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The skateboarders are back by the river-bank. The night sky is all fire-worked out and the cold's settled in. I cleaned out the remnants of new year's shindigs and post-party brunches this week. It was good to see 2019 out properly, among friends, with music, in conversation and stars lost in the backyard cigarette haze. Happy New Year.
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Since I haven't done one of these in a while. A quick refresher-
I'm Ram V. I write things. I draw/paint things. Over the past couple of years that's been comics and some TV/Animatiton projects. I used to be a chemical engineer till 2013. I quit to study writing, self-published my first comic in 2016, it was a collection of black & white crime-noir stories called BLACK MUMBA-- more noir, surrealism, less crime. Since then I've written things published by Image, Dark Horse, Vault, DC, Marvel and continue to do so.
Comics have been good. Writing has been good.
In 2016, a few London writer pals and I set up a co-working studio called White Noise. Since then, the kind of work we've done has been generally well received. Warren Ellis shouted out about the work and the studio in his newsletter. A lot of you made your way here from the always engaging ORBITAL OPERATIONS.
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WORK
The craziness from end of last year carries over into the new. I'm still figuring what is an optimum number of things to be working on. That is to say, I might have taken on a bit much. Which is not entirely a bad thing. It's forcing me to be organized and really cut down on inefficiencies in my routine.
Equally, there needs to be room for inefficiencies because it isn't a science and stories are not manufactured. A matter of experience and comfort. So here's a quick round up of THINGS!
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK
I'm taking the story/run over from James Tynion IV who begins is own excellent run on BATMAN (this week!) My first issue which picks up from where James' story left off, is out on Feb 26th and is illustrated by the excellent Kyle Hotz who is adept at making beautiful and nightmarish art. It's been a blast to write. Issue #23 goes out the door this week. This first arc was based off the inner workings of James' run. The next arc - which sits on the outlining pile - is where the wheel is in my hands. The power is intoxicating. Strap in.
Cover by Guillem March
CRIMES OF PASSION
I wrote a QUESTION story in DC's Crimes of Passion Anthology and while I enjoy the character and urban, psychogeographical crime-noir is really my thing, the highlight has to be seeing JP Leon's art on the book. Look at it. It is stunning!
I've also got 2 longer projects of the capes and tights variety on the outline stage. All very exciting stuff but on the horizon for now.
Two unannounced creator-owned projects are also underway. Anand Radhakrishnan (Grafity's Wall) and I are deep into PROJECT DAVIS that should be announced shortly for a realease in October 2020. It'll be an OGN which lets us do all kinds of stuff with format and story-size. It's the kind of thing that could only be made with all the freedoms that a creator owned project gives you. Back in 2016 I promised myself that I'd put aside time to do a quieter, more intimate book each year. This will slot right into that descriptor. Lettering on all my creator owned books is invariably by Aditya Bidikar - who I seem to have conned into hand-lettering yet another book, this year. When will he learn? Hopefully, never.
Also beginning work on PROJECT MECHAGORA with the amazing Evan Cagle, which falls into the sci-fi side of things. I'm watching designs and character sketches roll in. I am terribly behind on this and must apologise to Evan. Always a great way to begin a collaborative relationship-- by saying sorry.
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PLAY
This week!
I'm listening to
I listen to a lot of music. Often stuff that sets the mood for writing. My tastes vary from the painfully obvious to the unheard of and obscure. Be warned.
I'm watching.
Bong Joon-Ho (Parasite) in his golden globes acceptance speech talked about more people getting past the subtitle barrier. MONOS is a prime example. An absolutely stellar movie that restored my faith in cinema. I am content in the knowledge that good films are still being made far away from the blockbustering behemoths.
I also finally watched MIDSOMMAR. Which was good and the sort of stuff in my horror space. But it needed to end a little before it did. Which was also my review of HEREDITARY. There you go. Don't explain the thing you just spent hours trying to say. Applies to jokes. Applies to film.
I'm reading:
  
I also had a New Year's Party at my place. Look at all the lovely people. And a fabulous table.
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CRAFT
I hang out on twitter a lot. Probably more than I should. And I get asked about writing and not a moment goes by that I don't see someone giving writing advice. So, I figured I'd do something a little different. I'll talk about what I'm doing during the week. The peculiarities of process. The various ways of tricking yourself into getting past the tough bits.
This week, I returned to the basics. I've been writing scripts every week and haven't really had much of a break over the holidays. The brain gets tired and tends to fall into familiar patterns and repeating the same trick twice is boring. So, when I feel myself getting stuck, I return to basics. Specifically for a comic book script, here are 3 things to try when stuck.
The 10 things. This is a pretty good place to start. The standard 22 page issue tells a finite amount of story. You can cover a moment or years, but the amount of information you can pass on is finite. And regardless of the amount of time you cover in the story, the story must feel substantial. I hate it when I read a comic and it's done in 10 minutes. So, a good rule of thumb is to tell you reader 10 distinct things. Having outlined the story, I know what is covered in an issue. So I boil that down to ten things. If I don't have enough, I need to find more story. I can always whittle things down if needed.
Every scene has two reasons to exist. Having listed my 10 things, I write down small descriptons of my scenes. They are designed to fit the 10 things of course. But you can't have 10 scenes in a 22 page book. So, the trick is to have at least two things covered in single scene. And this ties in nicely with the idea that every scene has two reasons to exist. A makes a pivotal discovery about B while they're breaking into a secret government facility. C tells D she's pregnant just as we discover that D is a spy whose relationship with C is supposed to be a sham. 2 things at the confluence of which lies drama.
Everything happens because of choices. Of course there are events in a book. Plot. Things happening. People exploding. Bombs falling in love etc. But, the momentum in a story should come from character choices. i.e Story is driven by the things people choose to do, not by the things that happen to them. It can be a blurry line at times but going back through a script breakdown and checking to see if the characters are making pivotal choices is a good way to find momentum in the story.
Usually, by the time I've these three things, I've got a grip on what I need to write. If this fails, there's always coffee and making shit up.
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And, that's all I've got for you this week. It's the new year. The world goes on as it did, of course. Big scary things are always burning on the horizon. But find the things that bring you joy. They're usually in quiet places, far from the clamour and panic. I watched the carousel on South Bank take the night's last spin before Christmas.
It's okay to be silent and breathe and smile at the inconsequential things.
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