Thursday, December 22, 2005

I sent off my first comics pitch ever, to Pornsak Pichetshote at DC Vertigo, thanks to the kind and generous intervention of Andy Diggle.

I'm intrigued by the idea of writing comics. Every medium has its strengths. In comics, as in novels, you can slow down or speed up time. You can do a page full of panels on a moment's worth of emotions passing across someone's face. Or you can age the Earth.

You can also have very convincing looking hellspawn, should you be so inclined. On Canadian budgets for film and TV, not so much. And when your mind turns regularly to the supernatural, as mine does, comics are the natural place to tell your stories, unless you have access to Peter Jackson, or at least Stan Winston. And I have a bunch of material that may find a home much more easily on the page than on the screen. I've got a whole menagerie, really.

Oh, and comics have the other advantage of novels: they publish a lot of them. So while you won't make much money doing them, you stand a better chance of telling your story than you do if you're waiting for the feature film to get made.

We'll see how it goes. Some say comics editors are looking for film and TV writers interested in writing for comics, because too many current comics writers are writing only for comics True Believers, which restricts the audience.

Wish me luck...

Technorati tags: screenwriting; TV; comics

5:03 PM

4 Comments:

I've written a 854 page screenplay about a guy sitting on the toilet and reading a newspaper. Do you think I should change it to a magazine instead?

By  Smerdyakov, at 9:16 AM  

So, is the 5-page pitch all you've done on this comic, or did you also come up with your script, and/or find an artist, or what?

By  Fun Joel, at 10:04 AM  

I think the notion that comic writers are writing for the True Believers is dead on. As a comic artist, I get pitches all the time from writers, and I'd say 99% of it is re-hashed spandex stuff I've seen a million times before. There are some talented writers in the business that are doing great work, those guys are the exception and maybe only make up a small percentage of the industry. I think overall, the bulk of comic writers are longtime comic book fans that want to recreate their favorite tales from their childhood.

Comic sales have slumped bigtime in the last few years. I think a big reason for that is we got stale. We stopped being hip and fresh, and instead we keep taking Stan Lee and Jack Kirby out of the fridge, stick them in the microwave, and hope they're still fresh. We're eating leftovers every day because a lot of comic creators forgot how to cook. I think we could really use more outside influence, so I say come on in, and make yourself at home. :D

By  Kody Chamberlain, at 11:08 AM  

Good luck, Alex. Depending on your success or failure in this new career path you've chosen, I just might follow suit with Black Tower. I'll be keeping tabs on you, my friend.

By  Kelly J. Crawford, at 1:53 AM  

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