Jim Ottaviani's Blog, page 3
October 19, 2020
NATURALIST: How much is a picture worth?
In adapting E.O. Wilson’s prose book Naturalist (available Nov. 10, but you can pre-order it now!), I finally got a chance to calculate the whole “a picture is worth [X] words” thing with some kind of precision, since this is the first adaptation of a single, complete book I’ve done. So, by the numbers…
Original Text of Naturalist: roughly 112,000 words (111,638 to be precise)
The text that will appear on the pages of our adaptation: about 28,906 words.
That’s the upper bound — here’s why there’s almost certainly fewer words, and why I don’t know how many fewer: The total script length is 70,320 words. The difference is because most of the script is context, description, and stage direction. As any artist who’s worked with me knows, I Have Opinions on how panels, pages, two page spreads, and scenes should look, and I’m not shy about sharing them. But the final book has fewer words on the page because as the artist does their thing I can usually eliminate more words. These on-the-fly editorial decisions aren’t reflected in the final draft of the script — we make the changes based on the drawn pages, since the script is no longer the most important thing. In fact, I actively avoid looking at my panel descriptions once there’s art, and instead work to make sure the words work best with that. More often than not, the actual images work better than the fantasy images in my head. Only when an image doesn’t seem to move the story forward will I go back and see what I asked for.
All by way of saying, let’s round that 28,906 down. Now, math! The 1223 pictures (if you count individual panels, or 226 if you count each page as a unit) were worth 112,000 – 28,000 = 84,000 words. Not quite a thousand per word, but if you take the origin of the saying at about 1910 and adjust the 68 words for inflation, it’s the right order of magnitude today, at least.
So: confirmed!
Well, not at all, really. But leaving aside this hand-wavy pseudo-proof, this much is true: Chris Butzer’s work, coupled with Hilary Sycamore’s colors, sure do a lot of heavy lifting in this book!
October 16, 2020
E.O. Wilson reads from NATURALIST
Though it’s not my book in the sense that others have been, I still feel some ownership of Naturalist (available Nov. 10, but you can pre-order it now!), so this is a thrill:
(In case clicking on the image doesn’t work for you, here’s the link to the video: https://youtu.be/StJapBmLdjE.)
October 12, 2020
NATURALIST: Circumnavigating the uncanny valley
My latest book isn’t mine, really.
The first name on the cover is E.O. Wilson’s, since Naturalist (on sale Nov. 10, but you can pre-order it now!), is an adaptation of his memoir of the same name. I’d never adapted a book before, and had no idea how to do such a thing when an editor at Island Press asked me to consider it. I think I came clean to Rebecca (hi Rebecca!) about this right away, but she sent me the book anyway. By the time it arrived I was having a hard time stopping myself from underlining passages in a copy I’d already borrowed from the library.
(Hi library! It’s 2020 and I miss visiting you!)
That copy she sent me is now beat up and marked up and I’ve underlined stuff on almost every page. Not surprisingly, the book is visually rich and verbally dense. It wasn’t quite a “choose your own adventure” experience, but there were many pathways through the book to explore in adapting it to comics. But to me, what happened between the lines was just as interesting, and to my mind it was this: Prof. Wilson was talking to us, sure, but he was also talking to himself.
So what does this mean for the comic? It meant, to me, that Wilson should talk to himself in the book. Obviously. But also literally. The present day Wilson — “PDW” in my script — should appear as a character during his early life, and vice versa.
PDW and Kid WilsonI knew Chris (hi Chris!) was up to the artistic challenge of that, but I had no idea whether Rebecca would buy in, much less Prof. Wilson himself.
(Hi Prof. Wilson; I still can’t bring myself to call you Ed!)
To their credit, though they were skeptical (especially at the script stage, where the story is only words on the page, so it’s all theory…or maybe just hypothesis!) they let me proceed. And once it was reality, and they could see it in the art, they bought in completely. And that’s because comics is so good at keeping readers out of the uncanny valley.
Briefly, the uncanny valley is a phrase from the 1970s introduced by Masahiro Mori, at the time a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He used it to describe how as robots appear more human-like, they become more appealing — but only up to a point. When they get close to human-like, but not close enough, they start to look creepy. That’s when they’re in the valley. There are lots of reasons why 3D animators (think Pixar movies) don’t try to make their characters resemble real humans or animals too perfectly. One of the main ones is they don’t want to trap them, and then the audience, in the uncanny valley.
The comics medium has an advantage here, I think. A somewhat cartoony style, which I prefer over hyper-realistic ones, makes falling into the uncanny valley almost impossible. For one thing, the first image you see of a character fixes the look of that person in your mind, at least in the context of the book. It becomes the baseline for what you expect to see.
That’s not much different from movies, of course, so the real difference is that in comics you’re a reader, not a viewer. And as a reader, you fill in more details — and all the movement and humanity — that happens between the panels. The subtle failures in how light plays over real flesh, or wind moves hair, or the dissonance of hearing a famous actor’s voice coming out of someone else’s mouth? Those can’t happen in comics.
There are valleys and mountains and amazing vistas and wonderful animals of all kinds in our book, of course. It’s about Nature-with-a-capital-N, after all. But I can say that if you agree to accept that first image of E.O. Wilson as The Naturalist, you can trust him, and us, to move you through both space and time and never even approach the uncanny. What you’ll get instead is the wonder and joy of discovery.
October 2, 2020
Today seems like a good day for free comics: IYPT for the RSC
That’s definitely not a title built for SEO, but hey, it’s accurate. And we’re all about precision and accuracy here at G.T. Labs.
Mostly.
2019 was the International Year of the Periodical Table, and to celebrate—you know, in addition to taking part in the usual exchange of Mendeleev-themed greeting cards and transuranic chocolates—you could stop on by the Royal Society of Chemistry’s site and read comics. That’s right, comics invaded Chemistry World, and I wrote ’em. The first few are drawn by Roger Langridge, who I’ve always been a fan of and whose work on these (mostly) true stories is even more remarkable than you must expect of me to tell you how. (To paraphrase the Messenger in Much Ado About Nothing, since I feel like my part in all this is mostly as a means to introduce scientists to great artists.)
Following Roger’s work you’ll get (if you sign in) more comics by Metaphrog, Isabel Greenberg, Kate Ashwin, Nick Abadzis, and Merlin Strangeway.
Enjoy!
July 8, 2020
More virtual events: July 16 and July 22
If you can read this, you can join me for a couple of online events! Check the “Upcoming Events” link on my site for more info, but briefly:
July 16: In conversation with Kate Greene about her new book Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars.
July 22: A Comic-con panel with Maris Wicks, Gene Yang, and Chad Sell about “The Power of Teamwork in Kids Comics.”
I hope to see** you there.
**Even though, thanks to the magic of how online meetings sometimes disable audience audio+video, I might not actually get to see you, I’m sure you look fabulous!
May 14, 2020
Virtual Astronauts Events: May 20 and June 6
If you can read this, you can join us for a couple of online events!
May 20 (Wednesday), 1pm EDT
Live Chat: Pioneering Women in Aerospace
https://airandspace.si.edu/events/live-chat-pioneering-women-aerospace
Mary Cleave, Maris Wicks, and I will talk about our graphic novel ASTRONAUTS and the first women in space…Mary was one of those astronauts! Could it be cooler? Yes: it’s sponsored and hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum!
June 6 (Saturday), 12pm EDT
Comics Relief: “Space Comics”
Alison Wilgus (@aliwilgus), Maris Wicks (@mariswicks), and I will talk about space comics as part of a cool event sponsored by our pals (and publishers) at First Second!
More details in the events link when they’re available.
January 28, 2020
Astronauts Events!
We’re adding more as we go, so please check the events calendar here, or take a peek at our respective Twitter feeds (@gtlabsrats, @mariswicks) to figure out where we are, and when!
October 21, 2019
Running in 2019
Coming out of the Canada-U.S. TunnelIt doesn’t always look it, but I like to run, and I just closed out another year of races with the always beautiful Detroit half-marathon, the race that takes you across the Ambassador Bridge at dawn and back into the U.S. via the International Underwater Mile
. I had my best time through the tunnel between Canada and the U.S. in a while (7:14) but I couldn’t hold on to that pace. A knee injury and a couple weeks of training lost to Blue-footed Boobies and marine iguanas and Galapagos Giant Tortoises (okay, no regrets!) contributed to low mileage before the race this year, and add in aging (ugh) and my calves started cramping and threatening to pull soon after that shock of cold air greets you coming out from under the Detroit River.
So, here are before and after shots of my body reminding me “There are now a lot more age groups younger than yours than there are older ones.” Actually, I never look like I’m having a good time while I’m running, even though I usually am, so that grimace may not mean what you think it means. But things did start to go south under Cobo Center and the People Mover, so maybe?
Anyway, I gave up at least a minute in the last 5k when on a better day I would have gained some time. But hey, I had some good trail races earlier this year so I can’t complain. (Good races for me, that is; no Kenyan egos were harmed by my presence, I assure you!)
Me less than a mile later. Okay, it’s really a Galapagos Giant Tortoise. But you knew that, right? (Because I don’t eat during a race.)
The real me, and not as unhappy as I look, I promise!The nicest thing about the day: Apparently another runner was using me as a pacer. He passed me in the last kilometer and beat me by about 20 seconds but found me in the corral after the race and thanked me for helping him run his first sub-1:40 half. Well. Cool! I had no clue, but you’re welcome, and that changed it from a meh race to a good race. So thank you! I broke 1:40 too, which is okay, I guess, but given a stronger-than-expected start I wasn’t delighted with the weak finish. Not sad, since I figured that would be a respectable time given injuries and lack of training, but ya know, I’m never satisfied.
And next year? At the very least, I need to arrive early enough to park on a lower level. The post-race stair climb to the 6th floor parking level this year? Ugh. 
September 9, 2019
Frank Sinatra and Stephen Hawking
If you come and hear me talk about the Hawking book—look, there’s an Events link right here on the site!—you might hear me refer to Gay Talese’s famous (justifiably so!) piece “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”. Here’s a link to an annotated version of this excellent essay.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and that you can learn why I like it by coming to one of my book talks!
August 2, 2019
The Michigan Author’s Workshop
I had a great time at the Michigan Author’s Workshop last week, and got a chance to look around Midland — a place I’ve never been — the next morning before heading home. So, some photos!
The VenueThe talk took place at the Midland Center for the Arts, a lovely place. My hosts (Helen and Chris) and co-presenter — poet David (D.R.) James — were excellent too.
Watching over me, not helpfullyWe had some tech difficulties (“Oh, about that HDMI port we said you could use. It doesn’t actually work!” “Um. Okay?”), but in the end we got a big ol’ TV in there and watched episodes of “The Good Place” instead of my talk.
Do good sales mean a good presentation? (Maybe? Probably? I hope?)Not really, but it was a close thing. In the end, I was able to show images — important when talking about comics — and people seemed happy with my discussion of comics storytelling, its tools, and the research process for Hawking. That is, if “book sales > than number of attendees” is a valid measure of happiness, anyway.
It ran late, so I stayed over night and the next morning, before returning home, I visited the Dow Gardens and the Alden B. Dow Home & Studio.
The chimney is built for climbing. (In a less risk-averse age, anyway.)You can’t take photos inside, so you’ll just have to go see it for yourself. I’d heard about the home for years, so was grateful to get a chance to finally visit. Definitely worth it!
A fine event in a fine mid-Michigan town. Thanks again to Saginaw Valley State University. I’d go again!
