Heartless Dark: The Blog

Okay, digging deeper into this conundrum, let’s start to look at the two models that comics have today, and how they could exist in this new world we’re proposing.

First off: The Ongoing Series

We’ve all read them or do now. Uncanny  X-Men is in the 500s. Thor is in the 600s. Captain America is returning to its 600s. Action comics is well into its 800s.

800+ comics have come before what you’re reading now? Are you kidding me? How the hell am I supposed to pick up a random issue and not feel intimidated knowing that what I’m reading is a composite/continuation of decades of issues that have come before.

Sure, comics relaunch, but they keep coming back to the original numbering. Hurm… Ongoing series are cool because you feel part of something bigger – but, let’s be honest, of all the ongoing series – how many have tons of stand-out stories?

Name the top Spiderman stories of all time. Can you? I mean, sure, you can talk about the Venom story, the Spider-Totem, Kraven’s last hunt – little bits of stories all along, and yet, none of them are in the eschelons of comic halls of fame. It’s too hard to make a story stand out when it’s part of a greater whole. Great arcs get overshadowed by what comes after it.

Heck, Grant Morrison’s New X-Men was amazing – brimming so full of ideas, he could have (and should have) spent another 4 years exploring them to their fullest (read: biggest problem with Morrison’s writing, great ideas, poor execution (Final Crisis) – but X-Men was one of his better). But what does Marvel do the second the series ends? Send in hack writer Chuck Austen to retcon major plotlines. A few years later, we “No More Mutants” and completely obliterate any goodwill and progress Morrison made.

Grr! Frustrating.

The cycle just keeps eating itself.

So, let’s talk about solutions…

Okay, so last post I proposed a radical idea. Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out. Basically, end the universes.

Now, you scream out – “But you’re doing what you just lambasted Marvel for doing – for ending any forward movement to ongoing series!” You know what? You’re right. Also: who cares.

They’re going to do it anyways. Retcons, retelling of origins, new crossovers, resurrections left and right – they’re just spinning in circles too. So, let’s cut that ball and chain of 40 years on continuity loose and let things go crazy!

Side tangent: They had the chance to do that with the Ultimate Line. Can you imagine what Ultimate FF would have been like if Grant had gotten around to writing it? Wow. Or let Ellis loose on it from the beginning, but instead of channeling the kid-friendly schmaltz they did, let him go Planetary “The Four” style on them. Sue’s a alcohol-medicated housewife. Reed’s emotionally detached from all life, too busy in his own world, Johnny is a cokehead, Ben’s gay (I dunno, who knows). THAT would have been bold storytelling.

Back to story at hand… Jettison everything and start all over. Earlier I had referenced Television as a similar model. Let’s explore an idea that I’ve had in my head for the better part of ten years – that we’ve now started to see emerging among mainstream comics.

The Studio-style of producing comics (alternately: The 52 Equation/Brand New Day Model).

For your basic TV show you have a staff of writers who collectively work to mold the shape of the season – the stories, the character arcs, future hints, etc. The episodes are then divided up and each writer is assigned a certain amount of eps to write. Together they create the backbone, and individually they fill the beast out. There is a head writer for the show who leads everything.

Comic companies have flirted with this idea (with 52 – a DC series that ran weekly for a year with a team of writers and rotating artistic team) (and Marvel is now taking writer artist teams and rotating them through every four issues or so with their Brand New Day banner for Spiderman – now producing 3 comics a month), but let’s step it up a notch.

For ongoing series, you have a large cast of characters. Even if you kill them all off, you’ll still reintroduce them. You’ll have a Superman, Spiderman, Batman, and Wolverine. But, you’d be starting fresh – free to throw off any bad stories or stale ideas and shoot for the stars.

Since these are iconic characters, you’re not going to just do a minseries. You’ll start a new ongoing series. Enter: Studio Style.

Take some of our big name writers (let’s use Brian Michael Bendis) and put them in charge – they’re the head writers for our series. Give them a writing staff of other up and coming writers who, on their own, can’t sell a title, but with some exposure and guidance from other experienced, really talented writers, will bust out (even Joss Whedon, god among writers, staffed on Roseanne before becoming “Joss”). The big names will write the big eps (most likely) while guiding the overall story. As the writers get better, they’ll progress to their own series and what not.

For art, let’s do the same thing. But build it more like the Top Cow system. Assemble an art team (think of them as the actors on Law & Order). You’ll have a great layout artist – who’s an incredible storyteller (like a Steve Dillon or Stuart Immomen), a background artist (someone who can render great detail behind the scenes to enhance and clarify the story), a figure artist – the big cheese – the headliner (the Kyra Sedgewick of the Closer). Add in some inks and a great color team and you have an artistic team that can produce high-quality books at rapid speeds.

Like the writing staff, let’s promote movement with this plan. As the artists hone their skills, move them up – give them the spotlight. This is a whole system of cultivating new talent and then promoting that to bring in new readers and increase the overall quality.

The added benefit to this, more books faster. Series will be able to pump out 2-4 books a month (as a TV show does with their episodes). You can even structure the ongoing series as seasons – taking a three month break in between larger story arcs. Imagine the solid viewership you’ll have if you have consistent, high quality comics that come out every week. It’s much easier to keep coming back if you have to come back more (and this equals more revenue for the industry).

Okay, enough for now. But we’ll examine the other way comics are produced in our new model next time. The Creator-Owned series.

thecreator Uncategorized

Okay, getting back to a few threads I’ve planted here and here, let’s start to address this behemoth. “The Problem with Comics Today” or “The Art Form is dying fast.”

I don’t need to give a history lesson here – you most likely know it or can figure it out really quickly, but – to be brief (too late) – the majority of comic readers are not kids – teens. They’re adults. Mid-twenties (if we’re lucky) to the forties. Men (mostly). Now, the upside to this is that this is a steady base. They’re stuck for life.

Example: met a cool guy at Night-Flight the other week who stopped in to pick up his weekly stash of comics. He had Uncanny X-Men and Spiderman (among a few others). He shrugged and said he’d gotten tired of comics – of the repetitive storylines and rehashed characters – but he’d been collecting for decades, so why stop now (he was actually only 32 issues (I believe) from owning the entire run of X-Men).

That’s the feeling I’m getting with long-time readers. “Well, sh*t, we’re here, so why leave?”

Is this the malaise you want from your core audience?

I’ve loved comics and related characters since I was a kid. Some of my earliest memories were getting some comic books in my stocking for Christmas – and my collection of Super Powers Team and Secret Wars action figures. Man, I love those. As I got older, I became a collector. Then I wanted to draw them. Then I wanted to write them. Now, I’m doing both (not particularly well, but, hey, I’m doing it aren’t I). I still buy a stack every month (not to mention the endless trades from Amazon.com), and I want everyone to read comics.

But I can’t get them too.

Too much history to pick up a story. Too much money and time to get caught up in order to enjoy a series. Long-running, serialized shows on TV face this problem too – but a) TV is free, so it’s easy to sit down and figure it out and b) this is why most serialized shows don’t last too long – they don’t invite viewers, they exclude them.

So, the question becomes, how do we attract NEW readers of ALL ages (instead of the dying fanbase we now have)and not piss off the existing base?

No easy answer to that one. Robert Kirkman (the writer of the amazing Invincible) had an idea last year. Read it here.

What do you think?

In a nutshell – all the creators with a name (I’m talking to you Bendis, Morrison, Millar, Ellis, Ennis, Gaiman, et al), make your own damn books. Start something original. People will follow. Big companies – hand your titles over to new, up and coming creators and let them play with them. Don’t shackle them with years of continuity and crossovers. Let them start fresh.

Let me go one step further.

Big two – you listening?

Kill your Universes.

(insert collective screeches from Mom’s basements across America)

Give it a year – what the hell can it hurt?

Kill everything that is happening right now. Kill them. Have some big bad come and rip reality to shreds. And restart.

Original idea? Hell no. It’s been done before. But this time, don’t just do it as a stunt (as every damn crossover is every damn year) – do it as a way to GET PEOPLE TO READ COMICS. People will come. Produce some high-quality sh*t – and PEOPLE WILL STAY.

You can even get your big guns to orchestrate it.

It worked with Ultimate Spiderman. You started from the beginning with Top-Notch people and let them be great. And it worked. GREAT comic.

Notice how it didn’t work with Ultimate X-Men. Too many creators, not all top-notch, and too much “let’s do what’s already been done” rehashing of old storylines (yes, yes, USM has done this a bit too much, too – but it’s done it mostly better).

What’s the worst that could happen? You retcon it all and go back to the decades of continuity dragging you down. Your core fans will stick around.

They did before when you pulled stunts that didn’t work.

So don’t make this a stunt. Make this a concerted effort to SAVE COMICS.

Cause they’re not going to last too long at this rate.

Comments? Suggestions? Ideas?

More to come… Stay tuned…

thecreator Uncategorized

Alright that has to be the longest headline for a blog post ever.  I promise not to do that again, maybe.  So as most of you know last Sat was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) and the wonderful crew at Night Flight Comics were kind enough to allow us to hang out and share the good word of Heartless Dark.  If you live under a rock or don’t read comics FCBD is when publishers push comics for a select set of titles at a drastic low price (often cost of production) for stores to give away for free.  Why would a store pay for some low price comics to give away for free you ask?  Let me ask you this could you go into a candy store and have one free chocolate covered pretzel?  Heck no!  You would end buying at least a bag of pretzels if not more.  So most people grab their free comic and then some and everyone walks away happy.

 

 

 

So Night Flight hosts this great event and just to reward their faithfuls and holds they not only got locals Bill Galvan (Archie, The Scrapyard Detectives) and Quinn Johnson (Tales of TMNT) to come down and sign some comics but also went that extra mile (as they usually do) and convinced Steve Niles (30 Days of Night, Batman Gotham After Midnight) to put his busy schedule on hold and fly in from LA to partake in the festivities.  Having these guys at Night Flight was a real treat.  

Quinn was nice enough to tell us about his latest project Elders of the Runestone.  Hanging out with Quinn was really insightful as we hope to be in his position career wise in a couple of years.  Quinn is one of the funniest guys we have ever met and we spent a good hour talking to him about everything from comics to our favorite youtube videos.  You can check out his new comic at http://runestonecomic.com

 

 

 

If you are a fan of horror comics then you are very much familiar with Steve Niles as the man pretty much owns the genre.  If not then I highly recommend picking up 30 Days of Night as well as Batman – Gotham After Midnight.  Steve was an extremely nice guy and gave us newbies some well needed advice as well as talk about his own experiences getting started in the industry.  He talked about his first couple of years of going to cons harassing and pushing his ideas and never giving up.  He talked about what it was like to be a part of writing the script for the movie 30 Days of Night and making that transition from comics to movies.  Steve was cool to be around because you could feel the creative energy just from talking to him and you can see it with all the projects that he is involved in.  You can check out Steve at http://www.steveniles.com

 

 

 

If you ever get lucky enough to catch either of these guys at a con I highly suggest stopping by and talking to them.  They are genuine and very fun to talk to.  Before I end this I want to again give nods to Night Flight Comics for having us and being one of our biggest supporters.

- Suit

thesuit Uncategorized 30 Days of Night, Batman, Free Comic Book Day, Gotham After Midnight, Night Flight, Quinn Johnson, Steve Niles, TMNT

Hey Kids,

Thought I’d take a moment from waxing philosophical (or waxing my back, depending on the day) and let you know we’re online! Now, the  reason we all got into comics is because we’re not that attractive with any social skills – so what happens after being online for a few weeks? We’re asked to do an on-camera interview.

Hilarity and awkward conversation ensues.

J/k. The guys over at One Shot Presents took a few minutes of their newest episode to ask us “what’s up” and “how’s it going.” The guys are supercool and lurk around West Coast Conventions every year – so if you see them getting sh*t from Mike Mingola, say hey to them and tell them that you think Brick’s the better-looking of the two (kidding – Sofe 5 really is – but she was curiously missing from our chat – like I said, we’re not attractive and can’t talk to girls).

The video is below. I won’t tell where we’re at – cause we want you to check the whole thing and then to go One Shot’s Site and see what else they’ve cooked up. Plus, they promised us (after sleeping with them) that they’d have us back again later.

Enjoy!

One Shot Presents Episode 31

*Update: Since we moved the blog to this new server/URL, I can’t get videos to embed – sorry. Follow the link. We’ll make the architect fix this

thecreator Uncategorized

This is a conversation between Suit and Creator.  Conversations like these help us past the time at our day jobs.  Most of the time they are spent talking about big boobs and fire but occasionally they produce great ideas (like Heartless Dark) or insight without even us ever realizing it.  

Suit -
 remind me to bring back my comics from my mom’s house 

 and my hologram covers 
 remember when comics did that 
 those were the good days 

Creator‏ -
 yeah – i have a bunch 
 those comics actually ruined the  comic industry 
 but i still treasure my memories  from them 

‏Suit - 
 really 
 how so? 

Creator -  
 okay >deep breath< time for a  little comics history lesson 
 let’s start the mid to late 80s –  circa Dark Knight/Watchmen 

Suit -  
 k 

Creator -  
 with the arrival of those two seminal series, the public began to look at comics – the  perception of comics as striclty for kids ended and comics entered into a dark(er) era
 where gritty stories became more the norm ‏‏

Suit - 
 k 

‏‏Creator -
 sales increased as more adults entered the buying population, because the comics  stigma was gone 
 with a flood of new readers – older issues began to be worth more money 
 so people began buying a lot of comics in hopes of a good return on investment 
 enter 1991 – Marvel comics relaunches X-men with a second title beginning at  number 1 (Uncanny is somewhere around issue 282)
 it becomes the highest selling comic of all time – selling multiple millions of copies –  cause it’s a new #1 for X-men 

 relaunches of titles weren’t as common back then 
 well, Marvel smells success and does that with Spiderman (another HUGE selling  issue) 
 all of the sudden, new #1s for every title – new titles (X-Force (was New Mutants),  Excalibur, 100 diff spiderman titles)
 well, the creators who worked on these titles realized that “hey, marvel is screwing us  over – we can make more money on our own”

Suit -  
 Marvel is a bastard 

Creator -  
 so the top artists of the day (because art at this time became one of the top sales  drivers) slpit off and formed their own company.

‏‏Suit -  
 Damn the Man, Save the Empire 

‏‏Creator -
 enter Image Comics 

‏‏Suit - 
 Hoo Ray!!!

‏‏Creator - 
 the founders were Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Rob Liefeld, and Jim  Valentino (I believe) 
 their initial titles EXPLODE with sales like no other independent comic has ever done 
 Spawn, WildCATS, Cyberforce, Youngblood, and Shadowhawk (ooh, Erik Larsen also  founded image and his title was Savage Dragon)
 millions of issues sold – they’re big things 

‏‏Suit -  
 yeah I remember when Spawn first came out 
 it was a huge deal

 

Creator -
 so, over the next few years, tons of new  titles – new #1s, new artists – flashy covers,  holograms, lenticular covers, MASSIVE  crossovers (thanks to the late 80s when  crossovers started – a great way to get  people to buy more comics), etc
 all amounted to TONS of issues sold 
 of inferior product 
 with the amount of comics sold, no one  cared about producing Watchmen quality  comics – just turning a quick buck (and many  bucks were made)
 fans got jaded and fed up, stopped buying,  stores couldn’t move the mounds of (now)  worthless comics they had – the shut down  nation wide
 top selling titles went from selling 1 million plus issues A MONTH – to barely 100,000 
 by mid-late 90s – the industry COLLAPSED 
 all thanks to a flood of flashy covers and art – with little substance 

‏‏Suit - 
 yeah i remember there being a comic shop in every part of the city
 Comic Market collapses and congress doesn’t bat an eye, where was our bail out money

‏‏Creator - 
 from 1995-2001 it was the dark ages of comics 

‏‏Suit -
 and then comic book movies 
 and ultimate titles 

Creator -
 what did come out of that time was an emergence of good stories and great artists – a  new era of creativity cause, hell, who cares – our audience can’t get any smaller, let’s  take a risk

‏‏Suit - 
 lol 
 nice reasoning 

Creator - 
 then X-men the movie was  huge – and great – and  Spiderman was even bigger  (but  still sucked) – coupled  with some great risks  (Origin, new Spiderman  stories, etc) –  started to  revitalize comics
 comic movies are huge and  big properties – all creative  people in hollywood love  and  read comics (some  write them too) 
 comics are receiving  national attention with The  Death of Captain America or  Batman, or many other reasons 
 sales still aren’t that great – but they’ve leveled out 
 i don’t know if the industry will ever recover from the 90s bust, but there’s enough  good comics out there to keep it going
 just look at Comic Con – it’s bigger now than it ever has been in 40 years 

‏‏Suit - 
 Comic Con has expanded its scope though, with TV shows like Lost, movies and sci-fi  shows 
 but I guess if those people like that stuff they would probably like comics as well 

‏‏Creator - 
 yeah, there are a TON of people who love comics – but don’t buy and read them 

‏‏Suit - 
 thats true 

‏‏Creator -
 they love the movies, or the cartoons, or the idea, or the characters, but don’t really  buy the comics 

‏‏Suit -
 and why do you think that is?

thesuit Uncategorized Comic Con, Comic History, Dark Knight, Marvel, Movies, Spider-Man, X-Men

So, one week in, we moved our blog from our existing url (heartlessdark.wordpress.com) to this new one (www. heartlessdark.com/blog). We did this to try and keep everything related to our site in a more central Internet location.

As with everything new, we’ll still be tweaking things here and there in order to perfect it – so bear with us, if you would be so kind.

Also, thanks so much for making our first week successful! After nearly a week of being online, we’re at the upper range of our goal for unique views. A lot of you came in from other sites – referred by Belfry Comics or AICN – which really blew us away. We’re glad you came and hope you stay!

We also want to make sure everyone is aware that there are THREE parts to the Prologue. The engine we’ve created to run the site allows us to post in five page chunks (since, for 99% percent of the time, that’s how much we’ll be posting each week), so we posted the 15 page prologue in three parts. Make sure you read all of them – you might be a bit lost as we move forward if you haven’t.

There’s three convenient ways to do this.

1) The drop down on the right on the comic. Just drop it down and select which Episode you want.

2) The Archives section – it’s pretty cool. Just check it out.

3) At the bottom of each page is an arrow that when you move your mouse over it, it says “Next Episode.” Click that.

Each way works. We’ll see you all back tomorrow for the first installment of Book One.

Things get rolling from here.

Trust us.

We know where this is going…

thecreator Uncategorized

Since it’s launch day, I thought I would live blog my thoughts and actions for this historic day (insert snickering here).

5:40 am (yes am) – My alarm goes off and the first thing through my head is “Damn, it’s early. I hate waking up this early.” The second thought is “Launch day! I need to check my stats.”

5:57 am – Showered and dressed, I open my macbook to check the site and my e-mail. Got a message from my best friend growing up – he says he likes it and has no idea what’s going on (in the story). He e-mailed me at 1:00 am – nice!

6:43 am – I’m in at work and I e-mail the architect to see if he can give me some google stats on the page – fatcow’s stats are very un-informative, and I can’t make sense of them.

7:22 am – I IM a colleague/friend in London to tell him about the site. He gives me major props (nothing like an ego boost that early in the morning) and says he’ll pass it on to his UK and Trinidadian friends (go Trinidad!). We’re going global.

7:50 am – Architect sends me a pdf of our stats. I’m stoked because one page says we’ve had nearly 300 site views today.  And we had 8 people from South Korea check us out (we’ve got Seoul!).

8:13 am – He explains to me that we only had 90 unique visits yesterday – not 300. Waa waa… Well, that’s not bad considering that the site wasn’t even launched.

8:18 – Turns out today’s visitors have only been 40 people so far. I’ll take that as a win! Because I’m childishly optimistic today – and it’s early. Most people haven’t even put pants on yet, let alone checked the net.

8:42 – We find out that we have our FIRST registered Forum user. Don’t know who he/she is – and they haven’t posted anything (yet) – but we have one!!! Welcome “Lancebreaker.”

9:54 – Another user! Yes! We’ve doubled in size already.

9:55 – I ran out of funny things to day early on – if you’re reading this, you might as well stop while you’re ahead. Skip down to the Midnight Nation review or something cooler.

10:15 am – My wife calls to tell me that there’s a typo on the “About” tab on our site. I guess it goes to show you – no matter how hard you work – you’re still an idiot and a complete waste of space. You were never good enough and you smell bad. Why can’t you be more like your brothe– er, wait a minute, what’s going on? I lost track of what we were talking about. Oh well, remember kids, don’t stick parts of yourself to a flagpole in the winter. Not a good idea. Girls, this goes for you too.

12:19 – About to get new stats from the Architect. And eat lunch. What goes well with the “first-day jitters?” I’m thinking squash.

12:48 – Went with an apple instead ’cause increased Acid always helps the stomach on days likkkkkk…… sorry, passed out from the ulcer – I’m back! Okay, so yeah, stats are looking better all the time. People are even reading (checking for porn) this blog. A few more hours and I can go home and start facebooking the crap out of people…

2:22 – I’ve got nothing more to report until later tonight. Basically, I’ve come to the realization that this has been probably pretty boring for you to read. Next time I’ll spice things up with some Adult Language, Graphic Sexuality, Pervasive Gore, and Thematic Elements (my favorite ratings reason).

6:01 pm – I’m home now and checking the blog, site, facebook, stats, twitter, myspace, thesuperficial, my pants, the mail, and every other place I look for things and am excited to get final stats for the night. I’ll let you know when I get them…

12:31 am – So, technically it’s no longer today, it’s tomorrow – BUT – I got final stats for the day. Wa-hoo! Almost 300 people in our first day! We were shooting for 500-1000 our first week, so we’re well on our way (and I really wouldn’t be too hurt if we did more than that – so spread the word).

Thanks to everyone who looked! Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! And don’t stop – we’re just getting started – we’ve got plenty of places to go.

The dark has begun.

–the creator

admin Uncategorized

Straight off the pole, through the welfare line, out of the trailer park, and into our hearts – it’s the Octo-Mom. Here’s footage from the birth of her kids – the moment she charmed herself into our homes.

My favorite part is when the doctor uses the medical tray as a deflector shield/baseball bat.

admin Uncategorized

Check out our promotional trailer here – complete with sweet music, I might add.

We’re also launching our facebook group and myspace page today – so stop by and become friends.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52362040837

http://www.myspace.com/heartlessdark

admin Uncategorized

Heartless Dark is an ongoing, long-form graphic novel updated with five pages of new story every week. Heartless Dark follows both Matthew and Ailis, two people at opposite ends of an apocalyptic prophecy, as they struggle to link global occurrences, personal events, and historical writings in a race to save the world.

The Blog, however, is just a fun place to come and hang out. We’ll update it regularly with random rants, reviews, questions, upcoming projects/events, and maybe some behind the scenes things.

If you’re lucky.

Welcome!

admin Uncategorized