Happy April Everyone! 

It’s been a few weeks of up and down. Two weeks ago I was worried that Vince was mortally ill, but realized he would be fine when he started posting memes and browsing the web again. This past week has been extremely productive as we hone in on our “virtual sabbatical.” While we do this, the internet at large wonders what will happen next across a multitude of economic and social axioms. Truly extraordinary and terrifying times we live in! 

The need for change and action contrasts sharply with disagreements about what to do and how. On a micro scale this has played out in our little industry of comics. I guess, to be more specific, the direct market comic book sans superhero industry of America. 

Caveat emptor, I write these things as 30 minute stream of consciousness babbles so apologies in advance for the roughness around the edges… 

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Right now, comics are facing an existential threat. The major distributor of comics to the direct market, Diamond Distribution, is dying. They’ve halted distribution and are unable to pay the comic publishers. Retailers have been frozen from buying any new product and the entire industry has coalesced around a facebook group called Plan C that feels a little bit like the Last Alliance. Artists and Publishers and Retailers alike all gathered together to try and plan for the end... 

But like all Last Alliances, this one has been rife with petty squabbles and disagreements. Many parties face pressing problems which all seem to stem back to distribution. 

The established model of Diamond is to run through a physical catalog and preorders to drive interest and estimate sales to the direct market (comic book stores). That works perfectly well for Marvel and DC, whose properties drive the industry and whose strategic importance is as a creative intellectual property farm rather than as a revenue generator by corporate. Their comic divisions are judged against each other in a bicameral system, and the entire comic industry suffered a major crash in the 90s from which it is still recovering from. All that is to say they have limited interest in growing the industry more than duking it out for the blasted wasteland that’s remained. 

Many in comics know that the system is broken. Some artists like ourselves have chosen a more direct to consumer pathway and built fanbases directly online. Nonetheless, this pandemic has hit us all hard. We were the canary in the coalmine in the USA with Emerald City Comic Con convention scene and now we’re facing an existential threat that admittedly covers the spectrum of retailers, including ours. 


Small publishers like ourselves have offered to help by offering steep discounts to our product. Because we are independent, we have our own distribution supply chains that we can leverage. And by supply chain I mean we mail the stuff ourselves or work with other small companies to do so. 

From a retailer standpoint, they need a fast and reliable way to buy wholesale products with built in curation. They don’t like buying from independents because they are unreliable when it comes to release (guilty) and find indie books in general hard to move. We’ve never had a problem moving our books at retailers, but for us, the margins were too low comparatively and our print volumes too small for us to seriously consider pushing out to retailers in any real way. 

A lot of people claim that the industry is going to be just fine when this is all over. It’s not like we’ll just let all of retail up and die, right? Well, I personally think that remains to be seen… there’s a lot of parts to this economic conundrum we find ourselves in right now and anyone who says they know for certain is for certain full of shit. Even if this next recession isn’t the existential threat that many of us fear, there is a sense that should the entire comic industry come together, we might be able to change things for the better. 

‘Might’ being the operative word. 

It’s hard getting people to agree and interests to align. Even in the face of a great terror from beyond…

That was kind of the plot Game of Thrones, right? It’s a funny thing, fantasy sans mythology. In some ways the plots we weave in these genres are the purest expression of wish fulfillment and many associate that desire to juvenile naivete. But then we  see the metaphorical play itself out over and over again in real life as we wrestle with the one life we are given, uniquely enlightened from the past yet with patterns so painfully similar, vibrantly disappointing rhythms of mistakes made and forgotten. In between the rhyme schemes we imagine and hope for a better tomorrow, of change, and the possibility of the endless to be determined. 

Gotta love that multiverse. 

Ray

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Hey Folks! 

The news is grim all throughout the world. Every government has mobilized the full might of their resources to fight COVID19 which is already posing an existential threat to the comic industry. My own personal saga began with deciding to cancel Emerald City Comic Con which seems like ages (three weeks) ago. Now the full might of the comic industry has coalesced into a facebook group called "Planned C" to try and save the industry or at least reshape it in the wreckage that follows.

I know it's egocentric, but I can't help but feel that our little industry has been the canary in the coal mine. Things look like they're about to get a lot worse before they get better. Sorry for being grim, folks, but it's with a serene sense of surrealism that I write this as a recollection of the times. I feel like balancing between pretending or acting like things are normal when they so clearly very are not. 

Personally I've been thinking about humanity a lot and our inmutable natures. How we tend to face the same things and react in the same ways in rhythms familiar yet novel for the age. History seems like a strange comfort in times like these, but what else can we use to learn about the future if not the past? 

Anyway, it's taken days to get this out. Sign of the times! And of the very immutable nature of humans ;)

Okay then. 

That's the self diss that  better not miss diss 

cause it gone eat your, mistress.

[ // social distancing // \ ]

Ray  

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It's been a hard slog the last couple of days when it comes to writing. I can't quite decide what I want to work on and find myself hopping between three projects, pecking away a little at each. I don't think that's a good strategy long term but I find myself stuck and in a downswing in terms of story and a bit paralyzed by imposter syndrome. Everything that I come up with seems so contrived and bad. 

I've definitely been here before. I think most people who are creative find themselves here sometimes if not often. I ... am telling myself unconvincingly to go through the work and to focus on one thing at a time. Ironically, this blog has been an anchor for the past couple of weeks, so I'm glad I got this, at least. 

What a consolation prize. I am currently hopping between writing and thinking and watching and reading and everything seems a jumbled mess or inconceivable height and why even bother trying to climb when some things and people are just clearly at another level. WHO CAN RELATE? That's a bad Logic reference. 

I work hard everydayayayayay....

Writing sometimes can be such an up and down thing. When I have a story or scene or character nailed it's some kind of high. An amazing thrill knowing that what you created works and you're the cool badass mofo behind it. You live for those moments. High brow it's finding that nugget of truth or whatever, but low brow it's just ego, honestly - I made this. I willed it into existence. 

Nothing quite like it. Those who know are those who crave. And then there's the opposite feeling.

The ego death. The hesitancy. The fear. Of nothingness. Of contrivance. Foolishness. For even attempting. Comparing. Dreaming. Doing? For who are you to think it through, the lives of those beyond your own. Is it arrogant to even try? 

I don't know. Probably. Certainly feels that way right now. But this too shall pass.

So sayeth the Toilet Paper Sages. 

Covid be thy crown. 


Ray 
​2020

"When you find yourself lost, look at the map for instructions"  - Michael Arndt

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I don't know about you, but I find myself lost quite a bit when it comes to writing. I would say that a good 20-35% of my process at any given time consists of reviewing the fundamentals of story structure. Some people argue that structure is really the only thing that you can teach when it comes to writing... either everything else - prose, dialogue, characters, and world - can only be improved through experience, or they only stem from story itself, so structure is actually story  uh uh wait. Huh?

Okay. Anyway. Here are five resources I find myself going back to constantly to relearn story:

Story Circle is Dan Harmon's interpretation of  Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, which in turn is a distillation of universal story elements derived by analyzing epic poems, which, before written down, were passed down via oral traditional for probably a really long time (we don't really know the answer but it was probably a long time after we learned how to talk that we learned how to write things down much less think of writing them down for something as trivial as entertainment. That's, like, a long time, man! 

Like all of the structures linked here, the Hero's Journey is great as both a starting point and diagnostic tool for your story. You use it to start laying out plot or to analyze when something isn't working. It also may provide insight into what is missing for a particular arc or scene and can be compressed or expanded to apply to scenes, sequences, acts, and entire stories or trilogies. 

In all its forms, story is a cycle that reflects the human condition. 

Kishōtenketsu is a way of breaking down stories originating in the East and formalized by the Japanese who gave it a name. Kishōtenketsu ​ shares many similarities with structures of a western origin with subtle - yet distinctive - differences that on the surface seem either painfully obvious or inanely profound. 

At its core, we're talking about the differences between Eastern and Western culture reflected through the interpretation of narrative. I suspect with the success of Parasite that Kishōtenketsu will gain a lot of mindshare among authors in the years ahead. 

Anatomy of Chaos is a proponent of Four Act Sequence Structure for feature film screenplays, which breaks down traditional three act structure in 24 key story beats and four acts. This is a common and useful paradigm taught at many universities with screenwriting programs. 

The key advantage to Sequence Structure over traditional three act paradigms is the more robust direction provided by splitting traditional Act 2 into two smaller acts, each with its own set of six beats. A lot of people find this helpful in prompting to come up with - "what's next?" On a basic level that's all these different structures are: tools to help you construct the mechanisms of your story. Use them when you need to get unstuck. 

Guess what part of the story we've been working on lately?

The title of this video is a bit of a misnomer: although the focus is on Endings, an Ending is just the payoff for all of the work that you set up in the Beginning, so this video is really a catch-all guide on how to write screenplays.

Arndt says that if you have only one takeaway from his lecture, it should be that great stories have three stakes: external, internal, and philosophical. ​ Great stories explore a clash of intractable values. Good stuf, this video. One of the best out there! 

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the first structural paradigm I learned - good ole' classic 3 act structure as told by Syd Field.

Syd gets a lot of guff these days, but I'm not sure why. If I had to guess, it would be something related to some of our innate tribalistic instincts giving rise inevitably to majority and minority schools of thought, all of which is productive as it the difference of opinion is what provides for critical thought which is turn pushes new ideas? No doubt 3-Act Structure is the oldest of the old schools, mainest of the mainstream. 

I keep hinting at it, but to be clear: all of these structures and paradigms are basically talking about the same stuff, just with very small yet distinct interpretations. None is more correct than the other. At the end of the day they're imperfect explanations of a the most abstract of concepts: story. The Dao that is the Dao is not the Dao and all that jazz... 

These are all guides to help you master story, which is a personal journey of discovery. 

Good luck and keep writing! 

​Ray 

I have currently playing on in the background True Detective Season 3. It's research for a new project we're in the initial stages of laying the track for. We're trying to find out what the show is about, fleshing it out in order to get to an outline which will be used to give birth to a script which will hopefully give birth to something else.

I feel bad about not giving the show my full attention. I've told myself that I shouldn't watch things with my attention split - that to really understand I need to be present and focused. Alas, I also have already been procrastinating on doing these blog entries so it's either two kill birds with one stone or stand idly by as the routine is wrecked not even the second time around. 

Onwards - 

Today I'd like to talk a little bit about where ideas come from. I personally don't think there are any original ideas out in the world. What originality is, in my opinion, is a mix of sensory experiences and memories processed into novel ways expressed through the patterns your brain sees and inscribes as output. If only writing itself were so simple. Recognizing the patterns in completed works is one thing but creating the patterns is monumental work that I personally always toil over. 

The first season of True Detective was a masterpiece. Vince and I touched based on it as a reference point today. I mentioned how I thought it was a very simple plot, and he countered back that though the plot is symbol, it's thematically complex work. I agree. The show drips with allegory, powered by melancholy and mystery. The result is something ... unique. Fresh. Wonderful. We think and agree on.

The second season of True Detective is not as good. It came out only a year after the original. The series creator, Nic Pizzolatto started writing season 1 in 2010. He finished shooting in 2013. The show premiered in 2014. I got all that info from Wikipedia.

So, three years writing one season. Then he writes season 02 in one year and it's about a third as good as the original. Haven't seen the third one - working on rectifying that - but I'll bet it's better than that second season.

This is all my long and rambling way of making the following point: writing is a process of (re)discovery. We tend to have seeds of an idea, which we try to create, refine, whittle down, and resolve into something beautiful and sometimes intricate and meaningful and novel. It's a monumental and vain task as it is fucking hard as balls. 

Where do ideas come from? Sensory experiences both conscious and unconscious. Things you've experienced, read, watched, and consumed. The process of turning those ideas into good stories is the process of finding meaning by creating order through patterns. Order of events cascading together into patterns we recognize as core to life itself if it's good or tired and derivative if it's bad which is all subjective to begin with (but at least we have thousands of years of culture and genetic memory as primates as a starting reference point.) 

It takes time to write a good story. Time is sometimes the missing ingredient between bad and good, good and great, great and masterpiece. Or maybe a piece was doomed to be just what it was and what it ever will be. Guarantee you though that if you spent on time on it maybe you could've made it better. Discover a little more. Maybe a bit. Maybe a lot. 

About yourself. The world around you. The truth you seek and see. Everywhere and anywhere. Patterns of order. That's what the process is. At least, that's mine. 

Ray