Follow me to the reckoning of all things.

I've got Mastema on the mind. This is an ongoing thing: I've been semi-obsessed with her story since high school, and have written her in short stories, films scripts, TV scripts, and now in a potential comic book.

Over the course of all this I've written several different versions of her. All of them are hot and vicious and snarky; this is immutable. Beyond that, though...I reread the opening of the film script that I wrote a while ago and was struck by how much more human she was.


WIDE ON the kitchen. It was porn set, but now it looks like a horror film. Dead bodies lie everywhere, including the SLUTTY WAITRESS, the DIRECTOR, and the CAMERAMAN. It's a grotesque mess of camera equipment, nudity, broken limbs, and blood.

ANGLE ON Paul. His own chest is stabbed to bits. He stares.

PAUL
(whimpering)
Oh my God...

By now Mastema's got a neat little row of plastic forks in front of her. She looks up at Paul.

MASTEMA
No. No God yet. I need you here.

PAUL
Who are you?

MASTEMA
My name is Mastema.

PAUL
What happened?

MASTEMA
You died. More to the point, you were murdered. I brought you back.

PAUL
How?

MASTEMA
Magic.

PAUL
Really?

MASTEMA
No, not really. I just don't feel like explaining it to you. Did you see who killed you?

Paul's not listening; he's staring at the holes in his chest. Mastema leans forward and SNAPS her fingers at him. Paul jumps.

MASTEMA (CONT'D)
Paul. Focus.

PAUL
How do you know my name?

MASTEMA
Magic.
(off his look, irritated)
No, not really. I went through your wallet while you were dead. Who killed you?

Okay, so not a WHOLE lot more human - but she has moments of such vulnerability in the movie version. Basically she's this immortal spirit who's been forced to take human form in order to escape a twisted science experiment, aka Heaven. In becoming human, tho, she has to contend with pesky things like pain and hunger and fear and being stupidly, achingly in love with someone who (at the time the script starts) hates her guts. She looks down on human beings a lot for their many flaws, but at the end of the day she's just as messed up as everyone else.

TV-Mastema was a lot harder, a lot meaner. She had to be: I'd set up a typical TV cast of secondary characters around her (a single main lead would never work in the 14-hour workdays of television), and populated it with similarly cutthroat, duplicitous demons. She was swimming with the sharks, and she had to have more teeth than anyone else around. It was kind of a pointless viciousness, tho: she was very much at the beck and call of the angelic host.

The comic-Mastema that I've written so far is a lot colder than movie-Mastema, and a lot more calculating than TV-Mastema. She has an endgame and she's more than willing to sacrifice other people, including those closest to her, in order to further her goals. And yeah, that ultimate goal is a doozy and worth the sacrifice, but I don't know how much readers are willing to stick with that sort of character...particularly, I have to say, that sort of female character. Which was kind of my motivation for writing her that way, but I have to also be realistic about my audience, here. Walk that fine line and all.

The long and the short of it is: I think I'm gonna try rewriting the Mastema comic to reflect more of the movie-Mastema characterizations. It means scrapping a lot of work, but I think it's for the best - and hey, that means I won't be abandoning the whole movie script that I wrote.

It's no fun unless the world is ending.

As of last Saturday I have "A Teenager's Guide" fully outlined. As my projects are wont to do, it turned out a bit bigger (16 chapters) than I'd expected (12 chapters); I tend to go epic with my stories.

So with Chapter 1 written and polished, the outline done, and a rough draft of Chapter 2 written, I find myself wondering what I should work on at the moment. I'm sort of inclined to poke at another comic I've written called "Nevermore." Glancing to my project list, I realize that I haven't even talked about it here, and the completed rough draft of the first issue has been sitting on my hard drive for months.

Nevermore is the story of Kim Conrad, a God-fearin', gun-totin' lesbian badass who never met a woman she didn't want to bang and is quite handy with blunt instruments. Her best buddy in the whole world is Josh Crosby; they're raising Josh's son Taylor after the death of Josh's wife. Their semi-quiet life gets torn apart, though, by the arrival of the mysterious Grey People. Suddenly, whole buildings are disappearing into thin air, Josh is transformed into a heroin addict who doesn't recognize Kim, and Taylor's nowhere to be found. And what's with all the Edgar Allan Poe references?

The series is a scifi mystery-comedy, as Kim and Josh search for Taylor and struggle to figure out what the hell is going on. Here, have a snippet from the first issue:


Panel 1
Establishing panel inside Josh’s small kitchen. It’s definitely the apartment of a single dad, with space rockets on the curtains and a bunch of appliances to make cooking easier. Still, it’s homey. The fridge is covered with Taylor’s starred homework. Josh is at the stove poking pancakes with a spatula. Conrad sits at the table reading a newspaper.

JOSH:
I like how you offered but I’m the one behind the stove.
CONRAD:
If the Good Lord had intended me to cook, he wouldn’t have created other women.
JOSH:
You’re the most chauvinistic person I know.
CONRAD:
The irony was too beautiful to pass up.

Panel 2
Josh carries a plate of pancakes over to the table. He looks down at the pancakes instead of at her. Conrad looks up at him with concern. In the background the pan smokes.

JOSH:
Listen, I was wanting to ask you…Taylor’s class is going on this trip in Eastern Oregon next month.
JOSH:
It costs three hundred…
CONRAD:
You need me to pitch in? Dude, of course.

Panel 3
High angle, looking over Josh’s shoulder down at Conrad. He rubs the back of his neck, his expression unhappy. She’s having none of it.

JOSH:
Thanks. I’ll pay you –
CONRAD:
The hell you will.
JOSH:
I don’t want to just –
CONRAD:
If you don’t take it I’ll spend it on hookers. And then I’ll get Chlamydia.
CONRAD:
Do you want me to get Chlamydia, Josh? Do you?

Panel 4
We see Taylor from the back as he wanders into the kitchen dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Josh and Conrad shoot him uncomfortable looks.

TAYLOR:
What’s Clymidia?
JOSH AND CONRAD (in unison, sharing the bubble):
Uhhh…tell you when you’re older.
CONRAD:
So, uh, how’s school?

Panel 5
Josh heads back to the stove. Conrad pushes the pancakes over to Taylor, who settles in the other chair and reaches for the syrup.

TAYLOR:
Today we have to give a speech ‘bout what we wanna be when we grow up.
CONRAD:
Oh yeah? What’re you gonna say?
TAYLOR:
A clown.

Panel 1
Medium panel of the kitchen. Conrad makes a horrified face at Josh, who silently points the spatula – dripping pancake batter – at her. Taylor doesn’t see.

CONRAD:
A clown? Really? That’s awesome!
TAYLOR:
Or a ‘struction worker, like Daddy –
JOSH:
Construction, Tay
TAYLOR:
-- or a lesbian.

Panel 2
Small panel. Conradn looks at Taylor sharply. Behind her, Josh stares, too.

CONRAD:
What now?

Panel 3
Small panel. Taylor smiles innocently up at them, a pancake skewered on his fork.

TAYLOR:
A lesbian, like you.

Panel 4
Conrad puts both of her arms up in surrender. Josh looks like he might hit her with the spatula. Outside, brakes squeal and Taylor jumps up.

CONRAD:
I didn’t do it. It’s the most awesome thing ever, but I didn’t do it.
JOSH:
You…you…
SFX (OP):
Screeeeeeech
TAYLOR:
That’s my bus!

And then later she fights dinosaurs with a chainsaw. >:)

ATG developments

Much going on. I've signed a contract with Sienna Morris to have the first chapter out by the end of the year. You can check out sketches and other pieces of Sienna's work here. Besides being totally enthusiastic about my weird little story, Sienna is a fantastic artist who did an amazing series of paintings called Numberism. Check them out!

Sienna is currently doing character sketches and laying out the pages. I'm working on an outline for the whole graphic novel, which I'm shocked I haven't done yet. Usually I write that out first thing, but something about teenagers and zombies has thrown my usual MO for a loop.

*****

I find myself nervous about how not-witty I am. Every writer has hir strengths: mine are plot and pacing. If I designed a car, it would have a powerful motor, airbags for every seat, and would never break down; it would also probably have doors that were different colors from the rest of the body, crochet seat covers, and a bent antennae. I don't know what the antennae would be there for, nobody listens to the radio anymore. But it'd be there.

My point being: witty dialogue is not my strong point. Never has been. Which is a problem because, well, that's very often what sells a story no matter the medium, but especially comic books. Think about the dialogue in a comic book: it's fast, punchy, a snap to every dialogue bubble.

Pardon moi while I fret.

*****

On the plus side, I get to blow up a church.

*****

TOOLS OF THE TRADE:
I used this as a template for writing my work-for-hire contract with Sienna. We made a few changes and I left out big chunks of the more technical babble, but that's mostly it.