LIBRARY artefact #019
SUPERGODS Redux
Part 2
A kid confronted me at a signing in Australia once with a beady interrogator’s eye that told me he’d had about enough cute bullshit from adults and wanted some straight talk. ‘I read somewhere you actually believe you go into another dimension when you work?’ he challenged. Luckily, I had a smart-arse answer at the ready.
‘It’s true; I do go to another dimension,’ I grinned and opened a comic. ‘I work in the 2nd Dimension and here it is. You can touch it.’ I
I thought he’d be impressed but instead his contempt was palpably dripping. Any fleeting glimmer of hope he may have entertained that I could pass on the secret of interdimensional travel was lost forever, replaced by bitter scorn. The everyday magic of the bleeding obvious wasn’t good enough.
In the real world where the comic is a physical artefact, issues are separated by strict deadline frequencies, 200 comics are still published every month by Marvel and DC alone. Inside the comic’s pages, that elapsed time does not apply. It may have been a month since the last issue of Superman but for Superman only a week might have passed, or a day, or a year. If the previous issue ended with a cliff-hanger, perhaps only seconds will have elapsed in Superman’s world while readers have endured 30 days of nail-biting anticipation.
Comics Universe time is a new kind of simulated time running on its own terms inside the confines of our own universe. These model universes have their own seasons, their own weather, their own histories and laws of physics.
There are always strict limits to observe - most monthly comics are 22-24 pages long, so a story must be cut and edited to fit comfortably within that format. Dialogue balloons won’t hold more than 35 words before they begin to look bloated and unwieldy and obscure more of the story than they reveal. To introduce numerous characters and new situations into these confines is a very specific skill, which not everyone who works in comics today has mastered. When stories were extended, or ‘decompressed’ as it became known, by writers who were either a little lazy and short on inspiration or heavily influenced by storytelling techniques borrowed from television series, the result was often a slackness and lack of vigour, which at best only added to the sense of real time passing in all its sluggish glory.
The great comics use the restrictions of the form to inspire new ways of telling a story in words and pictures. In recent years, even the old-style caption boxes and thought balloons have largely disappeared. What once could be dealt with in a narrative box or internal monologue must now be expressed in action and dialogue only. This vogue for copying the screenwriting style has made the task of presenting a satisfying and complete story in less than 30 pages harder than before but more rewarding when it’s successful, like writing a particularly perfect haiku or 3-minute pop song.
A comic comes into being a little like this. Other writers and artists have their own specific work methods but generally it’s along these lines. The example here comes from my own work and my collaboration with artist Frank Quitely AKA Vin Deighan on the All Star Superman series.
The story begins in my head and grows from the seed of an image or a sequence. These initial ingredients are rendered visually in a notebook as sketches and character designs. The visual element is first onto the page and helps to identify the important aspects of the story in terms of action and character development, especially as it relates to the type of spectacle and physical movement comics are particularly good at delivering.
As I sketch, the structure of the story begins to suggest itself, hardening to a narrative skeleton that can support all the elements of the story and ensure it can be told effectively within the required page count. The basic shape of the story – which can be linear, circular, spiral, nested etc. – then directs where best to arrange its various elements and place its centre of balance.
In this case I had twenty-two pages to tell a non-linear ‘day in the life’ story of a dying Superman. I chose to arrange the story in mostly two-page scenes, and although these were arranged out of chronological sequence, the story was built so that its divergent strands would all still converge towards a sense of satisfying resolution.
Most of this initial work is done in the notebook as the story accrues like crystal growth. I run, replay and edit the action in my head, then add new details, colour and dialogue suggestions to my 2-inch thumbnail mock-up of the finished comic.
These images scribbled down direct from the imagination are then converted via word processing software into careful text instructions like the following, with U.S. spellings intact, from All Star Superman #10...
Frame 1 Cut – we’re inside the Bottle City of Kandor looking down on a broad terrace that overlooks the crowded, shining spires of this last outpost of the lost super-civilization of Krypton. There’s a soaring, Utopian ‘Brave New World’, ‘Things To Come’ element to the architecture – though less of the Retro Deco ‘30’s style and more of the onion domed, crystalline structures in a sci-fi style, combined with a hint of the fascistic in the tall, narrow vertical forms which seem to jostle for every inch of available space –
- the entire city is laid out in the shape of a hydrogen atom: seen from directly overhead would be the enormous central dome of the Council Chamber and the huge perimeter wall which encircles the city and once had a radius of miles before that was reduced to a couple of feet. City blocks are arranged along streets like spokes on a bicycle wheel with city sectors marked out along the curves of concentric circular avenues like ripples in a pond from the central Council Chamber to the wall. The outer circle nearest the wall is a natural looking hillside which slopes from its heights below the great glass dome atop the wall, to the encircling Scarlet Forests of the foothills which gently give way to the rolling pasture of the agricultural circle where super-crops are farmed by robots and giant, intelligent harvester machines. Then the first of three great rings of rivers divides the farmland from the discreet hangars of the robot factories and the power stations which run on a power source Superman has embedded deep in the bedrock below the soil of the city. Then come the beautifully laid out lakes and estates in the outer suburbs, giving way to the clusters of riverside communities on the outer bank of the second of Kandor’s circular rivers which look across the broad, striped waters into the heart of the city. The buildings get taller towards the center and include the magnificent Hall of Justice.
The last of the three rivers surrounds the center of Kandor – overlooking the riverbank furthest from the center is Kandor’s university, on the bank nearest the center are seven incredible buildings dedicated to the arts and sciences – including a museum, concert hall and library. The calm avenues domes and fountains of The Glass Forest Park surround the sweeping dome of the Council chamber, out of which rises a tower, and up on top of this tower a second dome containing the Council Chamber itself - big enough to seat hundreds and surrounded by sky.
All of the above is just scene-setting to give some idea of the space we’re in before you sit down to design.
The terrace we’re looking down on is one of several tiers circling the upper dome. Looking down through Kandor’s teeming, vertical lines, with its odd feeling of claustrophobia combined with a comforting, toy-like use of confined space. The air is filled with colourful little sky cars with fins, bold patterns and paintjobs that give them the lustre and sheen of CGI super-plastic.
The figures on the terrace below us are VAN-ZEE, who turns from the platform’s edge – there are no balconies here the terrace simply ends, overlooking a terrifying drop – and SYLVA, his wife who’s calling him to join her. Van-Zee looks like Superman and Sylva looks just like Lois Lane, although both seem a little older than their counterparts – in their late 30s maybe. Her primary color is YELLOW with green details.
He points to the sky – there, in the permanent evening glow we can see the enormous face of Superman faded like an early moon as he peers down from beyond the bottle glass, like the image of a god glimpsed in the firmament.
Van-Zee is dressed in fairly traditional Kryptonian garb – a headband with Brainiac contacts, a tunic emblazoned with his personal insignia of a Kryptonian letter ‘Z’ inside a broad oval. He has epaulettes on his shoulders from which his cape hangs to his calves. He has a belt and boots and also wears metal wristbands and gloves. His primary color is PURPLE/INDIGO – I know you love these ghastly Kryptonian colors, Vin, so I’ll let you choose what seems least offensive as a contrasting color for the insignia, cape, etc.
Sylva wears a cowled costume reminiscent of the one worn by LILO in issue 9.
And this might be best as a tall vertical panel.
CAP.: 10.25 am:
SYLVA: VAN-ZEE?
SYLVA: THEY’RE WAITING FOR US IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER.
VAN-ZEE: IN KRYPTON’S SECOND GOLDEN AGE, MEN AND WOMEN LIVED FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AND PERFORMED MIGHTY FEATS OF GREAT RENOWN.
Frame 2 He joins her and lays his hands on her shoulders. She reaches up to touch his hair and he seems grave as he turns his head from her to gaze up into the sky.
VAN-ZEE: I FOUND ANOTHER GRAY HAIR TODAY, SYLVA.
SYLVA: WELL, IT MAKES YOU LOOK DISTINGUISHED.
SYLVA NO MORE BROODING ON THE TERRACES…THIS IS AN HISTORIC MOMENT.
Frame 3 They enter the Council Chamber to take their seats around a circular red table. Joining them - some already taking their places at the table – are PROFESSOR KIM-DA a completely bald and neatly-gray-bearded man who looks like a Greek philosopher and wears a high-collared one piece outfit like a surgeon’s smock which comes down to the top of his boots. He also wears a headband with Brainiac contacts. His primary color is GREEN with white piping and details.
ZORA is a tall, thin, older woman with the gravity and dignity of a Mother Superior. Her primary color is ORANGE with black details and she wears an elaborate black John Byrne style head-dress. A simple red sun insignia on her chest. She looks the way ballet dancers look when they’re nearing 60, with high cheekbones, a regal bearing and a still slender figure. No-one in Kandor looks less than perfect for their age.
GENERAL MARS-OL wears a more militaristic version of the basic Superman look – completely in black with a BLUE high collar, blue boot-tops, blue epaulettes and cape. He has a red sun symbol on his chest, with jagged ‘flaming’ edges, inside a square border. Mars-Ol is one of Krypton’s ‘black race’ from Vathlo island. He looks strong and dignified, like a young, caped Muhammad Ali.
Finally comes THAN-AR, a Kandorian official with a Saturnine appearance – widow’s peak, high, cheekbones, a neat goatee. Tall and thin, he resembles the type of the Grand Vizier from ‘Aladdin’ – a ‘court official’ character dressed formally in tunic and boots but with his long cape reaching to his feet and gathered around him to give him a slightly ecclesiastical air. He appears to be in his late 40s. His primary color in this spectrum is VIOLET, the darkest hue. His details are white.
There’s something formal, grand, ancient and almost Japanese about their bearing. Citizens of Kandor sit on stepped circular levels, surrounding the Council table which is on a raised dais at the base of the bowl shape under the glass dome.
Somewhere we can see a huge banner or screen with the flag of Krypton – in the old comics, this was a weird-looking item with an image of Krypton itself in the center, surrounded by multicoloured rays. It was a bit of an eyesore, but the sort of thing kids like to do with felt pens. We’ll take the basic idea and tweak it so that the new flag has a central RED circle, representing RAO the sun of Krypton. From this red circle emanate the seven rays of the color spectrum, against a black field representing space –more appropriate for the flag of a one world, science and reason-based civilization.
VAN ZE HISTORIC?
VAN ZEE: IN KANDOR WE HAVE NOTHING LEFT BUT HISTORY.
Frame 4 Cut to Superman and Leo Quintum inside the Fortress of Solitude. Superman glances down from the Bottle City to see Leo Quintum trying to adjust his yellow cape…he’s wearing the only Kryptonian outfit he could get his hands on – Jimmy Olsen’s FLAMEBIRD outfit, without the burglar mask.
QUINTUM: STILL NOT SURE IF AN ECTOMORPH LIKE ME BELONGS IN THIS ‘AUTHENTIC KRYPTONIAN FORMAL WEAR’ I BORROWED FROM OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, MR. OLSEN’S COLLECTION.
SUPERMAN: THEY WON’T BE JUDGING YOUR MUSCLES, QUINTUM.
SUPERMAN: VAN-ZEE JUST SIGNALLED ME THAT THEY’RE ALMOST READY FOR YOU.
SUPERMAN: ALL I NEED IS A MOMENT TO CALIBRATE BRAINIAC’S REDUCING RAY TO ITS TEMPORARY SETTING.
I only rarely share my thumbnail drawings with my artistic collaborators, preferring to fire their imaginations with words, so the comprehensive detail in a script like this allows a creative partner to accurately draw pictures which originated in my head. An artist, in this case Quitely, reads these instructions and draws his own interpretation of the scene described, in his own distinctive style…
More soonwise…
So, it’s laid out like Atlantis, then?
Some of these panel descriptions are like poetry themselves! Love the peek behind the curtain