have done during the research into the old Flash Gordon strips you mentioned, I read volumes and volumes of old strips converted to the bound book format while growing up, spending my summers in the air conditioned relief of the Phoenix Public Library. They had about a hundred old titles originally from periodicals that were re-printed as books I never seem to find in bookstores in the present day, both adventure and humor strips, from Winsor McKay and George Herriman to the modern underground set like Robert Crumb. These volumes were my comix textbooks from which I learned most of what I can claim as my storytelling and art skills.

So personally it isn't so strange for me to see cliffhanger-edged strips page after page, being aware as I read them of what format they were originally in, and pretending after a while to belong in the same temporal rhythm as the original readers.

I recall reading a re-print of the first appearance of the Batman villain Two-Face, which was not a story produced for magazines, but rather a serialized story in the Sunday comics. (I note that Wikipedia doesn't mention this -- mentioning instead Two-Face's magazine debut -- but I'm pretty sure that's what I read in the book at the time.) The large-format book in which it appeared, then, contained the horizontally-formatted strips two to a page (each strip being three rows high, I think, shaped like a comic page on its side), complete with the oversized Batman logotype that overlapped the first panel of each. After you get past a couple pages, even a distracting format oddity like that one doesn't disturb the story.

Your project sounds really cool to me. I love the old style adventure strips -- not for the stinkpile of ism's they contained (racism, sexism, etc.) but for the innocent fun, clear story telling, and that retro artwork that was twice the thrill of the text story. (Remember ignoring Prince Valiant in the Sunday comics when you were growing up because it appeared about as paralyzingly boring as Mary Worth? Well, if you can find a book of Prince Valiant reprints from the 30s I highly recommend it. Great stories, awesome art. I'd love to see a comeback of that style of periodical.)

Here's a suggestion that might come between your need for a routine cliffhanger and your desire to follow it someday with a slick re-print:

What about a text-based cliffhanger note? That is, allow cliffhangers within the strip wherever you can get away with them naturally fitting in -- because your instincts are correct about them working in your favor. But in addition to whatever cliffhangers fit in the strip, you can have a line of text under the base of the strip saying "Next week: Captain Spaceman searches for the Raid while the cockroaches eat Mrs. Spaceman alive!!" or some such thing that better fits your style. The preview text might even be accompanied by a cropped or reduced glimpse of the action yet to come. The preview section of your strip can be a web-based feature that is easily removed in the event of re-printing the same panel strips one on top of the other in the pages of a future book.

It was cool to see a Milt Caniff image inserted in a previous post as an example. Since I mentioned Prince Valiant I got the bug to hunt up a good image from that strip, 30s era.



I mean, damn. Your eyes rush left to right with the battle. And Hal Foster's text is so crisp here compared to the stuff he was still writing for the strip in my childhood 40 years later, with a different artist pitching in. I think I remember the story line here -- Val was in a rage of vengeance after the Vikings killed his first love. So he wasn't always in superhero mode, but somewhere close. The page from which I stole the image -- http://www.bpib.com/illustra2/foster.htm -- says Foster spent 60 hours on a typical weekly strip. I can hack my way through some comics, but I know I'll never do that...

<I think I remember the story line here -- Val was in a rage of vengeance after the Vikings killed his first love.>

Close...the Vikings stole princess Ilene whom Val and his rival, "stalwart Prince Arn" set out to rescue.

They did, only to apparently lose her in a shipwreck.

I always liked this bit...where Val disguises himself as good ol' Etrigan.

Or maybe it should be the other way around...



BTW (a plug, avert thine eyes), in my upcoming Everything Guide to Writing Graphic Novels I cite Mr. Foster as one of the seminal influences on at least two generations of comic book artists...and print some select panels from Prince Valiant.

Based on what I've seen on comicspace.com I'll definitely keep my eyes open for your book...

Gee, how can you not think highly of a site that has such great things on it as:

Clark Gets Punk'd

wordmonkey said:

Do I take it you aren't that impressed by comicspace?

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Oh, hell no, I meant the opposite. Just prior to my post I had checked out http://www.comicspace.com/markaxlerellis/ and liked Axler's galleries, leading me to look forward to the aforementioned book. And the site has countless other good examples too, as fun as it may be to laugh at the crappy ones...

I actually laughed at the Clark Gets Punk'd thing, sad to say.

But then it was early when I saw it.

Thanks for the kind words about my galleries, AZ...when I get done with my latest OL novel and wrap up production on the Death Hawk TPB, I'll probably put up another gallery...samples of my work from licensed properties like Doc Savage and The Wild Wild West.

Yeah, I agree with you, Word...Comics Space an extremely mixed bag...sort of like the American Idol screening process. I don't find the raging egomania quite as out of control as on My Space, but I know what you mean.

The good thing about the site is, I've been to able to reconnect with some people from the biz I lost touch with when the "industry" crashed back in the early '90s (like Pablo Marcus) and make the acquaintance of other uber-talented people like Jeff Slemons.

A couple of links you might find innerestin', re: Milton Caniff and other stuff..

http://www.humorousmaximus.com

http://www.jazmaonline.com/interviews/interviews2007.asp?intID=463

Man, I was all ready to talk about Sin City, too.