Today I worked and worked and erased and scribbled and typed and made shocking, wild progress to... page 2! Yes the Book of Might Have Beens is slouching along. I'm trying to be conscious of varying the layout without being obnoxious about it, in addition to keeping the story progressing at a nice clip and preventing the narrative + story-within-narrative + flashbacks from becoming too confusing.
I only had a panel and a half to draw, but then I had to write up the script for the whole thing, and my head is starting to protest all that typing.
Because I don't remember where I left off last time and because my head continues to protest, I'll just share the final caption of this very complicated page: "He must have been a child, even by human reckoning, yet his tale was as old as my race." I'm not entirely happy with that line, but it does sound like something young!MMC would say. I'll sleep on it.
Showing posts with label comic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comic. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
UFPE - Comic update
Too long has gone by since I worked on my comic, partly because I was on vacation and then everything disappeared in the jumble of an open suitcase. And partly because it always seems like such a time commitment to work on it, even though the panel I just worked on took me maybe ten minutes, and that's including thinking up the dialogue and the set-up of the entire page. I should just focus on doing one piece at a time instead of being intimidated by the size of it.
Anyway.
I finished the outline of the Prologue for the Book of Might Have Beens, which may or may not get a title besides "Prologue." There are going to be fifteen pages, chronicling the night of his then-young life that changed everything for Bad Guy! It's riddled with the kinds of cliches that constitute the very fabric of the UFPE: a dying grandmother revealing the Family Shame, teenage (for an Elf) angst, flashbacks galore, a stirring tale of days gone by, and of course, casually spoken words that turn out to have Major Significance. The person who says these earth-shattering words also appears in the UFPE V. 1, as I may have mentioned already. I'm debating letting him discover what he spawned with that conversation, and though I can't see it happening in the UFPE chronology... well, that's what the Book of Might Have Beens is for!
I also drew up a sketch of the first panel of the second page, and I'll probably draw one or two more tonight before bed. Last time I wrote out the script first, but I'm in a pencil-and-paper kind of mood right now, and I much prefer a computer for actual writing. In this panel, we see a young Storyteller standing on a barrel, gesticulating grandly as he tells his story (which appears to us only in bits and pieces), a young Bad Guy watching him agog, and some blurry people in the background who are much less interesting than the story. The top caption says, "I did not yet know it, but that was the day I found my destiny," and the bottom caption says, "Or perhaps my destiny found me."
Anyway.
I finished the outline of the Prologue for the Book of Might Have Beens, which may or may not get a title besides "Prologue." There are going to be fifteen pages, chronicling the night of his then-young life that changed everything for Bad Guy! It's riddled with the kinds of cliches that constitute the very fabric of the UFPE: a dying grandmother revealing the Family Shame, teenage (for an Elf) angst, flashbacks galore, a stirring tale of days gone by, and of course, casually spoken words that turn out to have Major Significance. The person who says these earth-shattering words also appears in the UFPE V. 1, as I may have mentioned already. I'm debating letting him discover what he spawned with that conversation, and though I can't see it happening in the UFPE chronology... well, that's what the Book of Might Have Beens is for!
I also drew up a sketch of the first panel of the second page, and I'll probably draw one or two more tonight before bed. Last time I wrote out the script first, but I'm in a pencil-and-paper kind of mood right now, and I much prefer a computer for actual writing. In this panel, we see a young Storyteller standing on a barrel, gesticulating grandly as he tells his story (which appears to us only in bits and pieces), a young Bad Guy watching him agog, and some blurry people in the background who are much less interesting than the story. The top caption says, "I did not yet know it, but that was the day I found my destiny," and the bottom caption says, "Or perhaps my destiny found me."
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Progress - Book of Might Have Beens
UFPE continues on, this time in an entirely new medium. Yes, I have officially begun the comic. Right now, I'm writing the script for it and drawing a stick-person version so I have a vague idea of what it should look like, one day. I don't think it would be terribly interesting to copy it wholesale here, but I know - I'll give the captions for the first page (which is all I have completed so far). There are eight panels, and the captions say:
#1: Carnivala Floriena. They say Lady Fortune and the Lord of Love descend from the stars to dance with the farmers on this night.
#2: If they did attend, I hope they did not notice how badly I fouled my steps.
#3: After I was spun through three jigs, I begged my leave. My head continued to whirl as I looked out over the unending crowd, spilling out into the village green like a flurry of starfliers.
#4: I had never seen such activity, nor such crowds. People jostled me with every step, and my ears rang ceaselessly with the raucous cries they raised.
#5: I saw a man swallow his saber, and I waited with mounting horror for the silver blade to pierce his throat from the inside, to release a crimson fountain. Everyone else just laughed.
#6: Of course, he was perfectly fine.
#7: I spoke to him, after. He smelled vile, and I could see weeks of dirt caked into his flesh.
#8: All my life I had been told I was one of them, yet never before had I felt so utterly lost.
The MMC is quite the sympathetic character here - no trace of the villain he is to become. Even though my drawings are just stick figures, I'm very much enjoying glancing down at the page and seeing what I've created. I don't have the words drawn in, but I can follow what's happening without them. All in all, this is very exciting.
#1: Carnivala Floriena. They say Lady Fortune and the Lord of Love descend from the stars to dance with the farmers on this night.
#2: If they did attend, I hope they did not notice how badly I fouled my steps.
#3: After I was spun through three jigs, I begged my leave. My head continued to whirl as I looked out over the unending crowd, spilling out into the village green like a flurry of starfliers.
#4: I had never seen such activity, nor such crowds. People jostled me with every step, and my ears rang ceaselessly with the raucous cries they raised.
#5: I saw a man swallow his saber, and I waited with mounting horror for the silver blade to pierce his throat from the inside, to release a crimson fountain. Everyone else just laughed.
#6: Of course, he was perfectly fine.
#7: I spoke to him, after. He smelled vile, and I could see weeks of dirt caked into his flesh.
#8: All my life I had been told I was one of them, yet never before had I felt so utterly lost.
The MMC is quite the sympathetic character here - no trace of the villain he is to become. Even though my drawings are just stick figures, I'm very much enjoying glancing down at the page and seeing what I've created. I don't have the words drawn in, but I can follow what's happening without them. All in all, this is very exciting.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Short Post - character idea
Now that school is winding down for the semester, I'm hoping to get back into this blog more regularly. I'll especially try to keep updates coming about the status of my UFPE "Book of Might Have Beens" scheme; I've never tried to write in the comic script form before, so it's more than a little daunting. But it'll be a long time before I have three months of evenings free again, so I'm determined to make the most of it!
Briefly, I just finished reading a wonderful book, The Remains of the Day, about an English butler reminiscing about his career and things. It made so much of an impression on me that I'd like to include a character like that in the Book of Might Have Beens. He (or she, I suppose) would appear in the MHB where FMC lives in Prince Seaton's palace as part of his harem. Of course, for the purposes of the UFPE, the butler character's stiff-upper-lipness has to be exaggerated for comic effect, and I feel almost guilty about transforming such a well-done, touching character into a parody. Not too guilty, though; it really is a testament to how marvelously the author developed the character in a pretty short book.
So, the butler! This person will appear at first as a very stiff, almost heartless sort of person, but s/he will probably end up perfoming some very valuable service for FMC along the way, rather like the innkeeper (whose name I've forgotten) in UFPE Volume I. As I think about it, this could be another theme of the UFPE - love is already an important theme, so why not expand it to include charity toward our fellow human beings? It's the kind of thing the Secret Society would never count on, certainly not something as toweringly monumental as Destiny.
This has been a more productive post than I had imagined when I started. I have a new character and a new theme!
Briefly, I just finished reading a wonderful book, The Remains of the Day, about an English butler reminiscing about his career and things. It made so much of an impression on me that I'd like to include a character like that in the Book of Might Have Beens. He (or she, I suppose) would appear in the MHB where FMC lives in Prince Seaton's palace as part of his harem. Of course, for the purposes of the UFPE, the butler character's stiff-upper-lipness has to be exaggerated for comic effect, and I feel almost guilty about transforming such a well-done, touching character into a parody. Not too guilty, though; it really is a testament to how marvelously the author developed the character in a pretty short book.
So, the butler! This person will appear at first as a very stiff, almost heartless sort of person, but s/he will probably end up perfoming some very valuable service for FMC along the way, rather like the innkeeper (whose name I've forgotten) in UFPE Volume I. As I think about it, this could be another theme of the UFPE - love is already an important theme, so why not expand it to include charity toward our fellow human beings? It's the kind of thing the Secret Society would never count on, certainly not something as toweringly monumental as Destiny.
This has been a more productive post than I had imagined when I started. I have a new character and a new theme!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Idea, story and media
Several factors - reading the brilliant Sandman comic series, thinking about embarking upon another NaNo adventure during the summer, visiting a little art show at my sweetie's apartment building and listening to older people talking about how they were so happy to have taken up art late in life - have recently collided in such a way as to harass my brain with a very new and very interesting idea. I'm thinking of doing another volume of the UFPE for JulNo, as I did last year (which was the beginning of the UFPE, in fact), except this time in comic form.
Once upon a time, I did compose (what is the word? draw? write?) a few comic strips about a broom and his wacky, bad-pun-riddled adventures around the house. It was called Sweepstakes (get it?). Anyway, it was hardly memorable, not even the way UFPE is, but it was fun to create both the visual and written part of a story at once. Over the summer, it seems I'm going to be a research assistant, one of a team, which I suspect will leave me with a good deal of free time. I'd like to work as much as possible - I was planning on a very different sort of job that would have netted me a bit more of a cash flow - but I doubt I'll rack up 1/10 of what I had thought to make.
Ah well.
And finally, I remember a conversation I had in the past year or so with my sister. As is evident from this blog, I've focused my creative energies in writing much more than drawing, but she told me that she always thought I was good at drawing. I certainly have wished more than once that I had taken art classes in college. So while I'm unfortunately not in a good position to take art classes now, I think this would be a very fun way to stimulate some creative neurons that haven't fired in a long time and to continue the proud tradition of the UFPE.
Now I need to remember what I somehow picked up about drawing and learn to write scripts.
For the specific story, I'm currently planning on using the "Book of Might Have Beens" for the storyline. I think I've described this before, but I do need to expand the idea. I was thinking of having 5 "Might Have Been" storylines because of 50K NaNo goal, but I suppose in this format, I can be more flexible about the number and length of the MHBs. The MHBs focus on Bad Guy and FMC, possibly starring Good Guy in a supporting role. He's not terribly important in this volume because one of the themes of the UFPE is that FMC chooses him (I think, at least) because she loves him, as an act of free will - instead of succumbing to the Secret Society and all their proclamations about destiny.
Possible Prologue: Bad Guy is on his youthful travels. During a carnival scene I've tried to write a few times but never got very far into, he receives The Revelation that shapes his future.
MHB #1: FMC is a servant in Prince Seaton's court, possibly part of his harem; this could have happened fairly on in the UFPE Volume 1. Bad Guy succeeds in rallying his people and razing a few human villages near their territory. Seaton insists on meeting with him. For all Bad Guy's talk of destroying all humans, he knows he's not ready for a full-on war just yet, especially with the mages unaccounted for. Upon seeing FMC, though, sparks fly, and he abducts her (a la Blue Sword). Seaton is pissed, and war subsumes the land.
MHB #2: Near the end of UFPE Volume 2 (well, near where I stopped writing), there's a close shave where Bad Guy might well have overpowered FMC and Good Guy. In this scenario, he gets even closer to his goal and ends up killing Good Guy, leaving FMC opportunity to escape. Good Guy's last magical stand gives her some protection from Bad Guy's magical tracking, leaving her to vow his destruction and stalk him while he builds his army. Whether she kills him in the end and just how dramatic it is remains to be envisioned.
MHB #3: Early on in UFPE Volume 2, FMC is spurred to flee Bad Guy when he's professing his love to her and she sees some very bad news in the depths of his eyes. Instead of fleeing, FMC is frozen with fear and doesn't do anything. Later she has some very deep thoughts on the subjects and concludes that the only way she can stop him is if she pretends to return his affections, waiting for the ultimate moment of betrayal. Ditto the last ending. Betrayal is one of my favorite things to write, so it's going to be dramatic. I might scale back the ending of MHB #2 so I don't exceed my drama quota, which exists even for a UFPE.
MHB #4: This one is very early in the idea stage. We learn at some point that Good Guy knew FMC's father because both were mages. Instead of the slavers or whomever picking up baby FMC, Good Guy is going to find her and bring her back to Mage Tower. I envision this MHB as opening up with her as a student in the ivory tower world of the mages, sitting in a class and probably daydreaming about doing something more interesting. As news comes in of Bad Guy's meteoric (sp?) rise, the mages debate whether they should engage or stay out of the conflict. Somehow, the debate escalates into some mage civil war, leaving the whole world devastated by forces even more powerful than Bad Guy turned against each other.
MHB #5: Is it just me, or does one of these deserve a happy ending? I'll think about it. In this one, FMC never fled her home village at all. As Bad Guy sweeps down upon the world - possibly getting certain territory from Seaton as a form of appeasement - his forces invade her village. Oh, here's a possibility for a happy ending. She flees into the mountains where UFPE Volume 2 theoretically ends, where her mother's people are lying in a deep slumber. Her distress and things rouse them, and they come in the nick of time to confront Bad Guy and push him back into his own territory. Not sure if Good Guy puts in an apperance here; maybe it ends with FMC being counseled to go find him?
Epilogue (maybe? Or this could go elsewhere): the members of the Secret Society are tracing the paths of their destiny. They're absolutely determined that Bad Guy and FMC have to be together because they both have incredibly powerful astrological signs. I had an explanation for why they cared all worked up awhile back, but it's become fuzzy since then. I suppose they have an idea to harness that power for themselves. Anyway, this whole installment is how their ideas are bound to go horribly, horribly wrong. I realize that some of the MHBs, at least one, don't have FMC and Bad Guy meeting. I'm pretty sure I can remedy that.
So there is my scheme! It's a lot of work, but I'm very excited for it.
Once upon a time, I did compose (what is the word? draw? write?) a few comic strips about a broom and his wacky, bad-pun-riddled adventures around the house. It was called Sweepstakes (get it?). Anyway, it was hardly memorable, not even the way UFPE is, but it was fun to create both the visual and written part of a story at once. Over the summer, it seems I'm going to be a research assistant, one of a team, which I suspect will leave me with a good deal of free time. I'd like to work as much as possible - I was planning on a very different sort of job that would have netted me a bit more of a cash flow - but I doubt I'll rack up 1/10 of what I had thought to make.
Ah well.
And finally, I remember a conversation I had in the past year or so with my sister. As is evident from this blog, I've focused my creative energies in writing much more than drawing, but she told me that she always thought I was good at drawing. I certainly have wished more than once that I had taken art classes in college. So while I'm unfortunately not in a good position to take art classes now, I think this would be a very fun way to stimulate some creative neurons that haven't fired in a long time and to continue the proud tradition of the UFPE.
Now I need to remember what I somehow picked up about drawing and learn to write scripts.
For the specific story, I'm currently planning on using the "Book of Might Have Beens" for the storyline. I think I've described this before, but I do need to expand the idea. I was thinking of having 5 "Might Have Been" storylines because of 50K NaNo goal, but I suppose in this format, I can be more flexible about the number and length of the MHBs. The MHBs focus on Bad Guy and FMC, possibly starring Good Guy in a supporting role. He's not terribly important in this volume because one of the themes of the UFPE is that FMC chooses him (I think, at least) because she loves him, as an act of free will - instead of succumbing to the Secret Society and all their proclamations about destiny.
Possible Prologue: Bad Guy is on his youthful travels. During a carnival scene I've tried to write a few times but never got very far into, he receives The Revelation that shapes his future.
MHB #1: FMC is a servant in Prince Seaton's court, possibly part of his harem; this could have happened fairly on in the UFPE Volume 1. Bad Guy succeeds in rallying his people and razing a few human villages near their territory. Seaton insists on meeting with him. For all Bad Guy's talk of destroying all humans, he knows he's not ready for a full-on war just yet, especially with the mages unaccounted for. Upon seeing FMC, though, sparks fly, and he abducts her (a la Blue Sword). Seaton is pissed, and war subsumes the land.
MHB #2: Near the end of UFPE Volume 2 (well, near where I stopped writing), there's a close shave where Bad Guy might well have overpowered FMC and Good Guy. In this scenario, he gets even closer to his goal and ends up killing Good Guy, leaving FMC opportunity to escape. Good Guy's last magical stand gives her some protection from Bad Guy's magical tracking, leaving her to vow his destruction and stalk him while he builds his army. Whether she kills him in the end and just how dramatic it is remains to be envisioned.
MHB #3: Early on in UFPE Volume 2, FMC is spurred to flee Bad Guy when he's professing his love to her and she sees some very bad news in the depths of his eyes. Instead of fleeing, FMC is frozen with fear and doesn't do anything. Later she has some very deep thoughts on the subjects and concludes that the only way she can stop him is if she pretends to return his affections, waiting for the ultimate moment of betrayal. Ditto the last ending. Betrayal is one of my favorite things to write, so it's going to be dramatic. I might scale back the ending of MHB #2 so I don't exceed my drama quota, which exists even for a UFPE.
MHB #4: This one is very early in the idea stage. We learn at some point that Good Guy knew FMC's father because both were mages. Instead of the slavers or whomever picking up baby FMC, Good Guy is going to find her and bring her back to Mage Tower. I envision this MHB as opening up with her as a student in the ivory tower world of the mages, sitting in a class and probably daydreaming about doing something more interesting. As news comes in of Bad Guy's meteoric (sp?) rise, the mages debate whether they should engage or stay out of the conflict. Somehow, the debate escalates into some mage civil war, leaving the whole world devastated by forces even more powerful than Bad Guy turned against each other.
MHB #5: Is it just me, or does one of these deserve a happy ending? I'll think about it. In this one, FMC never fled her home village at all. As Bad Guy sweeps down upon the world - possibly getting certain territory from Seaton as a form of appeasement - his forces invade her village. Oh, here's a possibility for a happy ending. She flees into the mountains where UFPE Volume 2 theoretically ends, where her mother's people are lying in a deep slumber. Her distress and things rouse them, and they come in the nick of time to confront Bad Guy and push him back into his own territory. Not sure if Good Guy puts in an apperance here; maybe it ends with FMC being counseled to go find him?
Epilogue (maybe? Or this could go elsewhere): the members of the Secret Society are tracing the paths of their destiny. They're absolutely determined that Bad Guy and FMC have to be together because they both have incredibly powerful astrological signs. I had an explanation for why they cared all worked up awhile back, but it's become fuzzy since then. I suppose they have an idea to harness that power for themselves. Anyway, this whole installment is how their ideas are bound to go horribly, horribly wrong. I realize that some of the MHBs, at least one, don't have FMC and Bad Guy meeting. I'm pretty sure I can remedy that.
So there is my scheme! It's a lot of work, but I'm very excited for it.
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