The Work Begins

Script Frenzy has begun. Thus begins the most important phase in my comics career: production. For the first time ever, I'm now writing my comics for publication. I've passed the point of no return. Now the world will soon be able to see my vision. Spanner is about to be unleashed on the world.

In Script Frenzy, you're a winner if you write 100 pages of script (movie, TV, stage play, comics) in April. For the first time, comics scripts are allowed. This is why I took the manga project I've been working on intermittently yet obsessively since 1992, Spanner, and took it out of mothballs after almost 1 1/2 years of writing novels for NaNoWriMo and so on. For once I now stand a chance of getting it published, even if I simply publish it on the Web.

Now that NaNoEdMo is over (I'm a winner, of course, even if the second draft of Bad Company still isn't finished) and I've taken a break of a few days, I'll start writing the script for book 1 of Spanner. But before I can publish it, I need to learn how to draw it. I've already resumed the drawing self-instruction that I've delayed since early last year. My skill hasn't yet reached the point where I can start doing character designs again, so in those entries this week in which I introduce my characters I'll post drawings I did in the first half of this decade. I'll probably be able to get the first preliminary designs done by next week. This week I'm working out all the remaining problems I have drawing the human head this week; next week, I'll turn to the figure, which I've had even more trouble with over the years. By the end of this month I'll have improved my skills to the point where the characters I draw will be good enough to publish. Ultimately, I'm preparing to draw the first episode of Spanner for NaNoMangO, where you pencil 30 pages of comics in order to become a winner, in June or November.

Stay tuned...