The Comic is Underway

This past weekend I spent my time writing the story for the weekly web comic that will be soon posted on this site. And it’s great.

Which is so exciting. Before I started writing, I studied illustration, and then animation. It’s only natural that I’d want to create some sort of comic, but I never had the gumption to put together a story and illustrate it. Though I find myself somewhat skilled in the use of words and pictures and graphic language and design, whatever has to be done to create a successful merging of those things to create a sequential reading experience from a static series of images has always seemed a mysterious and magical execution.

I once told a friend who was the creator of a very funny 3 panel comic strip (like the kind you find in the daily newspaper) that I thought what he did was amazing. I didn’t see how you could reduce a story down to three images. He responded by telling me it was the simplest form of storytelling in the world. A beginning, a middle, and an end. After feeling stupid for a moment, because he was absolutely right, I maintained my declaration that it would be a challenge to tell a story in three pictures. In fact, after meddling with illustration for a long time, I chose to pursue animation for the simple fact that I wasn’t satisfied with how much of a story could be told in a static image. I needed thousands of moving pictures to get my point across.

Maybe this is why I have moved into novel writing. The first book I wrote, which is still in rewrite phase, tells a story I’d been wanting to tell for a long time. I tried it as a short story. I tried it as a picture book, animation, television series, even a movie script. Nothing was enough, the only way I could tell the story, and include all the details and psychological subtleties that I wanted to explore, was by writing a novel. Unfortunately, as it was my first novel, it’s extremely long, and I believe the rewrite will be exceedingly painful, when I do manage to finish it.

I chose to work with Antoinette’s Fish first because, for the moment, the story is more fun, and easier to manage. I relocated to France in 2009, I have a new husband and stepkids, I still struggle to be understood in a foreign language. For the moment, fun and manageable is just what I need.

Starting in January, I will post 1-2 pages telling the back story of some of the aquatic members of the Antoinette’s fish cast. Please check back on Sunday nights for the next installment.