October 22, 2008

Free comic books!  

What? Well, now that I've got your attention, today I will actually to talk about free comic books. Every year many shops around the country "celebrate" Free Comic Book Day. It's a way to promote readership of comics and get fans and others into the shops. It is a great idea. It happens the first Saturday in May every year. But I can already hear you saying, Scott it's the middle of October, why are you talking about something that is seven months away?

Well, dear reader, it's because we need significant lead time to create the special comic editions that you will take home with you on May 3, 2009. But the real reason I'm jazzed this year is I will be writing this year's entry and it's gonna be great! It's going to be an original story prequel to the upcoming TekWar Chronicles series. Not a sampler, not an old issue, not a "best of," but something completely new and created specifically for the event. Now that means, if we remain on schedule with the production of the first TekWar volume, Issue #1 and Issue #2 will already be in your hands. This 12-page Issue #0 gives me a chance to go into more depth about what brought the main character to the point to where the books actually start. Again, I don't want to give away any secret sauce, because I am just finishing up my outline and notes for the story, but I will touch on things like the origins of the digital narcotic called Tek, provide some clues as to why (or if) the main character was framed for the crime for which he was sent to prison and expand on the Tek Universe mythology.

I have also talked with BlueWater head honcho Darren Davis (and to those who don't know, Darren is my younger brother), and it is highly likely that after Free Comic Book Day we will make the prequel available as a free download on the BlueWater website.

Also, I gave an interview the other day and I got a question that I thought deserves mention. I was asked how do I communicate with the artists I work with. What was meant is how do I get what is in my head down on paper so that the artist has a strong concept of what I want. Especially considering I live in San Diego and they live in places like San Paolo or Brussels or Atlanta. There are two answers to that. First. In the descriptions of the panels I try to be specific on the most important points...sometimes even down to the angles of perception. I also use, for lack of a better word, props. I started doing this a couple years ago when I realized several of the artists I was working with did not speak fluent English. To someone who didn't grow up speaking American English, the idioms we take for granted and use in everyday life don't translate well. So I started using pictures in my scripts. I would Google and image that was close to what was inside my head and say "this is what I mean." For instance, in Issue #2 of Ray Harryhausen Presents: 20 Million Miles More I had to describe LA's Sunset Strip and Rodeo Drive to someone who not only had never been to LA, but someone who had never been to America.  I was going after a bit of realism so I inserted a couple of pics and I really like what he did with the page. I do this from time to time whether it is to explain what a red light district is or want a character to resemble a certain actor (no, not Shatner) or what a sextant looks like.

Now the other answer is these books are a collaborative effort. It is as much the artist's book as it is mine. I give the artists with whom I work every latitude to interpret the script as they see fit. If they have questions, I answer them, but otherwise I let them "go to town" and explore their own mind's eye. The end result is usually positive. I've only had one instance in the 20 plus books I have worked where the artist and I didn't see eye to eye.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by!

Scott Davis