I'm not sure how to label this post exactly; it's sort of a meditation on the act of creating or being a creator, whether of stories, art, characters, etc. I wish there was a better term for what I'm describing. I see myself as a "Creator" when I'm making comic books based in a certain "universe": I'm the artist, the character designer, the storyteller, the world builder, everything. This catchall state has its own unique rewards, but also its unique problems. This one, in particular, has to do with the boundaries of the universe I'm creating.
I've come upon a phenomenon, when I'm drawing and creating in my head, I call the "Corralling Effect". No, it has nothing to do with collegiate group singing. Rather, it has to do with the fact that I'll draw a character/creature/setting, and instinctively try to put it into its own little world. I try to "corral" it.
It may be that I've got a previously existing universe or project in the back of my mind, and this preexisting universe just sort of sucks up whatever I've just done. This happened a lot in the early stages of developing Longshots, an amorphous franchise I've had bouncing around in my head for close to a decade now. The Longshots universe is an open-ended one; essentially the comics would deal with the characters flying around outer space, delivering packages or doing jobs, and ending up in various Star Trek-like situations: a planetary war, a mysterious stranger, an ancient tomb. The comic itself didn't really have parameters at that juncture. The story was so simple - i.e., four people in a boat washing up on random shores - that absolutely anything was possible. And so, for the longest time, whenever I drew a vaguely science fiction character that seemed compelling enough, I'd suddenly imagine them as one of the Longshots encounters. This was at first thrilling - I had plenty of episodes already lined up! - but it soon became annoying, and quite frankly diluted the tone of the comic itself. For instance, if in one issue I have them fighting a space monster, and the next negotiating a truce between two ancient enemies, where exactly do their own motives fit in? Why do the characters exist, except as stock placeholders reacting to the various circumstances? Star Trek was able to get away with this, because that was exactly its parameter: Captain Kirk and Co. were more like a Greek chorus for one weird situation after another (I know, they acted in and changed the situation, but bear with me). Their characters never really changed; it was the temporary characters who were changed by them. I would argue that, despite how iconic these characters were - Kirk, Spock, Scottie, Chekov, Uhura, Sulu - you could replace them with any six other spacefarers of the 23rd century, and the stories wouldn't have to change at all. Thus the original Star Trek could bear any story, from the most high minded to the most ridiculous ("Shore Leave", anyone?) without straining its own parameters.
So the rub is, in order to prevent corralling all stories and characters you create into one of your pre-existing universes, you have to set parameters on your story. Currently, I'm developing Longshots into a far smaller story, with more realistic parameters: these four characters are cargo freelancers ("privateers" is a loaded word) that contract themselves out to companies to deliver small and important shipments. As such, they have set waypoints between planet systems. They are constrained by money, time, and regulation - just like us, they have to adhere to (or disregard) certain legal codes governing the shipping industry. In the larger picture, my characters are very much small fry - "long shots", if you will - dwarfed by the enormity of the universe, government, and especially the shipping conglomerates that dominate the galaxy. They have guilds, but even these are prone to the food chain problem, with huge guilds snapping up smaller guilds or muscling them out of the way. The galaxy is a wide-open capitalist-frontier nightmare, where the survivors (not the success stories - just the survivors) are those who find and exploit new markets before anyone else can. Meanwhile, of course, the disenfranchised are becoming disgruntled - the galaxy is ripe for revolutions in its various fiefdoms and company domains. The question for our heroes is, will they stand? Will they ever find the means of self-determination in a dauntingly impersonal universe?
Bam. Parameters. Now, when I design a character off the top of my head, it doesn't immediately get sucked into the Longshots universe. It's free to go wherever.
But of course, then I run into the opposite problem - "pocket universes", possible franchises popping up every time I draw an image. I'm a compulsive storyteller. I can't help it. As soon as I draw something, it has to have a story. Even if it doesn't turn into a comic, it turns into a written story, or an album cover, or a one-off poster. An objet d'art. So what's the deal?
Well, right now my problems are twofold: one, my nascent pulp magazine, Tales to Befuddle. It needs stories. How do I solve that? Parameters. Okay, but what about the posters? Well, this one has to do with money - specifically, trying to sell my art. Posters are relatively cheap, both in terms of creative effort and printing cost, and you can sell them for whatever you want. So when I draw a beautiful woman, I immediately want to turn her into a pinup poster. For this, I just need to calm down and take a moment. For me, I can never make money off my art because, quite frankly, I can't force myself to make a sellable image. It just doesn't work for me. The impulse comes first, then the possibility of a sale. I created a poster called "Gynoid" just on a whim, after something my friend Anella said to me. It shows a naked, flying blue woman in a rigid, powerful pose, blasting a beam out of her left hand. She hovers in front of the word "Gynoid". No background, just a lush cyan I swiped from a Moebius panel (forgive me, Jean Girard!). I printed up one to sell to Anella and another huge one to adorn my room. Then I looked at it and thought, "Damn - I could sell these!" Since then, I've been looking for a sequel, something in red. But every design I come up with seems stilted and derivative - "Gynoid, except in red/orange/green whatever". And so every woman I draw gets coralled into poster-dom.
The solution? Quit worrying about making things out of pictures. Just draw. And maybe, serendipitously, I'll come up with another poster design. But the worst thing I can do is sit there an wrack my brain and try to "corral" all my images into their little universe. I've got to draw for drawing's sake; otherwise, I'll just get tired of it.
Rick Out.
I've come upon a phenomenon, when I'm drawing and creating in my head, I call the "Corralling Effect". No, it has nothing to do with collegiate group singing. Rather, it has to do with the fact that I'll draw a character/creature/setting, and instinctively try to put it into its own little world. I try to "corral" it.
It may be that I've got a previously existing universe or project in the back of my mind, and this preexisting universe just sort of sucks up whatever I've just done. This happened a lot in the early stages of developing Longshots, an amorphous franchise I've had bouncing around in my head for close to a decade now. The Longshots universe is an open-ended one; essentially the comics would deal with the characters flying around outer space, delivering packages or doing jobs, and ending up in various Star Trek-like situations: a planetary war, a mysterious stranger, an ancient tomb. The comic itself didn't really have parameters at that juncture. The story was so simple - i.e., four people in a boat washing up on random shores - that absolutely anything was possible. And so, for the longest time, whenever I drew a vaguely science fiction character that seemed compelling enough, I'd suddenly imagine them as one of the Longshots encounters. This was at first thrilling - I had plenty of episodes already lined up! - but it soon became annoying, and quite frankly diluted the tone of the comic itself. For instance, if in one issue I have them fighting a space monster, and the next negotiating a truce between two ancient enemies, where exactly do their own motives fit in? Why do the characters exist, except as stock placeholders reacting to the various circumstances? Star Trek was able to get away with this, because that was exactly its parameter: Captain Kirk and Co. were more like a Greek chorus for one weird situation after another (I know, they acted in and changed the situation, but bear with me). Their characters never really changed; it was the temporary characters who were changed by them. I would argue that, despite how iconic these characters were - Kirk, Spock, Scottie, Chekov, Uhura, Sulu - you could replace them with any six other spacefarers of the 23rd century, and the stories wouldn't have to change at all. Thus the original Star Trek could bear any story, from the most high minded to the most ridiculous ("Shore Leave", anyone?) without straining its own parameters.
So the rub is, in order to prevent corralling all stories and characters you create into one of your pre-existing universes, you have to set parameters on your story. Currently, I'm developing Longshots into a far smaller story, with more realistic parameters: these four characters are cargo freelancers ("privateers" is a loaded word) that contract themselves out to companies to deliver small and important shipments. As such, they have set waypoints between planet systems. They are constrained by money, time, and regulation - just like us, they have to adhere to (or disregard) certain legal codes governing the shipping industry. In the larger picture, my characters are very much small fry - "long shots", if you will - dwarfed by the enormity of the universe, government, and especially the shipping conglomerates that dominate the galaxy. They have guilds, but even these are prone to the food chain problem, with huge guilds snapping up smaller guilds or muscling them out of the way. The galaxy is a wide-open capitalist-frontier nightmare, where the survivors (not the success stories - just the survivors) are those who find and exploit new markets before anyone else can. Meanwhile, of course, the disenfranchised are becoming disgruntled - the galaxy is ripe for revolutions in its various fiefdoms and company domains. The question for our heroes is, will they stand? Will they ever find the means of self-determination in a dauntingly impersonal universe?
Bam. Parameters. Now, when I design a character off the top of my head, it doesn't immediately get sucked into the Longshots universe. It's free to go wherever.
But of course, then I run into the opposite problem - "pocket universes", possible franchises popping up every time I draw an image. I'm a compulsive storyteller. I can't help it. As soon as I draw something, it has to have a story. Even if it doesn't turn into a comic, it turns into a written story, or an album cover, or a one-off poster. An objet d'art. So what's the deal?
Well, right now my problems are twofold: one, my nascent pulp magazine, Tales to Befuddle. It needs stories. How do I solve that? Parameters. Okay, but what about the posters? Well, this one has to do with money - specifically, trying to sell my art. Posters are relatively cheap, both in terms of creative effort and printing cost, and you can sell them for whatever you want. So when I draw a beautiful woman, I immediately want to turn her into a pinup poster. For this, I just need to calm down and take a moment. For me, I can never make money off my art because, quite frankly, I can't force myself to make a sellable image. It just doesn't work for me. The impulse comes first, then the possibility of a sale. I created a poster called "Gynoid" just on a whim, after something my friend Anella said to me. It shows a naked, flying blue woman in a rigid, powerful pose, blasting a beam out of her left hand. She hovers in front of the word "Gynoid". No background, just a lush cyan I swiped from a Moebius panel (forgive me, Jean Girard!). I printed up one to sell to Anella and another huge one to adorn my room. Then I looked at it and thought, "Damn - I could sell these!" Since then, I've been looking for a sequel, something in red. But every design I come up with seems stilted and derivative - "Gynoid, except in red/orange/green whatever". And so every woman I draw gets coralled into poster-dom.
The solution? Quit worrying about making things out of pictures. Just draw. And maybe, serendipitously, I'll come up with another poster design. But the worst thing I can do is sit there an wrack my brain and try to "corral" all my images into their little universe. I've got to draw for drawing's sake; otherwise, I'll just get tired of it.
Rick Out.
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