Entry tags:
Comments and criticism
Nothing like a convention to settle things in your head. After screaming my storylines at the top of my lungs for five days straight, I think I sort of understand them.
Busta/Lovecraft is the tale of Busta Rhymes, H. P. Lovecraft, and the epic fistfight that they share. I drew it with my girlfriend, Gewel Kafka. We finished the story last week, drove to San Diego, drew the cover, printed it on Tuesday, and had it out for sale on Wednesday. The response was gratifying, to say the least. Not only did we get lots of casual readers, but:
1. Non-comics readers often seemed to like it better than comics readers.*
2. We got two extremely detailed critiques. They were delivered in a tone of semihostility because that's how hardcore critiques always come across, especially when both critic and criticee have been drinking. However, the very fact that they were worthy of critiquing at all, and from such high-caliber talents as did the critiquing, is a tremendous compliment in and of itself. We were agreed on basic principles; that there was something that this comic was doing right, that the basic storyline was clear, that it was enjoyable and pleasant to read and that they finished reading it because they were genuinely interested in what happened.
Those are the most important parts. You can do anything with that stuff alone. What comes after that is details.
They had some things to say about the details.
There is universal agreement that the big Cthulhu fight scene does not work, that the "Stars are Right" page does not express enough time passing, that certain occasional weaknesses in figure drawing makes it difficult to identify the main character. That part is very true -- the main character is mostly knowable because people keep calling him by name, which causes you to wonder which of the many people on the page he is. We're doing a comic book about a rapper travelling back in time, so naturally he changes costume every page. This is an artistic challenge that we did not quite rise to.
They agree that the comic could be longer -- one person says we could get another four pages out of it, the other saying we could get twenty-four. I agree with the four pages one, and the version that you here on the internet see will reflect that. So you'll always wonder, internet. You'll always wonder which pages are new.
The meta-story was of absolutely no interest to anyone, but that's not surprising. The meta-story isn't really even meant to be noticed exactly. It's just meant to be there.
Starting the comic with a giant block of text that the reader is not actually supposed to read is a terrible structural weakness and one which I am not apt to make again. Busta's declaration of "Didn't you read the prologue?" is easily the most essential block of text in the book, and if the reader misses it the whole thing falls apart.
One critic felt that we were not fair to Lovecraft -- that we pin all this cosmic catastrophe on him and that he exists in the story only to get beat on. He never really gets his licks in, Busta just shows up and lays a whuppin' on him, and then it's over.
Nobody mentioned the dialogue at all, never got one complaint that Busta wouldn't say that or Lovecraft wouldn't say that. That's high praise indeed, now that I think about it. Almost all of the criticism was of the plot and storytelling.
3. There is no number three, but it always feels like lists should have a number three. Let's go back to the asterisk in number 1 -- why non-comics-readers took to the comic so quickly and easily. It's partially name recognition -- we're piggybacking here on two other human beings who both invested substantial effort into creating a character, but it helped that our demo comic, our "zine" if you will, is not actually comics-shaped, just a big piece of 11x17 paper folded in half.
Bright, bright pink wedding paper. Wedding-invitation colored.
There's nothing on the cover except for the words Busta/Lovecraft and a picture of Lovecraft and a picture of Busta. There's nothing on the back except for a picture of a woman's butt, our web sites, and in big letters across the bottom "WORD IS BOND." So it's simple, and relatively nonthreatening. We chose pink because it is the punkest color, because it has the quality of being nonthreatening to women but challenging to men. Men as a general rule do not want to read pink books. So we made them. Take your medicine, boys! We're trying to piss off everybody and that includes you.
Well, since I've read about the hacker attacks on LJ I've decided to try to blog a bit more, because hey those guys deserve fiction as they try to break the fascist capitalist vampire bear hug that Putin has on their poor souls. Good luck, fellas. America will root for you if you root for us (well even if you don't but I can't miss this opportunity to say that America could use some help too if anybody from Europe is listening. Save us both if you please).
Busta/Lovecraft is the tale of Busta Rhymes, H. P. Lovecraft, and the epic fistfight that they share. I drew it with my girlfriend, Gewel Kafka. We finished the story last week, drove to San Diego, drew the cover, printed it on Tuesday, and had it out for sale on Wednesday. The response was gratifying, to say the least. Not only did we get lots of casual readers, but:
1. Non-comics readers often seemed to like it better than comics readers.*
2. We got two extremely detailed critiques. They were delivered in a tone of semihostility because that's how hardcore critiques always come across, especially when both critic and criticee have been drinking. However, the very fact that they were worthy of critiquing at all, and from such high-caliber talents as did the critiquing, is a tremendous compliment in and of itself. We were agreed on basic principles; that there was something that this comic was doing right, that the basic storyline was clear, that it was enjoyable and pleasant to read and that they finished reading it because they were genuinely interested in what happened.
Those are the most important parts. You can do anything with that stuff alone. What comes after that is details.
They had some things to say about the details.
There is universal agreement that the big Cthulhu fight scene does not work, that the "Stars are Right" page does not express enough time passing, that certain occasional weaknesses in figure drawing makes it difficult to identify the main character. That part is very true -- the main character is mostly knowable because people keep calling him by name, which causes you to wonder which of the many people on the page he is. We're doing a comic book about a rapper travelling back in time, so naturally he changes costume every page. This is an artistic challenge that we did not quite rise to.
They agree that the comic could be longer -- one person says we could get another four pages out of it, the other saying we could get twenty-four. I agree with the four pages one, and the version that you here on the internet see will reflect that. So you'll always wonder, internet. You'll always wonder which pages are new.
The meta-story was of absolutely no interest to anyone, but that's not surprising. The meta-story isn't really even meant to be noticed exactly. It's just meant to be there.
Starting the comic with a giant block of text that the reader is not actually supposed to read is a terrible structural weakness and one which I am not apt to make again. Busta's declaration of "Didn't you read the prologue?" is easily the most essential block of text in the book, and if the reader misses it the whole thing falls apart.
One critic felt that we were not fair to Lovecraft -- that we pin all this cosmic catastrophe on him and that he exists in the story only to get beat on. He never really gets his licks in, Busta just shows up and lays a whuppin' on him, and then it's over.
Nobody mentioned the dialogue at all, never got one complaint that Busta wouldn't say that or Lovecraft wouldn't say that. That's high praise indeed, now that I think about it. Almost all of the criticism was of the plot and storytelling.
3. There is no number three, but it always feels like lists should have a number three. Let's go back to the asterisk in number 1 -- why non-comics-readers took to the comic so quickly and easily. It's partially name recognition -- we're piggybacking here on two other human beings who both invested substantial effort into creating a character, but it helped that our demo comic, our "zine" if you will, is not actually comics-shaped, just a big piece of 11x17 paper folded in half.
Bright, bright pink wedding paper. Wedding-invitation colored.
There's nothing on the cover except for the words Busta/Lovecraft and a picture of Lovecraft and a picture of Busta. There's nothing on the back except for a picture of a woman's butt, our web sites, and in big letters across the bottom "WORD IS BOND." So it's simple, and relatively nonthreatening. We chose pink because it is the punkest color, because it has the quality of being nonthreatening to women but challenging to men. Men as a general rule do not want to read pink books. So we made them. Take your medicine, boys! We're trying to piss off everybody and that includes you.
Well, since I've read about the hacker attacks on LJ I've decided to try to blog a bit more, because hey those guys deserve fiction as they try to break the fascist capitalist vampire bear hug that Putin has on their poor souls. Good luck, fellas. America will root for you if you root for us (well even if you don't but I can't miss this opportunity to say that America could use some help too if anybody from Europe is listening. Save us both if you please).
