Wow. Time flies when you’re semi-conscious…
This week managed to breeze by, I suspect largely because I spent most of it regretting--I mean, recovering from the 24 hour comic slog. In trying to relive my art college days, I forgot two things: 1) I’m not as young as I once was, and 2) I’m not as drunk as I once was. Both of these things left me borderline crippled through Sunday and Monday…
I haven’t had the nerve to actually look at what I did in any detail since last Saturday. I’ve got a feeling this is the 24 hour comic I’ll be most embarrassed by. Which will take some doing, as my second one was complete and utter nonsense.
But 24HCBD07 is over and done with, and it’s time to look to the future.
***
Oh, dear. I don’t like the look of the future. Let’s stay here in the present, where it’s nice and cozy.
As you can probably guess, I haven’t gotten a lot done this past seven days. Fortunately, a lot has been happening anyway, so the world’s at least semi-interesting and I’ve got something to blog about.
***
HOW VAGUE THE NIGHT?
Manager 1 talked to Big Producer yesterday about The Project That The Co-Writers Did That Big Producer May (or May Not) Be Interested In. This was the day after what sounds like a reasonably in-depth conversation between Co-Writer and Big Producer. Big Producer told Co-Writer he (BP) would write a four-page outline of where he saw The Project going in motion picture form. This seemed like a Good Thing. Better for Co-Writer than me, though, as Co-Writer was seeing The Project return to his original vision for it, rather than the one he had his arm twisted to accept--the one that brought me on as co-writer.
Which means there’s an outside chance of me getting fifty percent of something big (if this happens--and it almost certainly won’t--it would be big) I had little or nothing to do with. Unless we get the comic version of The Project out. Which I really want to do, because it’s something I’m proud of.
Anyway. Manager 1 talked to someone at Big Producer’s Company (not actually Big Producer, which was who Co-Writer talked to), and got a slightly different impression of the situation, that being that, while Big Producer is interested in The Project, Big Producer isn’t putting as much into moving The Project forward as he might. Manager 1 really likes the idea of setting something up with Big Producer, but doesn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket.
What does all this mean? I’m not really sure. I plan to leave this in Manager 1’s capable hands, in the hopes that it will move forward at a pace slightly less glacial than the one I’ve come to associate with Hollywood…
***
BAD BOY, BAD BOY, WHATCHA GONNA DO…
I can’t believe I actually have a Cops reference in my blog. Someone put a bullet in my head, stat.
Manager 2’s enthusiasm for THE SPOOKY KIDS seems to have dimmed somewhat, as the realization sets in that it’s “a little dark” and therefore a tough sell to the North American young adult book market. To the best of my knowledge, we’ve only had two of a possible twelve publishers pass on it so far, so we shall see.
In the meantime, he’s become fairly enthusiastic about the prospects for BadBoy, which is great, except that he needed something I didn’t have--an outline for a first volume of a potential series of long-form comic books (aka “graphic novels”, a term I’m trying to avoid just ‘cuz.) I’ve got a proposal for an animated series version, an outline for a movie version, a script for a first issue, an outline for two issues…self-contained long-form comic with potential for sequels? Um, no.
Until a few minutes ago, anyway. I just sent an outline of that very thing off to Manager 1 and The Future of Comics (II) John Keane. Having done that, I’m now worried that it’s crap. It’s hard to gauge how good something I’ve written is at the best of times, never mind after I’ve been staring at it for several hours straight.
Oh well. This is why I’ve got People--so someone can tell me when I stink.
***
SUBMIT OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES
A few years back, I was a submissions editor for an online comic company called UnboundComics.com. I actually rather enjoyed that job, though I’m not entirely sure why… Something about the raw nature of what shows up, combined with the outside possibility that I might stumble across something Really Cool, appealed to me, I guess.
This might explain why I’m spending so much time at zeros2heroes.com. I was actually tempted to pitch something of my own on the site, until I realized that just putting a pitch up there requires one to agree that “all development, production and exploitation rights in the Submitted Material are exclusively available to Z2H.” I asked about that on the Z2H forum, as it seemed to go against one of the premises of the Comic Creators Bill of Rights, but haven’t gotten a response yet. Then again, compared to other posts, it hasn’t had a lot of readers, yet. In any event, if I did take part and managed to win, I’m pretty sure one or the other of my managers would kill me for not consulting with them beforehand. At the end of the day, I’m not really Z2H’s target demographic, anyway.
In spite of this, I’ve been reliving my submission editor days reading some of the stuff on the website. And there are a couple gems among the, uh, less gem-like and the fanfic. It’s always neat to see an interesting idea coming together (for me, anyway.)
Still. Got to pull back a little. Damn site’s almost as addictive as e-mail.
***
DISTRACTED? I DON’T GET DIST-HEY WHAT’S THAT SHINY THING OVER THERE?
Of course, thinking about what I might pitch to Z2H led to me thinking about an old idea at some length. The beauty of pitching this one to Z2H was that it was something nobody but me really seemed to like much. So putting it out in the public eye wouldn’t have bothered anyone (this was before I read the submission agreement.)
And, in thinking about it, I started to like it all over again. And so I started to bat it around in my mind--as a possible comic, as a film spec, as a pilot spec, as an animated series…
And I think it could very well work as any one of those. But this isn’t the damn time to be developing something new! I’ve still got THE KIDS spec to finish, and then there’s THE HOLIDAY MEN to get back to, and I’ve got to find an artist for ERSATZ and I really should be figuring out how to make MERLYN CO. work if I’m going to be developing something, Manager 2 was interested in that one, after all…
Someday I’ll run out of stuff to work on. And THEN I can work on this.
***
24 HOURS - EXPOSED
Did I mention that during 24HCBD I actually took my pants off for half an hour and nobody noticed?
I don’t know if this should utterly depress me or not.
Foley
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