Gail Simone's Blog, page 898
October 12, 2012
Dear Gail, while your tumblr is awesome, your tweets are even moreso. Not just in a regular way, either. Your tweets are "OMG-I-thin-I-may-have-had-this-conversation-late-night-in-high-school-or-college-with-my-friends-over-D&D" sorta way. Thanks for bring
Aw! Thank you, you! To be honest, I’m amazed anyone reads this stuff…I would have unfollowed me ages ago. ;)
Untitled: It is finally over..
I have been putting off reading the end of The Secret Six for a long time now. I knew that when I did, it would be done for good. So I took my time to honor the series by collecting all of their appearances including Villains United, Six Degrees of Devastation, Birds of Prey, and even Salvation…
Thank you for this kind thought.
I’m going to admit something sappy here. I don’t often reread books I’ve written. But there are some that, for one reason or another, I can’t reread them even if I try. I don’t like how they turned out or for some other reason.
With the final issue of Secret Six, it’s just too much. It makes me sad.
If you read it, you see that each of the members is just an INCH away from happiness. They are one footstep from salvation and peace and friendship and joy and marriage and partnership. Just a STEP.
But then, that can never be allowed, the heroes come in and utterly destroy them.
It makes me sad. Scandal’s last moment with Knockout had me crying during scripting, that never happens.
So I can’t really reread it at this point, yet.
When working on original work- and therefore not necessarily having an editor or someone else that you have to answer to about due dates- how to you keep yourself working? Or, alternatively, how do you stop your stories from spiralling out of control?
This is a GREAT question.
I work better with a deadline, I just do. It’s not discipline, I’m still working. But a deadline makes me work towards a finish line for a project, even if I may go over by a bit.
So when I do work that’s not for an editor, I make darn sure it’s a project I truly care about, so that I WANT to put pen to paper, if that makes sense.
Good question! I guess it’d be a lot harder if I hated writing, but I dearly love it.
Has there ever been a time that you remember, when you described a scene or a panel a very specific way in the script, and the artist - for whatever reason - drew it completely differently? I guess I'm asking if there's been a time when that happened and y
Yes.
MOSTLY, it happens because many of the artists I most love working with speak English as a second or third language, and some speak it not at all. In such cases, very rarely, they will draw something literally. I try to be really careful not to use symbolism in the panel descriptions in such a case. If I say, “She knocks the guy to the moon,” sure enough, at some point, an artist might draw that exact image.
It happens very rarely, amazingly rarely. I think some of the non-fluent English speaking artists work even harder to get the pages right, bless them. That’s been my experience, working with artists from Brazil, Japan, China, all over…there’s a very serious respect for the script. It’s lovely.
Like, Ed Benes gets the emotions I ask for on the page better than almost anyone I’ve ever worked with, and his English is very basic (a thousand times better than my non-existent Portugese). I don’t honestly know how he does it. I know he has translators, sometimes, but it always feels like more would be lost.
In a more classic sense, most of the artists I’ve worked with are great, if they want a different scene, they write or call and we work it out.
The exception was, one time, a well-known artist just decided to change a ton of things in the script. Two female characters that were supposed to die, he liked them, so he kept them, and killed the two male characters instead. And I wasn’t given a chance to fix the dialogue to match.
So the book went out with the characters referring to each other as characters who died, among many other problems.
But that is so rare, it’s actually only happened to me once in my career!
Has there ever been a time that you remember, when you described a scene or a panel a very specific way in the script, and the artist - for whatever reason - drew it completely differently? I guess I'm asking if there's been a time when that happened and y
Yes.
MOSTLY, it happens because many of the artists I most love working with speak English as a second or third language, and some speak it not at all. In such cases, very rarely, they will draw something literally. I try to be really careful not to use symbolism in the panel descriptions in such a case. If I say, “She knocks the guy to the moon,” sure enough, at some point, an artist might draw that exact image.
It happens very rarely, amazingly rarely. I think some of the non-fluent English speaking artists work even harder to get the pages right, bless them. That’s been my experience, working with artists from Brazil, Japan, China, all over…there’s a very serious respect for the script. It’s lovely.
Like, Ed Benes gets the emotions I ask for on the page better than almost anyone I’ve ever worked with, and his English is very basic (a thousand times better than my non-existent Portugese). I don’t honestly know how he does it. I know he has translators, sometimes, but it always feels like more would be lost.
In a more classic sense, most of the artists I’ve worked with are great, if they want a different scene, they write or call and we work it out.
The exception was, one time, a well-known artist just decided to change a ton of things in the script. Two female characters that were supposed to die, he liked them, so he kept them, and killed the two male characters instead. And I wasn’t given a chance to fix the dialogue to match.
So the book went out with the characters referring to each other as characters who died, among many other problems.
But that is so rare, it’s actually only happened to me once in my career!
Ugh I was SO sure Knightfall was captain carrot, this was SO insensitive of you!! (for what it's worth, I thought the Azrael link was pretty clear in the costume :) )
I want you to know that if Knightfall shows up with a carrot insignia next time, it’ll be on your head!
Do you have any advice for creating your own superhero character?
Can you be more specific? Do you mean for comics, games, fanfic, or something else?
And what’s the question, what is it about creating a superhero that you are concerned about?
So today's Kick Ass DC Woman Tourney matchup over at DC Women Kicking Ass pits Cass Cain against Scandal Savage. My question is, who would you vote for? (and why, if you care to share). Thanks!
Ouch. That is an unbearable choice.
I honest to god would rather eat a bug than choose between them. I would think my first choice would be a character I created, but I adore Cass so much.
I better not vote on this one or I will be destroyed by regret.
What is Your Favorite Superhero Movie?
I will say the only restriction is that it be a film, not a television show, cool?
Just curious, really.
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