Working for Clues, and writing a grpahic novel

Here's a heads up for Page 49, whcih was done ages ago, but not posted until very recently. I'm not sure what takes me so long to get to these.

In any case, I had a lot of fun with these pages. You can read the whole scene at this link.

The exacerbated detective was a lot of fun, for some reason. Not sure what else to say about it. He's loosely based on Jim Lang formerly of Sports Net, and now of the morning show with Brady and Lang on the Fan 590.

Graphic novel news
Drew's Clues
Danica Davidson
Graphic Novel Reporter

Nancy Drew has been given a graphic novel makeover, thanks to the husband-and-wife writing team of Stefan Petrucha and Sarah Kinney and artist Sho Murase. GraphicNovelReporter talked to all three to see how Nancy Drew has been brought to new life in comic form.

How did you reinvent Nancy Drew for a comic?
Stefan Petrucha: We didn’t, exactly. The original girl-power figure, Nancy’s been around since 1930, created by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which did various serial novels. At some point the rights were sold to Simon & Schuster, who publish new books to this day. The original series had something like 175 volumes.

Stefan and Sarah, how long have you been writing comics together?

SP: Way back around 1993 I started writing for Egmont Publishing, in Denmark, doing stories for Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Co. Sarah started working for them about a year later, and in time we just naturally started working on each other’s scripts.

How did you get started in the comics industry?
SP: I grew up reading comics—it’s how I learned to read. Jim, our editor, was a childhood friend. He eventually went to work for Marvel. I did my first script for them, an awful Spider-Man story, and broke into the independents a few years later with some original series, like Squalor, Meta-4 and Lance Barnes: Post Nuke Dick. As mentioned above, Sarah originally got involved with Egmont through me.

Click to read more.

Excerpt from my first Graphic Novel script :
ItsAGiant

Hey guys and gals.

So I'm giving writing my own graphic novel a go. I've written game scripts and short movie scripts before, but Graphic Novels is new territory for me.

Anyways, I'll post a little bit of the introduction here and see what you all think.

Also, collaborators are absolutely welcome just PM me.

PAGE 1
PANELS
1. HALF PAGE PANEL. FLAYE SITS ALONE, HUNCHED OVER BENEATH THE SHADOW OF THE CURVED MONOLITHIC SPEAKING STONE. BRIGHT BLUE RUNES BLAZING FROM IT’S SURFACE. BLOOD POOLS AROUND HIM, A COMING FROM A WOUND IN HIS STOMACH. HIS HANDS HANG LOOSELY AT HIS SIDE AND HIS HAIR KEEPS HIS FACE IN SHADOWS.

Flaye [INNER MONOLOGUE]
Ain’t this some shit?

2. FLAYE REACHES OUT A HAND TO TOUCH THE CURVE OF THE STONE ABOVE HIS HEAD LEAVING A VIVID RED HAND PRINT THAT DRIPS BLOOD BACK DOWN ON HIM

Flaye
Here are my words, regard them well. I speak them with my last breaths so that my voice will live on. Here on the salt plains of what had once been California do I finally give up my soul to the Demon's who have been hunting me two hundred years.

3. FLAYE IS WRACKED BY A COUGHING FIT, BLOOD DRIBBLING DOWN THE CORNER OF HIS MOUTH.

FLAYE
HACK! COUGH!

PAGE 2
PANELS

1. FLAYE LOOKS OUT OVER THE PLANE, THE VIEW OF THE READER WOULD SEE HIM PROFILED, IN THE SHADOWS. THE POOL OF BLOOD IS NOW TRAILING TOWARDS THE VIEW LIKE A SMALL RIVER CUTTING THE SAND.

FLAYE
Two hundred years..

2. CLOSE UP OF THE PROFILED VIEW OF FLAYES FACE, THE TRAIL OF BLOOD NOW DRIPPING FREELY OFF HIS CHIN. VIVID RED OVER THE SHADOWED VISAGE OF HIS FACE.

FLAYE
Huh, seems like forever dun it? You probably don't even remember how it began. In fact, this world is probably familiar to you, you're used to it. [HEH] That's an amusing thought, but let me tell you about how it started.

3. VIEW OF NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN DASHING DESPERATELY THROUGH THE WATER A LEERING GROUP OF DESPERADO'S CHASING HER.

[CENTER]FLAYE [TRANSITION TEXT BOX]
I was 'Witch Born', I'll get to what I mean by that in just a moment. As far as my father is concerned, he was a no good outlaw who raped my mother after catching her off guard while she fetched some water. Actually, she was taken by a gang of no good outlaws so any of those mutts could be my pa.

FLAYE
An I'm sure their all dead now.

DESPERADO'S
WHOOP! Get at her boys!

4. VIEW-POINT IS LOOKING UP AT A PROUD GROUP OF SIOUX WARRIORS STANDING BEFORE A PILE OF CORPSES. THE LEAD MOST HOLDING THE BLOODY SCALP OF ONE OF THE DESPERADO'S IN HIS HANDS, THE FACE OF ONE OF THE OUTLAWS IS FOREFRONT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PILE, HIS FACE A HORRIBLE TWISTED VISAGE OF TERROR AND PAIN EYES WIDE AND BLANK.

FLAYE [TRANSITION TEXT BOX]
An I'm sure their all dead now.

Click to read more.

Studs Terkel’s Working
by J.D. Roth

A couple of weeks ago, I shared an instructional video from 1948 called You and Your Work. This film painted an ideal (and idealized) view of the workplace and the worker’s role in it. But we all know work isn’t really like that, right? Yes it’s important to work hard, and yes it’s important to maintain a positive attitude, but jobs and careers are complicated. They make up a huge part of our lives, yet most of are ambivalent about the work we do.

Studs Terkel’s Working
Two years ago, I read and reviewed Studs Terkel’s Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, which featured excerpts from over 100 interviews the author conducted with those who lived through the 1930s. Terkel spoke with all sorts of people: old and young, rich and poor, famous and not-so-famous, liberal and conservative. These folks paint a picture of that era in their own words. Hard Times was fascinating.

Well, Terkel published a whole series of these oral histories, including a book called Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. It’s sort of like a grown-up version of Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day?, one of my favorite books from childhood. In Working (published in 1974), Terkel collects stories from average joes and janes about what they do at their jobs, how they like it, and what they want to do in the future. For two years, I’ve been meaning to read this book, but I’ve never made time for it — until now.

Working by Studs Terkel, graphic adaptation directed by Harvey PekarAt the end of January, I stumbled upon a graphic-novel adaptation of Working put together by Harvey Pekar, who was best known as the writer of the autobiographical American Splendor comics (and movie, a movie I love). Working with a variety of illustrators, Pekar (and a handful of collaborators) adapted Terkel’s Working into graphic novel form. It’s awesome.

I truly believe, in the words of Brenda Ueland, that everyone is talented, original, and has something important to say. To me, it’s the personal histories that make up History (by which I mean the grand tapestry of world events). Without your story — and mine — the larger story doesn’t exist. The mass movements of kingdoms and cultures are built on the backs of you and me.

No wonder, then, that I love Studs Terkel’s work. Though he has an obvious progressive (or liberal) bias, so what? He gives everyone an equal say. In Hard Times, he gave voice to the residents of Depression-era shantowns and the stockbrokers who thought the whole thing was exaggerated. In Working, he does the same.

Click to read more.