And Now For Something Completely Different

Still don't have any new art to talk about, but so you don't think this blog is only about cardboard boxes, here's a plug for someone else's, and a back story.

I was on my friend David Lasky's main blog the other day and saw he had a link to another blog, where he is chronicling his progress on a new graphic novel. It's called Don't Forget This Song, and is about the Carter Family singers. He's working with a collaborator, Frank Young. I don't know Young, but from what I've seen on the blog, his background is largely as a writer. Like most people in the indy comix world, Dave is both writer and artist of his work, but it's the latter that he's probably better known for. Does this mean that Frank is doing all the writing and Dave is doing all the art? Not exactly. It's possible that the finished piece may largely break down along those lines, but early on they are working on a lot of it together. For example, they are both working on thumbnails- the process of breaking down the story into panels and figuring the rough layouts of all the pages. And I'm sure both have contributed to the story. Perhaps Dave will leave a comment below clarifying things.

But it also made me think of the comic collaborations Dave and I have done. Just out of college, we were both interested in making comics. I had an idea for a series, but lacked his cartooning skills. He had the opposite problem. So we decided to join forces (under the name Fistball Productions), despite living on opposite coasts at the time. I wrote a script (the mostly true story of my roommate's adventures in Italy) for a 24 page comic, and he did all the art. We shopped it around, got some nice comments, but no deals. So I wrote a second issue and sent the script to Dave, who promptly sent it back. With all the work involved in drawing a 24 page story, he didn't want to go through it again without a better story, and he wanted me to do all the rough layouts. So I rewrote about a third of it, and did the panel breakdowns (close up and long shots, positions of bodies and text, simple backgrounds) for everything. Dave was happy, did all the actual art (his skills improved since the first one), and we submitted it around. Same result. Maybe I wasn't going to be a famous comic book creator. The same week I moved to Carbondale to start my MFA in printmaking, Dave moved to Seattle and began his climb to the top of that scene. It turned out that Dave had a few ideas for stories after all, and he quickly left our earlier efforts in the dust. However, that second issue didn't go to waste- he published it a few years later as the 4th issue of his solo book Boom Boom. The top photo shows a two page spread.

Dave and I have another ongoing collaboration project, a series of mini comics called Wacky Castrated Pig. (second photo, that's Wacky on the left side page) We do one whenever we are in the same place together, which isn't very often. The collaboration works differently for these. We sit down, come up with a story together. The art was split evenly as well- each doing pencils for half the pages, and inking each other's pencils. As a result, the art is a bit inconsistent from page to page, but WCP was never meant to be taken seriously.

Dave and I have also collaborated on a few woodcut prints, but that's a story for another time.