2013 Preview: Anthologies

This is a collection of short stories I wrote and were published last year, actually, but they become more widely available this year, so I still thought it would be worthwhile to include them.

GLoW 1 – the first anthology of the Glasgow League of Writers, revolving around a superhero theme – was one of the breakout hits of Glasgow Comic Con 2012, selling out within hours.  Our follow-up anthology – imaginatively titled GLoW 2, and built on a horror theme – had a small debut at Thought Bubble 2012.  But if that was our trial run, the big event where we’re really looking forward to launching it is at Glasgow Comic Con 2013.  Hopefully, those who enjoyed the first anthology will be back for this one.  There’s a bigger roster of talent involved, and I think it reflects our growth as a collective.

As for me?  I have two stories in it.  The first one is Floorboards, a mean little 1-pager drawn up by my good friend James Fairlie.  The second one is a 5-page sting-in-the-tail short titled Open House, drawn by Chris Connelly.  We so enjoyed working together on this little nasty that we embarked on a larger collaboration.  More on that tomorrow.  In the meantime, here’s a wee peek at a page from Open House:

But it’s not only on this side of the Atlantic that I’ve been participating in anthologies.  Over in the US, The Oxymoron from ComixTribe proved to be a massive Kickstarter success story last summer.  Our goal was to raise around $8000 to produce the book.  We ended getting $26,000, and we saw the anthology – a collection of short stories revolving around the monstrous villain of The Red Ten, The Oxymoron – become a better and better package, becoming hardcover, oversized, with a UV-coating on the cover, and a whole range of variant covers added, plus an art gallery added into the back.  The final package is absolutely stunning, and I’m so proud to have my name on a book that looks so professionally crafted.  But there’s more to this book than nice aesthetics: each story in this graphic novel is fantastic, showcasing a range of art styles, and stories that range from blackly comic to soul-shreddingly dark and horrifying.  Currently, The Oxymoron is available to buy in comic shops here in Glasgow: Forbidden Planet and A1 Comics got some editions in for supporting the Kickstarter.  But the book will also be getting a worldwide Diamond release in the summer…. so watch out for it in Previews, and recommend that your retailer pick it up!

ComixTribe did so well with this anthology, that they have other, similar projects in the pipeline, ones I’m also involved in, but can’t really talk about at this stage.  In the meantime, take a look at this page from “Selfless Man”, the story I wrote for The Oxymoron, drawn by Tyler James.

2013 Preview: Black Leaf

Yesterday, I featured The Standard in the first of my series of sneak peeks at my various comics projects.  The Standard is my most visible project, I know.  It’s the one thing of mine that’s been available to buy, and last week it went on global sale via Diamond distribution.  One might be forgiven for thinking it was the only thing I was working on, but that’s not the case.  2012 for me was a year of planning: establishing collaborations, preparing for marketing and new editions for the Diamond relaunch of The Standard, getting my ducks in a row and getting projects ready.  2013, I want to be a year of doing: I want to get scripts written, comics made and copies available for sale in on form or another.  Hence the numerous new projects I want to highlight this week, starting with Black Leaf

Co-created with artist Garry McLaughlin and written by me over the course of last year, Black Leaf is a very different beast from The Standard.  Even in terms of its format, it’s a radical departure: a standalone 76-page graphic novel whereas The Standard is a 6-issue miniseries.  It’s certainly been an interesting experiment, as the shift in format changes your pacing, and the kind of story you’re able to tell.

Black Leaf is a horror story about a 12-year-old boy called Stuart who travels from Glasgow to the Scottish Highlands to care for his ailing grandfather.  While exploring the woods near the old home of his “Granda”, Stuart befriends an enigmatic local girl called Alison, who shares with him an ancient supernatural force at the heart of the woods.  When tragedy strikes, a desperate Stuart tries to shape this force to his own ends, only for things to go horribly wrong and take a creepingly nightmarish turn…

I love horror.  You might even argue it was my first love, perhaps even earlier established than my well-documented love of superheroes.  So, I was very excited to explore the genre in my comics writing.  But while all too often in comics, “horror” is classified as anything with big gooey monsters and gore, I wanted to try and tell the kind of story that would scare me.  And so I’m drawing heavily from all those old British TV ghost stories – The Woman in Black, The Signalman, Whistle and I’ll Come For You, The Stone Tapes - that relied more heavily on this gradual, turn-of-the-screw building of dread than overt shocks.  Atmospheric comics of recent years like Echoes and Severed have certainly shown this kind of horror to be possible in the medium.  Hopefully I can continue to build on the tradition with the story I tell here.

I would be remiss not to make note of the incredible work the ever-diverse Garry McLaughlin is doing on the art front.  Garry McLaughlin is the highly-talented artist of the likes of Taking Flight, Old Folk’s Home and Good Cop, Bad Cop, and if you haven’t checked out his ace webcomic series Suddenly Something Really Interesting, amend your grievous error now! He’s also the writer/artist of the upcoming Gonzo Cosmic, a dazzlingly high-concept sci-fi epic that’s right up there with the previously-discussed NeverEnding as one of my most anticipated comics of the coming year.  I first envisioned this graphic novel with Garry drawing it, so I’m pleased he agreed to take part!

We talked at length about the kind of aesthetic we wanted from Black Leaf, and we were both of the same mindset of channelling a kind of “dark fairy tale” vibe throughout.  And so Garry has been working with lush watercolours and sweeping inks to craft this ethereal visual style that has shades of Raymond Briggs, which will be fun to see adapted as the narrative becomes increasingly monstrous.  We talked a lot about this book as a physical artefact, how we want it to feel substantial: oversized, hardcover, good quality paper stock.  With Garry at the helm, I’m convinced Black Leaf will look incredible.

Black Leaf is currently being shopped around to publishers, and hopefully we’ll have definitive news on who will be producing the book before too long.  Be sure to follow the blog for updates.  The nature of the graphic novel, and any publishing schedules we may have to adhere to, may mean that this is not a book to look out for at Glasgow Comic Con, but my hopes are to get it released into comic shops in 2013.  This is, after all, the year of doing!  Enjoy this little sneak peek of some of the early pages of Black Leaf, as hauntingly drawn by Garry McLaughlin and skillfully lettered by Colin Bell.

 

2013 Preview: The Standard

Hello everyone!  It seems that, amidst all the reviews I’ve been writing, I haven’t been using this blog much to talk about my own writing projects lately.  Of course, I keep this blog’s sister site, thestandardcomic.com, fairly regularly updated with that project’s latest developments, but I thought it might be good to spend a week on an overview of my various comics projects, and where I’m at with them.  So, check into the blog daily this week, and I’ll be sharing news, and some exclusive debuts of artwork.

The first project I have to discuss is, of course, The Standard.  I’ve been working on this comic for several years now, but 2013 is the year where everything comes to fruition.  The Standard #1 made its worldwide debut, distributed through Diamond and published by ComixTribe, last week, February 13th.  I’d say it has been a success.  I’m hearing frequent accounts, both here in the UK and abroad in the US, of store sell-outs, in some cases day one sell-outs.  It seems retailers significantly underordered the book, and it has performed above expectations, with consumer demand outstripping store supply.  It’s not ideal, but I’d say it’s a good problem to have!

But the launch of issue #1 is just the beginning.  Next up is the worldwide relaunch of The Standard #2 in April, with the book already complete and off to the printers in preparation for this.  The plan is to operate on a bi-monthly schedule, and have the whole 6-issue miniseries released by the end of 2013.  That is a crazy thought to me.  Something that’s been part of my life since 2008, and 2013 is the year it finally comes to an end.  Well, in 2014 we’ll hopefully be seeing a graphic novel collected edition of the series with plenty of juicy backmatter, so I’ll be spending some time compiling that, but as far as the comic itself goes, if all proceeds as planned 2013 will be my last year working on it.  Kinda scary, but exhilerating too!

But it’s not just the worldwide release schedule I have to think about.  The first 3 issues were already released locally here in Glasgow, Scotland, and I always wish to continue paying attention to the comic’s roots as a cult Glasgow indie hit.  And so work continues on The Standard #4, which should hopefully be finished in the next month or so.  I’m hoping to make a small preview run available locally in Glasgow, my thank you to the readers who supported me first.  At the very least the comic is going to have a big presence at Glasgow Comic Con in July.

In the meantime, I’m going to share, for the first time, a few preview pages for the long-awaited fourth issue of The Standard, magnificently drawn by Jonathan Rector and vividly coloured by Mike Gagnon.  You’ll see the aftermath of issue #3′s dramatic conclusion, as well as a glimpse at another fiendish foe from The Standard’s past, TV Man.  Enjoy, bold reader!

NeverEnding: My Most Anticipated Comic of 2013

2013 is set to be a big year for comics.  Dependably awesome creators Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire have new Vertigo titles launching in the coming months: The Wake and Trillium, respectively.  Rumours abound of Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette uniting for a Wonder Woman: Earth One comic.  And then there’s Neil Gaiman’s hugely anticipated return to the world of The Sandman for the legendary comic’s 25th Anniversary.  All books that I am salivating to get my hands on.  So, it says something that none of these are at the absolute top of my “must-have” comics list for 2013.  No, the comic I’m looking forward to more than any other is one you most likely have not yet heard of.  Allow me to change that.  My most anticipated comic of 2013 is NeverEnding, by writer Stephen Sutherland and artist Gary Kelly.

As you may know from my constant mentions of it, I’m a member of a collective of Scottish creators called the Glasgow League of Writers.  GLoW is at its core a kind of writer’s circle for comics, where members submit their scripts to the agenda, and on meetings these scripts are discussed, and feedback and critiques are shared.  It has proven to be a highly rewarding enterprise, and over the past year-and-a-half or so I’ve built up a great community of peers and friends from this group, not to mention getting some invaluable insight into my own scripts.  But one of the big perks is seeing comics come to life, from their earliest fledgling stage as a first draft to a final, completed comic.  I got to see this happen with Gordon McLean’s No More Heroes: the first ever script reviewed at a GLoW meeting, now the entire 4-issue miniseries has been completed after winning a SICBA award for Best Comic Book at Glasgow Comic Con this past summer.

When Stephen Sutherland first joined GLoW back in, I believe, early 2012, he was known to us as the writer of Taking Flight, a well-crafted superhero drama oneshot with artist Garry McLaughlin, and his debut comic book.  Anyone reading Taking Flight could clearly see that it was the work of someone with talent, but when he started submitting his sophmore outing into the realm of creating comics, NeverEnding, I think we were all blown away by how great it was.  As good as Taking Flight was, NeverEnding represents as much of a quantum leap in quality of storytelling as Christopher Nolan took between Following and Memento, or Ben Wheatley took between Down Terrace and Kill List.  It’s the difference between the spark of potential and potential fulfilled, a shining example of a fledgling creator truly coming into their own.  Thus far he’s submitted 5 issues of the 6-issue miniseries for critique, but there’s precious little here to critique and thus feedback has mostly been “THIS IS AWESOME!”  I can say without shame that I look forward to new NeverEnding scripts more than I look forward to most actual comics!

I can’t go into too much detail about the plot, as it’s so packed with twists and turns that to give much away would spoil the fun.  But to give you the basic premise, NeverEnding is the story of Olivia Olsen, a teenage girl who never sleeps.  Never getting tired, and with full 24-hour days at her disposal, Olivia has had the time and energy to learn a massive range of skills, including various combat disciplines, which as much through boredom as anything else she has employed towards fighting local crime in her native city of Glasgow.  But from there, things spiral in increasingly wild directions, as the story progressively morphs from slice-of-life drama with a twist to adrenaline-pumping thriller to vast, elaborate conspiracy/spy saga, equal parts The Bourne Identity and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by way of Run Lola Run.  And it’s all done at an absolutely relentless pace, with the beginning of each issue following on immediately from the end of the previous one, with the narrative just constantly moving forward at breakneck speed and putting us the reader in the constantly-moving mindset of our heroine.  But it’s in the characterisation that NeverEnding truly shines.  Olivia Olsen is a fantastic protagonist, the kind of brilliant, nuanced female hero we supposedly don’t ever get in comics.  And she is blessed with an excellent supporting cast to interact with, as seen in both Olivia’s relationship with her father Daniel and in her romance with girlfriend Sarah Pickwick: which for me is the most compelling, convincing love story going on in any comic around right now.

The scripts were amazing, sure, but as we all know, a comic isn’t a comic until it’s drawn.  Enter Gary Kelly, a gifted artist who has brought a bombastic, energetic ’90s vibe to Stephen’s narrative, with a visual style somewhat reminiscent of Mark Bagley or Ethan Van Sciver while still having its own original flair.  Right now, I’m only able to share these character designs, as these are the only images from the project that have thus far been made public, but I’ve seen some of the sequential interiors, and it’s on a whole other level.  There is a pivotal double-page spread early in the first issue that I was curious about how an artist was possibly going to be able to pull off, but Gary does it panache, crafting a complex tableau worthy of Yanick Paquette.  This is going to be a gorgeous, professional-looking comic once it’s done.

At the moment, Stephen and Gary are preparing a pitch document for NeverEnding to shop around to various publishers.  In my humble opinion, this is an Image-quality story.  If I were to compile a “blacklist” for unpublished comics similar to the one Hollywood has for unproduced film scripts, NeverEnding would be right at the top of it.  Now, I don’t shill lightly: as someone who regularly reviews creator-owned comics, the last thing I want is to come across as someone who just writes puff pieces for my friends, and so that’s the last thing I’d do if a project wasn’t absolutely deserving of praise.  So I hope that illustrates just how highly I rate this particular project, and how invested I am in seeing it come to fruition.

A public service announcement to any comics publisher who might stumble across this writing: NeverEnding is a comic that is something truly special, and deserves to be a breakout hit of 2013.  Stephen Sutherland and Gary Kelly are creator you should be striving to seek out now, and this is a comic that would be a highly worthy addition to any publishing roster.  I stake my reputation on that claim.  And to any comics readers who follow my blog, and who at all value my opinion when it comes to comics…. trust me here, this is a comic that you very much want to read.

NeverEnding.  2013.  I, for one, can’t wait!

REVIEW: Ladies & Gentlemen #1

First impressions aren’t always fair.  When I first opened up Ladies & Gentlemen #1, I was put off by what I thought to be very rough small press comic art, and feared that the comic was going to be a chore to get through.  How wrong I was.  A few pages in, and I started to see some dynamically-arranged fight layouts on the page, and some superbly-designed characters (The Gentleman in particular looks brilliant – I want an action figure!) reveal that, far from someone still trying to get to grips with the challenges of drawing sequentials, Jordan Collver proves himself to be a very talented artist.

So, an artist with evident skill, so why the ragged presentation?  And I realised that this was not down to a lack of production values, but in fact a meticulous pastiche of an old Victorian-era comic strip, right down to the shade of the paper being given an aged, stained-with-time look.  Note the additional flourishes such as the old photographs of the creative team in period dress, and the dramatic personae page at the front.  There is the odd issue with visual clarity, but I can’t fault the occasional stumble when trying to pull off something so ambitious.  Once I acclimatised to what Collver was trying to do with the visuals, I started thinking the comic looked great, and I began to enjoy myself.

Of course, I can’t heap all the praise on Collver’s art.  Richard Worth does a commendable job on the writing too, deftly weaving a tale of a prototypical superhero team in Victorian London investigating a series of murders that give us a clever reversal on the Jack the Ripper killings (“vulnerable” women killing rich gentlemen) which also inserts a supernatural element.  The ensemble is well-balanced, beginning with a likeable core team before working in new editions.  The balance between plot advancement and character beats is well handled, so that I felt like I was getting to know these people and their personalities, but at the same time the action always felt like it was moving along too.  Strong, concise storytelling.

The first chapter is available to read online for free now, but Ladies and Gentlemen is definitely good enough to go pick up a print copy.  It’s available in various English comic stores, including the fantastic OK! Comics over in Leeds, and as someone who read this in digital form, I imagine you’d get a richer, more authentic experience of the period recreation by reading it as a paper comic.  Either way, though, I highly enjoyed this, which is proof that first impressions aren’t always the right ones!

Ladies & Gentlemen #1 is available to read online here.

REVIEW: The Calamitous Black Devils #1

Here’s a Kickstarter success story: The Calamitous Black Devils, by cartoonist Joseph Schmalke, had its first three issues funded through the crowdfunding program.  Blending the genres of war and supernatural horror, this tells the story of an elite commando unit tasked with breaking up a demonic summoning ritual, only for things to turn quite messy.  It’s a good concept, and the strong front cover made a good first impression.

Sadly, the content within was highly problematic.  The prologue was intriguing, and quickly caught my interest by introducing a menacing villain and defiant heroes, and a tense life-or-death cliffhanger that also does the job of setting up the eponymous Black Devils as a formidable force.  But from there, things quickly fell apart.  Really, the problems begin with the”This all started” caption at the beginning of page 3, as this marks the beginning of near 30 pages of Priest relating via captions the story of how our protagonists got to be in their current situation, with only 3 pages at the end of us seemingly experiencing the “present” of the story and the status quo that will carry the series forward.

I’m reminded of an early script of my own that I wrote at one point that was heavy in flashback, and editor Steven Forbes gave me advice I haven’t forgotten: in a flashback, you’ve added an extra degree of disconnect between the reader and the story, and they won’t engage as much as they could because they feel like they’re witnessing something that’s already happened in the world of the story, and so any flashback has a built in expectation for the sequence to end and for us to get back to the “real” story that we’re actually supposed to be invested in.  As a reader, I experienced that with The Calamitous Black Devils #1.  I read the issue, and I didn’t feel in the moment, I didn’t feel like I was experiencing the battle.  Because every image was accompanied by a narrative caption that said “And then this happened”, describing what we were seeing as something the protagonist has already lived through and moved on from.  I don’t know if I’m being nebulous with this complaint, does this make sense?

But more than the inherent disconnecting nature of this narrative structure affecting my enjoyment of the book, I had issues with how that structure was executed.  The story is at its best when it lets the characters talk and interact with one another.  At these points, the personalities shine through and the plot flows quite nicely.  But then you have sequences like page 6, where literally half the page is taken up with a wall of text.  And even elsewhere, in general the captions are just too loaded with content.  There are chunks of this issue where the storytelling is based around a picture of a guy standing still, accompanied by a massive caption detailing their life history and the role they play within the ensemble cast.  It’s “tell don’t show” writing, and as big ideas and dense mythologies and secret histories and old gods are thrown at us in heaps, the exposition dump had my eyes glassing over.  Take, for example, the Dark Bishop.  We are told about what a vile, terrifying, evil human being he is.  And we are told that Priest hates him, that the Dark Bishop has made his life hell and he’s desperate for retribution.  But we see none of this on the page.  The Dark Bishop hardly gets any lines.  He’s a total cypher.  It all comes back to that feeling of disconnect.

More frustrating, even on the basic mechanics, the writing falls down at times.  “Vomitous” is spelled as “vomitus”, “lose” mispelled as “loose”, “murder” is written when it’s meant to be “murderer”, “they learned about the purpose of bombing mission” clearly has a missing “the” in there.  More than narrative faults, things like this really bug me, as they’re so easily fixed.  Simple spellchecking, or close reading of your work both as a script and as a lettered comic, would have picked up on these glaring errors.  But that wasn’t done, and there’s no easier way for your book to look amateur than for it to be littered with typos.  Whether or not you can tell better stories than the big boys at Marvel and DC, how often do they let such basic errors slip through the net?  Little things like this are what make an editor invaluable, folks!  And if you can’t hire an editor, make sure to be your own!

The art is good in places – I love the design of the baddie in the opening prologue – but in other areas it feels very rough, with shaky anatomy and characters having inconsistent appearances.  Furthermore, I think it feels too bare.  It doesn’t necessarily need colour, but I think some more tone or grayscale could have enhanced the aesthetic of the comic a lot.  Instead there’s something about the visuals that just feel incomplete.

So, The Calamitous Black Devils gets off to a ropey start.  However, the status quo established by the end of the first issue suggests a much more promising issue #2 lies ahead, so it could be worth sticking with this series and seeing where it goes from here.

Calamitous Black Devils #1 is available to buy from Joseph Schmalke’s website.

 

 

REVIEW: Melodies of the Heart

When a link to Melodies of the Heart, a webcomic by Australian cartoonist Sarah Boxall, popped up in my inbox, I’ll admit, it immediately caught my interest.  I don’t know if it’s the mood I’m in at the moment, but the prospect of what appeared to be a sweet romantic comedy comic actually seemed rather enticing to me, and Sarah’s light, manga-influenced art style seemed to set an enjoyable tone.  So, I began reading with quite high expectations.

Unfortunately, Melodies of the Heart didn’t quite live up to those expectations.  In terms of the writing, there are some serious issues with the pacing.  With a webcomic in particular, lulls mean death, and every page needs to engage or achieve something.  And so it’s particularly damaging when you have an entire 3-page sequence dedicated to scenes like, “Oh, you gave me a fright on the bus, why did you do that?  You know I don’t like it!”  When you consider that the cliffhanger at the end of the first chapter is the suggestion that our lovelorn protagonist Rhi may or may not ask out Rhi on a date that’s not really a date at some point in the near future, you can see that the story may run into serious problems keeping people hooked and coming back for more.

It’s a shame, because though it takes its sweet time getting to it, an interesting story starts to emerge as the Rhi/Lucy romance develops, with what initially seemed to be a comedy bit about Rhi fainting from nerves being revealed as a more serious issue.  It’s revealed to be a medical ailment related to his heart as opposed to panic attacks and anxiety as a symptom of depression, which may have been a more interesting avenue to explore, but it still gives Rhi an interesting wrinkle.  In general, Rhi is an offbeat, nervy, but strangely likeable presence, at this early stage at least more fully realised than Lucy’s nice girl love interest.  But arguably stealing the show are bossy grump Abby and sly jokester Keth, the respective best friends of Lucy and Rhi.  Another strength could be the characterisation of the teens: Sarah is very capable of capturing awkward, stumbling teen speak, even if the likelife meandering ties back into the aforementioned pacing problems.

There are some issues with the art, too, namely inconsistency.  It seems that Sarah Boxall is adept at drawing two styles of art very well, but can’t quite decide on which one to use.  There is a more conventional, manga-influenced style, with large heads, wide eyes and small noses on figures of generally human proportions that is employed in quieter, more emotional moments.  Then there is a super-deformed, highly cartoonish manga style put into use during funny moments or beats that require comedic reactions, where the characters more closely resemble the cast of Peanuts.  Both of these are perfectly valid styles, and Sarah draws them both skillfully, but the problem is that she can’t decide on one style to stick with.  And so on just about every page, it seems there is some switching back and forth between each art discipline: it gets disconcerting when characters’ noses disappear and reappear from panel to panel!

There are also some issues with clarity, partially tied into this shifting art style.  There were times when characters were returning from previous scenes, but looked so different I thought they were new characters.  And, on the flipside, there were times when I thought a new character was someone we’d already met because they looked so similar.  Furthermore, when we first met Rhi, with his long hair and feminine features, I thought he was a girl, and that this would be a lesbian love story.  It took someone referring to Rhi as “him” somewhere on the second or third page before I realised my mistake.  But inconsistency and confusion aside, I do think there are large parts of this comic that look very nice, complimented by bright, crisp colours.

There are some quite major flaws running through the early chapters of Melodies of the Heart.  But as the story continues, it seems to be taking shape, and a more focused direction is beginning to emerge.  Evidently, Sarah Boxall is very much using this webcomic as a learning tool, and her growing skill in making comics is becoming clear as we move forward.  If readers can withstand the shaky opening, they might find an enjoyable teen romantic comedy/drama with some well-realised characters and fun art waiting for them at the other side.  But in this #1-driven “hook me now or die” culture that comics currently resides in, can a creator afford to have a slow-burn?

Melodies of the Heart is available to read as a webcomic, or can be purchased as print comics from the official store.