Broken Frontier

“Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?” But is living the creative dream all it’s cracked up to be? And, what are you dreaming of, really? Do you dream of being successful in comics? What does that mean? In this edition of The Story Factory I will attempt to answer some of those questions. I may not succeed, but I am happy to give it all I’ve got.

Is living the creative dream all it’s cracked up to be?

Creating, writing, drawing, inking, coloring, lettering, producing, marketing and selling comics is fun, right? Well, yes it is, but it is also hard work! It isn’t easy trying to create your own comic, even when you have 24 free hours in a day.

At this stage, I have one completed comic book story, my 10 page fantasy tale called Tiki’s Phayrie. I was shocked at how long it took to have 10 finished (penciled, inked, colored and lettered) pages done. From concept, to script, to finished comic took four months and involved one writer (Me), one artist (Michael Kasinger), one inker (Michael Cef), five colorists (Tyler Vogel, Mike G, Frank Cuonzo, Steve Harrison and Michael Toolan) and one letterer (Brant W. Fowler). This huge team effort delivered 10 great pages.

I loved seeing the final product come together, but it wasn’t easy. I had to pull together a team, motivate people who were getting paid $0 and ensure we met the deadline. On top of this, all of the work appeared to be for nothing when the book was dropped from the Fablewood anthology.

Tiki’s Phayrie went on to be published by Future Quake Press in the UK anthology MangaQuake. The final work was published in black and white; sadly the awesome work of five colorists was partially lost when I converted the files to grey scale in Photoshop.

I got a huge buzz seeing Tiki’s Phayrie in print; it was the culmination of a long held dream to be a published comic book writer. However the amount of work it took to make the whole thing come together was staggering.

For most of the time I have worked to break into comics, I have repeated ad nauseum that I am doing this for love and not money; that the reward of being published is enough.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but that is not the whole truth.

If you think I am a mercenary, or just up myself, let me know. Here is my reasoning; I have worked in media and PR for more than eight years, I have been an internet columnist for more than three and a half years and I have worked inside three comic book companies. Most people just don’t realize how much time goes into planning, plotting, character development, writing, revising and editing one 22 page script.

I work in the Australian media and I earn a good living from selling words, but my comic book words haven’t earned me much money at all. Yes, you can live the creative dream, but it’s unlikely you will live off the creative dream. If you really want to create comics, be prepared to work all day, then come home and start working again.

And, what are you dreaming of, really?

As a storyteller you deal in the fantastic, so focusing on reality is sometimes something that we don’t do too well. If you want to live the dream, you better define it early on, otherwise you haven’t got a goal to work towards.

Here’s my comics dream in a nutshell; to create my own characters and concepts, to write my own scripts, to work with artists to bring the scripts to life and to see my own properties published.

I don’t want to make a living from comics, but I also don’t want to spend money creating comics … so, my only chance is to hope that someone believes enough in my work to publish it. Luckily for me, there is at least one of these people in the world, so some time in 2008, my first full size creator-owned comic will be published. Sure, it won’t be listed in Previews, the print run will be small and the book will most likely lose money, but I will be living the dream.

The comic book property that will be published in 2008 is a supernatural, super hero horror book heavily inspired by the Underworld movies. More details will be revealed on my blog (www.jasonbereklewis.blogspot.com) in the near future.

On top of this idea, I have three other creator owned concepts that I want to bring to the comic book page … one day.

Do you dream of being successful in comics? What does that mean?

Success is in the eye of the beholder and it will mean something very different for each and every creator. At the end of the day, if you are churning the work out, getting your stories out there and having the time of your life … well, it doesn’t get much better than that!

Next: Minutes to Midnight.