New Nightwing Creators Remember Comics Can Be Fun Yet Deep

by
Scott D. Parker

That image. A single splash page is all it took for me to put the current Nightwing run over at DC Comics on my radar. And oh boy am I glad I did

A fellow writer posted it on Facebook about a month ago and I was captivated by the art, the simultaneous classic and modern style. The artist is Bruno Redondo and he has teamed up with writer Tom Taylor to have a run at Nightwing. And what a run (so far).

Comics Are Not Supposed To Make You Cry

Luckily, my local library has the first three volumes of the Taylor/Redondo Nightwing books and I eagerly checked them all out. Then I ended up reading only Taylor-scripted titles for something like three weeks (I read a comic a day, usually right before bed).

How much did I enjoy that first issue? So much that I actually read two in one night (and drank extra coffee the next morning).

Don’t worry about not knowing what’s going on in the Nightwing universe. I didn’t when I started and it didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the books. There’s enough stuff in the stories themselves to fill in the gaps. Or, as in my case, I didn’t really care. I was reading this current story.

The major event in Dick Grayson’s life is the inheritance left to him by Alfred Pennyworth (who is somehow now dead?). It’s a sizable amount, a life-changing amount, but what actually made tears spring in my eyes is the letter Alfred wrote to Dick. It’s everything you, as a parent, would want to say to a child, and it’s everything, as a child, you’d want to hear from a parent. I’m a dad so it hit me pretty deep.

There Are Other Choices a Hero Can Make

Over the decades, one of the recurring lines of thought about Bruce Wayne is that if he really cared about Gotham, he’d stop dressing up as a bat and invest in the city itself. There’s probably some truth to that.

Another theme is that Dick Grayson is different than Batman. He’s able to make different choices, one of which is to have a life and a girlfriend. In fact, there’s some of that in Alfred’s letter. So when Dick actually decides what to do with Alfred’s money, he does something different. Something positive.

This Comic is Fun

But what about the rest of the story? Well, it’s still a comic book so you’ve got fights and derring-do and villains, but it is the banter between Dick and Barbara Gordon/Batgirl that really takes this comic to the next level. Evidentially, prior to these issues, there was some underlying romance budding between the two heroes and it’s on full display here.

What’s also on full display is a brightness, a joy, an excitement in reading a comic. Look, I’m fine with dark and grim stuff and Batman himself pretty much fits that bill, but it doesn’t always have to be gritty. You can still deal with serious subjects and still have a good time. Taylor’s writing digs deep into Nightwing’s character and the greater Bat-Family. Redondo’s art is fresh and vibrant with a heaping helping of whimsy.

You've also got interesting moments where characters just talk about things and they are, if I'm being honest, just as good as the action stuff. Nightwing seeks out none other than Superman to discuss the events of the book. When you learn Superman places a lot of faith and trust in Dick Grayson, the depth of what Dick means to the DC Universe just opened up.

Oh, and Barbara said quite possibly the best line when Dick announces his decision: "Go get them, boy wonder." There is so much history as well as joy in that line.

I thoroughly enjoyed this run as published in three trade volumes (officially, issues 78-96) and I eagerly await the next volume. In the meantime, I’ve already begun reading Taylor’s Superman: Son of Kal-el series…and then checked out nearly every other Taylor-written trade volume at the library.

Remembering Neal Adams

by

Scott D. Parker

There are weeks in which I prepare my Saturday posts, letting them gestate and allowing me time to hone the words. Then there are other weeks in which Friday afternoon arrives and I don’t have hook. Well, unfortunately, this afternoon, I do.

Famed comic book artist, writer, promoter, businessman—Neal Adams-passed away on Thursday, 28 April 2022. He was 80.

It is difficult to overstate how big an influence Adams was in the comic book industry. His art alone ushered in the Bronze Age of comics (more or less 1969ish to 1985/1986). After the bright version of Batman that existed in the comics and TV screens for the 1960s, Adam, along with writer Dennis O’Neil, brought the shadows back to the character.

Those stories again took place at night, and the grittier outlook of the 1970s pervaded in many of the Adams and O’Neil tales. The pair co-created Ras Al Ghul, the villain from 2005’s Batman Begins and, arguably, Batmans’s most equal adversary.

I couldn’t name Adams as the key artist when I got into comics, but I knew his work because it was everywhere in the 1970s. Naturally, his Batman and Joker became as iconic as this cover.



He also drew one of the more famous Superman poses.

He re-designed Green Arrow’s costume shortly before he and O’Neil sent both green heroes—Arrow and Lantern—across America to face real-world challenges.



And then there is this glorious wraparound cover for a treasury edition I still own. One of my all-time favorite Batman sagas.

He also lent his talents to a series of cover illustrations for the 1970s-era Tarzan reprints.

Standing Up for the Rights of Others

I met Adams at Houston’s Comicpalooza a few years ago. He was an insatiable salesman who genuinely seemed to love the convention scene. And before his illness, he would often go live on Facebook and I’d tune in. He was good and he knew it, but he could also back it up.

As good an artist as he was, however, he was not afraid to use his bully pulpit to help others. It’s partially because of him modern comic book artists can get their original artwork returned to them.

But if there is one thing he should always be remembered for, it’s this: he made sure the world knew and remembered that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman. He spearheaded the effort for DC Comics to recognize Siegel and Shuster’s contributions, including paying them a pension and forever promising that whenever you see Superman in any media, it will always have his creator’s names right there.

There are a ton of other stories and all you have to do is Google them today and through the weekend.

And if you haven’t in a while, find a comic as illustrated or written by Neal Adams and give it a read. You’ll instantly see why he deserves a place on the Mt. Rushmore of comic history.

Daring to Dream with Marc Bernardin

by

Scott D. Parker

A cool thing happened this week: a writer lived out a dream.

Marc Bernardin—writer, TV producer, journalist, co-host of the Fatman Beyond podcast with Kevin Smith—was a guest on the Late Night with Seth Meyers. Marc was there to talk about and promote his graphic novel, Adora and the Distance. As the father of an autistic daughter, he was encouraged to write about his experiences of raising an autistic child but, as Marc says in the interview, he was the least interesting person in the story.

So he created a version of a story in which there was a young woman of color who was on a quest and what she discovered about the world and herself at the end of the quest. Naturally, he edged toward the comic book format and bided his time. Finally, last year, the graphic novel was published on Comixology featuring the whimsical illustrations of Ariela Kristantina. Now, the book is in hard copy to buy at your local comic book store.

I’ve listened to Marc talk about this story for a long time so I was simply happy for him to get the book out into the world. But then he started to dream. What would it be like to go on a late night talk show and and talk about the book. Seth Meyers is a comic book fan so Marc set his sights on landing a spot on Seth’s show.

To make the dream possible, he encouraged a social media campaign, and, lo and behold, it worked. Marc was on the 19 April 2022 episode of Late Night. Here’s the link of the full interview.

An avid communicator through Twitter, Marc thanked his fans in a very Marc way.

 

In his deep dives into story and story structure on his podcast, I am often pausing long enough to transcribe things he said into my very own “Marc on Writing” file. Well, here’s another one to add to the list.

Five seemingly simple phrases that can take you far in life. But looks at the first: Don’t be afraid to dream the impossible dream. If you have a dream, go for it.

This brings me back to a quote of Goethe’s as cited in Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art which I reviewed last week: “I [Steven] have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”

Dreams come true. We witnessed one this week, and it was exhilarating. I grinned from ear to ear watching Marc on Seth’s show. I enjoyed seeing him live his dream. 

And I also turned my attention to my own. I’m dreaming my dreams and I’ve already begun to put them on the map of my life. Why is that important? Well, let’s let Marc Bernardin have the last word today.

How Comic Books can teach Dyslexics to Read

 By Jay Stringer. 

An earlier version of this article was published several years ago at Panels.Net, a now defunct comic book website. 

I'm often asked to explain dyslexia. The trouble is, I really can't. It's not that I don't know how my brain works. It's that I don't know how your brain works. Dear reader. Dear neurotypical reader. If I can figure out what you see when you try and read things, and the places in your brain that you store information, then maybe, maybe, I can start to explain how my brain is different. 

I often wonder about colour blindness. How was it discovered? Obviously, now we know it's a thing. And it has symptoms. And people can be diagnosed, and there's a wealth of research into it. But back before we knew it was a thing, how did we find out it was a thing? Two people looking at the same colour, the assumed same point of reference, how did they each realise they were seeing two different things? How did person A come to realise they were seeing something different in 'red' (for example) to person B? What did that conversation look like? 

You can lose whole hours in the day trying to figure out how the inside of your head works, and whole days trying to figure out if someone else's head works the same way. (Whatever you do, don't become aware RIGHT NOW of your tongue. It's just sitting there in your mouth doing nothing. No, now you made it move. Oh god, it moves. And it's just there....all the time. What the hell? Creepy.) 

What I can tell you is what dyslexia isn't. It's not about spelling. Not really. That's a symptom. Dyslexia is about the way my brain processes information. Both on the way in and the way out. And about where I file that information when I'm not using it. I have amazing long-term memory. And terrible working memory. What's working memory? It's loosely similar to RAM on a computer. The steps I need to go through to make a cup of tea are stored in my long-term memory, but when I'm actually in the middle of making one, which step I'm on in that process is stored actively in my working memory. And mine is....goofy. Allied to that, colours have frequencies. On the screen you're looking at right now, you can adjust the brightness and contrast to make an easier reading experience. Our eyes and brains are doing that naturally all the time, because every colour we look at has a frequency. Some higher, some lower. Dyslexics are often incredibly sensitive to some of those frequencies, especially to white. White can overpower us, and that's a large part of why we can lose words on a page. Dyslexics also often have colours that can neutralise the effect, and getting glasses with lenses adjusted to the right tint can make reading a lot easier. (My colours are red, yellow, and some greens.)

I can't tell my left from my right. (I actually can now, mostly, at forty years of age. Through muscle memory. Through learning a few cheats over the years. But there's a delay of a few seconds while my brain accesses the memory.) I struggle to count money because it's a logical sequence and utilises my working memory. I can't say the alphabet all the way through. I can't say the months of the year backwards. And yes, I have varying degrees of difficulty with reading and writing. 

I’m going to ask you to do a strange thing. Right now. I’m going to ask you to stop reading this piece. Just for a few seconds. I’d like you to stop reading, and think about how much you actually read each day. Think about road signs. Think about labels on food packaging. Think about the instructions on whether the door you are approaching needs you to push or pull. Think about walking into the shop for household supplies, and all the little bits of reading you do as you walk around filling your trolley. Now think about living the same life, going about the same routines, without being able to read, or with reading being extremely difficult. How would that affect you? It would be pretty hard, right?

The world simply isn’t designed for people who struggle to read, and they get left behind in small ways each and every day. One of the main reasons I'm here today, writing this piece, is because comic books pulled me out. Comic books taught me to read. Comic books gave me the basic building blocks I needed to work around the simple things my brain just couldn't seem to do. 

Most of this is with the benefit of hindsight, of course. A dyslexic child doesn’t know they are dyslexic. At the time I thought nothing of the afternoons I would spend separated from the class, reading very difficult books about a dog and a ball and a boy. My grandfather would spend hours with me after school, trying to teach me the difference between a verb, an adverb and a noun.

I still probably don’t know what they are, but it doesn’t matter. None of the rules of grammar or spelling are essential in learning to read. They become guides later on, a road map for staying on the right course, but they are not where the journey needs to start.

What’s needed is clarity and context. Given those two things we can learn anything, from basic reading to advanced nuclear physics. But we also need to think about the way we process information, about how we know where to store things in our memory and about what keeps us moving forward, adding to what we know.

Let’s boil this down to Story, Plot and Narrative.

Story.
Story is the what. A collection of events. You do this, then you do that, then you eat a dinner, then you do something else, then we get to the end. It’s the basic data of anything that we learn. Okay, here’s a problem for us straight away; dyslexics can’t really do order. We don’t do logical progression. Give us a whole bunch of data, and on it’s way into our heads it scatters like a pack of playing cards thrown across a room.

Plot.
Plot is when. This is the road map to move through the story. It tells us when to climb and when to rest, when to turn and when to hold. For learning, this is the guide that tells us when to take on information and where to store it. Dyslexics have no problem taking on information. We’re taking it in all the time. The problem is storing it. Where did we leave that thing that we needed? How to we find it again? How is it relevant to what we’re doing?

Narrative.
This is how and why. Narrative takes story and plot and fleshes them out with context and motive. You do this, which then leads to that because of the other, then you eat because you’re hungry and haven’t had any food since whenever, and you like the taste of the bread. Then you do that thing that you’ve been doing every day for twenty years, driven by the memory of something, then we get to the end and you lay down for a well-earned rest.

We all combine information in different ways, and at different speeds. Some can add story and plot together in a mathematical equation that leads to narrative. Dyslexics like myself can’t learn anything without a narrative to hold on to. Why am I being given this information? What does it do? What is it relevant to? What similar thing should I store it next to in my head?

The books I was being given to read at school were no help. Oh, hey, there’s a picture of a dog. And a squiggle next to it that probably means “dog.” So what? Nothing’s happening here, there’s no information for me to file away, and if I do store it, where do I put it? What is it relevant to? And that’s a ball. Nice. But the ball is not moving, I’m bored.

There is a simple thing you could do for all children as they learn to read, but for a dyslexic it could be life changing; put a comic in their hands.

Comics as a medium rely on clarity and context. They are pictures and words being used in small panels to tell a story. Essentially they are hieroglyphs. They are a form of communication older than any of these words I'm typing here. Older than the grammar we are taught in schools. Almost as old as the oral traditions we've built everything on. 

The real art of telling a story in a comic is in giving the illusion of movement between the panels. Things happen, your eye moves from one image to the next and your brain builds a structure to carry the information. 

It’s the perfect medium for learning to read.

Staring at a page of prose, even now as an adult, can be a challenge. The words are just black marks on a page. They just sit there. They don’t do anything unless they connect with the right memory, the right piece of data in your head, to give them some purpose.

Films, on the other hand, do too much. They give you everything. All the movement, all the talking, all the emotion. Watching a film is essentially a passive process for your brain.

Take a look at this example, from Amazing Spider-Man #33, with art by Steve Ditko and words by Stan Lee:

This is something that comics can do better than any other medium. Ignore the words for just a moment and look at the images. In fact, imagine there were no words. Would you still understand the story? Absolutely, you would. Steve Ditko has given you a road map. Look at both the pictures and the panel construction. There is movement. There is narrative progression. The panels start as small, compact spaces, with Spidey as a tiny little figure underneath the machinery. It’s claustrophobic. It’s hopeless. Look then at the third and fourth panel. As he pushes upwards, so the panels push, they stretch. Then again with the fifth and sixth panels. They create the sense of movement, and Spidey’s growing size within each frame tells us about his own strength and confidence. There is a lot of heavy lifting going on (pun very much intended) between Steve Ditko’s pen and our brains. The words become an added extra.

You don’t need to be dyslexic to appreciate that example, of course. It’s one of the purest examples of the language of comics, and readers have been marvelling over the page for decades. It would be difficult to create that sense of movement, that primal understanding of narrative, with prose. A film could tell the same story, (And Spider-Man: Homecoming did) but then the screen would be doing all the work. 

What happens here is that you do the work. Your brain picks up on the visual cues left by Ditko, and fills in the gaps. This is why I use it as an example for what dyslexics can gain from reading comics. A comic book trains your brain. It works the right muscles and, if you’re struggling, they can teach you to read. 

You see images for context, you see the words that go with them, and your mind learns to fill in the blanks. You learn to build the narrative as you go. As a child, I suddenly got it. I had a structure, a guide for processing the information I was taking in, and where to store it. I had a reason to keep moving through the pages.

If you know someone who is a struggling reader, give them a comic. Give them the best comic in your collection. You might change their life.

Jay's new mystery thriller Don't Tell a Soul is released July 26th. Available wherever books are sold. There's a Dyslexic Reader Edition - a paperback formatted for dyslexic readers- available with the ISBN 978-1-9168923-2-3.

Epub Quick Links: Apple. Amazon US. Amazon UK. 

The Summer 2021 Box of Comics

by

Scott D. Parker

If there's one great thing about ebooks and electric comics is that you can carry potentially your entire library on vacation. 

But that wasn't always the case back in the days before Kindles and iPads. No, back then, you'd have to be judicious with what you wanted to read while on vacation because you'd have to carry everything. In my adulthood, I would spend almost as much time deciding on what books and magazine to bring on a vacation as I did on my entire vacation's wardrobe. I know I'm not alone here. I mean, as much as I enjoyed the 800-page, hard cover history book was I reading, there was no way it found it's way into my backpack for reading on a plane. 

Before adulthood, however, there was another factor that determined what we might bring on a vacation: our parents. I remember my youth in the 70s when we'd go on vacation, my parents would not let me take EVERY comic I owned. Even as an only child, it was just not feasible to bring them all. A friend of mine were talking this week and he mentioned his mom told him he could only bring ten comics on their annual trips. He always prioritized the 100-page giants and the like so he could maximize his reading experience. I did something similar. 

Most of the time, those issues would have a then-current story backed with multiple reprints ranging from the 1940s to the 1960s. In an era where back issues were few and far between, these issues rocked. Well, unless is some crappy story feature Prince Valiant or some Viking nonsense. Didn’t like it then. Still don’t. 

Summer 2021

One of my summer projects is to catalog all my comics. I’m almost done. A nice side effect was seeing all these old issues. Some of them have distinct memories associated with them. Others—many others—do not. In fact, I started culling many issues. “Why the heck did I buy that one?” I asked myself more than once.

Seeing all these issues made me want to read them again. Sure, I could keep all my long boxes in the front room all summer, but I think we know how that would go over with the rest of the family. So I made my own Summer 2021 comic box. I’ll probably go back and pull a few other issues, but mainly, the titles I want to read are in this box.

Those thicks ones are those awesome black-and-white reprints where you get 500 pages of comics in a single volume, the modern equivalent to those old 100-page giants.

I’ve been reading through the Master of Kung Fu collection for a little while, but I’ve sped up knowing the movie is on its way. The others are just hankering I’ve been having: 70s-era Marvel books I never read back in the day.

Marvel also published eight magazine-sized Doc Savage issues, all black-and-white. I have them all, but I’ve only read the first one.

This is one where I remember buying it but have zero memory of it. I like the 70s and 80s when comics artists and writers would just try anything, like apparently making a quarterback into a super hero. Sure.

I have a ton of Superman tiles, second only to Batman. But this Time and Time Again series is something that looks interesting.

Then there are titles like this. Have to read it for the historical value.

I discovered a few X-Files comics which are in the box, but that also led to re-discover this entry where the Dark Knight is abducted. 

This issue of Detective is one of the earliest I ever had. Can’t remember the story, but I will this summer. You can see the frayed edges of a well-loved book.

I’ve got a few novels lined up to read, but I think the Summer of 2021 will be comic heavy.

So, did your parents limit the number of novels and comics for your trips? Did you get to buy some on the road? And what specific comics can you remember reading during the summers?

Len Wein’s Batman: Batman 307

By

Scott D. Parker

As a kid in the late 1970s, comics were one of my go-to things (Star Wars, KISS, and early Star Trek fandom were the other main loves of my life) and Batman was my favorite. Still being a young kid in late elementary, I didn’t pay attention to the names of the writers or artists. I just bought the books and read them, ingesting the stories over and over again.

When I review the covers of my issues of Batman, it turns out some of my favorites were all scripted by the same guy: Len Wein. Unknown to me at the time, Wein had already co-created Swamp Thing for DC and rebooted the X-Men over at Marvel, including the co-creation of Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Colossus. Nope, all I cared about was good Batman stories, and for a stretch there in late 1978 and all through 1979, Len Wein was the monthly writer (mostly) for Batman.

With the cover date for Wein’s first issue being January 1979 (although it hit the spinner racks a month or so earlier), I thought it would be fun to re-read Wein’s Batman run forty years later and see how it holds up. Spoiler: his run is among my favorites of all-time. In fact, Wein wrote one of my favorite all-time comic stories, Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk. But that’s a different post.

Speaking of holding up, Batman and Bruce Wayne in the 1970s is my favorite version of the character. Dick Grayson is off to college, leaving Bruce to move out of Wayne Manor and into Gotham City proper. He takes up residence at the Wayne Foundation building, and operates there for most of the decade. It is one of the neatest buildings in comicdom, what with the giant tree in the middle of the building, which secretly houses an elevator to the basement where the Batmobile is kept. For a young boy like me, this was the coolest thing ever.

The building shows up in Batman issue 307, but not before in intriguing two-page prologue. A beggar woman is asking for spare change. A man in a trench coat, fedora, and scarf approaches and gives her two gold pieces. The next page, she falls dead, right under the title, “Dark Messenger of Mercy!” The artist in this issue is John Calnan and Dick Giordano.

The first time we see Bruce Wayne, he is in his office, staring out the window. Next to him is Lucius Fox in his debut. I’m not sure the thought process Wein went through to create Fox, but the character has been around for these last forty years. Morgan Freeman played him in the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. From the chit-chat between Fox and Wayne, however, it’s clear Wayne has not shared his secret identity. The two men talk about business and name drop a man named Gregorian Falstaff (love the name) who, according to Wayne, “He’s rumored to have have a fortune which makes mine look like so much lunch money.”

Darkness literally falls over Gotham in one short panel, and Wayne excuses himself. He tags up with Alfred who has the Batman costume at the ready. As he swings off the top of the Foundation building, Batman makes a comment to Alfred: “When I start making value judgements—deciding who’s important enough to avenge—it’ll be time to hang up my mask forever.” Here in 2019, with the recent passing of Stan Lee, many folks mentioned Lee’s strong streak of social justice running through his words. Here, in 1979, Len Wein does the same thing for Batman.

Meanwhile...at police headquarters, a man named Quentin Conroy is livid. He wants Gotham’s finest to help him find stolen property, gold coins to be exact. Unbeknownst to both men, Batman is sitting in the same room, legs casually crossed, fingers steepled. The Caped Crusader in convinced he can find Conroy’s missing money, especially since two of the coins turned up on that dead woman’s corpse.

Street level, Batman approaches a sleep bum and there is a funny couple of panels. In the boxed panels, Wein writes “Without question, the Batman is an impressive figure. His unexpected visage, looming large out of the darkness, is often viewed with admiration...or hostility...or outright fear…” “But rarely indifference.” This as the bum goes back to sleep. See? You can have humor in a Batman story. Anyway, an Irishman named Shamrock (natch) approaches and asks the hero if he needs helps. When Batman says he’s investigating the murder of the woman, Shamrock knew her. He volunteers to escort Batman down into the sewers to meet some folks who might have seen something.

What Batman sees is a group of people living in an underground tunnel, the area kept warm by the steam pipes. Here, Batman meets Slugger (from the ‘48 Gotham Giants baseball team), Poet (Shakespeare of the sewers), and Good Queen Bess. Through dialogue alone, Wein gives these characters their accents and particular ways of speaking. Shamrock always says, “Laddie,” while Slugger talks like a New Yorker: “Pleased to meet ‘cha!” Batman learns there have been other deaths...and Queen Bess actually has two of the coins with her. The Dark Knight Detective ascertains the gold coins are laced with a contact poison, absorbed through the skin.

No sooner does Batman make this discovery than a piercing scream fills the bowels of Gotham. Another woman is being attacked! It’s the man with the fedora and red scarf. Batman leaps to action. A fight ensues, and Batman gets himself whacked by Scarfman’s cane. In the melee, two things happen. One, Scarfman’s hat and scarf fall away, revealing a face the citizens of the underworld know. Two, Scarfman’s cane cracked a steam pipe. It’s about to blow. So Batman gets between the pipe and the people. It explodes, hurling Batman across the room.

Later, Batman’s “new tattered friends” say Scarfman looks just like one of their own: “Limehouse” John Francis Conroy, a man who used to sleep with them before just disappearing. Being the detective, Batman soon finds his way to Quentin Conroy’s house (because Batman can get into any room in Gotham, right?). Heated words are exchanged and Quentin confesses John Francis was his father. He kept the gold coins as a remembrance of his father, a man who ran out on his family while Quentin was a kid. The modern pressures of the world drove John Francis to the streets, supposedly dying in a gutter.

But Batman isn’t so sure.

The next night, we see Scarfman prowling about. He gives coins to a man who extends his hand...the gloved hand of The Batman! Oddly, Batman is wearing a sling, proof not only did the steam explosion hurt him worse than we saw three pages ago, but reminding readers the Caped Crusader is really just a man, a man who can get injured. A second battle commences, but Batman’s shoulder hampers him. Scarfman swings the cane too wide, allowing Batman to come in underneath him. A powerful punch to the mid-section topples Scarfman. The odd cast of characters are also there, cheering on Batman. Scarfman questions their motives. All he wants is to give these street people some mercy and peace. But “the peace of the grave” is something they shun. Just as they shun him.
Scarfman’s mind snaps. He accuses Batman of turning these “friends of his” away from him. His face is misshapen, resembling John Francis Conroy, but a few panels later, it is revealed to be Quentin all along. Quentin, looking almost like a young boy.

Wein wraps up the entire story in three thin panels. We see Quentin being led away and Commissioner Gordon asking Batman about the clue. It was the heels of Quentin’s shoes, something we saw a few pages before. Many of the 1970s stories had clues the reader could follow, and it’ fun to go back and notice certain things you might have missed the first go-round.

Wein wrote a pretty decent script. I enjoy the non-super-villain aspect of these kinds of stories. Kind of like a breather before we get to the next issue featuring Mr. Freeze. Wein brings Batman’s humanity to the fore, both in how he protects the homeless but also, at the end, when he hopes young Quentin will receive the help he needs. He’s a true hero to all, discriminating toward none.

What did y’all think about this story?

Year 5 of an Indie Writer: Week 6 AKA Gregg Hurwitz Week

by
Scott D. Parker

Who knew this week would turn out to be Gregg Hurwitz Week for me?

The week started with Hurwitz's author event here in Houston. He showed up at Murder by the Book to promote his latest novel--and latest Orphan X thriller--INTO THE FIRE. Much of the author talk was typical--here's my full post--but I really appreciated the answer to one of my questions.

Since Hurwitz is new to me, I asked him how he scored his gig writing Batman comics early in the 2010s. His answer proved instructive to any creative, myself included.

After a brief stint at Marvel, DC Comics wooed Hurwitz with a tantalizing offer: you can write anything you want. Thinking of how THE KILLING JOKE is often referred to as the definitive Joker story, he wanted to write the definitive Penguin story. He got his chance, and, in 2011, PAIN AND PREJUDICE was released. The mini-series got such good press and fan reaction that DC offered Hurwitz a writing gig for one of the monthly Batman books. By opting for a true passion project, new opportunities opened up.

I told this story to my book club group on Tuesday, and one of my friends made an excellent point: you never know when a break might arrive, so you'd better have something in the hopper you can trot out when that break happens.

A day after my post, I put up my full review of ORPHAN X, the debut of Evan Smoak. I enjoyed it for being a different of thriller. Some of the best scenes in the book are the ones not to include action sequences. They are the ones in which Evan merely talks to people who live in his building, his daily life in his apartment, and fixing a drink. Weird, I know, but that's what makes ORPHAN X different, and makes me look forward to diving into the second book, THE NOWHERE MAN.

I closed out the week by reading the Penguin mini-series, PAIN AND PREJUDICE. I wanted to see what a definitive Penguin story looked like and did Hurwitz achieve what he set out to do. In short: yeah. The long version: my review.

A Positive Message About Being a Writer

I've mentioned how every Thursday, Kristine Kathryn Rusch publishes a post on the business aspects of the book business. This week was something different. Entitled "Business Musings: Optimism And The Writer," Rusch extols the virtues of having a positive attitude in this business, both behind the keyboard as you write, and in public as you talk about your stuff. Read the whole thing, but here's a portion of it.

The most optimistic among us do play and make things up for the rest of our lives.
The realistic optimists, that is. The ones who know that being the best at our job requires us to keep learning, keep trying, and keep striving. Who know that the best is just around the corner.
We believe this even when our luck is bad. When events have gone poorly for us. When life conspires against us. When we get that awful diagnosis that reminds us that our time on this earth is finite.
When we can see the end.
We still keep moving forward, and trying to be the best we can be.
Because writers—professional writers—are optimists. Realistic optimists, fighting against the odds, knowing that someone gets to succeed—and if someone does, it might as well be me. At least I’m trying.

And to tie it back to Hurwitz (you know Gregg Hurwitz Week) is this quote from Wayne Gretzky via Rusch:  “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Rusch continues:

The core of any unusual profession—from writer to hockey player—is embodied in that quote. The math is pretty simple: You can’t succeed if you don’t try.
But what gets you to try? Optimism. That tiny thread of hope that this time, it’ll work. This time, the stars will align, the final bit of craft will come together, the last bit of effort will pay off.
And if it doesn’t—we’ll try again.
And again.
Until the end of (our) time.

Easily written. Sometimes difficult to believe and internalize.

Late in the week, I ran across an interview with Scott Snyder about writing comics. He said this:

"You can only write the story today that you’d like to pick up and read the most. It doesn’t have to be the smartest, it doesn’t have to be the most action-packed, but whatever it is that would change your life today that you would pick up and be like, “I love this story,” that’s the one you have to go write."

See how it all ties together? Write the best thing you can possibly write at any given time--the one thing you'd like to read--and have fun with it. Repeat.

Music of the Week: Texas Sun by Leon Bridges and Khruangbin 

Yesterday, a four-song EP dropped featuring this new soul singer out of Ft. Worth, Texas, and this three-piece band from Houston. They toured together last year and ended up making some music. Lots and lots of influences you can hear, from early 1070s Miles Davis and Marvin Gaye to dreamy psychedelic pop. Been hearing the title track for a month now. Five dollars at Amazon gets you the digital tunes, $4 if you like what you hear and want to purchase direct from Khruangbin. https://khruangbin.bandcamp.com/album/texas-sun

Here's the title track.

Batman and Bill (Finger): The Search for Justice

by
Scott D. Parker

Justice. That’s the one word that comes to mind when I watched the recently documentary by Mark Tyler Nobleman about the life of Bill Finger.

Do you know that name? Well, if you don’t, perhaps you know the the character he co-created: Batman. If you are like me and you’ve read Batman comics for any length of time, you know the name of the man solely credited as the sole creator of the Dark Knight from 1939 onward. That man’s name is Bob Kane. In the heady days after Superman debuted in 1938, the company that eventually became DC Comics asked Kane to come up with a new hero. He came up with “The Bat-Man,” a red-garbed hero with a domino mask and a black, scalloped cape. Kane ran the drawing by his friend, Bill Finger, and Finger re-engineered the character into the hero we know today. He also created many of the ancillary characters: Robin, Joker, Catwoman, Scarecrow, Commissioner Gordon, and Gotham City itself.

And yet you probably don’t even know Finger’s name. Based on Nobelman’s documentary, the person single-handedly responsible for for marginalizing Finger was Kane himself. In 1965, Kane responded to what is likely the first public history of Finger’s contribution…and Kane flatly refuted Finger’s version of history. Finger died less than a decade later, alone, unknown, and all but penniless.

Nobleman is a writer who learned of Finger’s contribution to Bat-history and set out to do one simple thing: get Bill Finger credit as co-creator on comic books, movies, and TV shows. The documentary is a step-by-step story filled with photos, interviews with relatives and business associates, and audio clips of Finger himself. Most charmingly, however, are moving comic-book like illustrations to depict certain events like Finger’s life at the end, the meeting of Kane and Finger, and even Nobleman’s own research.

That research caused a groundswell among the fans that ultimately compelled Finger’s only living descendant—his granddaughter—to pursue the great cause. If you’ve seen the 2016 movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, you know the answer.

Mark Tyler Nobleman sought justice for Bill Finger. He passed the baton off to the Finger family and earned the justice Bill Finger deserved. It makes you want to have documentaries like this for all the Golden and Silver Age creators so that they’ll all have screen and print credit.

If you are interested to know all the details, carve out 90 minutes and watch this compelling documentary from Hulu.

Son of Houston-con: An Old-School Comic Convention

By

Scott D. Parker

It’s not everyday you get to meet a man who helped open your eyes to a larger world.

About a month or so ago, I was in my local Bedrock City Comics store to see if they had any of the old western pulp magazines featuring Texas Ranger Walt Slade as written by Bradford Scott. They did and I bought one. On the checkout counter was a flyer for something called “The Return of Son on Houston-con.”

Now, longtime comic readers will note the checkerboard along the top edge

reminiscent of DC Comics from the 1960s. That alone caught my attention and intrigued me. Other than Comicpalooza back in May, all the other comic conventions were cancelled or postponed this year, so I was more than happy to see what this con was about. And for $5 for two days? It was almost like theft.
The other thing that lodged in my brain was the venue. It was a hotel. The first conventions I attended here in Houston back in the late 70s and early 80s were in hotels. Nothing against the way cons have evolved over the decades—with the expansion of what’s on sale to the cosplaying—but there was something cool about a small con. As I walked into the hotel last Saturday, I held hope that the con would be a throwback to the cons of old.

And I was rewarded.

Son of Houston-con was entirely held in two, non-contiguous rooms. One room featured toys. I bypassed that room when I first got there because I want to see the comics. They were there, all in one not-too-large room. Bedrock was there and much to my happiness, owner Richard Evans brought all his pulps! Naturally, I snatched up the remaining Thrilling Western titles featuring the adventures of Walt Slade. (I discovered an interesting story, “The Sun Rises West,” and read it first; here is my take.) I also gravitated to the dollar boxes of another vendor. Slowly, I made my around the entire room, reveling in all the vintage material, including this, a program from Houstoncon ’71. What the cover doesn’t reveal is that Kirk Alyn, the first live-action Superman from the 1940s serials, was the featured guest.

After a walkaround of the toy room—which had an original Six Million Dollar Man 12-inch action figure and the Evel Knievel scramble van—I was just about to leave when a man asked if I had enjoyed myself. I said yes, very much. He wore a name tag so I started asking him questions about the folks who organized the event. Turned out the name on the tag was the same name on the original flyer: Don Price. Very graciously, he told me a bit about the history of the original Houston-con back in the day—he attended that 1971 show; turned out the program was his—and the comic book collecting community here in Houston.

And then he dropped the name Roy.

Immediately my mind reacted. “You don’t mean the guy who owned Roy’s comic shop on Bissonnet?” [Right near Murder by the Book for folks who know where that shop is located.] Price said yes and offered to introduce me to him.

Now, for the younger folks who read these posts, y’all know there is such a thing as a comic book store. Throw in digital and there’s a myriad of ways to get every comic you want. But back in the day (gosh I sound old) the only place to get comics were spinner racks at grocery stores, drug stores, and convenience stores like U-Totem, 7-Eleven, or Stop n Go. And if you missed an issue, especially one with a cliffhanger, well you simply missed an issue.*

My grandfather who lived near Roy’s Memory Shop (that was the official name) would always drive me around to the various convenience stores in his neck of the woods. One day, I saw a shop with spinner racks near the front window. Not only that, his painted sign featured the Human Torch. What must this store be?

I walked in and it was nirvana. This was a store whose sole purpose was to sell comics and memorabilia.

 For a kid who devoured comics, this was heaven. Every time I visited my grandfather—probably once a week—he would take me there. It was in Roy’s Memory Shop I learned what day comics were released and was able to ensure I didn’t miss an issue. Once I learned stores like Roy’s Memory Shop existed, I never had to worry about comics again. I found one in Austin when I was in school there, another in Dallas, and again back in Houston with Bedrock City and The Pop Culture Company.

All of that is background and prelude. Mr. Price introduced me to Roy Bonario last week. I am an adult now, but some of my childlike wonder at discovering his store returned when meeting the man himself. I was able to tell him how much his store meant for a young kid like me and thousands of other kids over the years. He began talking about past Houston-cons, the business of collecting, and how much fun he had in talking with fans over the years. It was quite a moment.

Have y’all ever had a chance to meet your “Roy” and tell them how much what they did meant to you? I’ve had one other moment like this. It was up in Denton, Texas, and I was attending The University of North Texas for grad school. It was an evening class in the history building and we were all hustling to get to our lectures. A man, older than men, was walking in the lobby and his face was instantly recognizable to me. It was George King, my 10th grade world history teacher. He was the one responsible for igniting the fire of history within me. I had the opportunity to remind him who I was (he said he recognized me), why I was there, and that he was the one who flipped on that history switch.


*World’s Finest Comics #246 was one of the comics I bought from a spinner rack at a Stop n Go near my grandfather’s house. The lead Batman/Superman story was a cliffhanger. I scoured all those convenience stores for #247 but never found it. Many years later, guess where I found #247? You don’t really need me to answer that, do I?

San Diego Comic Fest!

On Sunday I'm going to be at San Diego Comic Fest to promote Black Sails, Disco Inferno while participating in a fun panel alongside fellow San Diego area writers Tone Milazzo, Indy Quillen, Chad Stroup, Israel Finn, and Lara Campbell McGehee. If you've got a pass, you can come hang out at the Kirby Cafe with us and listen to us discuss the business of writing as authors who, like most people, aren't cashing James Patterson checks.

I've never been on a live panel before, so it'll be a lot of fun. More info on Comic Fest here.

I've been working on my notes for the panel, and I obviously can't get into it here, two days before the real thing, so I'm going to leave you with this video of the band I'm seeing tonight and wish you a happy weekend. Hope to see you Sunday!

When Comics Told an Entire Story in Every Issue

With DC Comics's new Rebirth initiative this summer, there is some excitement. Perhaps the company is going to return to some of what made them great: telling good stories with awesome characters.


Other than the flagship title--Rebirth #1--other titles are getting the 'rebirth' treatment. Unfortunately, they are coming across as 0 Issues, books that are meant to introduce storylines but not fulfill them. That's why I tend to wait for the trade paperback collections.

Now, contrast that with an issue published the summer of the American Bicentennial. I recently picked up Batman 278 at a comic convention. Here are my thoughts on it and how it told an entire story.

Anyone else wish they'd do that again?


The cover date is August 1976, but the ads inside the book indicate the street date as May 1976. The author is David V. Reed with art by Ernie Chua and Tech Blaisdell. The title is “Stop Me Before I Kill.” The villain in question is someone that they call The Wringer. There is a partner for Batman, but it’s not Robin. The man’s name is Inspector Kittredge from New Scotland Yard. He’s there riding shotgun with Batman on his nightly excursions and he wants to have one of Batman’s more bizarre cases. Enter the Wringer.

I’ll be honest, The Wringer was a bit of a cheesy villain. He wears green leotards with a purple hood/robe with eyes cut out so that the hood can act as a mask. Batman and Kittredge are presented with a few bizarre clues all dealing with little dolls that walk and talk add up to a rather interesting conclusion. Surprisingly one point, Batman crushes the Batmobile into a truck to stop it with no apparent damage to the Batmobile. Must be made of something really hard.

Inspector Kittredge is staying with Bruce Wayne at the mid-70s Bruce Wayne foundation penthouse. Always love the way this building was built with huge giant tree in the middle. Of course, if you find the one issue where the breakdown with the tree really is, it’s a series of elevators and walkways.

Naturally, Bruce Wayne is pretty far ahead of Kittredge, but he is not Bat-God that he is nowadays. One of the neatest things is that Bruce Wayne and Inspector Kittredge go to the Bicentennial Expo the Gotham Coliseum. Sitting as we are 40 years after the bicentennial summer, I am fascinated with the comics that were released in the summer of 1976. I just so happened to find a few of them at the SpaceCity Con in Houston over Memorial Day weekend.

I have to say, the art work is pretty decent. Very kinetic especially with the use of the “grayscale” version of characters to indicate starting position versus the ending position. And of course I love it when the book characters manage a repartee as they’re punching out the bad guys. My favorite line is got to be when The Wringer— who has strong hands — throws what appears to be a lamp base at Batman. The Dark Knight Detective picks up a fireplace poker and swings and hits the lamppost. Batman’s quip “You can pitch them – can you catch?” And Batman says it with a smile. Yes, Batman used to smile!

The closing panels, with Batman’s reasoning, is, frankly, cheesy. But, in 1975, where young readers were given clues to the capers, it may have been just the type of thing they were looking for.

Also noted at the end of the comic book is the Daily Planet/Direct Currents column. This is when you got to read about a few of the titles coming up, the closest thing you had to the internet back then. There is something charming when the titles include Justice League, Hercules, DC Superstars of Space, Kung Fu Fighter, House of Mystery, Metal Men, and Ragman. The trivia quiz for this issue is the following.

Villains are all the rage these days so let’s test your knowledge on some of ours. Do you know the real names of

    The Riddler
    Mirror master
    Tara man
    The Mad Hatter
    The Joker

Note: you gotta love the fact that Joker’s first name, back in 1975, would not be known. In fact, I think it’s this summer 2016 when DC is supposed to announce the real name of the Joker. I could tell you my thoughts on that — don’t like it — but that’s another blog post altogether. But now are focused on Batman of 1976. Cheesy, but a really fun time.

Black Sails, Disco Inferno

A little over a year ago, I was laying in the guest bedroom at my in-laws' house, browsing Facebook on New Year's Eve. Being eight hours ahead of most of my friends made the activity light, but I saw a post from a friend and writer talking about this idea he was playing with - he wasn't sure if he should go ahead.

The idea was, what if you gender-flipped the Tristan and Isolde myth, modernized it, and made it noir? Holy shit, I was not going to let him talk himself out of that one. I had read (and loved) all of Andrez Bergen's work up to that point, and I couldn't think of a person better suited to that story, so I picked up my pom-poms and started cheerleading.

Fast forward to September of last year and the seventh issue of the resulting comic, Trista & Holt, debuted with my name in the slot for guest-writer. I'm a huge comic book fan, and a huge fan of Andrez, so this was absolutely surreal. When our first review for the issue came in, and it was overwhelmingly positive, I actually cried. I couldn't have been happier with our collaboration - or so I thought.

Because Andrez never sleeps (he says he does, but I don't buy it), once he wrapped up the comic series, he moved right on to the next project: a novelization of the comic series with a different ending.

Completely unexpectedly, it turns out that the first novel with my name on the cover will be Black Sails, Disco Inferno, set to be released this summer.

This is HUGE.

This is AMAZING.

This is INSANE.

I don't even know how to process the turn of events. For my part, I stumbled through my collaboration on the comic with Andrez, held my breath, and hoped for the best. I am so proud of the work I did, and how beautifully the collaboration worked out, but when Andrez sat down to write the novel, he promised I'd be credited for my part, he assured me the story would not have been the same without my work - but to have my name on the cover? To have a dedication to my husband in the front and acknowledgements in the back? To be planning a release party? HOLY SHIT.

This book is amazing, the previews I've seen for the cover are beautiful. This collaboration is absolutely the high point of my (admittedly short) career. I'm a bit stunned, but overall bursting with excitement to share this work with everyone.

I'm sure I'll come to grips with how to fully take the credit for my part (I'm not there yet), after all, it did suddenly feel real when I started writing acknowledgements but for now I'm trying to savor the excitement of seeing something I was a part of come out into the world with my name on it. Andrez is, as always, a wonderful person to work with, and has made sure I feel like this is mine, too, but I've been calling it, "The novel I collaborated on... well, I mean... I didn't write it..." which is a bit of a mouthful. I'm open for suggestions on something a little more succinct.

In the meantime, I bought myself a cool toy and am having a drink to celebrate.

What DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Can Teach Writers

By
Scott D. Parker


Rip Hunter is on TV.

For those that don’t know who he is, Rip Hunter is a time traveling character from DC Comics who debuted in the 1950s. (1959: thank you Wikipedia.)

He is a deep bench character, one who even this life-long comic book reader wasn’t too familiar with by the time I started reading comics in the mid-1970s.It wasn’t until the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline in 1985 that I even knew his name. I very much remember him from the Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon where the writers brought out all the deep bench character to team up with the Dark Knight.

But that’s a cartoon, a mere step away from a comic book. Now, in 2016, Rip Hunter is a character on a live-action TV series, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. The new show is a spin-off of the Arrow and The Flash TV shows. All air on the CW Network. In Legends of Tomorrow, Rip Hunter travels back in time and recruits eight heroes—six actual heroes and two villains—to battle the immortal Vandal Savage. Hawkman and Hawkgirl have their fates tied to Savage wherein he gains immortality each time he kills them. For millennia, the pair get reincarnated and find each other and the cycle repeats. Firestorm (actually two people merged into one figure, for those of y’all counting at home), White Canary, and The Atom round out the heroes. (BTW, he has the best reaction when the twist occurs in episode 1.) Captain Cold and Heatwave are the crooks and scene chewers par excellant. (“And this bunch must somehow form a family…”) Together, they’ll fight in various time periods of the DC universe, enabling other DC characters—still deep benchers—to have a turn in the spotlight. It’s already been announced that non other than Jonah Hex, the bounty hunter from the old west, will be on the show. It's awesome!

So, to recap, there’s actual live-action television show featuring super-heroes fighting an immortal villain…through time. Rip's up there. Far left. For a comic book person, this is a fantastic time to be alive and watching shows like this. For a comic book person, I never thought there’d be a Green Arrow show, a Flash show, and a Supergirl show. But, these latter three are basically well-known, or known enough to launch series.

Not Rip Hunter.

Again, Rip Hunter is on TV. Heck, if you want to get really deep, the villain King Shark—think a huge man with a shark’s head—showed up on an earlier episode of The Flash this year. I’m well-versed in comic lore, but even I had to Google “Flash villain shark man” to get King Shark’s name.

The point I’m trying to make here is this: the folks behind Legends of Tomorrow—Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg, and Phil Klemmer—wanted to make a show where time-traveling super-heroes fight bad guys through time. And they did it. They weren’t afraid to pitch the story. They probably said, “Hey, you know what would be cool? Time-traveling super-heroes!” “Yeah,” another one chimed in, “and we can play in the DC sandbox!”

They were fearless in their love for the show. They had to be, because they sold it. And it’s on the air for everyone to see.

What does this mean for writers and other creatives? If you love something, do what you’re passionate for. Infuse that project with all the joy you can muster. It doesn’t matter if it’s a little out there, a lot wacky, or something weird. Do it, for yourself and for those out in the world that love what you love. They’re out there, but it starts with you.

Write Fearlessly! 

Rip Hunter is on TV.  Is anything impossible?

Time-Traveling with the Justice League

by
Scott D. Parker

Summer being summer, I often take time to remember past summers and past vacations. The summer of 1982 peeked itself out of my memory recently when, of all things, I listened to the Fatman on Batman podcast with Brad Meltzer. At one point, Meltzer mentions his first comic book being one of the annual crossovers between the Justice League of America (JLA) of Earth-1 and the Justice Society of America (JSA) of Earth-2. That got me to thinking that those crossovers typically landed in the summer months. It was the Big Event in Comics before they made comic book movies.

I have read many of those crossovers throughout the years, but the one that really sticks in my mind was the giant JLA/JSA crossover of 1982. This story, “Crisis on Earth-Prime,” was so huge, that it included a third team: All-Star Squadron. The five-part tale spanned two titles: JLA for three issues and All-Star Squadron for two.

A quick note for folks who don’t know how these things work: the JLA lives on Earth-1. They are the heroes you know: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern. The heroes of Earth-2, the JSA, are those we originally saw in the 1940s: Starman, Hawkman, the Green Lantern with a cape, the Flash with a helmet. Both of these groups live in their respective 1982s. The All-Star Squadron, however, are heroes whose main stories take place in World War II. There’s a bit of retconning in there, but it doesn’t take away from the story. These heroes are Johnny Quick (another “Flash”), Firebrand, Liberty Bell, and Steel. Earth-3 is an earth where only the villains have super powers. Their group is the Crime Syndicate and they are all parallel versions of main heroes. Earth-Prime is our earth, the earth where heroes like this exist in comic books.

Anyway, not to get too deep in the weeds here or nothing, but the saga starts with the JLA about to meet their JSA friends…when the Crime Syndicate bursts out of the time rift machine and takes out all the JLA. What makes this a neat idea is that the JLA put the Crime Syndicate in an inter-dimensional jail back in the 1960s. So, if you read this issue in 1982, you had a reference to events that happened 20 years in the past.

There are lots of time shenanigans that go on in this story, but the main villain is Per Degaton, a Hitler-like depot who convinces the Crime Syndicate to steal the nuclear missiles from Earth-Prime’s 1962 (thus causing World War III there) and bring them back to Earth-2 in 1942. (Get that?) Degaton is a real villain who first made his appearance in comics in 1947. Not giving away anything here since this is a thirty-year-old story, but the ending of the entire tale is very reminiscent of “Back to the Future.” Because the heroes win (shocker!), time is set right. I found the ending to be quite satisfying in that there was a great adventure that no one remembered.

I’m not sure if this story is collected in a trade paperback or not, but I’d recommend hunting around your comic story for the back issues (JLA 207-209 and All-Star Squadron 14-15). This re-read has made me pull all my All-Star Squadron back issues and start to read them again. 

The fond memory I have of this story arc was from the summer of 1982. My dad, great uncle, and I traveled to Alaska to fish. I was fourteen and loved comics more than fishing. One of these five issues was left on the plane. I saw it and immediately was captivated by the cover. I love those old roll call covers you see there. I knew the big crossover was due, but hadn’t seen it yet on the spinner rack down at the 7-Eleven. Seeing that issue was all I needed to know: the big summer event was here. Now, I just had to find the other four issues. Ah, life before the specialty comic stores or the internet...

So, you want to write comics, do ya?

By Alex Segura

This post may be helpful to absolutely no one (way to sell it, Segura), but I felt it’d be more fun to read than me whining about people rushing to share their outrage over True Detective on the Internet.

I work in comics. I edit some, I publicize a lot. It’s my day job. I’ve written a handful, have a few things in the pipeline, have worked at a few companies and, in my early years, covered the industry. I’ve been involved in comic books to some degree since 1999. Crazy right?

I’m also a crime writer. Therefore, I meet a lot of other writers at conferences, book events and so on. One of the most common things I hear from authors is something along the lines of “I want to write a comic someday.” or “I love comics but have no idea how to break in.” This makes sense. Comics are cool. A lot of us writers have multiple influences. I love crime novels but I also love diving into a stack of comic books. All of it comes from the pulps in one way or the other. So, while I can’t give you a failsafe way to “break in” or “get a comic made," I can share a few lessons I’ve learned first-hand or seen during my time in the industry. Take it all with a grain of salt and use what works for you.

Know/learn comics. For every great writer I meet who is a fan, who knows the world of comics and is into possibly writing comics, there will be one that has no sense of the medium. And that’s fine - if you’re willing to learn more. Hell, saying “learn” makes it sound boring. What could be more fun than going to a comic shop and buying a stack of graphic novels and figuring out what you like? I don’t think anyone expects a new comic book writer to know every nook and cranny of DC continuity or name every member of the Great Lakes Avengers (or read every issue of Cerebus) - but do some homework. Find the comics you like to read. Those are usually in tune with the kind of comics you want to write. Some (all over the place) suggestions to get you started: Blankets, Fun Home, Daredevil: Born Again, The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S., Animal Man, Essex County, Hellboy, Green Lantern: Rebirth, Last of the Independents, Watchmen, Clumsy, Black Hole, Optic Nerve, Afterlife with Archie, Fatale, Bitch Planet, American Vampire, All Star Superman, 100 Bullets, The Spirit, Ms. Marvel. This is a smattering of stuff of the top of my head, not a be-all, end-all list. That said, you could do worse than these titles.

See how others do it. Comic scripts are weird. They’re like screenplays but aren’t. They’re like novels but not. They’re their own bizarre little amalgam, and that gives the medium its quirks and personality. Could you write a comic book script with zero experience? Sure. People have done it. It’ll make for a steep learning curve, though. The easiest first step is to find a comic script - like, the actual Word-style document - written by an author you like. Trust me. Do a web search. You'll find plenty. Then, if their style of formatting, dialogue structure and scene breakdowns work for you, adopt them. That’s the bare minimum. But there’s also a lot of theory to writing for comics - how many actions should reasonably be squeezed onto a page, How much dialogue you should squeeze in per word balloon and stuff like that. That requires a deeper dive. I suggest reading Scott McCloud’s excellent trilogy of books on comics, Understanding, Making and Reinventing Comics, to start. Some other great “guide” type books: Words for Picture by Brian Michael Bendis, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil, Writing for Comics & Graphic Novels with Peter David. Again, this is just a sampling. I’m sure there are plenty of useful, great books that I’ve missed.

Don’t be precious. A speedy comic book writer can write a full script (first draft, natch) in maybe a week or two. It takes an artist, assuming he or she is doing pencils and inks, over a month to draw 22 pages. It’d be a drag for said artist if the writer wasn’t open to collaborating, or leaving stuff open for interpretation. If your comic was a movie, think of yourself as the screenwriter. The artist is basically the director - deciding (with your input!) on things like mood, camera angles, tone, scene structure, you name it. Unlike a novel, where you are lord and ruler of the page and can do as you see fit with anything, comics are a team effort. There’s the writer, the artist, a letterer and a colorist - minimum. Often, there’s an editor (especially if you’re doing work-for-hire at an established company) who has been tasked by the company to drive the ship and preserve the brand/IP. You have to be open to feedback, willing to let people do what they were hired to do and understand that not everything in your script is going to show up on the page as you envisioned it. But hey, that’s part of the fun, too. In my experience, more cool stuff comes from these jam-like moments than not, and you let your collaborators know you value their work and time by allowing them to be part of the creative process, as opposed to just doers following your commands. This brings me to my next point…

Think visually. Comics aren’t about word count. Dialogue and description are not the only tools you have to relay what is going on. If you’re paired with a great artist, they can and will make your story sing.

Network. Meet people. Come to a convention! Remember when you were a hungry author looking for a book deal? Trying to land a comic deal is similar, except you’re back at square one. I get that some of us have agents and there are “proper channels” we use to get our ideas out there, even if it's in a different genre from mystery/crime. Still, nothing can replace in-person face time. Talk to the editor of your favorite comic and let them know you’re a fan. And, oh, here’s this novel I wrote. That moment - showing that, yes, someone on the planet liked your work enough to pay to print, distribute and sell it - is important. Plus - conventions are fun. Networking and talking comics can be fun.

Know what you want to do before you pitch. Remember when I said you should figure out the comics you like? Well, once you do and have a sense of what that looks like, you should figure out what comics you want to write. And by kind, I don’t necessarily mean genre. I mean it in a more business-like way. Do you want to create new characters? Write existing ones? Webcomics? Graphic novels? Monthly floppy comics? All of the above? This is key to deciding how you approach your goal. Want to write your own stuff and own it? Cool. Find an artist friend and work on it. Wait, you want someone else to publish it and pay you an advance? OK, put a pitch together and shop it. You have this killer Madcap story you think Marvel should publish? Neat. Don’t write that 10-issue opus yet. Your first step - if work-for-hire is what you want to do - is to network with the right editors to figure out what they want you to write. “But Alex, I have this epic Madcap story!” Cool. Hold on to that. You’ll need it when you’ve turned in a few issues of what your future editor wants you to write and then asks “Do you have any ideas?” I’m being glib, but my point is this: if you know what kind of comics you want to write, you’ll be able to figure out how to get there. It’ll save you some time and sanity.

Professional > Fanboy. This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Don’t overwhelm your editor by rattling off the secret identities of every Teen Titan including Joker’s Daugher (erm, Pre-Crisis, of course). Write a good story. The geeking out moments will come in due time. The “Wow, this person is talented” has to come first.

In conclusion: what do I know? I’m just sharing a few top-of-mind tidbits from my own experience as an editor, publicist and writer. You may discover via your own trial and error that I’m full of it. Or, this may prove to be helpful. U-Decide!

More importantly, what comics are you reading lately?