Category: process

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Annotated: Batman/Plastic Man in “Bending The Rules” from Batman: Urban Legends #15

To paraphrase Vince Gilligan who is probably paraphrasing someone else, “I don’t enjoy writing so much as I enjoy having written.”

Part of that is because I can see how the finished product came out versus my grand plans at the conceptual stage, figure out where I could have improved, and make the next thing that much better.

To that end, since it’s now available for reading on DC Universe Infinite, I thought it’d be fun to do some quick notes on my Batman/Plastic Man story from Batman: Urban Legends #15, “Bending the Rules.”

This is both for readers who may want insight into the comic-making process and my intentions, and also for myself to take a more critical look at the final product.

Batman: Urban Legends #15 variant cover by Riley Rossmo

Page 1

Two things immediately jump out to me here — Pat Brosseau’s used his own font instead of something you typically see in a Batman book, and I love it. Also, artist Jason Howard keeping Batman in shadow for the whole first page is a great choice.

Some Easter eggs here: the first is obvious, which is that “Dixon Shipyard” is obviously a reference to longtime Batman scribe Chuck Dixon. I believe originally it was in the script as “The Gotham City Docks” or something and at the request of Editorial I gave it a real name.

The second is the character upon which this story centers: Brad Sampey. Brad is based on a very real friend of mine. He’s got the build of a bouncer, very tall, very imposing. He’s a huge Batman and DC fan, and a very long time ago he told me it was his dream to be a bodyguard to the Penguin.

And so in my first DC story, “Catwoman: Pedigree” from the DC New Talent Showcase 2018, I made it happen. Unfortunately, in that tale, the Penguin riddled him with bullets in an attempt to take down Catwoman and Robin.

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This Is How I Wrote My First Book

“Writing is hard and takes a lot of time.” – Amanda Pleau, my wife, via Susan Conley, her mentor

When you see writers giving advice on writing, it almost always includes something to the effect of “finish something.” Meaning, don’t just start a bunch of projects and never finish them. This is the struggle, because if you’re like me, you get excited about NEW ideas at the exact same time you get sick of working on the OLD ideas.

And, if you’re like me, you’ve probably got a solid 20 pages of ten half-thought out books that you moved to your Graveyard Folder at the very first brick wall, like Han Solo dropping his cargo at the first sight of an Imperial Cruiser.

It’s easy to go, “Well, Thing A isn’t going anywhere, so what’s the point? I’ll just work on Thing B instead.” Sometimes you abandon things for one reason or another, but it should never be because you think it’s not worth it, or that it’s not a good idea, or you just read something else that is kinda-sorta similar to what you’re doing. Those are excuses your brain uses to trick you into abandoning something you’re not yet confident about.

My first novel has just recently been sent out into the world in hopes of finding a home, which means the manuscript was as solid as my agent believed it needed to be in order to (hopefully) sell. While this doesn’t mean it’s done (the future editor will surely have some suggestions), it does mean that, despite feeling like throwing in the towel constantly, I finished a god damn book.

It’s not a particularly long novel, but it’s a hell of a lot more words than get put into making a comic. No super talented artist to do the heavy lifting (sorry, fellow comic writers, it’s the truth—we have the easy/less essential job).

What it’s about doesn’t matter much at this point (if it sells you’ll be hearing me talk about it relentlessly, so hang in there), but it’s period crime fiction, so there was a hefty bit of research involved along with the plot machinations that accompany a mystery, so, it was pretty overwhelming to me as a first-time novelist.

But if you’re struggling to make it through that first draft, I’ve got the secret for you. The sure-fire way to finish that manuscript:

Sit down and do it, man.

I know, sucks right? It does. It really, really does. But that’s the only way to get it done, because no one else is gonna write that story except for you.

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Footprints: Bad Luck Charm Page Process (Page 5)

Only two days left on the Footprints: Bad Luck Charm Kickstarter, and we’ve already explored the behind-the-scenes of Pages 1, 2, 3, and 4… onto Page 5!

This page is pretty straightforward. The only real deviation from the script is panel 5.3, which originally called for a medium shot or so of ‘Resa placing her bet. Smartly, Jonathan conserved space and changed it to a close-up with an off-panel balloon. It just wasn’t necessary to show that many details, not when the location has already been firmly established and we can infer what she’s doing from the context of the scene and her dialogue. Great example of an artist being economical with space.

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Footprints: Bad Luck Charm Page Process (Page 4)

We’re only a few days from the end of the Footprints: Bad Luck Charm Kickstarter, so I’ll be posting the remainder of these behind-the-scenes pieces this week! We’ve looked at Page 1, 2, and 3, so onto Page 4!

Jonathan more or less rendered this page as I wrote it aside from two notable changes: he added a panel that helps build the suspense of the gambling and he chose a different angle for that last panel, which definitely works better (and is less complicated) than what I wrote. But the thing I love about this page is something that you can’t see from comparing the script to the final art — you’d have to be privy to our emails back and forth to have any idea about it.

‘Resa’s line in the last panel, “Cash in your winnings and never come back” is a nod to one of the greatest movies of all-time, Casablanca. But it wasn ‘t written in the original script that way; it was originally just “Oh, Devil…” as she tried to grab his attention. Continue reading “Footprints: Bad Luck Charm Page Process (Page 4)”

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Footprints: Bad Luck Charm Page Process (Page 3)

Since we’ve looked at pages 1 and 2 so far, I figured we might as well go the rest of the way and check out the remaining four pages of the Footprints: Bad Luck Charm story. Whereas Page 2 takes a lot of liberties from the script in terms of what Jonathan did with the art, Page 3 is a great example of how Adam’s lettering really helped the flow of the story in a significant way.

You’ll notice that Adam shifts the balloons around a bit, most notably Devil and ‘Resa’s lines as scripted in 3.2 to 3.1 and Devil’s line as scripted in 3.6 to 3.5. While the moves might have been related to space issues within the panels, they both help punctuate particular moments that would’ve been lost under dialogue otherwise.

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