Project Management

Working my way out of the quagmire I got myself into requires outlining my project's next tasks step by step. Here's my outline (subject to adaptation if necessary). Before posting any new pages on my other blog (click here) I need to complete the following tasks.

1.  Continue to write/insert new narrator rough draft pages in the first 35 pages (which comprises  Ecclesiastes 1 & 2). Those pages comprise what I've been calling Draft 5 (but viewers of that other blog know only as the first draft). I've yet to find the narrators' voice, father and son alien observers of Ecclesiastes University. They riff on the students' riffs on Dr. Q's lecture. It adds a layer of complexity AND clarity. Somebody's got to make sense of what those students are jabbering about. Once I've caught up to page 35 it's time to....

2.  Create model sheets for the 20 or so key characters. For your information, here's what a model sheet looks like for one famous cartoon character.



I need to nail down what each character looks like in various poses. Those model sheets will "force" me to be consistent as I draw the final draft, "force" me to clarify the appearance, facial expressions, and stature of each student (and Dr. Q and the aliens), and "force" me to slow down. I'm eager to tackle inking/coloring but I MUST hone the penciled roughs first. Once those characters are fleshed out then....

3. Print hard copies of the polished, edited, and "finished" (will I ever "finish?" I'm constantly tweaking) pages (which will probably end up growing from 35- 45 pages) of dialog in Publisher on card stock.

4. On that card stock I'll sketch with pencil the characters, setting, interior of the classroom and space ship, folds in clothing, props, costume, and visual details. Here's an exquisite pencil "rough" from MAD artist Tom Richmond. Here's a link to his fabulous web/blog.



5. Ink the penciled rough in black. Here's the above drawing "inked."



Using Tom Richmond as my inspiration is a fool's errand; he's the industry standard for cool, creative, and technically savvy. I am but a lowly left-handed Norwegian therapist/skeptic/theist prone to melancholy. Nevertheless, my motto is: "shoot for the moon; you may hit the fence."

6. Once "inked" I'll re-scan the pages into a digital format on a yet to be purchased gadget (Adobe Illustrator? Corel Draw? Bamboo Tablet?) and color it. Here's Tom's finished cover.




Having never created digital art before there's going to be a massive learning curve (do these technical learning curves ever stop?). But my goal is to draw the old fashioned way and then color and shade on a tablet. The class I took last February with Jason Seilor was digital and mind blowing. (I was born 40 years too early to "get" digital life but if Ecclesiastes 3 is correct it was meant to be). Those posted pages will be a new and improved First Draft but behind the scenes I'll call that Draft Six.

7. Once pages 1-45 (Ecclesiastes 1 & 2) are complete I'll slowly post them for First Readers to scrutinize, evaluate, and critique.

8. Unless audience feedback is entirely negative I'll then revert to adding new "rough sketches" for the remainder of the book for First Reader feedback. I can produce rough drafts faster than inked/colored drafts and want the entire book to be semi public before I ink/color the finished work.

As mentioned before, the reason I'm inking/coloring pages 1-45 before re-posting them is to introduce First Readers to the alien narrators with as much visual verve as possible. I'll unveil them with fear and trembling; if they "work" I'll receive a major deposit in my enthusiasm bank. If feedback is negative it'll be a huge withdrawal and completion will be laborious.

From this vantage point I'm determined to complete this work sometime in 2013. If the feedback is lackluster I'll grit my teeth and still produce a work of art that others ignore. I'm determined to finish this graphic novel regardless of audience appreciation. Some of my biggest heroes are those who forged ahead when popular opinion was against them--Galileo, Kafka, Dickenson, Van Gogh, Col. Sanders, and Henry Dargar. My book will hardly revolutionize cosmology, existentialism, poetry, painting, chicken, or illustrated novels, but again, shoot for the moon....

Status Update

Thirty-five pages of rough draft number five have been posted on the other site for first readers to scan and comment upon. The feedback has been so helpful I've hit the pause button to rethink the whole premise of this graphic novel. 2000+ talking heads are just too boring. So what are my options?

Make the claim that the boredom is an intentional literary device to further illustrate the message of vanity, absurdity, and pointlessness. This is a bit disingenuous, like the guy who shoots his bow wildly and then draws targets around randomly shot arrows.

Scrap the whole thing and write a stage play or screen play. No more graphic novel? Ouch.

Scrap Ecclesiastes and go mow my lawn. And give up philosophical ruminations? Double ouch.

Reformat the whole thing:

• give students only 2 panels (delete the second row of 1-3 boxes) to riff on Dr. Q. This would essentially cut the book--and boredom--in half. Less is more, but that much less?
• enlarge the size of my printed hard copy thus giving me a larger drawing space in which to draw settings, props, action, etc. This would essentially render my existing 428 pages null and void...after all that work!
• put new words into Dr. Q's mouth; fictionalize him. This would make the finished product "based upon the book of Ecclesiastes" rather than "taking every word of the ancient text as is and seeing it crash against modern thinking."
• keep the format but reduce the number of characters. Theoretically I could cut the number of students in half, combining various traits into one. This would cut down the confusion of who's who but increase confusion about student motives. Currently each student represents one philosophical/emotional point of view. Blending them would make each character complex and self contradictory. Plus, I might get bored with the few students that remain. I like the variety of a huge cast of characters.
• press on hoping readers will eventually identify with the individual characters. This is risky because there is no glue currently keeping readers engaged. Even with spiffed up drawings I suspect the insipid dialog will be lethal. Death by word balloon.
• increase the wit and wisdom of student comments. When I read a really good book I hang on every word, dreading the end. I want it to keep on going. Here's where fantasy crashes against reality. I just don't have the synaptic chops to charm audiences like Steve Martin, Woody Allen, David Sedaris, Dave Barry, Mark Twain, Tina Fey, Robert Benchley, S J Pereleman, Bill Bryson, Daniel Gilbert, Soren Kierkegaard (he knocked 'em dead in Denmark), or (insert name here). 
• press on and hope to find readers with low expectations. Surely in a planet of 7 billion somebody, somewhere likes bad puns, angst overkill, and talking heads.
• abandon audience approval entirely and write the book I wish I had in college. In a later post I'll reproduce some cartoons I drew while at UW '79-'81.
• gamble my reputation on good drawings justifying boring text. This is a huge gamble and I'm notorious for losing gambles. Want proof? My closets are full of manuscripts, wheels, drawings and self published books that failed to garner audience interest. I killed a small forest trying to get traction as a purveyor of peace making comics, sapiential psychology, and mixed metaphors. 
• change my audience. Instead of modern college students perhaps I should aim to connect with fundamentalists. Ecclesiastes is in their book and my graphic novel would call attention to and validate its message. This, however, may prove the hardest sell of all because fundamentalists are disinclined to grapple with randomness, failed theodicies, and the puncturing of tidy systematic theology. Nobody likes to be told the king has no clothes or that Pollyanna providence is a myth. 

I have to leave for work soon so must end this problem solving musing. My inner optimist believes that there is an answer to this somewhere, I just haven't found it yet. I'll mull over these options and see which sticks. 

Random Observations about Cartooning

With as much effort as I'm putting into this graphic novel the thought has occurred to me more than once, "Buy a computer soft ware art program for the finished product." It's not the $600 price tag that deters me, it's the learning curve. Drawing on a tablet just doesn't seem right to this old time ink-slinger. Yet, the colored pencils and colored markers I've been using look terrible. Granted, I'm knocking out talking heads at this point rather hastily simply to give the dialog a mouth from which to emanate. But the Platonic graphic novel in my head looks much better than the way Draft 5 looks on the screen or on hard copy.

I just finished page 33 (66 half pages). The changing background color is working for me....but I've yet to crack the following problems:

1. How do I help readers keep the many characters clear? At least I haven't given them Russian names. I actually haven't given them any names in the text yet. Do I add a "Cast of Characters" page? If so, up front or in an appendix? Or sprinkled throughout the text when they each make their first appearance?
2. Do I need a background? All those photos of the university class room may be pointless since the talking heads take up almost the whole panel. 
3. What will sustain readers' interest? It seems at this point only a very dedicated student of Ecclesiastes would stay focused. Everyone else's eyes will glaze over given the monotonous repetition of panels, layout, and talking heads.
4. Do I cite references, days, name of lecture? I do on the blog where I'm posting the rough draft (click HERE). But readers of the final product will not have access to additional factoids.
5. Is there a way I can leverage 2000 talking heads to my advantage? Rather than trying to break up the monotony with a sly inclusion of field trips, long shots, Power Point and lap top screen images (pretending that 2000 talking heads in a comic book is normal), maybe I can claim the talking heads as my raison d'etre. I'm not interested in changing the name Ecclesiastes University, but maybe I can add a tag line letting readers know I'm including 2000 talking heads on purpose, with artfulness, and with existential intention. Now to come up with such a tag line: 49 University Students Recoil from a Socratic Cattle Prod, Ancient Existentialism Unleashed on One Hundred Fertile Cerebrums, or, Be Glad I Didn't Draw Each Synapse. I'll keep working on it.

The pace of production is slow, slow, slow. But it's a zen-like, pleasant slow. I doodle alone in this big house sans five kids and loving wife. I'm somewhat astonished that I can sit in silence (apart from the melodic noise of our neighbors chickens and horses) for five hours scribbling, inking, scanning, and uploading. If I were under an editor's deadline I'd be in big trouble. But as it is I'm progressing at a pace that fits my work load, energy load, and interest load.

Which raises this important question: is there rhyme or reason to the ebb and flow of one's focus? For the first time since last December, earlier this week I spent two days not working on Ecclesiastes University. I wasn't depressed (I don't think), bored, or passionless about this project. I watched TV, Netflix, read good books, cleaned the house, washed clothes, went to work. But I couldn't muster the oomph to put lines on paper. If I knew what factors deterred me from productive labor I'd know what to avoid. 

That facial expression book I bought a while back is helpful. As are the reference photos I've been taking of hands, body language, etc. I don't draw from nothing; I use reference materials. 

I perused a collection of a reprinted newspaper comic strip called Foxtrot. It's consistently funny in 4 black and white panels. It's hard for me to be objective about my humor since my humor-o-meter is distracted with the other meters against which I am constantly measuring myself: philosophy, character development, drawing facial expressions, and many more. My First Readers are giving consistent feedback that my book is not funny and I believe them. It's in my mind to rework the dialog once I complete Draft Five: inserting jokes into a narrative flow will be easier than adjusting the narrative flow around the jokes. Or so I tell myself.

Detail, page 29

I cut and pasted friend Mark's old caricature here which is illustrative of the style of drawing I anticipate using in the final draft. It also demonstrates why I'm so unhappy with the rough cartoons I'm using in Draft Five. I'm working with drawings that are only weak approximations of what I envision the finished product to look like. But even with shaded caricatures like this I'm not sure good drawings are enough to sustain readers' attention. I'm zealous to write dialog that is sterling in its own right, the addition of well crafted drawings only adding value. 

No wonder my lawn gets mowed so infrequently...I'm obsessed with this project.

Draft Five pages 6-10

With the few days off I've had recently I've noodled on this project. Progress is slow but sure. These five pages cover Ecclesiastes 1:8b-11 (day 2).

Draft Five, pages 1-5

With great joy I introduce for the very first time pages 1-5 of Draft Five of Ecclesiastes University.

There are many changes begging to be made...not only in the heads (too big) but also in the scanning (too dark), pagination (too small), color (absent in background; once added the word balloons will pop out in stark contrast), word balloon tails (for all my weeks of tweaking I still must re-position the little gap where I'll attach the tail--dread!), camera angle (too many close ups; I want students walking around at some point), character design (these drawings are the first of hundreds and I suspect we'll sharpen, simplify, and hone their features as we go), setting (no walls, desks, or props), and more. 

I visualize what the final art will be and a part of me wishes I could show readers the finished product. But I dare not invest that much time on a final draft which no one but me has seen. I don't trust myself; I need others' input before putting the finishing touches on Draft Six.

Putting this together was bliss...yet I feel a twinge of anxiety about sending this to my first readers. Why? Their mission will be to evaluate the script; I fear their eye gate will take precedence over their text editing lobes. I suspect these drawings will solicit a dozen comments for improvement but it's the words I want them to evaluate. 

This is the first day (Eccl. 1:1-8a). In the next thought unit the characters will have different clothing, seating arrangement, and background color. 

Of the nine characters I've introduced in this first installment, two will drop out and of those that remain all will be influenced (for good and ill) by Dr. Q's lectures. 

Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy of Drawing

Rather then cook up characters out of thin air I thought I'd peruse my collected drawings for candidates. I have boxes and boxes of stuff I've drawn over the years and I kept them "in case I could ever use them in the future." That future is here!

I then plop myself on our living room couch and think graphically!

I didn't leave clear directions when plotting chapter one so I'm using sticky notes to figure out who is sitting where.

I then sketch the character on rough Draft Five. I'm coloring them in, too, just for the fun of it. Pictured above: the character I've named Karenoia (the anxiety queen), and Joker (the bon mot king). I've also got preliminary drawings of Dr. Q, TA, and a few others.

This new stage of creation has my adrenaline pumping, dopamine surging, and serotonin gushing. The pleasure is hard to describe but take my word for it, few endeavors bring me this much joy.