Posts
so, seven more days until danger down under! no.3 hits the stands featuring covers by craig--of course--and the stuff of legends' fantastic artist, charles paul wilson III!
(...and if no one got you the collected stuff of legend for christmas, do yourself a new year's favor and get it for yourself--it's wonderful!)
our third outing also features an awesome back cover paining by artist daniel warren that will make your eyes pop out! i'll be posting that gorgeous artwork here sometime after the book comes out, but, for now, i'm gonna keep you in suspense!
so, that's just what's on the outside of the comic--wait'll ya see the insides!!
featuring artwork by craig, matt and christian (wieringo and leaf, respectively) and, from the pages of dr. who, my good pal, matthew dow smith, this issue's gonna turn the tale on it's head! ...or on it's side! ...or something...something's gonna turn, that's all i know...!
it's 28 full color pages of story! story! story! and who gives you that these days! (we like to make sure you get the most for your money, so we pack the pages with POW!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
that is true--craig and i love to give you those extras, like pin-ups and promo pieces and behind-the-scenes stuff when we put together the trades. it's the kinda stuff we love to see when we read collections from other comics, so why not do it ourselves, right?
one of the things that'll be showing up in the Danger Down Under! trade when it comes out next fall is a sampling of pages that i wrote for the first issue as i tried to capture emo woody franson's australian dialect phonetically.
i have been a long-time fan of dave sim's graphic masterpiece cerebus and loved when he would write various characters phonetically, capturing elrod the albino's foghorn leghorn-esque speech patterns or mick jagger and keith richards (mick and keef)'s outrageous british cockney. fabulous stuff!
and so, when the time came for emo (woody franson) to talk, i wanted to see if i, too, could dip into that magic and translate accent to paper. i would need an expert--someone who would be able to proof-read my attempts and let me know where i was missing the mark. enter my good friend, rod hannah, a kiwi by birth (that's a new zealander for those of you familiar only with this hemisphere...), who, while no huge fan of the aussies (kiwi's and aussies have a long standing rivalry apparently) knows how they speak and could help me make it 'sound' authentic.
rod was on-board and eager to help and so i jumped in with both feet, scripting the dialogue for the first two issues, taking great pains to capture all the nuances of the australian dialect. it was lots of fun and i couldn't wait to run it past rod to see what he thought, if i'd gotten it right.
but after sitting on it for a day or two, i read the pages over and felt that it just didn't fit. it was too distracting and, while it worked marvelously for dave sim in cerebus, i didn't have the luxury that he had with his wonderfully rambling narrative and gorgeously liberating layout. i had already made my decision when i floated them past rod, but he agreed. emo woody franson would have to be australian with a few 'oy's and an occasional bit of aussie slang thrown in here and there.
here's a sample of how one of the phonetically scripted pages woulda read and what i ultimately went with...
hope ya dig 'em...
that's it for now!
happy new year, by the way~
join me monday for the countdown to issue 3!
smell ya later!
todd
7 comments:
I think the accent would've been a bit of leap for some, but that it would've probably clicked with most people.
Take the novel TRAINSPOTTING. It's written completely in Scottish dialect. Sure the first couple of pages are tough, wrapping your brain around that idea, but once it clicks, you're gold. You'll probably even find a few words start creeping into your vocabulary.
Oh, that happened to me BIG TIME when I read A Clockwork Orange, too, Christian! I realized that I was thinking in the slang that Burgess had made up for the book. Love it when a book has that kind of lasting impression on you.
todd, don't know if it is my old brain or my old eyes, but hand to God, I read through the first page then moved to the second one thinking that was the one with the "dialect" on it. Read the first page like standard english without even noticing.
todd, don't know if it is my old brain or my old eyes, but hand to God, I read through the first page then moved to the second one thinking that was the one with the "dialect" on it. Read the first page like standard english without even noticing.
so...brian, maybe NOT so distracting after all...?
I think you made the right choice. Chris Claremont had the right idea. You don't have to have the character speak German or or Russian or Southern. Just throw in a few "Mein freund"s or "sugah"s and the reader will fill in the blanks.
I agree, good call, but like I said on the other post--a definite read-a-loud, and especially if you had gone full blown on us. Looking forward to the reads.
Post a Comment