Researching A Book

[pakx]

This is a catalogue of research for a comic book i'm writing with a local artist and a talented friend and editor. the comic is a Noir revenge piece, meant to be ongoing as a series.

if you've ever wondered how much research goes into writing a piece of genre fiction, Well, this should give you a good idea.


BOOKS
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by Walter Mosley
The Big Chill by Raymond Chandler
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Mammoth Book of Detectives and Screen Crimes edited by Peter Haining
No Country For Old Men by Cormac Mcarthy
The Road by Cormac Mcarthy
Zodiac by Robert Greysmith



COMICS
100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call by Brian Azzerello and Eduardo Risso
100 Bullets: Split Second Chance by Brian Azzerello and Eduardo Risso
100 Bullets: Hang Up On The Hang Low by Brian Azzerello and Edwardo Risso
Criminal: Coward by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Criminal: Lawless by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Criminal: Second Chance In Hell by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Criminal: A Wolf Among Wolves by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Criminal: Female of The Species by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Daredevil: Out by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil: Lowlife by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil: Hardcore by by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil: King of Hell’s Kitchen by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil The Widow by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil: Golden Age by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil: Decalogue by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil: The Murdock Papers by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
Daredevil: The Devil, Inside and Out by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark
Fell: Ferrel City by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith
From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Goldfish by Brian Michael Bendis
The Goon: Nothin’ But Misery by Eric Powell
The Goon: My Murderous Childhood by Eric Powell
The Goon: Heaps of Ruination by Eric Powell
The Goon: Chinatown by Eric Powell
Jinx by Brian Michael Bendis
Powers: Who Killed Retrogirl by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Powers: Roleplay by by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Powers: Little Deaths by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Powers: Supergroup by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Powers: Anarchy by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Powers: Sellouts by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Scalped: Indian Country by Jason Aaron and R.M Guerra
Scalped: Casino Boogie by Jason Aaron and R.M Guerra
The Spirit by Darwyne Cooke
Torso by Brian Michael Bendis



TELEVISION
The Wire: Season One by David Simon
The Wire Season Two by David Simon
The Wire Season Three by David Simon
The Wire Season Four by David Simon
Dexter Season One by Jeff Lindsay



FILM
Blast of Silence by Allen Baron
Brick by Rian Johnson
Bringing Out The Dead by Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese
City of God by Braulio Mantovani and Fernando Meirelles
Collateral by Stuart Beattie and Michael Mann
The Devil’s Rejects by Rob Zombie
Dog Day Afternoon by Frank Pierson and Sidney Lumet
Eastern Promises by Steve Knight and David Cronenberg
Fargo by Joel Coen and Ethen Coen
The French Connection Ernest Tidyman and William Friedkin
From Hell by Terry Hayes, Rafael Yglasias and The Hughes Brothers
A History Of Violence by Josh Olsen and David Cronenberg
Inside Man by Russell Gewirtz and Spike Lee
Leon The Professional by Luc Besson
Memento by Christopher Nolan and Johnothan Nolan
Michael Clayton by Tony Gilroy
Narc by Joe Carnahan
No Country For Old Men by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Old Boy by Chanwook Park
The Proposition by Nick Cave and John Hillgoat
The Road To Perdition by David Self and Sam Mendes
Se7en by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Fincher
Taxi Driver by Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese
Unleashed by Luc Besson and Louis Leterrier
The Yakuza by Paul Schrader, Leonard Schrader and Sydney Pollack

[Pól Rua]

I hate to poke fingers... but if it's gonna be RESEARCH, don't you think you're gonna need some NON-fiction in there.

I mean, respect to acknowledging your influences, but surely you're going to need FACTUAL information in there.

[pakx]

I hate to poke fingers... but if it's gonna be RESEARCH, don't you think you're gonna need some NON-fiction in there.

I mean, respect to acknowledging your influences, but surely you're going to need FACTUAL information in there.

Well, besides Torso, Fargo, City of God, The French Connection, From Hell and Zodiac being none-fiction, that kind of research is something else. that's just fact checking, not research perse. the kind of research you're talking about is something entirely different than proper prose research. this is about studying craft. studying what makes a good story. breaking it down. i've found non-fiction for that kind of thing becomes didactic and ultimately useless, with the possible exception of Stephen King's book, On Writing, which is in itself a narrative. i mean, what good is fact when you're dealing with fiction, right? it's like an artist or a musician, you study the craft of art and music by observing and analysing really good art and music. you become a good storyteller by analyzing and observing really good stories.

Now if i was doing a story about a cop, sure, i'd do some fact check research on the life of a cop, if i was doing a story about mayan culture, well, once again, but i'm doing an anthropemorphic noir revenge story. this is pure fiction, this is opera, realism for this kind of story only sucks the life out of it. i posted right at the begining of the thread, that i was doing a piece of genre fiction, genre fiction means research pretty much pertains only to other works of fiction from that genre, because there's no specific frame of refference in reality, no specific profession or event from the real world is being used as a motivation or plot point, so it doesn't make sense to research anything non-fiction, even though i have.

Also, this is a list of published work, any fact checking i do comes mostly from Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britanica, or some other simple research tool. not really worth listing out, you know?

[Darran]

Well, besides Torso, Fargo, City of God, The French Connection, From Hell and Zodiac being none-fiction, that kind of research is something else. that's just fact checking, not research perse. the kind of research you're talking about is something entirely different than proper prose research. this is about studying craft. studying what makes a good story. breaking it down. i've found non-fiction for that kind of thing becomes didactic and ultimately useless, with the possible exception of Stephen King's book, On Writing, which is in itself a narrative. i mean, what good is fact when you're dealing with fiction, right? it's like an artist or a musician, you study the craft of art and music by observing and analysing really good art and music. you become a good storyteller by analyzing and observing really good stories.

Now if i was doing a story about a cop, sure, i'd do some fact check research on the life of a cop, if i was doing a story about mayan culture, well, once again, but i'm doing an anthropemorphic noir revenge story. this is pure fiction, this is opera, realism for this kind of story only sucks the life out of it. i posted right at the begining of the thread, that i was doing a piece of genre fiction, genre fiction means research pretty much pertains only to other works of fiction from that genre, because there's no specific frame of refference in reality, no specific profession or event from the real world is being used as a motivation or plot point, so it doesn't make sense to research anything non-fiction, even though i have.

Also, this is a list of published work, any fact checking i do comes mostly from Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britanica, or some other simple research tool. not really worth listing out, you know?

Hi, no offense, but I couldnt disagree more. Firstly, those movies absolutely ARE fiction. Even though some of them may be based on actual events, they're still fiction. From Hell? If you think that's non-fiction, congratulations on finally solving the Jack the Ripper case :tongue: As for Fargo, hate to tell you, but there's not a factual thing about it. That 'Based on a true story' stuff was invented by the Coen brothers as a joke.

Ok, as for only researching from fictional works, that's one way to totally ruin your own work. Take the likes of Sandman, or Hellboy for example. There's not a whole lot of factual research that Gaiman or Mignola could find out about The Lord of Dream, or a big red monster-beating guy from hell. However, read their work and you'll see that it's littered with the offspring of non-fiction research, and that is why it's so successful. The stories are enriched by the sheer amount of factual research that's gone into them.

Studying craft is totally different to 'research'. So, you're working on a noir book? Well....if it's a P.I. kind of deal, you'd better know what licenses a PI needs, what methods they use, how much they earn (you dont want the guy living in a cardboard box) etc. Locations...every location you mention, you'd better know your stuff. As soon as you put a Walmart next to Big Ben, your readers are going to turn their backs on you. Ok...so you're dealing with revenge. Read books on it, both the practical aspects that have been notoriously over-used, and the psychology behind revenge. Does the character think he's driven by revenge or a sense of justice? There's two totally different stories there depending on your protagonist's outlook.

"it's like an artist or a musician, you study the craft of art and music by observing and analysing really good art and music. you become a good storyteller by analyzing and observing really good stories."
Sure, but if Alice In Chains are writing a song about drug addiction and overdoses, they're going to be writing about something they've either experienced, or have researched. They wont watch Pulp Fiction, then blindly put pen to paper.

"genre fiction means research pretty much pertains only to other works of fiction from that genre"
ONLY...if you want to create a two dimensional story.

"any fact checking i do comes mostly from Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britanica"
NEVER trust Wikipedia for cold hard facts. If you read something on there which you intend to use, double check it! Also, Encylopedias are notorious for falling out of date quickly, and supplying nothing but the very basics.

"i'm doing an anthropemorphic noir revenge story. this is pure fiction, this is opera, realism for this kind of story only sucks the life out of it"
Couldn't disagree more. You HAVE to know the realities before you can disgard them. The old cliche of having to know the rules before you break them holds true. Factual research can only strengthen your work. So it's an anthropomorphic story....have you ever read Maus? Watership Down? I dread to think how much factual research went into those books.

This isn't meant to be an attack, just a warning which I hope you'll take on board. Even if somehow you avoided the pitfalls in your work when neglecting proper research, you'd be missing out on the opportunity to strengthen and ground your work, or the possibility of a few great idea-inspiring nuggets of information.

Good luck with your series all the same, but you'll do your best work if you get the foundations right :smile:

[Pól Rua]

Like Darran said, this isn't an attack. I'm not trying to get on your case or anything, but like he also said...

You're gonna wanna know your shit. And craft is one thing... it's an IMPORTANT thing... but it's not the ONLY thing.
You're gonna wanna know your CONTENT.

It's a crime revenge melodrama, right? That means it's set in the real world, or at least a close approximation thereof. That means that, if you're setting it in a real city, you're going to want to know about that city. You may want to know stuff about police procedure, the underworld, makes of cars and guns, crime statistics, street subcultures, fashion, drug culture... hell, say someone throws someone out a window, you might wanna research how far a human can fall and just break his leg instead of dying.
You might want to know what sort of drill press a mechanic has in his workshop before you have someone tortured with it.
I dunno.
Stuff like crime melodrama is meant to be believed. People know it's fiction, sure, but if you slip up, you're not going to be believable. Even if you think nobody would ever be anally retentive enough to check something, if you've already checked it, then you're streets ahead.
Research and use of facts makes your work believable, it lends it verisimilitude. When you read 'From Hell', the fact that Moore has done so much research into history, architecture, the occult, secret societies, social structures. When a prostitute swears at someone, you can tell he's done his research on genuine speech patterns of Victorian prostitutes.
And he didn't find it on wikipedia, or in encyclopaedias.
He didn't do it by watching a bunch of movies set in the late 1890's or by reading a bunch of novels set in the 1890's. He RESEARCHED it.

Reading fiction is fine and dandy. As you say, it helps to examine the craft of other people working in the genre. But if you're doing that, you're only doing half the job.

Seriously, take a look at the annotations in 'From Hell'. That bespeaks a shitload of research. I'm not saying your work has to be an epic masterwork, but I am saying that the more genuine, factual research you can do... the better your work's going to be.

[sparta28090]

I feel that facts do have a strong place in the comic medium. Just as a poster pointed out that if your setting is a real city then you do need to have the geography down pat. If a character happens to be a "Cherokee Indian" then having facts about their culture is needed as well.

I am writing a comic script that follows a 16 year old. He was cursed by Merlin while stealing from him as his apprentice. The boy is cursed to always be 16. Now he is not immortal, he still gets sick, heartbroken and such but if he avoids walking under ladders and pissing off people bigger than him then he has a very good shot at living a long time, and having magical abilities learned from Merlin aides him as well.

Perhaps, I am getting too wordy here, but the boy does live and he has to move every few years as his loves and friends age and he has to keep his secret to himself for fear that his ailment would not be understood and he finds himself accused of being evil or a curse and that little scrawny neck of his could easily be found stretched or without a head. I have had to study olde english culture and since he is still around when Jack The Ripper was cutting loose then I have to have dates and knowledge about that. The story will climax a few presidents after Lincoln so i need to know all about that as well.

I do commend you on your reading selection because writers are also lovers of reading. It seems that your selection is a who is who in pop culture. Just becareful not to lose your own voice and your own ideas in what others have done before you. It is completely understood that some ideas have to be repeated over and over as that is how things work, but your freshness, ideas, and arsenal can and should give readers what they hunger for more than anything and that is a clever twist or breaking grounds that have never been tested before and found tested positvely.

If you have found these comments make you feel like we are busting your balls, simply don't feel that way. Ask yourself that if you explained your script or process alittle further then these comments may not have been needed if not then know that I hope you have learned from them because I know that I did and I
didn't even start the thread so thank you for starting it and for the comments the other posters have posted.

[pakx]

Hi, no offense, but I couldnt disagree more.
none taken.
Firstly, those movies absolutely ARE fiction. Even though some of them may be based on actual events, they're still fiction. From Hell? If you think that's non-fiction, congratulations on finally solving the Jack the Ripper case :tongue: As for Fargo, hate to tell you, but there's not a factual thing about it. That 'Based on a true story' stuff was invented by the Coen brothers as a joke. Didn't know about the coens thing.

Ok, as for only researching from fictional works, that's one way to totally ruin your own work. Take the likes of Sandman, or Hellboy for example. There's not a whole lot of factual research that Gaiman or Mignola could find out about The Lord of Dream, or a big red monster-beating guy from hell. However, read their work and you'll see that it's littered with the offspring of non-fiction research, and that is why it's so successful. The stories are enriched by the sheer amount of factual research that's gone into them.
Gaiman and Mignola are revisionists, they take mythologies and reinterpret them to suit a new perspective or narrative.

Studying craft is totally different to 'research'. So, you're working on a noir book? Well....if it's a P.I. kind of deal, you'd better know what licenses a PI needs, what methods they use, how much they earn (you dont want the guy living in a cardboard box) etc. Locations...every location you mention, you'd better know your stuff. As soon as you put a Walmart next to Big Ben, your readers are going to turn their backs on you. Ok...so you're dealing with revenge. Read books on it, both the practical aspects that have been notoriously over-used, and the psychology behind revenge. Does the character think he's driven by revenge or a sense of justice? There's two totally different stories there depending on your protagonist's outlook.
this is true, i suppose i just used a poor word to describe what i was doing here. "refference" or "study" would have been a more apt description. as i said before, i'm totally for, and constantly practice factual research for certain things, however for this piece of work in specific, well the workload for that kind of research was pretty light, however when i wrote a serial murdery mystery last year, i accumulated alot of none-fiction, such as the collected works of John Douglas, who was the father of Profiling, and Robert Greysmith, the famed cartoonist who became obsessed with the Zodiac killings. my point here is that i understand what you're saying, and i just think there's been a misunderstanding due to poor phrasing. i dont want it to seem like i'm being illogical or stubborn here.


"it's like an artist or a musician, you study the craft of art and music by observing and analysing really good art and music. you become a good storyteller by analyzing and observing really good stories."
Sure, but if Alice In Chains are writing a song about drug addiction and overdoses, they're going to be writing about something they've either experienced, or have researched. They wont watch Pulp Fiction, then blindly put pen to paper.

that's kind of a glib analysis of what i'm doing, and a little presumptive, but besides that, i'd say that "writing what you know" is more a guideline, than a rule. Phillip K Dick wrote brilliant and vivid stories involving Androids, but there was nary a microchip in the man.

"genre fiction means research pretty much pertains only to other works of fiction from that genre"
ONLY...if you want to create a two dimensional story.
again, that's a little presumptive, to be fair.


"any fact checking i do comes mostly from Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britanica"
NEVER trust Wikipedia for cold hard facts. If you read something on there which you intend to use, double check it! Also, Encylopedias are notorious for falling out of date quickly, and supplying nothing but the very basics.
i'm well aware of these facts, but as i said, any factual research i'm doing for my piece is limited to basic knowledge. i'm not writing a cop procedural, or an examination of a profession, i'm writing a character piece about a guy who essentially turns into a bloodthirsty animal. there are some frames of refference for that, but i'm not really painting this guy as a serial killer, so really, the nuances of my story really only have roots in my head.


"i'm doing an anthropemorphic noir revenge story. this is pure fiction, this is opera, realism for this kind of story only sucks the life out of it"
Couldn't disagree more. You HAVE to know the realities before you can disgard them. The old cliche of having to know the rules before you break them holds true. Factual research can only strengthen your work. So it's an anthropomorphic story....have you ever read Maus? Watership Down? I dread to think how much factual research went into those books.
Well, Maus is none fiction, and watership down, well, i'd be interested to see what went into Watership Down as well, to be frank, but again, these were analysees, one of the holocaust, one of the life of rabbits. there are frames of refference there.

This isn't meant to be an attack, just a warning which I hope you'll take on board. Even if somehow you avoided the pitfalls in your work when neglecting proper research, you'd be missing out on the opportunity to strengthen and ground your work, or the possibility of a few great idea-inspiring nuggets of information.
oh no, i understand that, and i thank you for the concern, i just dont want it to be misunderstood, that i actively disregard factual research or think my specific work here is above it, again, i think this has more to do with a poor choice of wording, because i dont disagree with anything you've said. i'm also not, in my previous statements, talking about any kind of grand theme for writing, i'm talking about what works for me, in this specific instance.

Good luck with your series all the same, but you'll do your best work if you get the foundations right :smile:

Cheers.

[pakx]

Like Darran said, this isn't an attack. I'm not trying to get on your case or anything, but like he also said...

You're gonna wanna know your shit. And craft is one thing... it's an IMPORTANT thing... but it's not the ONLY thing.
You're gonna wanna know your CONTENT.

It's a crime revenge melodrama, right? That means it's set in the real world, or at least a close approximation thereof. That means that, if you're setting it in a real city, you're going to want to know about that city. You may want to know stuff about police procedure, the underworld, makes of cars and guns, crime statistics, street subcultures, fashion, drug culture... hell, say someone throws someone out a window, you might wanna research how far a human can fall and just break his leg instead of dying.
You might want to know what sort of drill press a mechanic has in his workshop before you have someone tortured with it.
I dunno.
Stuff like crime melodrama is meant to be believed. People know it's fiction, sure, but if you slip up, you're not going to be believable. Even if you think nobody would ever be anally retentive enough to check something, if you've already checked it, then you're streets ahead.
Research and use of facts makes your work believable, it lends it verisimilitude. When you read 'From Hell', the fact that Moore has done so much research into history, architecture, the occult, secret societies, social structures. When a prostitute swears at someone, you can tell he's done his research on genuine speech patterns of Victorian prostitutes.
And he didn't find it on wikipedia, or in encyclopaedias.
He didn't do it by watching a bunch of movies set in the late 1890's or by reading a bunch of novels set in the 1890's. He RESEARCHED it.

Reading fiction is fine and dandy. As you say, it helps to examine the craft of other people working in the genre. But if you're doing that, you're only doing half the job.

Seriously, take a look at the annotations in 'From Hell'. That bespeaks a shitload of research. I'm not saying your work has to be an epic masterwork, but I am saying that the more genuine, factual research you can do... the better your work's going to be.

Once again, i'm not saying the only research i ever do is from encyclopedias and wikipedia, as i said, the reason those were used as my factual research tools is because the research i needed to put together for this story in specific was dreadfully light. this story is a fantasy more than anything, it's not a gritty, realistic portrayal, it's more or less a love letter to the operatic hyperbole of crime fiction, the animal faces come from the idea of everyone literally wearing the beast inside on thier face.

The other book i have on the go is about a literally endless city, my research for this title has been entirely different than my research for the one in question, i've spent days in the nearby university library studying architecture, spent far too much money on books about Rome, New York, Paris and London, as well as documentaries and memoires on gang related violence such as the crips and bloods, which lead me to study heavily on Spartan society, Samurai Shogunate society and native american tribalism, simply because in my story all these dead cultures are alive and well, now street gangs that vie for territory. my protaganist is something of an acrobat, so i saught out and interviewed local Parkour athletes, about thier craft, because i felt it might shed some light or bring some nuance to the character.

i'm saying all this because i want to make it clear that i understand that research often equals authenticity. this story here, is something else though, it doesn't exist in a frame of refference, and is, for the most part, chiefly expressionist, i guess you could call it a story for story's sake. that could not ring too well for you guys, but i believe in my idea, and will post up some script when i feel i've got it down right, so you can judge for yourself, and of course offer your informed opinions.

[pakx]

I feel that facts do have a strong place in the comic medium. Just as a poster pointed out that if your setting is a real city then you do need to have the geography down pat. If a character happens to be a "Cherokee Indian" then having facts about their culture is needed as well.

I am writing a comic script that follows a 16 year old. He was cursed by Merlin while stealing from him as his apprentice. The boy is cursed to always be 16. Now he is not immortal, he still gets sick, heartbroken and such but if he avoids walking under ladders and pissing off people bigger than him then he has a very good shot at living a long time, and having magical abilities learned from Merlin aides him as well.

Perhaps, I am getting too wordy here, but the boy does live and he has to move every few years as his loves and friends age and he has to keep his secret to himself for fear that his ailment would not be understood and he finds himself accused of being evil or a curse and that little scrawny neck of his could easily be found stretched or without a head. I have had to study olde english culture and since he is still around when Jack The Ripper was cutting loose then I have to have dates and knowledge about that. The story will climax a few presidents after Lincoln so i need to know all about that as well.

I do commend you on your reading selection because writers are also lovers of reading. It seems that your selection is a who is who in pop culture. Just becareful not to lose your own voice and your own ideas in what others have done before you. It is completely understood that some ideas have to be repeated over and over as that is how things work, but your freshness, ideas, and arsenal can and should give readers what they hunger for more than anything and that is a clever twist or breaking grounds that have never been tested before and found tested positvely.

If you have found these comments make you feel like we are busting your balls, simply don't feel that way. Ask yourself that if you explained your script or process alittle further then these comments may not have been needed if not then know that I hope you have learned from them because I know that I did and I
didn't even start the thread so thank you for starting it and for the comments the other posters have posted.
thanks for understanding where i'm coming from, and believe me, i have no qualms with being called out or challenged for my processes or my practices, if i did, well, you guys would have every right to bust my balls. a writer who cant take criticism is no better than one of those annoying people who cant sing, show up on American Idol, and get pissed off when they're told they cant sing. (not that i uh, ever watch that horrid shit, no siree, not this fellow...)

[Darran]

Well, to be frank, in your initial post you came across (to me) as a clueless guy who knows very little about writing. It seemed like somebody who doesnt know how to lay the foundations for a book, was advising others on how to do it.

Given your responses, I see that's not the case and I underestimated you. :)

Also, I must admit "chiefly expressionist" does sound rather exciting. You've obviously got a fairly clear vision of your book's direction, but for me personally, I'd play heavily into those two words. It'd be nice if you could focus visually in that direction too....something along the lines of Dave McKean's more abstract work.
Again, you know where you want to go with it, but the use of those words made it sound that little bit different. Always good if you want to get a book to stand out.

[pakx]

Well, to be frank, in your initial post you came across (to me) as a clueless guy who knows very little about writing. It seemed like somebody who doesnt know how to lay the foundations for a book, was advising others on how to do it.

Given your responses, I see that's not the case and I underestimated you. :)

Also, I must admit "chiefly expressionist" does sound rather exciting. You've obviously got a fairly clear vision of your book's direction, but for me personally, I'd play heavily into those two words. It'd be nice if you could focus visually in that direction too....something along the lines of Dave McKean's more abstract work.
Again, you know where you want to go with it, but the use of those words made it sound that little bit different. Always good if you want to get a book to stand out.

Cheers.

Standing out was never really the intention, i find people who move forward with the intention of simply "Standing out" end up at the podium of originality with nothing to say,because they spent all thier time getting there, and didn't prepare a speech.

Comics are a wonderful tool for expressionism, they have, more than any other medium of storytelling, the ability to marry a gently, purposefully broken narrative or theme, with any visual image that can be put on the page, no matter how strange or imaginative. the only limits are the imagination. that's so exiting to me. it's what makes me want to work in this medium, to tell stories in it. guys like David Mack, Dave McKean, Grant Morrison, Johnothan Hickman and Warren Ellis are just so appealing in thier mad genius. Mack, McKean and Hickman understand that the act of reading a comic is a kind of transportation, unlike a novel the world it draws you into is very direct, it's right infront of you on the page. and unlike a film, it isn't limited by anything, not actors, or budgets, or studio constraints, or demographic. Comics are a trash medium, and that lack of respect is very freeing. it allows the market to be open to new and bold ideas, and that's where guys like Morrison and Ellis come in, they take the purity of the medium of pictures and words, and use that tabula rasa as a palate for the limitlessness of thier imagination. it sends chills up my spine just thinking about the possibilities.

[Darran]

True, but the problem is that the possibilities are all too infrequently glimpsed when flicking through books at your local comic shop.

I think that comics more so than other mediums, is calling out for an injection of original genre-defying work. I work my way through plenty of comics and trade paperbacks, and while i enjoy them, there are currently very few which blow me away.
Much of the writing, even the good writing, is all too plainly trudging it's way through over-used concepts and strikingly average design.

It's time for comics to embrace originality, vision, controversy, in the way in which only they can. Not simply for the sakes of pushing boundaries or grabbing headlines, but to create new and exciting opportunities for up and coming writers and artists.

All too often the comics industry is preocupied with pushing the medium forward. That's not neccessarily the right route to take every single time. Let's take the odd sidestep, and the occasional leap. Hell, stand on the spot and spin around once in a while.

[pakx]

True, but the problem is that the possibilities are all too infrequently glimpsed when flicking through books at your local comic shop.

I think that comics more so than other mediums, is calling out for an injection of original genre-defying work. I work my way through plenty of comics and trade paperbacks, and while i enjoy them, there are currently very few which blow me away.
Much of the writing, even the good writing, is all too plainly trudging it's way through over-used concepts and strikingly average design.

It's time for comics to embrace originality, vision, controversy, in the way in which only they can. Not simply for the sakes of pushing boundaries or grabbing headlines, but to create new and exciting opportunities for up and coming writers and artists.

All too often the comics industry is preocupied with pushing the medium forward. That's not neccessarily the right route to take every single time. Let's take the odd sidestep, and the occasional leap. Hell, stand on the spot and spin around once in a while.

i would respond by asking you what you're reading right now.