The Never Ending Interview: Day One
One question a day will be addressed, for as long as it remains interesting to me, and the questions keep coming.
Today’s question was asked by Doug Bailey.
Doug: Any chance for more Ironwood in the future?
Bill: Probably not. Ironwood was an eleven-issue erotic and/or porn (take your pick) comic book story, designed to answer one question to my satisfaction. Is it possible to do a naughty comic and still tell an interesting, engaging and important story? The answer turned out to be no, for exactly the reason that should have been obvious from the beginning.
Among its other necessary faults and virtues, every story ever told makes a promise, implied or explicit, on what sort of story it’s going to be. In an erotic and/or porn comic (take your pick) the promise is obvious. There will be sex of some sort in every issue. No matter what else, if one promises a sex comic, one must deliver. In a periodical, that promise should be kept not only in the overall saga, no matter what its length, but incrementally as well – in every single issue.
That requirement overwhelmed all other considerations and I do believe the story I’d originally had in mind suffered as a result. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the story of Dragavon and Pandora and Fantasia and Gnaric and (damn, now I forgot the
evil wizard’s name) struggling over who would end up with the magic MacGuffin. But it could have been much better.
Had I done it as a single volume, told in one serving, then the naughty stuff could have been spread out a bit more to suit my idea of good structure and pacing, while still keeping the implied contract with the readers. But it wasn’t. I kept the contract every issue (at least once just barely) and the story suffered as a result.
At least I answered the question to my satisfaction.
It’s remotely possible Dragavon might show up in a new venue, stripped (if you’ll pardon the pun) of the necessity to get down into the hot and sweaty. Part of the unfinished Coventry series included a bit where he shows up, about a dozen pages of which had been produced, but never published (look below). But Coventry died the death of “I can’t afford to keep doing this and still pay bills,” so it’s looking unlikely right now.
