New Project

With three issues of "Fiends of Nashville" in the can, and Josh doing some catching up on the art end, I decided to put that project on hiatus temporarily in order to pursue something of my own, with total creative control and independence. Long story short, I was getting a little disenfranchised with the prospect of writing something that was essentially going nowhere, at least fast. This summer was supposed to be my opportunity to produce like mad, and I haven't exactly fulfilled those (as usual) lofty expectations for myself. Josh is currently unable to commit all the way to holding up the art end of this comic thing, and who can blame him? But it was getting harder and harder for me to get attached to something that was looking less and less like it would ever see the light of day. I was writing scripts for a concept to which I did not hold the copyright. It was Josh's original idea, so I couldn't really do anything with these scripts I'd written. Couldn't really take them anywhere, like Dark Horse, for example. Unfortunately that's the problem with collaborating on a project; often it's a different priority for each party involved. Especially at our level, working our asses off trying to break into a creative industry somehow, just clinging to economic survival. "Fiends of Nashville," by necessity, became a job, a chore, and not the fun little diversion we'd set out to entertain ourselves with. I have a feeling it's something that will have to wait until both of us have a foot in the door apiece, something to distract us from the tediousness of our lives once we actually have jobs.

Anyway, I came across the movie "The Lost Boys" at a discount DVD store last night and, overcome with a sense of childhood nostalgia, the memory of cowering under the blankets at a sleepover when I was seven or eight, I gleefully forked over the $5.99. To give you some perspective provided you know me, I was more excited to get home and pop this in than I was to see District 9 last week. I hadn't seen this since I was a kid and I'm always a sucker for an eighties soundtrack, especially one with "Cry Little Sister" by Gerard McMann (I'm listening to Tears for Fears right now as I write this).

No, it wasn't as cool and frightening as I remembered it. No, I didn't cringe when Michael was eating the maggots. No, I wasn't freaked out by Keifer Sutherland's facial transformations, nor was I gripping my seat when the kids were poking around the old hotel and they saw the vampires hanging like bats. Yes, Jami Gertz was a lot sexier than I remember when I was seven years old. Oh, and what the hell was Cory Feldman doing with his voice, trying to sound all badass or something?

No, it wasn't exactly the eighties vampire movie that I wanted it to be, but it definitely deserves its cult classic status. And man, those Ray Ban Clubmasters that Michael is wearing are fucking cool. I think I'll grab a pair to ride ahead of the trend, as a little "fuck you" to all you punks who copied my Wayfarers (just kidding, Josh). As I watched the movie, and my few expectations slowly fell the less Joel Schumacher decided to earnestly delve into a thorough examination of the life of a vampire a la "Let the Right One In," I experienced a strong desire to fill in the blanks where the movie fell short, to provide a more intelligent and un-Hollywood rendition of a story that had potential but never went anywhere interesting. "The Lost Boys" was nothing to hold a torch to, to be sure, but it inspired me nonetheless...

To write a vampire script.
(Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.)

But seriously. Why not put my own spin on something that's been done countless times before and just have fun with it? So that's what I'm going to do. No, it's not going to be "Twilight." So fuck you. Last night after watching the movie I immediately sat down and wrote out everything I liked about it and everything it was missing that I'd wanted in it. I realized that before it was produced and marketed as a cheap-thrills teen horror movie, it might actually have been trying to say something worthwhile, using the concept of a "vampire" as a kind of metaphor for misguided youth embracing the raging, subconscious homicidal killers inside them, their middle finger to society, maturity, and the responsibility to give back to the greater world. Surprise! Everything I've ever tried to write about. No, I'm not going to set out to do anything pretentious, I just kind of want to truthfully examine what it would actually be like to become a vampire, creature of the night, call it what you will. I have a feeling I'm going to consolidate this project with the one I put on the backburner a while ago about the room with uncanny temporal properties. In other words, the protagonist is pretty much based on me and all the shit I've been tossing around in my head recently, coping with changing philosophies and new life situations. In between lives, so to speak. I think the running title I'm going to use is "Tiding Over."

I have a strong desire to get started on this one right away. Maybe tonight. I'll let you know how it goes.