Tyler Weaver's Blog, page 71
February 10, 2013
New ComicStoryworld Interview @ The School Library Journal
The best part about having written a book (the writing of the book, with all its ups and downs and twists and turns is, and forever will be, my favorite part) is that I get to chat with some really cool people. This new interview with me was conducted by Peter Gutierrez, who found out about Comics for Film, Games, and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld through the magic combo of Twitter and Tumblr. Peter is a former middle school educator who now writes the excellent Connect the Pop blog for The School Library Journal (among other things) and presented me with some fantastic questions that made me consider a different view of ComicStoryworld than I had initially envisioned it, covering topics like the usage of comics in education and the comparisons between the uproar surrounding video games today and the witch hunts of Frederic Wertham and his brow-beating, chest thumping, anti-comic campaign that decimated the medium in the middle ’50s.
The interview appeared in two parts on February 6 and 7. Here is an excerpt from Part One, Teaching Transmedia with Comics: A Conversation with Tyler Weaver:
On Teaching Transmedia In Schools:
As far as teaching the “transmedia stuff,” there are tremendous benefits to be had. It can foster a better understanding of how stories are told today. It can teach kids to think critically about how they consume entertainment. Not only that, but by teaching transmedia storytelling, the teacher exposes students to the combinatorial nature of transmedia, showing how deeper meaning can be mined through the combination of media and divergent paths. Video games follow this combinatorial and divergent path methodology. Look at Bioshock. There’s the main story of Jack, of Andrew Ryan, and of the various characters that populate the world of Rapture, but if you pick up tape players/recorders, you can hear the history of Rapture via different inhabitants and points of view and find deeper meaning in your adventures. It’s a medium within a medium representing divergent paths from the main narrative. The Internet is built of divergent paths: do you read an entire article on Wikipedia or do you click on links as you go, going deeper into the main story? Everybody does it differently.
Continue reading Teaching Transmedia with Comics: A Conversation with Tyler Weaver at School Library Journal
In Part Two, Transmedia in School and Libraries: Thoughts and Strategies from Tyler Weaver, Peter and I discussed the incorporation of transmedia studies into a library setting and allowing kids to create games as part of a school project. We also looked at the dismissal of video games as “too violent:”
On Creating Games in Schools:
As far as students developing their own games in school projects, I completely understand and agree with saying to a kid, “Okay, maybe you shouldn’t make something so violent.” My issue is that when that statement is used as an excuse it labels an entire storytelling medium, one with tremendous educational and social benefits, as the medium of violence and ne’er-do-wells. How could the question be used to focus on the particular story the student wants to tell? What if we went one step further and asked this hypothetical kid, “Okay, instead of using a rocket launcher to blast zombies to bits, what else can we pull out of it? What’s another way to tell this story with a medium you love?” It’s the idea that profanity is the last refuge of the moronic. How can you tell a story in a game and have it be school-appropriate, while simultaneously making the student think about the implications of what they enjoy playing? Make it a creative challenge.
Continue reading Transmedia in School and Libraries: Thoughts and Strategies from Tyler Weaver at School Library Journal.
Many thanks to Peter for letting me wax philosophic on a multitude of topics, and for his extremely kind words about ComicStoryworld!
February 1, 2013
Something, Anything
I’d very much like to write something. Anything.
In the space of seven weeks, I’ve watched the two women who inspired or encouraged me more than any other to write something, anything, lowered into the ground.
One, MoMo, was ashes, a hole dug into the cold earth with a post hole digger, her ritual passing from above to below accompanied by no frills, only the beautiful stories told by the family – thank you for saving us, we should have given you that beer. I said nothing, simply kept my hand from shaking too much, holding my right with my left hand, the hand adorned with the turquoise ring she made on my middle finger, a testament to the lesson she left me: make what you make and fuck ‘em if they don’t like it. There were no words of God, words that I find no comfort in anyhow. That was December 8, 2012. It was the only time I saw my dad cry. My mom said she saw him cry on December 8, 1980, the day John Lennon was murdered. When all was said and done, I walked to my car and drove from the cemetery. I got lost, driving around gravestones for awhile until I found my route of escape from the maze of the deceased minotaurs. Then I went home, changed clothes, and photographed a wedding. The reception was nice, though I’m relieved I didn’t drink from the tiny champagne bottles. They were bubbles.
The other, MeMe, was buried in a beautiful casket with a cloth sunburst covering her, a picture of Orson and a lock of his hair wrapped in toilet paper (family joke) resting in her navy-blue polka dotted arms, crossed at the wrists, right over left. She went into hospital a little over two weeks ago. She died on Sunday, on what would have been the 62nd wedding anniversary of MoMo and Bubba. She was buried yesterday. There was a procession from the funeral home. I got to run red lights legally, with police lights in front of me, rather than in back. I wore the very same ring as on December 8, and was slightly concerned when my hand got stuck in the coffin’s swing bars as we led it out of the hearse to the green “red” carpet and the pulleys and levers in the grey tent. There were long-winded words of God spoken, none of which gave me comfort, but perhaps gave others comfort. The funeral director said a few words. Those were comforting. There was a family get-together at BobBob’s house. I walked over to the park, the same park where MeMe had walked Orson on “their walks” every time we visited. Except those last few times. I walked there knowing he had given her happiness in the last year and a half of her life, happiness that I’m not sure I was able to give. I sat on the benches and looked out over the baseball field. I counted breaths, one through ten. And then I returned to the house and was the closest approximation to a family man as I could be. That she would want me to be. On April 9, there will be a memorial service. April 9, 2013 will be BobBob and MeMe’s anniversary. Maybe I’ll say words then.
Death is that perpetually expected unexpectation. It doesn’t matter if you have years to prepare, or weeks to prepare. It doesn’t matter when that “funny feeling” shows up, that gutpunch that says “I will never see these people again.” For those who take comfort in the belief that they will see their loved ones again, it is only the beginning of a journey to eternity. For those, like me, who take no comfort in that, rather in the living, breathing remnants of memory, of smells of creamed chicken and chocolate cake, of bacon cooked just right, of Trident chewing gum and acetylene torches, they are forever relegated to those living organisms of memory, to the idealized version of who they were. They cease to be MoMo and MeMe the people, named by a little kid with curly hair and the ability to utter only monosyllabic combinatorial cuteness and become that which they truly were: my grandmothers, beautiful and wonderful, inspiring and encouraging. Now they are immortal. They are stories.
I will take the lessons you gave me, be it cooking or living or writing or loving, and keep doing what you have inspired and encourage me to do: write something, anything.
I love you both dearly.
January 14, 2013
ComicStoryworld – A New Approach to the Next BATMAN
In this new piece at ComicStoryworld, the companion site to my book Comics for Film, Games, and Animation, I lay out my vision for the next series of BATMAN films, one that will bring something new to the table, and hopefully, something exciting.
With the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, talk has turned to the next iteration of the BATMAN film series. Everything from a whole new beginning under the auspices of a new team to Batman Beyond to launching a new series with the Justice League filmBatman has been floating around the rumor ether of the Internet.
I have my own proposal: Set the next BATMAN films in the already-established and popular world of the video games Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. I’m not talking about an adaptation of the video game. I’m talking about a new story told within theArkham-verse in a film – or ongoing series of films – that would treat the events of both games, the comic series Arkham City and the digital series Arkham Unhinged as canon.
Let’s look at a few of the benefits:
• Both games have shown that even the more fantastical elements of Batman are accepted within the confines of the Arkham Asylum world. While they all have a more realistic, street-level look, the characters are still there and recognizable – perhaps even more terrifying than their comics counterparts. From Mr. Freeze to the definitive Penguin and Killer Croc, the villains in the Arkham-verse work beautifully. Not only that, but…
Read the complete post, A New Approach to BATMAN, at ComicStoryworld.
January 13, 2013
ComicStoryworld – New Interviews
Three new interviews are up at my book’s companion website, ComicStoryworld:
First, is my extended interview with transmedia practitioner and expert Dr. Christy Dena. In the interview, which originally appeared in Chapter Five of Comics for Film, Games, and Animation, Christy and I talked about the basics of transmedia storytelling and the potential for comics in a transmedia application.
Dr. Christy Dena – Extended ComicStoryworld Interview
Next, a web-exclusive interview with Megan Abbott, author of the incredible books Dare Me and The End of Everything. In this interview, we chatted about a number of topics, including Dare Me and its upcoming screen adaptation, our shared love of The Maltese Falcon and Sunset Boulevard and the challenges and rewards of making a transition to tackling comics.
Cheerleading, Noir, and Comics: A Chat with Megan Abbott
And finally, another extended interview from Comics for Film, Games, and Animation, with novelist Alison Gaylin. Alison is the author of Trashed, And She Was, and the upcoming Into the Dark. In this interview, Alison and I discuss her work, her collaboration with Megan Abbott on a Vertigo Crime graphic novel and why Maus is like Miles Davis.
Alison Gaylin – Extended ComicStoryworld Interview
Stay tuned to ComicStoryworld.com for more digital-exclusive and extended interviews from Comics for Film Games, and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld.
December 22, 2012
2012: The Year That Was
While the Mayans were incorrect (or the crafty bastards behind the biggest long con in history), 2012 shaped up to be a defining year for this particular wordslinger. It was fraught with peril, poetry (as in “things were pretty cool,” I can’t write poetry to save my life) and publishing, all punctuated with self-inflicted back-pats, head-desks, facepalms, tears, and the occasional game of Candyland and teaching three-year-olds how to deal from the bottom of the deck. It was the year I lost one of my greatest inspirations and gained a modicum of self-respect all the while opening my eyes up to new possibilities and potential.
Here are the highlights of 2012:
• Comics for Film, Games, and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld - as if there was any doubt that my debut book with a for-really-real publisher on a subject I’m frothingly passionate about wouldn’t be my number one highlight. Through this book, I was able to chat with people who have inspired me – Henry Jenkins (Convergence Culture), Christy Dena, Alison Gaylin, Bob Orci (Fringe, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness) -and have been lucky enough to continue those chats on the companion website, ComicStoryworld, with extended interviews from the book, digital supplements (like the Script Guide) and chats with the inimitable Megan Abbott and Rachel Deering. ComicStoryworld (for short) is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and more, as well as direct from the publisher, Focal Press. If you’d like a signed copy, I have the adhesive technology to make that happen.
• Whiz!Bam!Pow! - A story experience of family, forgery, death rays, secret codes, laundry chutes and the Golden Age of Comics, Whiz!Bam!Pow! has been my baby for years, and in 2012, it finally began to see the light of day. Unspooling as a serialized story from May to August, I released the prologue, A Linen Forcefield, eight chapters of Book One: Ollie (now collected), and crafted three radio show episodes of The Adventures of the Sentinel. None of this would have happened without my collaborators like Paul Klein, Blair Campbell, Paul Montgomery, Kate Dawson Cohen, Wonder Russell, Josh Cline, MJ Slide and Justin Hedges – they helped bring this massive undertaking to life in a way I never expected. This year, I also released a preview of the 2013-releasing Book Two: Frank, which continues and deepens the tale of Whiz!Bam!Pow! by taking us back to 1949. In 2013, Whiz!Bam!Pow! will return with Book Two: Frank and Book Three: Lena as well as the coda (I went to music school, I have to call epilogues codas) and finally, the comic book at the center of it all, Whiz!Bam!Pow! Comics #7.
• I Can See -the first in an ongoing series of short stories that will explore different writing challenges I set myself. In I Can See, my goal was to remove the “I” from my first person storytelling (until the optimal moment) and tell a weird story of small-town life.
• A Perfect Family - another short story, this one inspired by a story my grandfather told me of his days as a banker in a tiny town, of opening up a safety deposit box and finding a brother-sister pair of five and ten-thousand dollar bills. Theirs was the small town epic.
• A Lone Survivor - a collection of short stories penned by sixth graders. In 2012, I was lucky enough to teach a group of sixth graders how to improve their writing. I gave them all the same prompt: two people trapped in a room (or island), only one can get out – and no cell phones!. The stories all were crafted over a three-month period of writing, rewriting, and them putting up with me critiquing them. My first foray into writing education left me humbled and very proud of those kids. Watch out for ‘em.
• Penny a Word – everything must evolve, and so did I, moving my blog and assorted ruminations to a new Tumblr blog, Penny a Word. It’s a fun and more free format for me to explore different ideas, ruminations on life and politics, deeper looks at my process and more. The B-sides, if you will.
My Seven Favorite Posts and Articles…
• Cheerleading, Comics, and Noir: A Chat With Megan Abbott / @ ComicStoryworld
• Spoiler Alert – Fans, Foraging, and the Superior Spider-Man / @ ComicStoryworld
• Day 8 in Creativity Tools – The Small Reward / @ Blog Brevity
• You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly… But Will You Care?
• The Iconic Crisis of DC Comics / @ ComicStoryworld
• Rest Well, MoMo / @ Penny a Word
A Couple of Interviews…
• Transmedia Storytelling: Tyler Weaver Talks Whiz!Bam!Pow! / by John Trigonis @ Broken Frontier
• Exclusive: An Interview with Tyler Weaver, Author of Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld / @ Transmedia.Ca
And coming in 2013…
Whiz!Bam!Pow! continues. Journalism. More ComicStoryworld. More interviews. Word of at least two new projects. Stay tuned – and have a happy and merry. See you next year!
December 14, 2012
A Perfect Family – A Short Story
Theirs was the small town epic.
October 22, 2012
ComicStoryworld: Now Available!!
It’s been a long time coming, but the day is finally here. My first book, Comics for Film, Games, and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld is now available to purchase! What is it, you may ask?
As we move into a convergence culture, a culture where a single story can play out over a variety of media, comics have emerged as an underutilized (at best) or undervalued (at worst) vehicle of expression for filmmakers, game designers, and other storytellers.Comics for Film, Games, and Animation explores the past, present, and future of the comics medium to give those storytellers an understanding of comics’ unlimited storytelling potential and the practical tools to integrate comics into their own transmedia story experiences.
As filmmakers, or game designers, or creatives working in other fields, we have access to a different audience than those of comic books – an audience that may have never experienced a great comic book. By using comic books within our properties, we have the chance to be a gateway drug for our audiences to explore other comics. If we create bad comics just because we’re told we should transmedia-ify everything for the sake of half-baked “engagement,’ we’re defaulting on the responsibility we accepted when we decided to bring comics into our creative arsenal. Comics is the most vibrant American art form of the 20th century. It’s got a rich and outlaw history, the wild-child hellion third cousin of film, of theatre, of the more “respectable” forms. The goal of the book is to help you create great story experiences by sharing my passion for the comics medium – both its history and storytelling potential – with you, and then show you how to integrate it into your own storyworld.
Featuring interviews with Frank Rose (author of The Art of Immersion), Dr. Christy Dena, Henry Jenkins (author of Convergence Culture), Ron Fortier (comics writer of Green Hornet), Denny O’Neil (comics writer of Batman, Green Lantern, The Shadow and group editor of the Batman titles from 1986-2000), artist and illustrator Stephanie Buscema, Alison Gaylin (author of Trashed, And She Was), and Roberto Orci (screenwriter and co-producer of Star Trek, Fringe, Transformers, The Amazing Spider-Man 2,) Comics for Film, Games, and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld is available from any of these booksellers:
For a few more thoughts on the release of Comics, I send you to my Tumblr, Penny a Word.
Thanks all for the support. I’m just getting warmed up!
October 15, 2012
Whiz!Bam!Pow! Book One – Ollie
Whiz!Bam!Pow! is back!
If you’re not familiar, Whiz!Bam!Pow! is my tale (crafted with the help of some awesome people) of the effect a single comic book has on the lives of those who possess it:
A heroic icon of Americana. A grandfather rebuilding his grandson’s future by recreating his youth. A caricature artist struggling with reality. A basement discovery — all connected by a single comic book. Whiz!Bam!Pow! is a story experience told through three interconnected novelettes, a 1940s radio show and a comic book from 1938 that delves into family, forgery, ambition, secret codes, death rays and the Golden Age of Comics.
Book One tells the tale of Ollie, a grandfather who attempts to make a forgery of the most valuable comic book in the world –– Whiz!Bam!Pow! Comics #7, the comic taken from him 61 years earlier in A Linen Forcefield –– after gambling away his grandson’s college money on a senior’s casino trip. Cover-up, Jane Russell, bedtime stories, and heartbreak ensue.
Whiz!Bam!Pow! Book One – Ollie is also available on Kindle devices for .99.
