Dave Gillette - Ghost Writings

Liam Sharp’s Novella Paradise Rex

     Liam Sharp performs the role of exorcist in his new novella Andrew Wilmingot's Paradise Rex, wrestling metaphysical demons at the heart of self-doubt.

     Set in Derby, a town in the Midlands of England that is also referred to as Deadby throughout the story, the plot slithers around one Parliament Jones, the main character of Andrew Wilmingot’s Paradise Rex.

     Derby provides that stark setting where dreams seed a barren land, never coming to fruition in that small town that eats its young. Sharp takes this old totem of the trapped artist cliché and subverts it through a simple but effective tool – honesty.

     He finds the unique identity of Derby and why it’s a boneyard for the big dreams; it’s a blue-collar sensibility within the town’s identity that believes in the tangible and measurable in order to survive the drudgery of making a living. There is no place for the dream that imagines a new world and a new life in its stifling confines.

     Thrown in is one of the more curious artistic movements, Beardism, and Sharp is off to the races manifesting and morphing reality and fiction into an inseparable tapestry rich in emotional hues that resonate through a Russian Nesting Doll narrative.

     And then there’s Parliament Jones, a man of sweat and ink and carousing, the kind of archetype male shaped in the idea of vitality coming to an end. He’s a vehicle, an engine for the story that tunnels from the depths of the bedrock in which the seeds of dream are buried and left for dead.

     Do they die? It’s a question that has an elusive answer at best as the plot snakes through a labyrinthine funhouse of mirrors within the dark recesses of a mind unsure of itself, illustrative of the process in which an artist tries to find their voice.  This is where Sharp shuffles the deck on readers and takes a straightforward treatise on unfulfilled promise and deftly turns things upon their head.

     Each chapter is a room in this psychological funhouse of a narrative he creates, taking the reader into the strange spaces within the head of the artist, the different compartments where prose turns to poetry, which turns to stage play and back in twists and turns as he experiments with form to take his meditation on creativity to dizzying heights.

     A contemplative piece of work that is just as much fiction as truth, Sharp is a quantum cosmonaut, weaving through abstractions, concrete realities, and meta-fictional quantum entanglements while exploring the vastness of the artist mind with Paradise Rex.

     Sharp's narrative experiments create a pocket universe in which a meeting of the minds can occur, a place where reality and fiction find their lines as warped as time is by a singularity. He succeeds in creating a work that has sincere emotion, the kind that makes the reader think of the kind of feeling where there is no word in our human repertoire capable of describing that feeling. That feeling is the place within that we all try to draw off of and dream into existence.

     While the narrative can be challenging in the way that it spins and weaves its way around, there is a pot of gold at the end, a reward in which we have reached an impossible place where a rainbow begins and ends. A rich vein has been tapped by Sharp that stands up to the rigor of a fractured reality that we all live in.

Music and Comics: What is the connection?

Comics' legend Jim Steranko, who holds court on Twitter every Sunday with his Sunday night TNT, had hinted at this idea from time to time. Naturally, I asked him to explain it.

Being that Twitter is a limited place for explaining this, he had to delay the full theory's explanation. We crossed paths at SDCC last year, but being the master he is, Jim had hardly a minute with all of the fan and business interests clamoring for his attention.

Tonight, he managed to make the time, so here's a full transcript that I only edited to help streamline the tweets in which Jim beautifully articulates the concept of music and how it connects to comics.

Every once in a while I get this bizarre, academic kink--so with your permission, tonight it'll be my turn to hold court IN THE CLASSROOM for what may the most outre NARRATIVE ART theory you'll hear this week! Or perhaps ever!!! Can you handle it?

Sometime last year, maybe earlier, I randomly mentioned an offbeat narrative-arts theory I'd developed a while ago. It was during the period I took on comics professionally, my COMEUPPANCE PERIOD--when I thought I knew it all--and really knew NOTHING!

I was a kid who had spent his entire life (reading at a year-and-a-half old, with third-hand comics as my teachers) exposed to the form and, by some osmotic miracle, felt I had it all IN MY POCKET!

However, the attitude was not out of arrogance, but deep AFFECTION for the material, a natural affectation because comics are an art showcase--and I had some inclination toward art.

I'd made a living as a commercial artist (since I was 17) & was fortunate to have scored the ART DIRECTOR position at a prominent ad agency. So, I had 13 years of experience under my belt when I entered the comic book arena.

Believe it or not, I initially generated pages at a prodigious rate (despite shouldering THREE full-time jobs during that period), and the reason was not because I was a crackerjack craftsman, but because I knew nothing about WHAT MAKES COMICS WORK! I was flying by the seat of my pants--and barely at survival level!

Even though my first three Marvel assignments were working over Kirby layouts, the process not only taught me NOTHING about storytelling, it OBSTRUCTED my development. Kirby told a story HIS way, and his way was diametrically opposed to MY way. Read it and weep, Steranko!

True story: Although I wasn't aware of it, I actually had developed a kind of subconscious NARRATIVE PHILOSOPHY, vivified by a lifetime of reading books, listening to radio dramas, & viewing films. It was there, it existed, I just didn't KNOW about it!

I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid! From my first solo image, I realized I was working under the HANDICAP OF IGNORANCE! Although I'd digested thousands of comics as a kid, I was really only aware of their RESIDUAL EFFECT, similar to that of other mediums. The HOW was essentially missing (except for a smattering of early, amateur excursions into panel art).

A graduate of the SELF-TAUGHT SCHOOL OF APOSTASY, my only recourse was to attack the problem in the standard way: To put the subject under the atomic microscope of analysis/discovery/conclusion!

My ad agency experience pointed to the appropriate pathway, one I'd explored previously, from product evaluation to client credibility – by applying the study of COGNITIVE SCIENCE to the material!

A world suddenly opened up to me, a challenging array of problems and a multitude of provocative solutions, many of which I experimented with on my pages, and some of which became authentic INNOVATIONS in narrative art, no easy task considering that the comic book had been a dominant American art form for almost a HALF CENTURY.

As I explored the turf--generating a Niagara of honorable experiments with varying degrees of failure and success--I began to posit theories to support one of the most important strengths a writer/artist/colorist/editor can embrace: a personal, idiosyncratic approach to creation which I term NARRATIVE PHILOSOPHY aka the Rules by Which the Game is played!

Surprisingly, many creators to whom I mentioned the approach, didn't have the vaguest idea what the hell I was talking about! 

Sometime last year, possibly earlier, I referred to the theory here & was asked several times to articulate it, so THANKS for prompting me!

What follows will not change your life, but it may help establish a deeper understanding of the form and a richer appreciation of NARRATIVE ART!

As stated, the idea initially occurred to me in my earliest comics period, when I was also spending three or four nights a week rock 'n' rolling across the tri-state area. Pick up on that key word: ALSO!

The idea: An obvious correlation between STORYTELLING TECHNIQUE and MUSIC! 

In addition to both requiring considerable study/practice and intense creativity, there is a similarity in STRUCTURE & CONTENT because, after a fashion, THEY BOTH TELL STORIES! I felt that similarity needed to be explored.

Music has THREE ELEMENTS: Rhythm, harmony, and melody--all of which are analogous to comic art.

Perhaps the most abused/overlooked aspect in comics today is RHYTHM, which is essentially defined in two ways.

First, the velocity with which the ACTION IN THE PANELS unfolds. For example, a dark figure walking down a deserted street after midnight suggests a relatively slow, steady pace (adagio in musical terms) one which, by contrast, obviously makes the action sequences infinitely MORE explosive. A page or two of what is termed SIT-DOWN SCENES in cinematic jargon, allows the reader to relax on some emotional level (even if the scene is confrontational) and establishes a contrast with hard action scenes (allegro), giving the story a wide dramatic range.

Another way: If a story is ALL action, there is NO action! I term what happens in the panels INTERNAL PACING. 

The second method of visual rhythm is expressed in PANEL SIZE: Major, third-of-a-page panels, for example, can suggest an epic quality to the action, the kind of panoramic shots that require significant time and effort to read/analyze.

That type of shot might stay on the screen for 20-60 seconds, a long time cinematically, because there's so much to digest INTELLECTUALLY. And, in doing so, it can RETARD the story's tempo. 

Smaller or narrower panels, however, which often capture singular, but important details can INCREASE story tempo, especially if their imagery is tightly related. I term the aspect of panel size in storytelling EXTERNAL PACING (perhaps in writing about the concept some years ago, I termed the latter TEMPO, the former PACING. I may revert to it in the future).

HARMONY is the next musical element, one which provides a strong FOUNDATION for the final aspect.

That foundation is defined by a host of supporting devices and themes, including environments, vehicles, weather, props, costumes, weapons, and even minor characters.

That critical background MIRRORS the chords played on a piano or a full orchestral accompaniment in musical orchestration. 

A story's harmony often underscores, sometimes DICTATES, the mood/ambiance/atmosphere of NARRATIVE ART.

Just as music can harness and control a listener's EMOTIONS (minor chords suggest darker, more ominous development; diminished, augmented, and suspended chords create tensions and attitudes from ambivalence to expectation; 6ths and major 7ths have a lighter, more upbeat, and conclusive quality), so can specific elements and how they are depicted in panels INFLUENCE comics' readers and create psychological arousal.

Those elements can express a RANGE of qualities from simple to complex, light to dark, quiescent to wildly animated. The process is invaluable in establishing powerful, nuanced narrative themes such as greed, jealousy, fear, despair, joy, cowardice, desire, hatred, etc. Harmony is a KEY TOOL in the storyteller's craft!

MELODY is the remaining element, one which defines the dramatic trajectory of the primary characters – the HEART OF THE STORY! 

Musically, the melody line has the most direct connection to the listener, and is generally a series of notes that propel audiences on emotional rollercoaster rides. 

Similarly, much/most of a story's subtleties are engaged by how, what, when, and where the protagonists and antagonists take the drama's themes and manipulate them to a satisfactory climax.

In the comic book format, that process is not only achieved through words and images, but by layouts, textures, directionals, color, special FX, and more.

The accomplished narrative artist uses ALL the techniques available to attain maximum reader impact. That means you, junior! 

Again, when I began my comics tour, I generated pages with inordinate speed because I knew little about the intricacies of NARRATIVE ART. But, my forced and rapid self-education took a severe toll on production.

In a little while, however; that number grew to perhaps twenty five and solving (notice how graciously I give myself the benefit of the doubt) that volume of challenges took REAL time.

But the work was MORE important to me than the time. Now, over the span of decades, all that remains is a PERCEPTION of the work and my hope someone out there finds it worthwhile.

Review: Faction Comics Anthology 1-3

Having recently received Faction’s anthology set, I was eager to dive into a different set of voices from what I’m accustomed to here in the states.

While there was unevenness in the quality of storytelling, at its best moments the Faction anthologies rate favorably. Volume One’s most engaging read was Damon Keen’s One Giant Leap.

Keen has the gift of being able to tell a story visually that can stand on its own. It’s hard not to appreciate when a comic artist attempts to scale the same heights as Moebius when it comes to the wordless comic book tale.

I found One Giant Leap to have astounding clarity in narrative while accomplishing a lot in a short breadth of space. Keen’s sardonic sense of humor takes a rather bleak tale and injects the right amount of humor at the right time to make it a memorable read.

Volume Two’s Awakening, by Allan Xia, also manages to develop a strong narrative without words. Set in a future that feels slightly influenced by The Matrix and Mad Max, there’s a simple element that effectively conveys what remains important in the darkest of times - love.

Xia’s art is beautifully rendered with a painterly feel that adds to the gravitas of the plot while showcasing his deft touch in even-handed subtext. Awakening was a story that I read a few times to appreciate its nuances.

Volume Three’s standout is something that I’ve already reviewed, but couldn’t resist mentioning again – Tim Gibson’s Moth City prequel The Reservoir.

This is a flashback story, telling the origin story of Governor McCaw and his daughter in a land and time well before the present day conflict of Moth City.

There is an epic feel to the narration and imagery in this story that really impressed me, and left me with a lot to consider. Gibson, a fantastic artist and visual storyteller, leaves no doubt that he equally adept at writing.

I opined these particular points in my long-form review of The Reservoir a few months ago, so it was a pleasure to see it contained within this anthology. Reading it on paper made for a different experience, which my tactile needs for something in my hands appreciated.

If you’re looking for different storytelling methods, Faction’s anthologies one through three should help you get out of the humdrum of conventional comic book formats and into something off the beaten path.

CAUTION: MASSIVE HARBINGER 23 SPOILERS: It’s funny how I can still look at A Death in the Family or The Death of Superman and get a little misty eyed at the powerful emotions evoked by the imagery and then catch myself, realizing the compositions are designed to have an emotional impact but ultimately signify nothing.

They were a powerful, carefully orchestrated set of compositions that ratcheted up the drama with each panel leading up to the death of the character with a grandiose sense of dramatic irony attached, keeping readers on edge because they wanted to know the how more than the why.

This is especially prevalent like most death events including the impending Death of Wolverine series. Readers buy into this because they want to know the how instead of the why to it. In the end, they’ll sit around awaiting the resurrection of their latest hero to be killed off and loudly complain that deaths don’t matter in the comic universe.

As sure as life and death, the reader/publisher relationship works this way in comics, a cyclical relationship of love and hate, death and resurrection. Why? Well, these intellectual properties must keep making money for their publisher.

It will be interesting to see how Valiant handles the death of Flamingo in Harbinger. When I saw Harbinger writer Joshua Dysart last, I predicted it would be Kris who was killed off because he seems to be a pragmatic man, and Kris is a liability in a world of super-powered beings.

He offered to clue me in on what was going to happen, but I resisted that temptation mostly because I didn’t want to know. In fact, I resisted any previews and only got myself out to the comic shop today to buy it. I’ve been on board with Joshua from the beginning as a fan. I didn’t want any of the characters to die, and I knew he meant business, unlike the majority of writers who kill off characters.

Why Flamingo? That’s a fine question, but I can see the hints at it now. She could never quite figure out how to use her powers while running with the Renegades. Even when she learned to control thermals to slow her descent, it was just barely which seems to portend at her demise. It certainly wasn’t with the grace and skill needed in combat.

She was also the odd person out once Faith and Torque hooked up. I’m not sure she ever found her footing as a character in the series despite Joshua working his considerable mojo on her. But he managed to make her something important to the story in her death.

I think of Neil Young’s Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) with her death because “It’s better to burn out because rust never sleeps.” Flamingo burned like a meteor across the horizon. Fast enough to see her shine, but not long enough to get to know her as a character the way we know Peter, Faith, Kris, and Torque.

There was little in the way of fanfare in trumpeting her death. Joshua didn’t tease or let it linger with a melodramatic build-up that climaxed near the end of the issue. He just hit you with it early because death can be sudden in real life.

You can see Flamingo’s death served an important element to the storytelling with her death in the sense that things have become real for the young Renegades. Death does that. It’s like being 21-year-old me when my mother died of cancer after a short and sudden fight with it.

Your world is sent reeling quickly and all of your childish notions about reality are turned back on you. That’s where Joshua succeeded in telling a story about death in a meaningful way. He found a way to contextually make this matter and not pander to the traditional death of a character event where publisher, writer, and reader give each other the nudge nudge, wink wink.

Review: The Reservoir by Tim Gibson

Tim Gibson, the powerhouse talent behind Moth City, takes a different path by going backwards with his latest work The Reservoir: A Western in Black, White, and Blood.

This is a flashback story, telling the origin  story of Governor McCaw and his daughter in a land and time well before the present day conflict of Moth City.

Gibson takes a unique approach to the narrative by telling his story exclusively through narrative and images; it's almost like a silent film. I found this reminiscent of a movie trailer from the golden era of Hollywood.

The interesting features of the Thrillbent digital format, which Gibson uses with amazing facility, give it a semi-animated feel of the movie reel. I felt like I needed to have a popcorn and soda to full appreciate the experience.

However, that simply describes the feel of this story from an experiential standpoint. Mentally, I found The Reservoir to engage me as a reader much more tightly by making my mind have to sync the captions with the images.

Governor McCaw is a man of action. That's all you need to tell a good story about him. Everything is there in The Reservoir that you need to know about what kind of man he was and why he is who he is.

There is an epic feel to the narration and imagery in this story that really impressed me, and left me with a lot to consider. Gibson, a fantastic artist and visual storyteller, leaves no doubt that he equally adept at writing.

He cracks open some interesting ideas about the nature of man and ambition without being didactic. Instead, there are insights that leave you thinking about this story for a good while.

Whether it's ideas about family in a Cain and Abel sense, fidelity, or wraith, Gibson covers these ideas gracefully with the smooth flow of the story and outstanding imagery.

I highly recommend this prequel to Moth City. The Reservoir is another fantastic read from Gibson. Buy it here from comiXology.

Review: Madefire's Captain Stone is Missing... Episode 7

By Liam Sharp and Christina McCormack

Liam Sharp and Christina McCormack's exploration of superheroes, mass media culture, and gender dynamics through the first seven episodes of Captain Stone is Missing... has been a joy to read on many levels.

This story has taken it's time to develop what is truly working out to be a saga by developing each character eloquently and through novel experimentation in the narrative tools being employed by Sharp and McCormack.

At this point in the story, the reader has come to learn about the Captain's family and their respective roles in shaping him without giving away much about Captain Stone himself. He's an identity, and in some ways, a ghost in the machine of the plot.

As an analogy, his role in the story is reminiscent of Ozymandias and the Comedian because he works like the plot device that is Ozymandias, but has the gravity and ghost-like qualities of the Comedian by being seen only through the past-tense narrative eye.

He is only known through flashbacks and archival material, not in any sense the present. However, the shape of the story is starting to be seen more clearly at the end of this arc with Sharp and McCormack winding readers up for a far more compelling twist than most writers are currently capable of.

They leave this particular arc flipped and inverted on it head in regards to reader expectation. That's some fine misdirection worked in with red herrings that are hardly noticeable in the early episodes of the story. I was quite surprised with the development of the Captain Stone mythos in a way that was similar to Edward Norton's turn in Primal Fear (No psychopaths here though).

The sense of family, particularly the dysfunction that plagues even the most stable of families, also comes out in this episode with Sharp and McCormack more fully exploring the impact that these supernatural and unbelievable events have on each character's motivation and development.

Sharp's amazing artwork has provided an incredible sense of immediacy in engagement by using brilliant methods in telling this story from a visual sense. His approach has been unorthodox and experimental in terms of layout and the use of the Motion Book tool.

He takes his influences like Frank Frazetta, Jim Lee, and Bill Sienkiewicz and makes them his own by crafting his art into a brilliance that reflects his personality as a writer and artist. This is especially evident with each individual character in the story.

Charlie Chance, The Craven Panther, and Captain Stone all have a unique visual identity that allows the story to move around more freely in the timespace of the narrative. We often remember things and events within our lives in a unique way and feel in terms of atmosphere. Sharp really captures this every time the narrative jumps around in the story.

Overall, Episode 7 of Captain Stone is Missing... really pleased me on an intellectual and artistic level. There is a complexity to it that remains easily accessible and inviting to readers wishing for an evolved visual narrative.

Review: Harbinger #20 by Joshua Dysart, Clayton Henry, and Brian Reber

I'm not much of a believer in destiny, but it's hard to argue that Joshua Dysart was born to write Harbinger. I mean, he's probably got a lot of other great things he has, is, or will be doing too, but his run on Harbinger to date has been nothing short of outstanding.

Consider issue 20, which hit stands this week. It's simply another masterpiece kick starting the latest arc Resistance. In this issue, he takes the Snowden and Wiki leaks concept and uses it as a powerful plot device for the beginning of this arc. All of this while Dysart introduces an intriguing character and uses the backdrop of his native Los Angeles so well (Though he is in Venice specifically).

My first thoughts on the issue focus on how he uses some interesting shifts in the linearity of the story to drop you into the action and then let you catch up to that point. That worked really well in getting me immediately into the story.

I also really enjoyed the way that he explores the duality of Harada - a person with a vision that in a lot of ways is right, but still so deeply flawed that you can't help but reject his wisdom or calculating logic. He's someone who has the right idea, but his execution of idea is cold and inhuman.

There are a lot of interesting things happening in this issue that examine how Harada's God like status is challenged in a Promethean sense while Dysart also employs dramatic irony quite well in showing Harada to be perhaps the most complex villain in all of comics.

Clayton Henry has been a wonderful addition to the creative team of Harbinger with his clean layouts, strong line work on composition, and fluid visual storytelling. He makes it hard to tell how much of the story is his doing and how much of it is Dysart's.

What you can take to the bank about Henry's art is that there is never any question about what's going on in the story. It's a perfectly flowing set of images that captures the most important image for each panel so that the story feels seamless and movie like.

Add into that the impressive coloring talents of Brian Reber who is rising fast as one of the great color artists in the industry. He has a wonderful eye for colors that pop when necessary while finding the right shadowing to bring out a scene or character's expression.

The colors also have a nice contrast that allows greater definition of Henry's line work without being too highly saturated. You could say that Reber has an impressive sense of color theory that allows the work to truly shine.

Overall, Harbinger 20 is a great jumping on point for anyone who hasn't read this wonderful title. Like the previous issues, it's intellectually challenging but extremely exciting and engaging as a story.

Review: Deadhorse - The Ballad of the Two Headed Dog #1

"When I close my eyes, it will all begin." That's one quote amongst many great bits of dialogue to be found in the latest issue of Deadhorse from writer Eric Grissom and artist Phil Sloan.

Beginning the second story arc The Ballad of the Two Headed Dog, Grissom and Sloan take the Deadhorse story even further than the Dead Birds arc. The first arc grew on me quickly whereas the first issue from The Ballad of the Two Headed Dog immediately grabs you.

It's some weird stew of the Coen Brothers, David Lynch, and a Cormac McCarthy story set on the island of Lost. And that's alright with me. Grissom and Sloan shunned typical storytelling conventions to take aim at the bizarre surrealism of pop culture in a high stakes game filled with murder, conspiracy, and safe words (you sexual deviants know what I mean).

Directly out of the gates, Grissom and Sloan cut to the chase with a chilling scene involving a telephone booth in the middle of nowhere, ringing and ringing. Without spoiling this issue for you, I can only say that it left a disturbing impression on me that is borne out more fully with the story's end.

What I saw in flashes with first story arc of Deadhorse is now front and center. Grissom and Sloan have grown exponentially in their storytelling craft with The Ballad of the Two Headed Dog. The characters have also grown quite a bit with their characterizations taking deeper root.

The highlight of the story follows a new character added into the mix that makes Dead Birds' Sasquatch look like a chump (actually he is a chump, albeit in a ridiculously funny way).

So now that I've blabbed on about this, you're probably wondering where you can purchase this amazing comic. It gets high marks from me with 5 stars (don't ask out of how many stars).

Best Comic Colorist of 2013

There are many fine colorists working the business of comics, but no one sets a mood or tone better than Elizabeth “Bettie” Breitweiser. Her approach to colors is idiosyncratic to say the least with the strong personality and uniqueness of her palette. It suits the projects she has worked on to a tee, particularly Winter Soldier, Fatale, and Velvet as of late. If I was in need of a colorist, my speed dial would be set to her number at the top of my list. Everything she colors only becomes better for her keen eye towards color theory.   

Best Comic Letterer of 2013

Best Digital Only Comic of 2013

I rated this as a three-way tie between Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin's The Private Eye, Liam Sharp's Captain Stone is Missing..., and Liam Sharp and Ben Wolstenholme's Mono. The Private Eye has impeccable storytelling and visual craft with its wonderfully unique look into the future. Captain Stone is Missing... provides boundless invention with narrative and visual sequences in its slow burn storytelling meant to engage the reader for the long run. Mono is wonderfully scripted with its outstanding exposition while providing fierce and fluid visual narratives that continue to showcase what digital comics are capable of.

But there can be only one and it goes to Liam Sharp for Captain Stone is Missing... because it has such a beautiful self-awareness while innovating and elevating the visual medium through the use of technology. I'm really interested to see how Sharp shepherds this story over the coming year. It's really a tour-de-force for him as a writer and artist.

Best Comic Writer of 2013

This is another category where the difference between best and next best is microscopic. There are simply too many writers doing amazing work right now. Having said that, no one gets me out to the comic book shop with more regularity than Joshua Dysart. He's like a word shaman that used your map for kindling and spiked your water with LSD. His approach to storytelling has forced me to rethink what a person can do with conventional genres like superheroes while inspiring a lot of my own ideas about storytelling.