Progress Update: "Who Saw The Deep"

With one issue fully scripted and a second on the verge of being completed, and new concept art rolling in, I thought I might as well take the time to update you on my latest project. It's called "Who Saw The Deep" and it's a 13-issue graphic novel. Think a modern-day city, perhaps only a few years in the future. A cleaned-up corporate sheen everywhere you look. For anyone who's interested in cyberpunk, this is where it begins. We're setting the stage here and now. At the threshold of the world's very first megacorporations.

Okay, so it's not exactly the most relevant topic in light of today's increased government intervention. Or maybe it is. Indulge me. Picture a laissez-faire America run out of control, if you can.

The idea for the story is mostly derived from the one I ran with for Business of Screenwriting. We had to pitch an existing script idea over the course of the semester, so I quickly threw together a very early, rough version of "Who Saw The Deep," which in and of itself was heavily derived from that "Fiends of Nashville" comic Josh and I were developing at the time. Basically, I just felt like doing a film noir ("Fiends" was a western). Mostly for practice. I was using the same character, the same premise, just putting it in a noir context. (I didn't really have any long-term plans for it.)

Well, after Business of Screenwriting was over, I just shelved what was "Who Saw The Deep," with tentative plans to revisit the material sometime in the distant future, perhaps as a novel. Once summer started, I began working on "Fiends" in earnest. Which has currently been put on hold.

Pretty much for the last year and a half, Jake Hollander, this guy I sat next to in my first animation class, had been bugging me to collaborate on a comic. We did a couple of brainstorming sessions here and there, but nothing really stuck. Then, when Josh told me he couldn't make a solid commitment to "Fiends," I turned around and started talking to Jake again. I remember paging through that old "Who Saw The Deep" .pdf while on aim, and I was like, hey, I have about 70 pgs of workable dialogue here that could serve as a foundation for a noir/cyberpunk comic (we're both really into that blend). I was about halfway through writing "Land of Confusion" at the time. He got really excited about the prospect, so I said, let me finish this vampire thing and I'll start revisiting "Who Saw The Deep."

Overcome by a fit of laziness, I felt tempted to basically re-use the "Who Saw The Deep" script for the comic, word-for-word, breaking it into issues where appropriate. Then I started realizing how similar the material was to "Fiends." I mean pretty much same protagonist, exact same relationships explored. And I realized I didn't want to do that all over again. Also it wouldn't be fair to both Josh and I in the event that we would one day get back to work on "Fiends." So I went and overhauled the characters and story completely.

What emerged was the outline for a 13-issue story arc about robot consciousnesses, supercomputers, memory-altering drugs, a conspiracy, the mob, and a nostalgic hard-boiled detective. Basically an attempt to break free of the "Fiends" mold while remaining as close as possible to the original "Who Saw The Deep." Also, bringing in a lot more ideas that Jake and I had been throwing around. And ideas that had been broached in my Business of Screenwriting class, responding to the original idea.

I have to say, I think it's pretty good. And if you know me, you know that's saying something.

Anyway. The first issue is completely scripted, like I said, broken down into a page-by-page, panel-by-panel layout. All that remains is the art. The second issue is also nearly complete. I'm very pleased with how it's turning out so far, and perhaps a little surprised by the relative ease at which it's coming along.

Below is some original concept art by Jake. The first is a drawing of a female character who was cut early on, and exemplifies the Sin City-esque style Jake and I were thinking of running with originally. The next four are all images of our protagonist, Gene Foster, from his earliest to most recent incarnation. (The third one, with the squinty eyes, is actually mine. Jake and I both decided he looked too mean. More like a pissed-off Asian with a Bruce Campbell chin. I decided to throw it up here just for kicks.)





Not sure when you're going to see a finished product. All I can say is, with the winter break right around the corner, Jake and I will have plenty of time to get cracking on the art.

The Voids

All of our actions, the cause and effect of our daily lives, can be traced to loss. An endless series of voids that we attempt to fill in vain--because nothing, that we cling to in this reality, is permanent. Nothing is absolute. We react to the inevitable loss of these impermanent attachments by seeking others to fill the voids left in their wake. The voids can be filled only temporarily, before we experience loss yet again and must seek out new attachments to take their place. Everything that we cling to as human beings--material objects, places, people, ideas--are placeholders. For those of the past and those yet to come. The pursuit of these placeholders is what defines us. Our actions, our choices.

No one of us dwells for too long in the voids, because there is where we find the death of ourselves.

Land of Confusion update

Well, it's finished. Draft 1, that is. And what a draft indeed, at a whopping 173 pages. Nearly a 3-hour movie. Whoops. Which means in order to prepare it for the Written Image contest at the end of this year (which I plan on entering), I have to trim 43 pages. [Insert expletive here]! Not sure how that's gonna happen, but at the moment I don't really give a hoot. The .pdf is saved, tucked away in a safe folder for anybody out of their right mind who wants to take a look, but I'm just going to leave it there, in a digital drawer, for the next month or so while I get to work on my next project.

Which brings me to my next order of business. I'm about to start work on a comic/graphic novel with a friend of mine from the Animation world, Jake Hollander. The idea is something I've been flirting with off-and-on for the last couple years or so, so let's hope I can bring it down off the pedestal like the jar of cookies that it is, cause I'm hungry. Long story short, it's kind of a neo-noir, a dash of cyberpunk to taste, about a detective investigating his own murder. That's about all I care to get into right now, but give me a few days and I'll start to expand on that as I develop the general storyline and the script for the first issue.

Here goes nothing...

"Experience," Part 2

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I've been busy with that "Land of Confusion" script, the first draft of which should be complete any day now. This charcoal portrait's been staring at me from a dejected corner of my room the entire time, and it was only until a couple days ago that I gave in and decided to bust some more of it out. The eyes were really bothering me, as you can see. Fixed them, and started adding white charcoal. I was getting frustrated at first because I haven't worked with it in forever, but then out of nowhere I had a breakthrough and it really started coming together. I'm really pleased with this one, which is definitely saying something for me. Hopefully I'll be posting the finished product soon.

Land Of Confusion...

...is not just a phenomenal Genesis song. It's also the working title of my new script, about--you guessed it, vampires. Here's the first scene, just a little sampler to...sink your teeth into.

Land Of Confusion.pdf

Forgive my egregious pun, by the way. I'm a real sucker for them.

There is nothing in this world...

...more intimidating to me than a blank page.

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.