Chained To The Keyboard

Well, the first 10 pages of the comic script have been completed and sent to my Talented Artist, to do with as she wishes. To be honest, it was a major adjustment to go from the hidebound structure of the screenplay to the ‘anything goes’ format of the comic script, for which individual issues may follow different formatting schemes. Nonetheless, it’ll be exciting to see the art as it starts to take shape.

Speaking of which, an eery thing happened to me the other day. I was browsing away with multiple windows open, happily multi-tasking, reading two separate interviews which I’d happened upon for different reasons. One was Alan Moore; the other, Grant Morrison. Both interviews were conducted in 2003.

So it was pretty startling when both writers began simultaneously saying the exact same thing.

Morrison:

“‘Emergence’ is the science of spontaneous order, which means quite simply that ‘intelligence’ can be regarded as a by-product of complexity.

One bee is not particularly smart but group a number of bees together and at a critical threshold something interesting happens - a ‘hive’ emerges. That is to say, from the aggregation of a number of not very intelligent units, a mass intelligence emerges. The same thing happens everywhere in nature; a single sponge cell is a fairly aimless, hopeless animal but gather enough of them together and a colony intelligence is seen to develop which drives each individual along as part of a group endeavor.

So, now that we have the idea in our heads that ‘intelligence’ appears when systems become increasingly complex, we can approach my notion of ‘living comics.’

Think of a STORY. My contention is that a story can be made sufficiently complex that it achieves some measure of self-awareness - in fact I believe this is what’s happening when authors talk about characters ‘taking control’ or when they say ‘the story just took a turn I wasn’t planning…’. When I was doing The Invisibles, I was definitely aware of the book as a living entity which was interacting with me in many of the ways a human being might but at the time I was thinking of this ‘aliveness’ as a kind of mystical quality not as an emergent property that could reproduced without recourse to the spirit world. I’d like to see if I can deliberately ‘wake up’ a story and let it make its own decisions.”

Moore:

“But it might be an idea - and this is just a mad, hippie, did-too-much-acid-in-the-’60s kind of theory but - if you could get an idea that was complex enough, self-referential enough, could it become aware? They say that awareness is an emergent property of complexity. Could that be true on a purely immaterial level, about ideas? If you had a complex enough idea form, could it become aware? Could you have things that were ideas but were alive? I mean, I’ve certainly encountered things that seem to be ideas but act as if they’re alive. I’m not saying that they are, I’m not saying that they’re not just some projection of me, that’s also quite possible, I wouldn’t want to rule that out but they pretend not to be. [Laughs] They appear to be something else. That is the way that my magic tends to go. When I first beame initiated into magic, which was by an event, a spontaneous event, rather than in any organization, that was the way that my thoughts seemed to be going on the subject: that actually, awareness is a space, mind can be looked at as a space and that space may be inhabited. There might be entities that are indigenous to that space. Flora and fauna of the mental realm, which I think is more than enough to explain all the demons, angels and chimera and UFO grey aliens and elves, leprechauns, pixies of all of our human culture.”

Pretty freaky, huh? What do you reckon: Coincidence or synchronicity? Whatever the case, it’s certainly an interesting theory.

I imagine the more skeptical among you are wondering if they’re pulling your collective legs with this ‘living ideas’ stuff. Perhaps what they’re really doing is allegorically referring to the convergence of ideas that takes place in a writer’s subconscious? I’d be inclined to disagree, if only because both men are practising magicians, a philosophy that usually emphasises the human will; and one which certainly accepts the idea of microscopic changes (thought-forms) effecting macroscopic results.

In other words, I think they’re serious. Definitely something for writers to think about. And if nothing else, ‘living ideas’ is itself a very cool, very Morrisonian idea.

IN OTHER NEWS: Famed CRPG designer Bioware is running a competition for writers, the winners of which may be hired to work for the company. For a dual-classed Video Game Nerd/Aspiring Writer like myself, this is akin to an early, more exciting Christmas. I’m off to EB to find a bargain-priced copy of Neverwinter Nights.

Everybody knows about Superman.

The man from Krypton. Red, blue and yellow. Look, up in the sky! Faster than a speeding bullet. Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor and Kryptonite.

Superman is the most popular comic book character of all time, and the most well-known. He singlehandedly created an entire genre of storytelling, and even gave it a name: Superhero.

It’s been a big week for Kal-El. Eight months and two hundred million (!) dollars later, Mr. Singer has graced us with a teaser trailer. The big surprise? It’s excellent. Maybe it’s because hearing the disembodied voice of the late Marlon Brando playing the role of the disembodied voice of Jor-El is eerily touching and appropriate. Perhaps it’s the uplifting John Williams score. It might even be the fact that Brandon ‘Who?’ Routh doesn’t actually look too bad in the main role.

And meanwhile, over at Superman’s birthplace of D.C. Comics (that’s ‘Detective Comics’ Comics, in case you were wondering), the biggest book launch of the year has just hit. It’s called All-Star Superman, and it’s by two of the biggest all-stars in comics today: Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, creators of We-3. It looks set to demolish the sales charts, and no wonder, because it’s one of the best single-issue comics of the year.

How can this still be happening after sixty-seven years? Like the Christ-figure that he is so often accused of representing, Kal-El of Krypton just keeps coming back to life. So why is this tights-clad impossibility one of the most important fictional characters of the 20th Century? Because more than a comic book, more than a movie series, more than a merchandising tie-in, Superman is a symbol.

Most obviously, he represents the Ultimate Immigrant. 1939 was a time when refugees and immigrants came to America to start a new life, and Superman came from very far away. Faced with the destruction of their home planet, his parents placed him in a rocket ship and sent him to Earth. He grew up among humans; experienced human pains, yearnings and loves. And like many refugees given a second chance, he grew to love his adopted country.

Superman, therefore, embodies the American Dream; that anyone can make it in the land of the free, anyone can rise to greatness by their own strength. The Kent family instilled in him good ole’ fashioned American values and, incredibly, they took hold. Born from a cruel, cynical, violent race which destroyed themselves through hubris, Superman defied his own genetics and embraced the highest human morals. Which is not to say that humans aren’t cruel and violent. If he had been raised by any other family, the Man of Steel could have turned out very differently. But he found the Kents, and thus Nurture won one over Nature.

Yet some would argue that Superman is entirely inhuman, an alien overlord enforcing his own code of morality upon humans; a god-like Nietzchean uber-mensch. But the point of Superman is that he’s not a god at all. He cannot be physically harmed, but he still feels pain, confusion, loss, anxiety, fear. Quentin Tarantino’s little speech at the climax of Kill Bill Volume 2 is about the alien-ness of Superman; about how his Clark Kent persona is his own personal commentary on humanity. I prefer to think of Clark Kent as Superman’s vital link to humanity. Without that Clark Kent ‘disguise’, he’d always be in costume, always be flying high above the people he’s supposed to protect. With it, he gets the daily opportunity to better understand the human world, looking at it from the inside, sharing mortal lives and collecting information on his adopted community. There’s a reason Clark Kent chose to become a reporter, after all.

Everyone has a different reaction to Superman. There’s a brilliant moment in Steven T. Seagle’s graphic novel (and here the term is actually correct) It’s A Bird… in which the protagonist, struggling with writing the character of Superman, has a personal epiphany and exclaims: “He’s a fascist! That’s why I don’t relate to him!” For some people, the idea of an all-powerful hero policing the world according to his own rigid moral code is reprehensible. I would argue that Superman’s moral code is actually rather flexible. He evaluates every situation on its own merits. With super-hearing, super-sight and super-speed, he faces choices every single minute. Save those flood victims in Pakistan, or that child falling out of a window in Chicago? There’s only time for one. (This concept was brilliantly explored in the very first issue of Kurt Busiek’s seminal Astro City.) And time and again he’s had to question his own reasons for existing. Does the world really need a Superman, or is he actually holding back the progress of humanity? Unlike Wonder Woman with her warrior code, or Batman with his vengeance-fuelled crusade, Superman is never quite sure he’s making the correct decision.

And that, Dear Reader, is why Superman is interesting. Of course, that’s only my opinion. Superman means something different to everyone.

What does he mean to you?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about superheroes.

Maybe it’s because I’m writing a superhero screenplay. Or maybe it’s because I’m a huge freaking nerd - who can say? In any case, I’ve been thinking about the old idea that superheroes are modern updates of folktales and myths, and I’ve realised something.

They’re more than that. They are, I think, the defining story of our age.

Pretty big call, huh? Well, think about it. Every great period in history had a story that shaped it, a story reflective of the hopes and aspirations of its people. Alexander the Great forged an empire on the story of the Iliad. So important was that story that he saw himself as a Homeric hero - he even detoured from his path of conquest just to visit all the sites mentioned by Homer. And after Alexander conquered the world, he in turn became a new story for a new generation of shining Greek democracies.

Fast forward past the Roman Empire (which also venerated the stories of the Iliad and Alexander) and we get to arguably the most influential story in history: the life of Jesus Christ. On the strength of that story, Charlemagne of the Franks forged an empire and lifted Europe out of the Dark Ages. And in turn, he and his circle of paladins would be remembered in the defining stories of the French nation, the chanson de geste of the Medieval bards.

Which brings us to the last - and probably our most culturally-important - story, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. These stories shaped the lives our British ancestors and they still affect us today - when we unconsciously talk of ‘finding the Holy Grail’, or ‘Camelot’, or ‘knights in shining armour’.

These are all examples of stories that changed history. And they share many common elements: They’re nebulous, changing and evolving with the times. Everyone knows the basic tropes of them, if not the specifics. They penetrate the culture, inspiring imitations and endless retellings. They show us the best of ourselves, reflecting what humanity could be. And finally, they come in many different forms and variations; often they’re contradictory and confusing; yet every different version is somehow still correct, a separate facet of an overall truth.

Sounds like Superman. Or Batman. Or Spiderman.

Is that going over-the-top? Do I really have the right to compare some trashy comic books to the greatest stories in history? I don’t know, but it’s what I believe. And that’s why I’ll keep reading and writing about superheroes.

My prediction: We’re going to see even more of a public acceptance of superheroes in the coming years. More films, more games, more mainstream acceptance of comics. I think the ceiling on this thing is pretty damn high. And if they do end up being the most important stories of our age… Well, with the state the world’s in, that could only be a good thing.

An Unrelated Addendum: This post should have been up two day ago, but my internet connection has unfortunately been misbehaving.

And speaking of unfortunate things, some asshole just got hired to make the Castlevania movie. This is bad because I have, for some years now, harboured a secret desire to one day write this film. Seriously, I had it all plotted out in my head. Now along comes the guy who nailed shut the coffin on the Alien franchise and steals my fucking Castlevania. And you know what, Paul W. S. Anderson? Nobody needs that many middle initials, you untalented bastard.

In London, just across the street from Hyde Park, there is a memorial. It is dedicated to ‘Animals In Warfare’, and it consists of several life-size bronze statues of dogs, birds and other animals. The centrepiece is a Clydesdale pulling an artillery piece. Above the statues, a sign reads: ‘THEY HAD NO CHOICE’.

The memory of that memorial is how I feel reading Grant Morrison’s WE-3 (illustrated by Frank Quitely, published by DC/Vertigo). Originally a three-issue miniseries, WE-3 is now collected in a trade paperback. If you only buy one comic this year, this should be it.

The premise is pretty simple: A secret military research program kidnaps three ordinary household pets, grafts high-tech equipment and weaponry onto them and trains them to kill. They escape from the lab and try to find their way home. It’s Homeward Bound meets robo-death armour.

Interestingly, the writing represents Morrison at his most readable and lucid; it stands in stark contrast to his usual brand of psychedelic, genre-defying, cosmic chaos.

(And here I must digress. I recently learned that some people dislike Morrison’s tendency to include ‘throw-away’ setting details that jar the reader and cause them to reinterpret the entire story part-way through. These critics call it ‘hyper-compression’.

An example: In Doom Patrol Morrison has a character explain that a fallen angel created an alien world. But then she changes her mind and admits that, “Well, it’s either that or the psychic projection of a woman called Ilse Krauss, who’s lying on a hospital bed in Bremen, dying of brain cancer. It’s hard to be sure”.

How fucking brilliant is that? That’s not ‘hyper-compression’. That’s virtuosity. Here endeth the digression.)

If you liken Morrison’s trademark ultra-detailed stories to intricate mosaics, then WE-3 is by comparison a simple, flawless diamond. The book is astonishingly visual – there is no dialogue at all for the first thirteen pages, and not a single panel description in the entire book – and consequently the act of reading it is almost Zen-like. Quitely’s art lays out the story so broadly and effectively that just about anyone can enjoy it, no matter their comics reading experience.

And here’s the brilliant part. This story could only have been told as a comic book. As prose it would have lost all the immediate savagery, sweat and fear. On film it would have been laughable, or worse, far too confrontingly violent.

Because this book bears an angry, confronting message: animals are not like us. It’s as if Morrison started with the concept of anthropomorphic animals and then took a goddamn sledgehammer to it. I’m serious; he demolishes it. After reading this book, the very idea of talking animals will fill you with an odd feeling of revulsion and shame. In the end, the triumph of WE-3 lies in its lack of humanity. Human speech may be surgically implanted, but human hate, fear and greed are inherent.

The verdict? Genius. You should probably go buy it as soon as possible. And if you’re an animal lover, prepare to cry a lot.

That’s all for today. Tune in tomorrow to hear me ramble on about superheroes!

This whole writing comics thing? Not so easy.

Craig Mazin at Artful Writer talks about how a screenwriter cannot simply write ‘he walks into an office building’. It’s all very well when we’re sitting alone at the keyboard - pants optional, possibly drinking - and we’re constructing our masterpiece goddamnit, and who cares about the little details? But then your masterpiece actually gets read by other humans and, sooner or later, a disgruntled director or 1st AD is going to ask you what, exactly, you mean by ‘office building’.

It’s worse with comics. About halfway through the first meeting with my erstwhile artist, I realised I had absolutely no idea about the specifics of my story. I was thinking in broad strokes when what she needed was details.

In a film script, for example, we can write about a tough-looking, tattooed, 30-ish character who takes his dog for a walk in the park. Nobody is going to begrudge us the lack of detail. In fact, everything they teach you in scriptwriting equates to ‘less is more’ - set up characters quickly, keep action punchy, white space is good, hit that page count. In a comic script, the artist is going to come back and ask us what kind of tattoos, how big is the park, what breed of dog, what clothes is the man wearing and what the hell does ‘tough-looking’ mean anyway?

Switching from film to comics, we have to learn whole new ways of visualising a scene. We must know our characters, not just mentally and emotionally, but visually as well. We have to think in terms of angle, lighting, background, posture, movement, and at the very same time, structure the story and put words in the mouths of characters. It’s a big balancing act. Frankly, I’m looking forward to it.

(Of course, it’s possible to go a little too far with details, ala Alan Moore, who has been frustrating the hell out of artists for decades. God bless ‘im.)

First off, welcome to any readers who came here via Kung Fu Monkey. Just for you, I’m going to talk about comics.

I love comics. Not ‘graphic novels’ - because that phrase is so nebulous and unwieldy as to be completely useless - just good, old-fashioned comics. It’s fair to say that my life hasn’t been the same since the day I read Sandman. The pantheon of artists who I consider to be my personal idols and heroes - Neil Gaiman, Joss Whedon, Grant Morrison, Hayao Miyazaki - have all, at some point, worked in the comics medium.

And these days, that’s not such a weird thing to say. The battle for recognition of comics as an artform is pretty much won. As Grant Morrison says, when Spiderman and the Fantastic Four are plastered on the sides of buses, on TV promoting Coke and on DVDs outselling everything else, you have to admit that the world has changed. It’s been 13 years since Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize, and Alan Moore will almost certainly go down in history as one our generation’s greatest writers.

The fighting is over. Like the novel before it, the comic book has finally been accepted as art.

And you know what? Most people don’t care.

Last night, I watched the DVD of Batman Begins with my housemate. This prompted a discussion of various comics he had read, during which time my demeanor slowly went from mildly discouraged to downright horrified. The sum total of his exposure to the vast medium of comics seems to consist of Asterix, Garfield and, occasionally, The Phantom. He doesn’t like ‘long’ comics, because ‘it’s hard to follow the panels with your eyes’.

This is pretty bad, but it’s at least understandable. There’s a good chunk of the population that hasn’t read anything more taxing than the TV Guide since the days of their high school English class. But what he said next pretty much bowled me over:

“Comic books are easy to adapt into movies, right? You can just film each picture straight from the book. I heard that’s what they did with Spiderman - they just copied the first five issues of the comic.”

I could have cried. There’s just so much wrong with that, it’s impossible to know where to start. And to put this in context: my housemate is no idiot; he’s a film school graduate who now works in television.

This conversation really brought something home to me, and it’s this: Most people don’t much care about art. At the very least, they don’t care about any art that has to be actively participated in - art that has to be ‘read’, rather than absorbed like a mindless zombie. Consequently, most people will never understand the creative process. It all fits into perspective when you remember that the vast majority of the population believes that movies are shot sequentially, in the order of their scenes; and that novelists just sit down with a nice glass of brandy and a roaring fire and let their Muse flow through them, automatically producing a structured narrative as if by magic; and that… well, I could go on.

People don’t care. But really, that’s not going to stop us.

Grant Morrison once said, and here I paraphrase, that he writes ‘for angry, anarchic 14-year-olds who don’t fit into society.’ In other words, he writes for the sort of people who are predisposed to enjoy his work, while ignoring the mass market. It seems to work for him.

So to comics fans and creators I say only this: Forget about trying to hook in new fans, and start concentrating on creating incredible art. We’ll all feel a lot better about ourselves as soon as we drop this obsession with authenticating the artform.

And anyway, once the film adaptation gets made, the smart ones will find their way back to the comic books anyway.

UPDATE: Thanks to Dead Things On Sticks for linking to me, and welcome to anyone who followed the link here. Bring on the co-productions indeed!