JUNE '21 NEWSLETTER masoncomics.com.au |
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#04. All Quiet on the Front lines...
An obligatory touch base, since were at the end of June. Hope you're all well and safe, and most likely in Lockdown or restrictions. Keep marching on, and allow me to say hi :) |
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Public Seminar: QWC Writing For Comic Books & Graphic Novels In 4 weeks!! - 31st July 2021 Once again, a very big thank you to the Queensland Writers Centre for reaching out recently to invite me to the State Library of Queensland to teach this; It will be a 3 hour seminar designed to introduce writers and interested folks to Comics, visual storytelling and the craft of writing for the comic book medium. Available for In-Person and Live Streaming for Saturday 31 July 2021 at 10:30am. I think there's also follow-up recordings that can be purchased and watched? I haven't fully investigated, I'm just pleased so far to see some in-person bookings have already popped up on the ticketing maps for the event. I'm a perennial pessimist, so my expectation was "cancelled due to low uptake". I'm happy to see the opposite so far, and I hope to see some familiar/at least friendly faces at the event. For a brief intro: "You’ve probably read one, but could you write one? In this introductory seminar, award-winning cartoonist and animation concept designer, Paul Mason, will explore the language of comics and the comic book page. You will learn the fundamentals visual storytelling and considerations involved in comics and visual narratives. Paul will also share methods for writing comics as either a solo cartoonist or as part of a collaboration, as well as tips for catering your writing for the length of the story being told..." | | |
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Back to a little writing this month. I'm happy to say I got to dust off a few shelved ideas this month and re-pitch some material for possible work down the track. I will have to chase to see the status of things, but as I alluded to in the last newsletter, I was pleased to revisit this project, as for a long time since it was put on hiatus pre-pandemic, I felt like it was an incomplete job. In cracking open the history books again for the few stories I pitched anew recently, I was able to get a roadmap planned, and though I hate getting my hopes up on anything uncertain, thanks to many knock-backs and near misses in this dumb "career", I think at least I'll have some future Patreon material if anyone ever wants to read the ending to this thing sometime down the track.
I was also optimistic about being able to pitch the story Amanda and I had plotted together. The thing I dig about the Phantom the most is the timeframe you have to play with, due to the legacy aspect of the character, but also his/her flexibility with styles and genres. Even within the context of the Vietnam stories, the challenge is always to not just make each chapter the same type of war story. Or just "Insert superhero character here" story. I hope that the readers of the first three released stories notice that the stories and settings are different in themes, visuals or approach, with a smaller aspect of the character/s or war that isn't just the same-same stuff you get from a standard war film. And though I do have a muddy fight/war battle to highlight (most likely a chapter in Khe Sanh, or Hill 875 down the line), the nuances and moments of the war, and urban to country-side to jungle settings allows for many possibilities in what can be touched on and told.
And, much like "It ain't me, it ain't me", the possibility to touch on classic Falk/McCoy/Barry stories weaved into the real world settings makes the writing/puzzle piece process rewarding in itself.
If you've read these so far, thank you. If you're in lockdown and want to see the digital versions, or order copies via Frew, here's the link, and my eternal thanks: | | |
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A Peek at things to come... Here's a peek at some early concept work I knocked up last year during lockdown, one part as audition for that short animation gig I did Mid 2020, and one part for the personal project I'm working on with the smidgen of free time I have. Though the current TX! Mag #38 is taking up my time right now (that's the 15 page medical comic I spoke briefly about in last month's newsletter), this is still planned as perhaps a crowdfunded graphic novel down the line, with an eye towards at least crowdfunding the first chapter on completion to test the viability/waters/concept. I'd like to say later in the year, though I have no idea if I'll have other work to contest with, or none at all (as alluded to in the previous section. Either way, thought it might be worth sharing some of the early thoughts, and mention the project is still on the way.
"Keep moving forward" is the perennial advice I given you or students who might sometimes find themselves in the drudgery of routine, lockdowns, a rut, rejection, etc. Have a mental recharge, and go do something you enjoy. | | |
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Final words for this month: Seems I have some colouring to do on a story I submitted at the start of 2020, which is getting a release next year(?). The panel above is a peek of it, and I feel like it's going to be a bit fiddly, given I handed in the work complete, with the usual black and white/grayscale presentation in mind. In fact, I had the film Raging Bull in mind as a visual when knocking it up, so now it will be a case of revisiting the whole thing with CMYK. Kind of a shame. I'm not one to get in on the argument of "Colour vs black and white" as a thing, because I'm not sure of the standing points of the strength of both sides. On one hand, I can see how in Western markets, colour has certain connotations with "Old vs New", "Quality vs Shoddy", "Quality vs Cheapness" etc. Some countries had colour (as rudimentary as it is/was) in their comics for years, so seeing an absence of it can be jarring.
Some publishers have set the standards re: 4 colour newsprint colouring, right thru to digital colouring, with high grade paper, for others in the same market to follow. Malibu comics in the 1990s was purchased by Marvel for the sole purpose of absorbing not their characters, but their digital colouring department. There's a story that Marvel UK, when first taking over, found their newsstand comics sales fell for a bit when they realised they'd changed the format to a better quality cover and paper/size, and it turned off the readers, who were use to the old format/paper/size (and the competition hadn't changed, so they migrated to those). Sometimes the colouring comes down to paper stock, and not the colour application at all. Frew in Australia have traditionally printed in black and white, and this silly argument of colour being attached to sales comes up all the time, and yet, Manga product (Japanese comics) runs rings around the sales of western books globally, and is presented by majority in black and white. Dogman, arguably the biggest selling comic book series in the world right now, is made for kids, looks like it's drawn by a kid, and coloured in crayon. I don't think colour and the quality of, is your only deciding factor when it comes to the "successfulness" of comics.
And yet, I teach colour quite a bit thru various uni courses annually, and can tell you it can play a pivotable role in the portrayal of story material and characterisation in a story, right down to the meaning of narrative colour hardwired into us, most likely thru the almost-century of use in Disney Animation.
So what's my point?
Dunno, really. Maybe it's "Nobody knows anything", as Hollywood producer William Goldman use to say. I think it's in the intent of the artist/s involved in the project whether the story can stand on its own with or without colour, and art and commerce impacting one another can ultimately train (or untrained) an audience to see the merit in either/or, depending on the quality of the other aspects at play with the material. Comics is a collaborative medium, including the modes of production. So, great colouring can certainly help a visual, but poor colouring can butcher even wonderful black and white illustration.Or at the very least, it could attract new readers who say the lack of colour as a barrier to trying something, or repeal old readers who see its inclusion as change. I'll have to be careful in approach.
(And maybe for my own peace of mind, I'll have to bootleg a handful of black & white versions of the story in question as a crowdfunding incentive with the personal work when that's eventually in the can...?)
Anyways, like I said last month, thank you for your support for signing up to news and stuff here. I know not everyone is a creator, an aspiring creator or maybe that interested to see how the sausage is made, but sometimes a peek behind the curtain can't hurt. BUT, if you *are* interested, or you know anyone who might want to know more about this stuff, see if they'd like to sign up to the free newsletter, or even check out the seminar, for the Writers centre I mentioned: please feel free to pass the link along. I pitched it as an introductory to test the waters, wondering if anyone is interested to hear some of the elements in a nutshell from what I teach at my day job at the University/Film School. Cheers :D https://queenslandwriters.org.au/events/stream-comics-mason As always, I hope you are all safe and well, best wishes to those currently in lockdown here or abroad, cheers for doing the right thing, hope you and I get the opportunity to be vaccinated soon (still too young, which is not a sentence I can say that much these days :P) and hope we all get through it OK. Chat soon,
Paul.
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