#michael son

Follow the artist on (links): Comic Panda / Facebook / Twitter

Hello! Michael here, I’m currently the writer of Unstoppable and I’ll be posting periodically with the behind the scenes tidbits in the making of this project. Any and all questions, comments, etc. for me or about the project can be sent to [email protected] and I’ll address them all personally or possibly even here in this column in the weeks to come. Thank you, and enjoy!

Don’t Miss ==> BEHIND THE ART: Making of ‘Unstoppable’ (Part 1)

Pary and I first met at a Red Robins. I ordered the freckled lemonade (a drink that my best friend always ordered whenever we came here, but of course, since he ordered it first, I would be forced to order something else, that’s just the way it worked), and Pary was modest and only had a glass of water. She showed me her sketchbook and I was instantly blown away. She had so many great drawings and doodles ranging from heavily Robert Valley influenced warped perspective pieces to these really funny series of anthropomorphic frogs smoking. We got around to chatting about our favorite artists and before we knew it, Pary had ordered a coke, and I was on my third refill for the lemonade. Eventually, we got around to the topic of Unstoppable, which at the time was untitled but I referred to it as Identity Crisis (although I knew full well that we could never possibly use it).

It was an informal pitch, I had to sell the idea to her, but I had never really done anything like that before. I’ve always been a shy and timid individual, I usually kept all my stories locked up inside my head, and the few that I got around to writing were never read by anyone other than who it was written for. So here I was with this relatively new friend trying to get her on board with this webcomic idea. I think what peaked her interest was when I said that I wanted a female protagonist who wasn’t sexy for the sake of being sexy. We both agreed that sexy meant different things and we didn’t want T&A to riddle the panels. We got into a discussion as to what exactly was sexy and we both laughed when we came to the conclusion that nothing’s sexier than a perfect leather jacket. Don’t you worry, the jacket will make an appearance quite soon, and get ready, it’s a beaut.

Working with an artist has been a really great experience. Originally, I had all the scenes figured out – I knew what the lighting looked like, the camera angles, how the characters were interacting, weird stuff like posters in the background, and what kind of plants might be in the room. But the more I wrote in this style, the more I realized I wasn’t writing for Pary, I was writing for myself.

I feel like I’ve matured a lot as a writer from that single insight. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that approach, I mean, everyone writes in their own unique way (Victoria, the creator behindAwkward Andy writes in prose form when she scripts (and maybe some of those stories will see themselves on the site soon)). But I knew that if I was going to get any better at creating comics, then I was going to have to learn how to play nice in the sandbox.

So I deleted the first drafts of the first four episodes of Unstoppable. I emptied the digital trashcan and I threw away the hardcopies. This was quickly followed by one of those “OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE” moments, but by this time the hardcopies were touching the unspeakable things my roommate disposes of in our trash bin, so recovering them was out of the question. So I had to basically start from scratch.

Brian K Vaughan once said that writing a script for an artist should be a lot like writing a love letter. Each script to each individual artist should be personal, it should be for them. So that’s just what I did. I began to type “Panel 01” and then I thought for a second of how the episode originally started. I got rid of that idea and asked myself the most important question of all: “What do I want to see Pary draw?”

I’m very happy to say, the rest took care of itself.

Until next time,

Hello! Michael here, I’m currently the writer of Unstoppable and I’ll be posting periodically with the behind the scenes tidbits in the making of this project. Any and all questions, comments, etc. for me or about the project can be sent to [email protected] and I’ll address them all personally or possibly even here in this column in the weeks to come. Thank you, and enjoy!

“Unstoppable,” YJ uttered.  He stared off into the sky and waved his hands trying to conjure an image within our heads. He repeated the word for good measure just in case any of us weren’t paying attention. Then he said it a third time. 

At first, it was a bit of a comical title, just say it out loud, “Unstoppable,” and you’ll hear it just oozing with cheesiness.  But after a while, we started getting used to it, and I even went so far as to put “Episode 1 of Project ‘Unstoppable’” at the header of the very first draft. The more we said it, the more the word made sense.

Every member of the content development team, or “CDT, at Comic Panda (which includes YJ, our fearless leader; Victoria, writer and editor; Pary, artist extraordinaire; and myself, starry-eyed hopeful trying to write a halfway decent comic) poured ourselves into constructing this story. We knew that from the onset this was going to be a mystery-thriller, something with plot twists and cliffhanger endings, real sexy stuff, you know? But it’s easier said than done, and by the time we drafted our first rough outline of the narrative, we were neck deep in ideas that were left on the cutting room floor.

“Come on guys, we’re Unstoppable” YJ declared after making us our third round of instant coffee during a late night brainstorming session.

And in that moment, it all just clicked for us.

“Unstoppable” we repeated.

I wish I could say that the rest is history, but we’re still currently really hard at work on Unstoppable. Maybe in a few months, once this project is completed, we’ll all have a laugh about the title or maybe it’ll resonate with the readers and make perfect sense.

The title has become sort of a mantra here at the CDT, and we hope you adopt it as well. Whenever you’re at your desk creating anything, whether it is in writing, art, music, or trying to make a decent cup of instant coffee, I hope you remind yourself that if you put love and hard work into it, that you’ll without a doubt be unstoppable.