Too long between posts.

Too long between posts.
From an e-mail I sent out to a creator today:
"On page 14, I'm a little worried about the "doong" sound effect obscuring impact of the cookie. I can't believe I just typed that sentence."
I had insomnia again last night, which is probably part of the reason that passage still gives me the giggles.

***

As I wasn't sleeping, I decided to start thinking about a story idea Nick Johnson came up with that I'm going to work with him on. Naturally, this led to a flurry of inspiration for a completely different story that we're also going to be working on.

By the time I dragged my exhausted carcas from bed, I had the entire first issue figured out. I then spent most of the day that wasn't taken up with editing staring at the monitor and drooling, willing myself to write the damn script. It didn't work. I may have five pages done by the end of the night. If I'm lucky.

But I think instead I'll take another pass at the last 22 pages of the ReBoot webcomic script. Working on something that's there is something I can handle better than deblanking a screen at the moment. Plus, ReBoot pays. Really, there shouldn't be any question of what I work on right now, but I was inspired. Inspired to drool...

***

Drawn & Quarterly creator Pascal Blanchet did a presentation yesterday afternoon at the Edmonton Public Library's monthly Writer's Corner series. His art is undeniably excellent, and I've got to admire someone who puts as much thought into format as he does. But strangely, what really occupied me as I walked out of the library wasn't that. Instead, I found myself examining the notion of the graphic novel - a term I've generally regarded as interchangeable with "comic book", used primarily by those who're looking to sell their comic work to someone culturally trained to dismiss comics as kids stuff.

While my understanding of the term is that it was coined by a comic creator (either Eisner, Steranko, or Kane, depending on who's telling the story), Blanchet comes from a completely different, non-narrative tradition. His work doesn't use most standard techniques of comic narrative (dialogue balloons, multiple images in sequence on a page). It is sequential images telling a story, with text interspersed. In terms of format, it's closer to children's picture books than anything else, though it's clearly aimed at mature readers. Calling it a comic seems wrong, as would calling it a picture book. So what should such a work be called?

***

What sound would an aggressively flung cookie hitting a metal surface make, anyway? It's a chocolate chip cookie, I believe.

A