02/16/24: GREMLINS & GUIDE RAILS
You vs. Genre vs. Everybody
Hey y’all,
Sorry for the gap in communication. The start of this year has been wild and wooly but actually very productive behind the scenes. Tease us more you say? Well, I’ve made a lot of great progress on writing a second long form story (probably a graphic novel, but we’ll see. And yes there was/is a mysterious first ). I’ve also put together an early draft of a comic strip collection that I’ll likely crowdfund and print. So stay tuned for those.
Today I decided to do the most annoyingly predictable writer thing ever and write a little about writing. Bear with it and there will be some silly comics as the carrot or stick you deserve at the end…
I recently started digging through some really old writing documents on my computer. Scattered ideas. Rough drafts of scripts, essays, and notes dating back decades.
Most everything was some sort of pitch or springboard. A paper trail of the mad hurry I was in. Of my desperation to tell stories and the seemingly endless frustration of not knowing what those stories were yet.
I would often freeze up when trying to figure out how any of my ideas add anything new or unique to the plastic sea of Funko pops we call pop culture. I just didn’t and (now more than ever) don’t want to tell stories that exist only to feed the insatiable churn.
But what is unique? What is important?
The answers to that often matter very little to anyone outside of your own head. So rather than spin out endlessly trying to solve for objective truth, my approach became to ask questions I don’t have the answers to.
What I discovered pretty quickly is that asking questions leads to better questions. And that the search tends to add a sense of propulsion to the storytelling process. A tug that gets you moving, sometimes barreling, into the unknown at ludicrous speed. And that is where and when you need some kind of guide rail so you don’t just go swirling down the drain of your own navel.
As a default term for work that’s impersonal, “genre” kind of gets a bad rap. But in the ideal genres have expectations (not rules) that can serve as those guide rails.
If you play your cards right you can use that agreed upon space between to explore anything. For example— Rust Cohle’s rambling in the first season of TRUE DETECTIVE works because that ponderance of a greater cosmic horror is wedged in the framework we expect from a murder mystery. The whole approach is probably cribbed from Alan Moore’s even windier and loftier FROM HELL, but to it’s benefit the show understood the power a Lone Star beer can holds over an audience of NASCAR dads.
Of course you can also use subversion of genre expectations to tread fresher ground. To zig when you’re supposed to zag. The example of Invincible’s dad Omni Man turning into a murderous Superman comes to mind. It works because the fascism of superheroes is supposed to remain below the surface. Great power is expected to come with great responsibility.
In a commercial sense genre is generally about achieving a specific, entertainment-forward effect or outcome. But genre is just a delivery mechanism. A shorthand for connecting with an audience. What you do with that connection is what determines its worth.
But it is unfortunately and undeniably true that genre is how the big corporate machines carve up and sell us our stories.
And when you’re aspiring to make money telling those stories, it can too easily become your default way of thinking. “What is digestible? How do I bake the file into this cake?”
I suspect what makes this so hard to figure out is that it’s a largely artificial construct. Built around form, and time, and attention spans. In selling and buying. Because in a more literary sense, a story would follow whatever winding path its plot or characters need to go down in order to achieve the most emotionally and intellectually resonant, (if not truthful), outcome. Even if that outcome leaves you feeling confused, or sort of down. Because sometimes making you feel and acknowledge discomfort is largely the point.
I recently finished another rewatch of MADMEN. Which in case you’re unaware runs about 92 hours long. And yes there is a consideration for the hour-long format of television that builds its guide rails, but the real hook or semblance of genre is the setting. Something all stories have to have.
And while MADMEN is incredibly enjoyable and rewarding— it is not the fun period piece about drinking and sex and selling fun ideas that it appears to be. That is merely the illusion of reality those characters have built around themselves and sell to their world. All that glitz is just the mechanism to lure you into a story about how modern reality is inextricable from the version of it we are sold.
Of course, there are actual literary works that would be better examples, but MADMEN fits the bill here because it’s making some small but significant concessions to the fact it needed an audience, ratings, and sponsors to continue telling its story.
The synthesis of those concessions with my own ambitions is what has driven me mad over my entire body of work. I think there are a few examples of it working out in a creatively satisfying way, but largely I’ve chafed at the bit that is outside expectations. Sometimes the most on projects you’d never ever be able to tell it.
Having spent the bulk of my career in mainstream or mainstream adjacent comics system I’ve learned that you cannot please everyone. But more importantly pleasing other people is rarely as satisfying as it may seem.
If I could go back in time and give advice to that past self banging his head into his keyboard — I’d tell him that. But also to remember that self-expression doesn’t always have to be a grandiose thing. That even a comic strip that tells a dumb joke is a unique expression. Because it’s a risk.
Only you can write your jokes. Your fears. Your hopes. Your weird delusions and insights. If you can do that within someone else’s characters, and compromises? Great.
But in my experience growth comes only from risk.
Because the whole cyclic nature of trying and failing and succeeding is a story itself. And while there is a great deal to learn by keeping your cart between the rails— staying there too long is running someone else’s race.
Okay now that I’ve justified the existence of my insane comic strips to myself. Here’s a newer one:
This one started as a stab at allowing myself to just be completely silly for no reason, but ended up about the Ditch Gremlins we all face. Funny how that works. Guess I don’t have this writing thing so figured out after all.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope you’re all are doing as well as can be.
More soon…
-j
BRILLIANT. Everything you post is an unexpected treasure, but this is my favourite so far. 2024 is shaping up to be a brilliant year, I hope it is for you too.