Collaboration

One of the greatest joys of writing comics is the actual collaboration with the artist(s).

Many of my projects involve characters and concepts that I've been developing for years, and seeing them brought to life by a talented illustrator gives me goosebumps every time. Other projects are more loosely defined, offering the artist more opportunity to share in the conceptualization, character definitions, and even plot elements. Quite often the amount of participation by an artist is dictated by his or her comfort level.

GUNSHY on the other hand represents a true departure for me. This concept was born in the fertile imagination of artist extraordinaire Bong Abad. This is his world. These are his characters. And I was fortunate enough to be invited along for the ride.

It began with imagery, which one would expect from an artist. Visions of a smouldering apocalyptic landscape, shrouded in blackened chemical vapors. Visions of a retro-futuristic robotic monster, searching for prey within a barrage of blinding searchlights. Visions of a brash young man, sneering confidently behind the wide muzzles of twin handguns. And visions of a beautiful red-headed heroine, simmering with sensuality beneath the strong exterior of undeterred purpose.

This is when the fun began. Bong had a couple of visually compelling characters, some fantastic story elements, and a very cool title all wrapped in an eye-taunting package of his amazing artwork. We talked. We bounced ideas back and forth. I tossed him a rough draft of a script. He tossed back some valuable feedback. And a story was born.

But we're not done yet. As Bong begins to illustrate the debut GUNSHY one-shot, he will use my script as a guideline, but he will reinterpret the pages according to his original vision for his story. Because as I said, this is his world. These are his characters.

Then I will revisit the script, adjusting and rewriting to make sure that Bong's sequence of visual delights will remain unified through dialogue and narration. This is pure collaboration. This is one of the greatest joys of writing comics.

I love it.
I hope you will too.

JSjr