Comic Book

I have loved comic books ever since my brother got me into them.  I collected Marvel comics since I was young and after taking a few years away I am grateful for the comic book shop Cape & Cowl for opening and bringing me back fully to the world of super heroes.  I obviously picked up Marvel at first but have taken to picking up random issues of DC comics and a few graphic novels that I wouldn’t have normally looked at.

Back in the day I loved my X-Men, Scott Lobdell, Peter David and Warren Ellis where at the the time writing the X-Books.  X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Force, Excalibur and X-Factor.  My favorite book at the time was Generation-X, this was because I was 15, the same age range as the characters in the comic book, plus it was a new comic book so, even though it had some older characters, most of them didn’t have years and years of back story to catch up on.  The fact that these mutants weren’t heroes, they where people trying to live in a world that hates and fears them.  Also at the time one of my all time Max-cross overs came about, Age of Apocalypse, I liked this as for four months is wiped clean the X-Mens history and we saw the cast in an all new light, it also appealed to me as it was about a group of people trying to survive a more hellish world.

The things I have been reading these days are a bit more adult related.  The Boys, about humans that keep supers in check, does not shy away from sex, drugs and violence.  A more tame but still shocking set of graphic novels are Irredeemable and Incorruptible about a super hero and super villain swapping sides.  Imagine Superman getting angry and killing anyone he wants, even entire countries.  (Worth checking out.)   

So how do I fit these elements into my world?  Well my setting is 10 years after the greatest battle of supers happened.  It wiped out most of the major supers, heroes and villains as well as destroying London city.  The world is a different place.  England is in a new dark age and the rest of the world are dealing with a new uprise in people with powers.

My three starter titles will hopefully incorporate the subjects that have kept me reading comic books all these while.

Firstly I have a human dealing with the loss of his wife but has to raise his teenage daughter.  He ends up taking on the mantel of a vigilante who passes on his name over the thousands of years Britain has had humans living there.  The comic book deals with our hero trying to make the streets safe for his family.

Secondly my British team is a bunch of supers who are together to survive a harsh Britain both from other supers, the law and beings from another world.

Lastly, this is the one that is moving forward the most.  I have an artist who is doing a fantastic job at bringing my characters to the drawing board.  This is about a group of International Supers that are bought together to “police” the other supers on the planet.  I have had help to fill the roster with this one and am happy with the diversity of the cast.  So much so I’m already thinking of some spin-off comics either as mini-series or as one shots.

All in all I have already written all three ash-can issues I’m just now looking for two other artists to make my first two comic books come to life.

Thats all for now.

LLAP

Rob

Fantasy World

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I have planned to write over the next few years.  The next few blogs will take a look at each on individually so you can read the ones you want and comment where you see fit.

This first one is the one that’s coursing me to think the most.  I’ve been a fan of dark fantasy with the thoughts of strange and magical creatures.  I keep looking at Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and enjoy the creative muppets that they use.  Shying away from the Tolkien elves, dwarves and goblins that many novels, roleplaying games have adopted.  The use of muppets gives them the option to make unique, none humanoid characters.  This use of imagination was also used in the cult sci-fi show Farscape.  At the same time I do like the Tolkien races from Lord of the Rings and the twists that have been made in various media, for example the numerous version of elves in the Dungeon & Dragon world of Eberron.  In this world they have persian style horse riders, clerical undead worshippers and sneaky assassin/thief guilds, not just woodland elves.  

Baring all this in mind, I want to create a world that has a mixture of these elements but without just copying from Jim Henson and Tolkien.  I have many ideas but as per usual I can’t keep my mind on one project.  Is this a bad thing though?  After all my superhero world for my comic books have grown extremely fast.  If I could create a fantasy world with such a variation in storytelling I think i would be incredibly happy.  Especially with the thoughts spreading this world into all the media areas that I like; I easily do several novels, make a movie and even use it as a photography project.  I know enough people who are good at drawing, costume design, make-up and prosthetics.  I think I would need a like minded person to help me make the world though to either stop me going too far or maybe to push me that bit more.

So what do I fill my world with?  Well lets see what I like.  I like the sea and people that use the ocean as a living.  I like goblins, steam punk, swords, bows and arrows.  I like big fights, childhood escapism, rain.  I like ice.  I like new and interesting races as well as a spin on the old ones.  I like unexplored regions.  I’m not fond of magic but could have my arm twisted if someone can come up with a way to have magic without being over the top.

What do you think?  As always feel free to comment, or not, your choice.

LLAP

Rob

Ideas and Influences

Coming up with an idea is easy.  Coming up with an unique idea is very difficult.  That doesn’t mean you can’t write about what you want to.  As long as you have an idea you like keep writing and people will either like it or not.  The writer Peter David wrote a book about how to write for comic books and graphic novels.  He says you can look at modern writing and connect it to something else, original ideas are hard to come by.  Batman is like Sherlock Holmes.  Green Arrow is based on Robin Hood.  Aqua-man and Sub-marina are pretty much the same person.  One example he mentions has always stuck in my mind.  Apparently George Lucas almost got sued over Star Wars.  People said it was just a copy o Wizard of Oz.  Think about it; Farm Boy ventures to far off land to kill a powerful magic user.  C3-PO as the tin man.  Chewbacca as the cowedly lion.  Because of all this it has made me relax more with my writing.  No more am I stopping on and idea I like because in the back of my mind I’m thinking “I saw this somewhere before”.  Instead I just write for the enjoyment and getting more done.

Everyone has successful people they look to for influence and I am no different.  I’m lucky enough that I enjoy visual pieces of work.  I loved watching films, sometime three or four in one night.  Most of them where rubbish but helped me know what I like and don’t like.  I’ve always like comic books and thankfully many of the writers also write novels.  Here are some of my influences that I have either grown up with or have found recently.

Peter David is a talented writer, I first read his work when my brother collected The Incredible Hulk and have followed his work, in a round about way, over the years.  He has written for X-Factor and is now back on the series.  Final he also written the one of the only novel series that I have collected, Star Trek: New Frontier.  Due to his talent in Comic Books and Novels I have included him in this list.

Mark Waid, Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis are all included in this list as they have the knowledge of comic books to be able to twist what long time comic readers know to create something more dramatic and risky.

Ed Brubaker is new to my list, I like his work as he can mix super hero story lines with noir/crime.  His Secret Avengers run made me happy as he used new and old, almost forgotten characters, in his story telling.

Jim Henson is a great influence.  Several times I have tried to write a great dark fantasy like Dark Crystal and Labyrinth but have failed to capture the crazy unique creature that fills his world, same goes for director Guillermo Del Toro.

The Henson's television shows are amazing, The Story Teller and Farscape (his son helped create it) have both humour and horror elements in them.

Joss Whedon, the writer of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer need a mention as his character driven storyline and interaction in both television series and his run on Astonishing X-Men are second to none.

There are many more but I think I must go for now.

So there you go.

LLAP

Rob

Introduction

Well I’ve got a blog for my photography, I have a blog for my fanfic for the Dungeon and Dragon setting Eberron and I have a blog for my short stories set in a super hero world that my comics are in.  So I have decided to have a blog to talk about all of my creative writing work.  Hopefully this will help me to actually do more writing and not just think about it.

You see my problem is I like coming up with ideas.  Lot of different ideas ranging from sci-fi to fantasy to urban horror to erotica to super heroes.  Then when I do have an idea that I want to work on I then have to decide on which format to write it in.  I have studied many different writing techniques.  My media studies taught me to write for magazines and newspapers, my video production helped to improve my script writing and I have several qualifications in creative writing, short stories mainly. Let’s see how my blog writing goes.  When I start writing my idea in short story mode I start to think of how it would look on screen and after that I start to see it in comic form.  Even then I think how good a game it would be if I wrote the idea as a roleplaying game.  Due to this I never actually get anywhere.  

As I said before you can take a peek at my short stories on my other blogs, I’m guessing there is a link somewhere on this page if not I’ll add one later.  Be aware my punchuation is a bit off as once I start typing I never check what I’m doing.  Something I should be more careful with.

My super hero “fetish” is being realised in a bunch of comic books that I’m writing.  So far i have a British vigilante, an International Super Team and a British group trying to get by.  With comic books I’m torn.  I really consider them to be aimed at kids and young teenagers, yes everyone can enjoy them, but it’s nice to know that they are there to help the imagination of growing minds.  On the flip side I do like the gritty, some times raunchy, graphic novels, I could probably try for something in-between.

I really would love to write a fantasy piece.  For this I would like to put it on film.  I know some LARPers (live action roleplayers) that I could borrow them and their equipment, if they look good enough, to create at least a short film or try out a fight sequence.  I will also have to think about what creatures, if any, will be included.

This would mean my Sci-fi work should probably be a novel.  This I would find fun but again I would have to think how far I would go with alien creatures or whether to just have humans.  I think with no budget issues I can go as far as I want.  The one thing that would put me off this would be the techno-babel.  I’m no good with big words, my tutor told me my writing was straight to the point and would work with comic books, so creating big words that sound real would slow my writing process.

Right-e-o.  Seeing as this is my first blog on this subject I will leave this here.  I hope you enjoyed it and more will be coming soon that will talk about my individual projects as well as my thoughts and creative progress.  I think my next one will be talking about my influences.

Thank you for the read.  Feel free to comment on anything you have read or any thoughts you may have.

Ta ta for now.

Live Long And Prosper (LLAP)

Rob