30th August 2009 / Wasteland / Pre-order / Anthologies
Two things to announce today:
WASTELAND Book 05
I don’t often mention solicitations for the collected editions of WASTELAND, but this one deserves your attention.
Book 05: Tales Of The Uninvited is a collection of ‘interlude’ issues — the one-shots by guest artists that we run between the main story arcs, and which aren’t collected in the regular book editions.
There’s a good reason we don’t do that, which is outlined in my FAQ. But despite our (oft-repeated) assurances, we still regularly get people asking us why they’re not collected, whether we’re going to put them in their own collection, or what?
So, we decided to put this collection together. Never let it be said we don’t listen to our fans.
The book includes issues #7 (with art by Carla Speed McNeil), #14 (Joe Infurnari), #20 (Chuck BB) and #25 (regular series artist Chris Mitten, working in full colour paints). It goes on sale in November, and can be preordered now from your comic retailer with the code SEP090939.
LAST DRINK BIRD HEAD
“What an odd title!” You may be thinking, and if so, you’re thinking exactly what I was when Jeff Vandermeer first approached me about this project.
LAST DRINK BIRD HEAD is a flash fiction (i.e. ultra-short stories) anthology benefitting charities working to promote literacy. It’s edited by Jeff and his wife Ann, who gave contributors a single editorial directive. It went like this:
Last Drink Bird Head.
Don’t think; just write.
So I did. And so did Peter Straub, Stephen R Donaldson, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Caitlin R Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Nicholas Royle, Gene Wolfe, and many, many other writers substantially more talented and famous than I.
I’ve read the manuscript, and it’s chock full of great, imaginitive pieces. Plus, you know, charidee. Keep an eye on Jeff’s blog for more updates, and I’ll announce here when the book is available.
26th August 2009 / Wasteland / Musings
It was my birthday yesterday. I spent it working, as is often the case, but I’m off to Paris next weekend, so that’ll do me. Briefly, then:
WASTELAND: THE APOCALYPTIC EDITION, Vol I is en route from the printers. The Oni web site had it scheduled for arrival in stores today, but with hardcovers (which are printed outside the US) these dates are only ever an estimate, especially as the books have to clear customs. But it’s definitely on the way, and of course I’ll announce it the moment we know when it will reach stores.
I finished the script for WASTELAND #29 this week, and we sent WASTELAND #26 to press, so expect that in stores soon. Issue #29 is all about Dexus, and he’s always fun to write.
I’m also very close to finishing the ‘Zero Draft’ of cold war spy thriller THE COLDEST CITY, which I’ve mentioned before.
Allow me to explain what a ‘Zero Draft’ is.
The first stage of any story is the outline. I tend to lengthier outlines than some writers, but it’s inevitable that things will change as I write, no matter how detailed the outline is.
The next stage is writing basic dialogue and blocking out major scene directions; this often consists of rough, on-the-nose speech and just an indication of where the scene takes place. It’s the writing equivalent of a guide vocal, if you will. If something major happens, like a character shooting someone, I include that. But if it’s a talking heads scene, with no real need for detailed action description, I just write the dialogue.
Why not write all the panels in full? Because things change. I might get halfway through, then come up with a great idea that necessitates altering scenes in the first half. I might get to the end, only to realise I need to set something up halfway through. Whole characters and scenes can appear, disappear or be changed wholesale. But if you start making those changes immediately, before finishing the rest of the script, more often than not you’ll get bogged down, lose momentum, and never finish. Instead, I just make a note about what I want to change and press on.
So the Zero Draft allows me to get the skeleton of the script finished. It’s much easier to look at a story and see what needs revising once the whole thing is in place, even if you know a lot of it will change.
And a big advantage of this method is speed; in the Zero Draft stage, I can power through twenty pages in a good day. Of course, it’s a complete mess, and not fit for anyone but me to read. It wouldn’t even make sense to most people. But it gives me a whole story to look at and start revising… which is the next stage, followed by writing all the panels out in full, then polishing and polishing again until the first true draft is ready.
Anyway. Happy birthday to me; have an amusing Internet site to celebrate.
14th August 2009 / Interviews
There’s a new interview with me up at BleedingCool.com. It’s quite long and covers a multitude of subjects including WASTELAND, my background in roleplaying games, adapting LIGHT OF THY COUNTENANCE, writing WOLVERINE, making music, writing for videogames with DEAD SPACE, the advent of digital comics and more. I also coin the term “detuned comics” to describe WASTELAND, and the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a really good fit…
The interview was conducted by Matthew Dick from the comics blog Exquisite Things, where the interview is also reprinted along with his original intro.
(Matthew is also the guitarist and main songwriter for Analysis of Bison Kills, an awesome British doom/sludge metal band. If you like the kind of stuff I do for the WASTELAND soundtrack, you should check them out.)
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