Trying to Find a Comic Book Artist

Part 5: The Superhero Trigger Jams

To refresh your memory/bring you up-to-date: I put my prose projects on hold which included my novel-length story for Tales of the Honor Triad, and my time travel coming-of-age sports adventure turned conspiracy thriller) when a publisher sought me out looking to produce a graphic novel. He was in the process of negotiating with an artist to draw what I scripted when he disappeared off the face of the Earth.

But the bug had bitten me. After months of no response from the publisher, I now couldn’t give up on the revived old dream.

While losing money on one flaky comic artist after another, I was simultaneously trying to find an illustrator to collaborate with me on a series of superhero graphic novels. Amazingly, I found one. Not-so-amazingly, he quit the project after I got my hopes up.

That brings me to when another illustrator answered that same query I posted on the Gab comics group.

This artist said he was bored and needed something to do, but wasn’t interested in money.

Is that perfect, or what?

So, we exchanged email addresses and I sent an excerpt of the script.

In time, I heard back from him. He said the script had potential, and asked the kind of questions you would want your illustrator to ask.

BTW: I had seen some of his work (splash pages, cover concepts, or what could pass for them) posted online; he was the real deal. I also saw some completed pages of some sort of sequential art project he uploaded. It looked like one of those projects that us creatives do sometimes, not really expecting to publish, but just because -. Regardless, it showed me he knew how to lay out a comic page, and compose the images within the panels.

I answered his questions, assuming he would be sending some sketches soon. It wasn’t just my assumption—he made some comments to that effect. Weeks went by and I saw nothing. But he was doing this for free, so despite the urgency I felt to move along and hopefully get at least the first GN done before published thoughtcrime becomes a capital offense, I couldn’t really be upset. Well, I couldn’t (wouldn’t) browbeat him about the lack of progress, anyway.

I was thinking that when the first book was ready to go to the printer, I would do my first-ever crowd fund—Hopefully I would raise enough to pay for the printing and give him a nice lump sum. But he was adamant that he would not accept monetary compensation.

Every couple days I would shoot him a message on Gab. He would answer. We would shoot the breeze about something or other, but no sketches or anything like that.

So, having worked in a few different mediums, and bringing a small fraction of projects to completion, I know some stuff about creativity. If the muse is silent and the inspiration isn’t there, it’s tough to get your mojo working. And (though the few times I’ve had to produce for somebody else, I had my assignment complete before deadline, and overperformed in production) I know that nagging the creative person is not helpful. So I didn’t nag.

I touched base regularly. Either we would chat about a mutual interest (of which we shared much, as well as very similar worldviews) and not mention the project at all, or he would tell me he should have something for me soon.

He wouldn’t.

Weeks turned into months. Of course I had all the commitments and time-suck of a normal job, and tended to all that. And when I finished, tweaked, re-wrote and edited the first graphic novel script, I moved onto the sequel. I couldn’t just wait on somebody else to do something. I had to be productive with what time I had. That’s how I roll.

I continued touching base. We continued chatting, getting to know more about each other. Sometimes his comments were so esoteric or plucked from his convoluted inner monologue he lost me. Other times he was flat-out hilarious. If we weren’t on the same wavelength, at least our humor had significant overlap. He’s at least a bit eccentric. But then, so am I. So we had common ground.

Time marched on. He asked some more questions about characters—one in particular. I sent him my own crude character concept sketch for the color scheme, mostly. At some point I did get a character concept sketch back from him. Aha! My patience had paid off! His creative engine had finally started. The muse was whispering to him at last. Surely that old creative snowball would start rolling downhill, now!

Um, no. And quit calling me Shirley.

The months stacked up. Inspiration was not forthcoming, even though he definitely took an interest in that one character. And in some of the technology in the stories. He went so far as to research existing technology to build as much verisimilitude as possible.

For one reason or another, however (personal drama, assholes he had to deal with day-to-day, the weather and how it affected his drawing hand), I never got any closer to getting a single panel for that first graphic novel.

I inquired of him what kind of timetable we were looking at before some drawing took place. That question was never answered. I only received reports of what was preventing him from getting to work.

Rather than let my frustration get the better of me, I joked around with him.

He got really pissed at me.

That got smoothed over, and the waiting continued. More months passed. I finished the script for the sequel and began scripting Part 3.

I do need to mention that, as we did get to know each other through our Gab chats, I realized more and more that he was in a bad, bad situation. I offered to help him out, but most of my offers were rejected. Life really sucked for him and it didn’t look like it would get any better.

Time marched on. I finished the third script, and had the story idea for the fourth book swimming around in my mind. But I stopped there. It was finally sinking in that this “collaboration” was dead in the water. He was never going to start drawing what I scripted, and I felt guilty for wishing he would.

We still chatted and exchanged jokes for a while, but there was no point in talking about the project as if he was going to draw it. After one of our back-and-forths, he quit answering me. Then I quit reaching out.

And so it goes.

One thing at a time, sez I. I would concentrate on the science fiction graphic novel and try to get it finished before figuring out to do with my epic ensemble superhero graphic novel series, the universe it would introduce, and the spinoffs it would launch. Gotta crawl before you can fly. In my case, the crawling was through swamps and briar patches, but whatever. That joyful experience would have to wait, evidently.

To be continued…

Jeez, sometimes these recollections remind me of those depressing books (and Spiderman stories) from my childhood, wherein the authors were apparently too sophisticated for mere escapism, and directed all their efforts toward reminding their readers that life is a big turd burger.

Well, not so with my Paradox series, of which I am posting chapters for free on my other stack. Subscriptions are welcome, but I don’t force anybody to subscribe before they can read, comment, like, share, etc. Read the first few chapters and see if it’s for you.