In the swirling madness of geekery we’ve found ourselves in lately (Star Trek: Lower Decks winding down, Star Trek: Prodigy debuting, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania trailer, first look at Kang, Jodie Whittaker ending her tenure on Doctor Who, House of the Dragon crowning Rhaenyra in the finale of the first season, Gotham Knights finally coming to a controller we can hold in our hands, and the 10 year journey of Black Adam making it the Silver Screen!), we thought it was appropriate to get a little personal. This week’s Blog is a collection of thoughts we have about our careers - together and apart - as they relate to comic books, specifically.
Why We Write Comics
… is actually a topic we addressed in a Jawiin Youtube video a few years ago when Jupiter Jet had just kicked off.
We’ve both considered ourselves writers in various mediums over the years. You’re looking at two publisher playwrights, two prose writers, two bloggers, two video producers, a professional screenwriter, a comedy sketch writer, an editor, two award-losing podcast producers, and two award-losing comic book writers - and we’re just two people! There were a number of years where our designs as writers were very similar. And that design was in the world of comic books and graphic novels. We were often featured in many of the same anthologies and collections until we brought the aforementioned Jupiter Jet to Kickstarter, a wider audience, and to the world of traditional publishing. When our comics first started being published, back in 2013, it was such a gift for us to be able to play creatively in a medium we have both been fans of since our early childhood.
If you’re good with numbers you’ll note this was around the same time we must have been percolating and planning for the inception of Geek History Lesson in time for the show to make its February 2014 debut!
At the time we were still fresh transplants to Los Angeles and wanted to figure out how we could produce and distribute our own work with as little gatekeeping as possible. Thus, the road to comic books was started down. Since our days entering publisher’s new talent competitions there have been endless diner lunches, late night walks, and meeting hunched over our respective laptops where the ideas to fill panels alternately spring forth from our brow like Athena from Zeus and need to be beaten back into submission like an overreaching Hermes who has once again flown too far from the point. Our biggest passion is writing. “Funny books” doesn’t exactly present job/work/career the way many folx may think being independent creators takes up a tremendous of time.
We get into the workload of producing your own art in our How to Start a Podcast Blog.
So, what does it take to write comic books?
Independently? It takes everything. Dreaming up new characters, scenarios, costumes, and word balloons all day and all night. Unbeknownst and unbeknownst. What this looks like varies depending on the individual. It even varies between us. Jason curates playlists and does lots of research, Ashley creates situations which allow the Muse to come to her. It’s what you do after the spark starts which takes the most discipline. We want all of our stories to resonate. As we frequently say on Geek History Lesson - “style over substance doesn’t do it for us”. Not only do we want you to be excited by the action on the page, but to understand what drives characters like Tamsin Kuhn Trakroo, Jacky Johnson, Mattie Moore, and Aurora Borealis to undertake these feats of strength in the first place. Months, if not years, of our lives go into each of our comic book stories. Everything is agonized over because when you are producing the project the quality of the work lives or dies by your hands. We’ve worked on several comic book projects which didn’t even have traditional editing. Under those circumstances we’ve been forced to rely on Ashley’s University Studies in English or good friends willing to donate an extra pair of eyes in exchange for a sneak peek of our latest adventure.
To be honest when you’re stuck in the minutiae of trade dressings and deciding which colour the spin of your trade paperback collection should be it’s super easy to fall out of love with comic books. There’s a reason important decisions like this - and they are incredibly important! - are covered by entire departments at DC and Marvel Comics.
images courtesy of Cameron Rice Photography
Sorry, we know the above paragraph can be a bit of a bummer, but it’s true. We want you to understand all the specific intricacies of making comic books. Ever thought about the paper grade the pages you’ve held in your hand is?
We have!
All that being written, what inspires us to create comics - and to keep creating comics? It’s returning to the love of the medium. Getting in touch with the little girl and the little boy who would read non-sequential issues of Superman or Robin because those were all the stories we could get our hands on and those were good enough because we could fill in the missing pieces with the power of our imaginations. Each panel tells a story and you better believe we would find ourselves reenacting, and sometimes expanding on, those same stories days later whether it be with action figures or all by ourselves. We hope our comic books bring the same sense of wonder and inspiration to you, the readers.
Yes, we’re still out here writing our comic books - together and apart. We put blood, sweat, and tears into each issue (though not literally, no matter how cool KISS want us to believe that is!), this is where our passion is.
header image courtesy of picjumbo.com via pexels