Month: January 2013

Last week’s comic represented a bit of a rarity for us, in that we actually went ahead and showed a person with his face half chewed off. For a comic named “Zombie Ranch”, we really don’t have much of a gore quotient, do we?

Well, it’s one of my pet theories that constant gore gets desensitizing after awhile. If you want blood and guts to have an actual impact on a reader, you dish them out sparingly. So we do. It’s not that we’re morally against showing horrible violence, so much as trying to find ways to make that violence be memorable when we want it to be.

Beyond even that, we make copious use of the so-called “discretion shot“, hoping to suggest things well enough to harness the power of your imaginations rather than Dawn just outright drawing throats being slit or people getting blown away by gunfire. Or Rosa vomiting.

Does it work? Well, honestly, implying rather than showing does run the risk of confusion, and we’ve fielded our share of comments over the years from readers who were left scratching their heads, or even outright misinterpreting what went on. It’s hard to tell just how big a problem that represents, since we might get a handful of such feedback at most, compared to a silent majority of hundreds of regular readers who never say anything. Did they fill in the blanks in the way we intended? If they didn’t, they probably didn’t feel a need to chime in with another “I don’t get it!”. If they did, they were probably similarly reluctant to post something like “Yeesh, come on, this is obvious.”

Zeke’s demise was probably our biggest example of this, and while I never expected anyone to figure out exactly what happened “offscreen” at the time, I reckoned by the time we got ’round to the glamour shot close-up, the clues would all be there to be pieced together. Yet the confusion still occasionally bubbled up, including people who thought Zeke had been shot. I just couldn’t understand that one at all, since Frank had very deliberately put his rifle away (on Suzie’s orders) and pulled out a Bowie knife.

But, you know, my first instinct is always that it’s somehow our fault. I didn’t set things up right, or maybe Dawn didn’t highlight some detail or other enough. Maybe we shouldn’t have tried to be subtle at all, that we’re just plain not good enough to pull it off properly. Less was not more, it was less.

Dawn usually takes the opposite tack and insists everything from our end is fine, and if a few people happen to miss out on what’s being implied, oh well. You’ll notice I’m almost always the one jumping into the comments with some explanation or clarification if people seem genuinely lost— most recently in, well, last week’s comic.  Sometimes I feel like I’m explaining the joke I just told, which, again, feels like failure to communicate. The audience shouldn’t need creator commentary to understand what’s happening, right?

Dawn’s probably right, and I make a bigger deal out of this than I should. The comic comes out slowly, and for a lot of you is hardly the only comic you read. Many of you who responded to the poll about that indicated you’re regularly following a dozen or more. That, more than anything, is the likely culprit for people not catching fiddly details or remembering sequences of events that in real-world terms “happened” months or even years ago. Hell, I constantly run across people (both online and in person) who get the characters’ names mixed up or can’t remember them at all… which I could possibly be upset about if I didn’t do the exact same thing with other people’s comics, even ones I really like. It doesn’t indicate lack of love, so much as lack of RAM. We think about a lot of different things from day to day. I happen to think about my comic a lot. Other creators no doubt think about their comics a lot, and yeah, I’ve most definitely been on the other end of the awkward conversation that goes more or less like this:

“Oh man, I love your comic! Especially the funny old guy, uh… uhm…”

“Mr. Snoozle?”

“Yeah! Mr. Snoozle! He’s great.”

From that point of departure, the creator probably figures the chances of discussing his subtle foreshadowing of Mr. Snoozle’s fall to the Dark Side with you might be slim. Last year I got the opportunity to ask Jaime Hernandez if his lady superhero group the Ti-Girls was pronounced “TEE” or “TYE”, and he proceeded to point out that every single founding member had a “TYE” in their name. He graciously did not add, “Duh!”

I ponder if he didn’t do that, not just because he’s a nice guy (which he was), but because at that moment, part of him was wondering if my confusion was his fault. I’m pretty sure it was mine. It’s one of those things that just seemed so obvious in hindsight that part of me wanted to crawl away and hide, and another part was chortling “You were baffled people thought Zeke had been shot, eh? NOW look at you!”

But, you know, I think even though obsession and geekdom go hand in hand, it’s actually rare for a fandom to be more invested in something than its creator(s), at least if it’s that creator’s personal project. And the fans becoming that involved is a definite double-edged sword, if you listen to all those creators complaining about feeling like they’ve lost control and that people are focusing on minutiae to the detriment of the actual story.

Well, we still bull on ahead with the idea of showing less instead of more. It’s just the way I like to tell things, and if we really are bad at it, then my hope is we’ll eventually get better. I was gratified recently by hearing from someone who read through the comic again and picked up on a lot of little things they missed the first time. In my wildest dreams I even hope that one day, someone will notice a certain subtle feature of Issue/Episode 1 that we put in… but I can’t even really hint at what it is without potentially spoiling the joy of a natural discovery. And on top of that, it could also be not half as clever as I think it is. It’s probably easiest to see in the print issue.

Ugh, even that might have been too much of a hint. It’s possible I’ll live and die with not a single reader ever finding it, much less letting me know they did. That’s all right.

But I won’t deny it would be damn cool. And no, before you ask, it’s not a sailboat.

There was a feature Wizard Magazine used to do back in the day, which many online geek sites still continue their own versions of: who would their speculative actor picks be for a movie based on a comic book? Sometimes the decision was based on the looks, sometimes it was the attitude, sometimes both. Sometimes it just seemed to be a person the article writer had a crush on, or sometimes they just seemed to be huffing crack. I mean, Jessica Alba as Susan Storm? In what kind of crazy person world would that ever be a good idea?

Oh.

Well, it’s not like my own tastes have been perfect.  I personally thought that Jennifer Garner should have made a great Elektra, and I had serious doubts about Heath Ledger being able to pull off the Joker.  I had full faith Robert Downey Jr. would nail Tony Stark, but really, that was some low-hanging fruit in predictive terms.

Maybe that’s one reason why I’d never really applied this sort of speculation to Zombie Ranch. Suzie’s character is influenced in part by John Wayne, but she sure doesn’t look like him. The closest I’d come to that sort of thing was at the very beginning, discussing with Dawn that Frank might bear some physical resemblance to Paul Newman. Not that Paul Newman could play Frank now, much less Andy Devine being available to follow up on the inspiration he provided for Uncle Chuck.

Plus, on the occasions it did cross my mind, I figured it’s probably best to let the characters be their own people, not chain them to the look and mannerisms of this or that real-life person (or persona). I once was part of a gaming group where the gamemaster always required us to pick some well-known movie or TV star for our character’s look, and while yes, that did make it somewhat easier to visualize, it also seemed somehow limiting.

Well, with all that said, I must admit I looked over at the TV while my wife was watching yet another episode of Revenge, and murmured, “You know, she kind of looks like Suzie…”

“She” being Emily VanCamp, though I think what really prompted me was seeing her in a disguise where she was without her usual blond hair. Once that happened, the face just fell into place.

On the show the character she plays is hardly what you’d call a working class rancher type, but the intensity of purpose is certainly there to match the similarity in look. Heck, her biography even states “she is a talented horse rider“. She’s Canadian, but it seems these days the U.S. outsources all its tough cowboy roles to foreign folks, so why not its cowgirls as well?

What difference does this make to the comic? Probably none, really, but after all my hemming and hawing, along comes Miss VanCamp and just unknowingly stakes her claim as someone that, yes, I could imagine bringing Suzie Zane to life.  Plus she’s not long dead (or undead).

As for the rest of the cast? Well, except for this and maybe Kathy Bates for Muriel, I got nothing… and I’m still not exactly looking. I’m curious though if any of you out there have speculated where I haven’t. What say you, have you had any idle thoughts on current actors who you might pick for a Zombie Ranch movie, were budget no object?

I put up a couple of polls regarding comic conventions around the end of last year. One asked what your main reason was for not going to them… lack of money was the clear winner there, followed by distance.

I hear ya.

The poll was meant from an attendee perspective, but from an exhibitor standpoint I could also add “need some time to recuperate” to the list. I recently got around to updating our live appearance list for 2013. Emerald City Comicon, then WonderCon Anaheim, the Long Beach Comic Expo, Phoenix Comicon… also just confirmed heading out to a Free Comic Book Day appearance, which I still need to add.

Might seem like a lot, but compared to some peers we know on the convention circuit, this schedule is nothing. They have times of the year where they’re setting up shop at some show or other nearly every weekend, sometimes at places hundreds of miles apart. Since most conventions aren’t really springing for hotel or travel expenses except for their biggest names, they’re also often driving to keep their costs down. I know one couple who commuted back and forth from San Diego to the L.A. area for each day of a convention rather than eat the cost of a hotel stay. That’s at least a three or four hour drive, both coming and going. Picture a show which might go 2pm-8pm on Friday (with a few hours beforehand for setup), Saturday hours of 10am-7pm, and Sunday 11am-5pm (now a few hours for teardown), and think about what time that leaves for sleep, much less anything else. But they were still there and smiling for all their fans or whoever else might happen by.

That is some serious commitment right there. Truth to tell, I doubt Dawn and I would be capable of doing the same. Certainly not on a regular basis, and then probably not while remaining bright and cheery during a nine hour stretch of meet and greet with convention attendees. And anyone who’s ever attended a convention as fans (including us) can tell you the bummer stories of meeting a creator who seemed grumpy or inattentive. I don’t wanna be that guy, the guy who drags down your whole day. It’s entirely possible I already have been that guy, but I do try not to be, and lack of sleep/stress sounds like a great way to stack the odds in favor of “hatred of humanity” (another popular poll choice for staying away from cons).

I’ve also never been all that great at traveling, especially long-distance. Some guys sashay out the door with some clean underwear and a toothbrush. Me, I fret about what I need and (especially) what I might forget. Then beat myself up when I inevitably forget something anyhow. I try to arrange the pieces of the travel puzzle as thoroughly as possible, stacking the odds against mishap, and yet still always feeling like something will go wrong until the pleasant surprise of arrival. It’s not that I’m afraid the plane will crash, it’s that I’m deathly afraid of missing the flight.

Now, take that attitude and add the complexity of transporting and setting up a convention table space on top of it. I’m fortunate that Dawn is much better at the packing and unpacking, and can, for example, take care of that while I’m reparking the car. But still, if there’s any kind of schedule involved I can never quite relax on most trips until we’ve reached the destination, and if there’s a convention on the other end that relaxation doesn’t truly set in until maybe 15 minutes or so after the table is ready.

I had hoped that this was merely the jitters of starting out, but after three years I think I just have to admit it’s a personality flaw… err, feature? that’s not changing anytime soon. So while I’m definitely looking forwards to Emerald City and Phoenix this year, you can bet I’ll have some stress in the transit no matter how much I get pre-arranged. Sure, sending a good chunk of our materials by FedEx worked out perfectly in 2012… but what about this year?

With how much of a worrywart I am you’d probably think I become an absolute basketcase when something really does go awry. And I won’t deny there is definitely some panic and harsh language, but between the two of us Team Wolf has managed so far to muddle through, get ourselves and our displays to the site in working order, and present a largely non-grumpy face to the public— even when Dawn had to be at Emerald City with a sprained ankle and a terrible cold (and on my end I had to haul everything from our hotel in addition to hauling her in her wheelchair).

A couple weeks ago I went back through every last one of these writer’s blogs that I’ve written since Zombie Ranch began, including all my reports on various appearances we’ve done. Not everything made it into those reports, of course, since I doubted the average Joe or Jane wanted to hear about how we ran out of the food we brought and were half-starved on our last day exhibiting at SDCC 2011… but oh gods, if you ever get the chance be more prepared than we were. Our only local option was the convention center’s hot dogs, which we’d already determined the Thursday before to be a fate worse than hunger.

Is it worth all the trouble? For a good show, absolutely. Like I said, 15 minutes after everything’s ready to go, I get groovy, and though we do love sales since they go towards covering our being there, as long as there’s some good nerdy conversations to be had I’m usually a satisfied Clint. That said, since we’re not aggressively pursuing making our appearances profitable, 2013 may mark the end of our live shows beyond occasional local Southern California events. Not the end of the world, especially considering I just got done talking about how much I can get stressed out with the long-distance wrangling… but Emerald City for instance really is a great show. I just wish it were closer.

I remember several years back, while I was still deep in the midst of my Left 4 Dead phase,  this delightful piece of artwork made its way to my attention via the various currents of the Internet (click the pic for the larger version):

Possibly just because there happened to be four kids in the picture, my friends and I were left wondering if it represented L4D fan art of some kind, re-imagining Bill, Zoey, Louis and Francis as kids. Except then that meant Francis was a red-haired girl with glasses, which, while a hilarious thought, probably wasn’t the intent. Some digging (because I don’t think the signature and copyright was on the version I saw back then) turned up the artist as one Jason Chen, but other than being a fun bit of imagination, it didn’t seem to bespeak anything more than one guy’s momentary vision.

Shows you what I know. Turns out there was an entirely new video game idea brewing behind this illustration, name of Zombie Playground. Zombie Playground Kickstarted itself just last year, an event which came and went without me or any of my friends realizing it was happening. If I had, I would certainly have mentioned it here. The bad news is it’s too late to contribute to that. The good news is that it reached its funding goal to at least get the minimum version they wanted underway, and if you like you can still donate to the cause through their main site (although without rewards beyond good will). Meanwhile this blog must serve as my poor, belated attempt to correct my own oversight.

The basic idea is the zombie apocalypse as it might be viewed through the wild imagination of a child, where your super soaker is actually a flamethrower and that trashcan lid and whiffleball bat make you king (or queen) of the mountain. Where those weekend karate lessons let you do axe kicks or throw Street Fighter fireballs. It’s exactly the kind of crazy crap I recall making up with my friends on the playground as a kid, barring the fact zombies weren’t really the en vogue antagonists at that time. It was the 1980s, so it might have been ninjas.

Point is, this is a great idea, and so far what I’ve seen of the development diaries and concept art really seems to be running with it in all the best possible ways. If you click on the Kickstarter or main site link you’ll see a lot more of Jason Chan’s depictions of the kids and their foes, which include some obviously inspired by the way stuffed toys or other mundane things can take on sinister features on a dark and stormy night.

That said, they wanted $2 million to really put together the game in a way measuring up to their vision, but managed only a little over $160,000 when the Kickstarter was done. It was enough for the Kickstarter to succeed, but the final game will probably only be a fraction of the tantalizing potential. Enough that maybe some more investors might buy in and let it fully blossom? I think that’s the hope, and it’s a hope I share. There’s a good dose of energy and imagination behind Zombie Playground, and while Massive Black seems fully capable of bringing it to (un)life with the funds they have, the game they could deliver with the funds they want sounds like something that could easily be a classic.

The main obstacle with webcomics isn’t getting them published. Even if you don’t have a lick of money to spare, you can score some free site space and start posting your creative output to the world.

No, the main obstacle is actually getting the world to notice you. If you care about that sort of thing. I’d say webcomic creators do, at some level, care about that, or we wouldn’t be putting up our stuff for public viewing.

But this is where it starts taking some effort, and quite possibly money, to make things happen. Sure, you can just concentrate on creation and wait for Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis or some similar person of influence to happen across your comic and like it enough to introduce you to their audience, but that’s a bit like hoping to win the lottery. Actually, it might even be more like hoping to win the lottery with a random ticket you found in the gutter. You should probably at least be buying a few chances at the jackpot, right?

That’s a lot of what advertising your webcomic can feel like. You put out a ping on the Internet’s radar and get some curious souls wandering by, a few of whom might end up becoming readers. There’s some comics that come pre-equipped with some sort of professional marketing strategy attached, and that certainly helps, but even then the Web is littered with the bones of comics that made a big splash, only to fade away. In some cases it even feels like it was the actual event of being noticed on a large scale that caused the breakdown. They won the lottery but just didn’t know what to do with all the attention. I know at least one friend who pulled the plug on his comic precisely because he started getting a lot of interest and couldn’t reconcile that with his ultimately reclusive nature. I know another who has had to (at least temporarily) take his comic down because he got popular enough that a company sent him a cease & desist order over use of certain trademarks, and now he’s got a fair use case on his hands.

I don’t think we would necessarily suffer from those circumstances, but there’s another nagging feeling I wrestle with… what if we don’t actually deserve to win the lottery? If our current resolution is to err on the side of having fun with the comic rather than stressing over it, should we even be attempting to promote ourselves over those innumerable other struggling creators out there who update more often, most likely with much better story and art as well? Look at us right now, taking not one but two weeks off for the Holidays, when others out there are still powering through. For shame!

This is a reason I’ve (at least for now) abandoned any thought of bugging the bigger news/reviews sites with our existence. If they find us independently and think us worthy of attention, that’s one thing, but my past experiments with actively reaching out have not gotten much result, and at this point I’m back to where I feel bad trumpeting Zombie Ranch if we’re not being “serious” about it. Poking at them would probably just legitimately invoke the question, “Wouldn’t your time and energy be better served getting a buffer built up?”

Then there’s even the subject matter problem. At a “how to get noticed” panel at a big convention last year one of the panelists said he won’t look at any submission that has zombies. Period. Or there’s the time awhile back I had considered submitting us to The Webcomic Overlook, since even El Santo’s negative reviews tend to show he’s put some time and care into them and usually have some constructive criticism to offer. I shied off. Firstly because it was around when he said he was no longer going to take suggestions of what to check out, and secondly because in his review of Dead Winter, he flat out stated “When I want to read about zombies, I don’t want anything more than over-the-top action and copious amounts of blood and guts.”

So, yeah, not a good sign for floating his boat, there. I admit, he’ll probably never find us on his own. Neither will Newsarama, or The Beat, or any of those juggernauts (or even semi-juggernauts) of geekdom– and if they do, they’ll probably click through a few pages at best before moving on to something more polished. But, that’s probably okay at this point. We have some people reading and enjoying, willing to follow along at the pace we’ve set. It’s like having a mom-and-pop store with some regular customers who are understanding when we want to close up early for Christmas, because they like our product and the atmosphere it’s delivered in. Spending time and effort on some massive promotional push doesn’t seem like the right thing to go for under those circumstances.

Mind you, it doesn’t mean I’ve completely stopped advertising and promoting… even mom and pop stores rely on more than just word of mouth… but sometime in the latter part of 2013 is when we’re planning to put together our first ever Kickstarter in hopes of being able to fund our first trade paperback collection. So as a New Year’s resolution, I reckon we’d best save some of our energy for that.