PJ Holden's Blog

This was drawn for a digital comic movie thing, for Dan Whitehead. They sent me tickets and I forgot to watch the movies. Because I’m stupid.

Now, I come not to bury the art on this strip, it’s possible you, dear reader, like it, and for that I’m grateful. But it’s a monumental failure – on the primary basis that … well, it’s not what I was going for.

I wanted the heavy black inks of Kevin Nowlan, instead I got the heavy black inks of me trying to ape Kevin Nowlan using a mop from a distance of 10 yards away from the page.

I like the face on Panel 2, but that’s really all I like.

I’m attempting (as of this writing) to go back to do some traditional inks, but I really feel I’m gonna have to relearn from the ground up. My eyes are not what they were (god, I’ve got two strengths of reading glasses now, one of which is good for drawing but everything at the boundaries of my vision looks like it was shot by sam raimi in over the top mode) and my fingers/hands lack the control of my youth – I’d like to blame that on the arthritis (which I’ve had for over a decade) but the reality is I’ve just lost my touch.

My inking tool of choice in the old days was a Daler Rowney Sapphire 10/0 rigging brush a super fine, super small brush that I could make dance all over the page. I was pretty good with it, but it got harder and harder to get a decent quality brush (they were so small and delicate that one stray hair could ruin the brush) so I shifted up to thicker brushes (as my eyesight got worse) until I was at a size 2.

I used a brush like a pen, drawing freely – when I had a thicker Sable brush I’d find the lines just turned out horribly thick and unsubtle. I couldn’t use it right.

Anyway, that’s all to say – there’s some art work. 

Ok. Two days is a pretty respectable time period for a response. 

I can’t share it all (not yet anyway) but the gist is: “It has potential, but feels a bit underdeveloped at the moment”

I think the synopsis was stronger than the script, to be honest – certainly the synopsis honed in on certain elements and ignored others that were in the script- and the script added characters that weren’t important enough to fit in the synopsis. I think in my gut I knew they were superfluous but I couldn’t see how to get from A to D without these guys distracting you with a little dance in B and C – and Matt spotted that sharpish.

So, I’m doing a rewrite. Or really, I’ve rethought it, dropped those characters and refocused on the core emotion of the story (I’m not really sure I’d grasped the core emotion until I’d written it twice).

In order to amuse myself and keep track of them, I named the two unimportant characters Bert and Ernie – names the readers would never have seen. Not named after the Sesame Street Bert and Ernie, but after the Bert and Ernie from It’s A Wonderful Life  who were also the template for their characters.

(I should have called then Rosencratz and Guildenstern)

Here is the entirety of their scene (now excised):

Panel 1

We’re at the opening to a room past the greenhouse, if we can see anything inside it’s shadowy (but it’s Bert and Ernie going through valuables).

Dialogue (from room): ’Ere, what do you fink this is worth?

Panel 2

Inside the room. Bert and Ernie are talking – they both have holdall bags Ernie has a torch, Bert is holding up a small ornament of a plant. Ernie is looking at another ornament of a small dog.

Ernie: I dunno, do I?

Ernie: Just stick it in the bag.

Panel 3

There’s a noise from the direction of the greenhouse. Ernie is startled, Bert ignoring it, has picked up another worthless ornament.

Ernie: Wait… you hear that?

Ernie (link): I think it came from the green house…

Bert:  Oh this is nice.

Panel 4

It’s silent. Ernie is looking suspiciously towards the out-of-frame greenhouse.

Ernie: if he’s done the old bird in…

[ENDS]

Anyway, away they go. I’m not as disheartened as I thought I would be – a two day response is good. Matt read the script from the synopsis- I buried enough caveats in the opening email he could easily just replied “thanks giving it a miss” and promising is pretty good start for any script. I’m also pretty confident I can address the suggestions easy enough to make a stronger more emotional story. But I’ll sit on it a few more days before sending a revised version on the Monday.

Farewell Bert and Ernie, we hardly knew ye…

Drinking. from a bonkers Garth Ennis script, my first official DC work (not my last, but you’ll hear about that soon enough…) You can tell I was trying to impress an editor given how I went all out with greyscale and everything…

Things I ‘ave been drawing … BOOTS!

Start with super roughs, basically zooming in to the layouts I did. Then I tighten them up a little. Just to build on in the next rough pencil stage. Then a final pencil stage tightens it up (and ..er.. if necessary I trace any photo reference i need)

Pencils partially complete at time of posting (I’m literally in the middle of them as I post this, but the whole page should be finished by the time you see it!)

So I’m at the waiting-for-response stage of submission.

Everyone who’s submitted stuff to an editor goes through it, you submit and wait and wait. I have some sympathy for anyone sending scripts unsolicited through the post to the slushpile, a slushpile I may even have art still in the bottom section of (certainly I got given a gig from a con while my art was in the post)

I’m hoping professional courtesy means Tharg looks at my sub quickly and doesn’t just curse my name – I think I’ve sent him a couple of Dredd ideas in the past that were rejected fairly quickly (and I sent a James Bond script idea to an editor I’d just finished drawing a bond book for and got an almost immediate no – so quick, in fact,  there’s no way it was read.)

I like a quick no. It’s good, move on, almost no pain.

I’ve talked to a few people about the submission I’ve sent and they like it, so that’s pleasing (even my old mate Gordon got excited about some of the possibilities for it).

I do know one writer who’d sent a submission in, got accepted and then proceeded to post large chunks of it online, and then founds their idea had gone from yes to no, if you’re wondering why I’m being a little circumspect even now, to you, my most secret of chums.

Will let you know if I get anything tomorrow.

Gorgeous looking space thing, adding it to “space backgrounds”

Well, alien isn’t quite right, but I’m fascinated by anything that feels like it comes from another planet (or simply culture) I like this a lot.

I’ve sent something to 2000AD editor Matt Smith, a pitch for a Tharg’s Terror Tale…

If you’re interested, the synopsis reads:

Roots:

A drug addict prodigal son returns home – but only to steal what he can. His mother’s pride and joy, after her son, has always been her green house. After her son left the plants died until she stumbled across a mysterious black bottle, molded with an octopus design and containing a deep dark, almost alive, ink. She’s been feeding the plants, a drop a day on this substance. When the son attempts to deal with his mother, in the green house the plants attack him. And become part of him. He’s home and he will never, ever leave again.

If he goes for it, it includes three other one sentence pitches for more horror stories that all use the black ink as a lynchpin. The bottle might be several thousand years old and the black, living ink may well be the ink of the great god Cthulhu… 

I’ve a good working realtionship with 2000ad, but that doesn’t mean a pitch is a cert, what it means, to me, is I have a certain amount of goodwill built up for a pitch that I risk pissing away every time I send a stupid bloody idea. So the pressure is on. The pitch included the full script. If Matt accepts/rejects I’ll let you know. And if it’s a NO I’ll post the script here. I think it stands up and will draw it myself, goddammit, even if I’m not being paid for it…!

Been asked in DM to explain why I’m so agin’ ComicsGate – the simple answer is that I’ve watched the group form, I’ve seen the people who it attracts, I’ve seen who they attack and I want absolutely nothing to do with it.

I’ve seen how groups like that form, I’ve watched as a hardcore of lunatics form a defensive wall of less-mad-but-still-dangerous and then surround themselves with people just having a good time. The further out from the centre the more “reasonable” they become.  BUT …

I’m from NI, where we have groups and organisations like that around every corner. Where no-one cares what religion you are, until you’re at a party one night and someone tells you about the time they ran down a “taig” who was scared shitless, and you sit nodding, because …

you’re a taig (ie a catholic).  I’ve lived surrounded by people from a different community and got on great with them, until one lunatic with a petrol bomb decided catholics shouldn’t exist.  I’ve worked with nice, lovely people who have best friends who are catholics who would never treat you differently, except when they say the 12th of july, they mouth it silently to you because… well, you know… you’re not really part of that group.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely sure there are protestants who’ve had near identical if inverse experiences to me.   Blokes on a night out with some mates thats all just a laugh until one of them finds out they’re not from around here and then the jokes about how close their eyes are together, how they’re a left-footer, and then shouting out irish slogans and then fights.. ANYWAY, if you wonder why I want nothing to do with CG thats why – there’s a stink of sectarianism that reeks so high from there (the use of exclusive language “SJW” – you use that phrase unironincally, you’re signalling you’re part of the group – you bridle at hearing it then it’s a shibboleth – marking you as an outsider)  The CG has formed a defensive wall around its beliefs, anyone not part of the group is ipso facto attacking the group.  Again: I say – I want no part of it. I’ll steer clear, thank you, of that group (it’s ok, I promise, you won’t miss me)  Personally, if asked, I’d advise everyone who wants nothing to do with it to walk a wide berth around it, but I’m no one else’s keeper so I equally don’t have to explain why anyone else does anything. 

(Feel certain it’ll only be a matter of minutes before I regret posting this at all)

There’s been a fair amount of hubub about the various comic pros being paid vast sums to do things on substack. Now there’s good arguments to be had for the morality of taking substacks money, but there are good arguments to be had for the morality of taking any large amount of money from any giant tech company. (And where does that leave my spotify subscription if I decide to take the moral high ground?)

Anyway, the issues are complex, and to be honest, I’m ill placed to make a call. As far as I can tell the people taking the money have weighed it up, and decided to go with it. Nothing I’m gonna do will change their mind (I mean unless I act like an obnoxious a-hole to them on twitter and convince to change their mind, but let’s face it we all know that won’t work)

So let’s put that issue aside and move on to what’s on offer. Near as I can tell substack have contacted writers (because it’s a newsletter so writers are hte obvious choice) and given them a big wodge of cash – figures I’ve heard have been in the 100k+ range to do what ever they like as long as it’s aimed at their comic reading audience.

Some have decided to parlay that into paying artists to make creator owned comics (good call) but, for me, at any rate, it doesn’t represent very good value for money (and they  don’t need my $7, the comic will happen without me) but they’ll almost certainly collect them in print. So that’s fine, I’ll skip that.

It’s been funny to watch each of the people contacted created a newsletter that’s very much them – Jonathan Hickman’s newsletter offering is the most Johnathan Hickman you’ll ever see in your life.

Scott Snyder’s has been the only one I think offering an interesting value proposition – rather than comics, Scott’s offering a comic ‘school’ – now, its massively subscribed, so you’re NOT gonna get one to one or anything like that, but it may well turn into a community like the old comic book days and that’s interesting to me. But so is the learning to write aspect of it.

Thomas (my youngest son – aged 13) has been writing and drawing books of his own since before he can write (he’d literally get me to staple some pages together for a book, draw pictures in each page and dictate the story to me to write in for him – we have about 30-40 of these books and they’re delightfully daffy)

So for him, writing and drawing a story is simply a matter of coming up with a title and an idea and just banging through it until it’s down. I deeply admire him for it.

For me, when it comes to writing I’ve successfully avoided making any sort of committed stab at it. The last thing I tried to write, that was any sort of meat to it was a Bond style Thriller (was actually a Bond strip, but good rejected because they weren’t looking for Bond stories when I pitched it).

I think it’s a great Bond and a ok not-Bond. 

But I did a whole process on it, writing notes, converting them to a story and then writing a script – I think I got a decent draft zero done (40 pages) when events overtook and then I put the writing away and moved on to just drawing.

Sometimes I’ll tell Tom a short pitch for a short story and… well, he’s starting to get fed up with me “..yes … but are you gonna do it?” “Uhm”

Anyway, I promise, I’m gonna try this year.