S0CS - 20190130
Jan. 30th, 2019 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicI remember it was in 1985 that I started attending school in Toronto to work on my Ph.D. (which I never got, but that's another story). And it was around this same time that I was corresponding via snail mail with Scott McCloud and he got me into manga. Besides having him tell me about it and what he was getting out of it, I would at times mail him some cash and he would mail me back manga (untranslated in those days) from the bigger bookstores in NYC. No place around here carried them then.
But the bigger comic book shops in Toronto were starting to carry anime-related materials, including "anime manga" -- books created using stills from anime instead of B&W manga drawings, and then provided with word balloons (again, untranslated -- I wasn't the only geek willing to buy comics he couldn't read). It was these anime materials in Toronto that introduced me to Captain Harlock.
Not only was I fascinated by Reiji Matsumoto's unique drawing style, but the anachronistic mishmash of his visuals expanded my mind and helped wean me away from strict literal-mindedness in my enjoyment of things. Harlock struck me as so cool, he was the first time I was ever really attracted to the pulp trope of space pirates. Not long after, I got the first bee in my bonnet about creating my own space pirate comic.
My initial designs were heavily influenced by anime and manga, of course, but I deliberately drew upon other influential artists of those years to try and craft what I hoped would be a distinctive look. I settled on the name Vant for him, primarily so that its possessive -- Vant's -- would be a tribute to Jack Vance, one of my very fave SF writers.
Over the next few years, I found myself doing reams of research for the sake of world-building for this series. I learned so much about the planetologies of the solar system, the mechanics of space flight and space living... but never actually wrote my story.
I had my pirate but had no idea what he was gonna do. A few half-baked notions came and went and got discarded. One story made it to twenty pages of script before I lost faith in it. And then life circumstances intervened and derailed the whole project for years. But I never lost this urge to create a rollicking adventure space-pirate comic.
And then, several years ago, I stumbled across a couple of volumes of Valerian I had picked up in Toronto back in the 80s, and finally actually read them. And something clicked, and I wanted to make my space pirate again. Since then, I have completely re-done my world-building, this time more directly influenced by Vance -- the only thing that survived was Vant's name. (I still dunno if I love the name, but have yet to think of anything I like better...) And I have spent the time sketching and tweaking, trying to nail down the visuals of my cast and incidentals of their lives, re-thinking my entire approach to the tone and theme of the series...
....but I still don't have a story! I have my pirate but I dunno what he is gonna do! A couple years ago I got as far as a new twenty-page fragment of a whole new script before I lost faith. Really hoping that writing this down will shake my brain out of this time loop and get me actually creating an actual story that I can actually draw and actually get people to read!
But the bigger comic book shops in Toronto were starting to carry anime-related materials, including "anime manga" -- books created using stills from anime instead of B&W manga drawings, and then provided with word balloons (again, untranslated -- I wasn't the only geek willing to buy comics he couldn't read). It was these anime materials in Toronto that introduced me to Captain Harlock.
Not only was I fascinated by Reiji Matsumoto's unique drawing style, but the anachronistic mishmash of his visuals expanded my mind and helped wean me away from strict literal-mindedness in my enjoyment of things. Harlock struck me as so cool, he was the first time I was ever really attracted to the pulp trope of space pirates. Not long after, I got the first bee in my bonnet about creating my own space pirate comic.
My initial designs were heavily influenced by anime and manga, of course, but I deliberately drew upon other influential artists of those years to try and craft what I hoped would be a distinctive look. I settled on the name Vant for him, primarily so that its possessive -- Vant's -- would be a tribute to Jack Vance, one of my very fave SF writers.
Over the next few years, I found myself doing reams of research for the sake of world-building for this series. I learned so much about the planetologies of the solar system, the mechanics of space flight and space living... but never actually wrote my story.
I had my pirate but had no idea what he was gonna do. A few half-baked notions came and went and got discarded. One story made it to twenty pages of script before I lost faith in it. And then life circumstances intervened and derailed the whole project for years. But I never lost this urge to create a rollicking adventure space-pirate comic.
And then, several years ago, I stumbled across a couple of volumes of Valerian I had picked up in Toronto back in the 80s, and finally actually read them. And something clicked, and I wanted to make my space pirate again. Since then, I have completely re-done my world-building, this time more directly influenced by Vance -- the only thing that survived was Vant's name. (I still dunno if I love the name, but have yet to think of anything I like better...) And I have spent the time sketching and tweaking, trying to nail down the visuals of my cast and incidentals of their lives, re-thinking my entire approach to the tone and theme of the series...
....but I still don't have a story! I have my pirate but I dunno what he is gonna do! A couple years ago I got as far as a new twenty-page fragment of a whole new script before I lost faith. Really hoping that writing this down will shake my brain out of this time loop and get me actually creating an actual story that I can actually draw and actually get people to read!
