Newsletter #139: Hyrule Film Fest

Hey guys, it's Scott.

It is Tuesday, May 16th. God, it’s flying by. And I'm really excited because we have class on Thursday night, just two days away. Comic Writing 102, we're going to be using some amazing student work and some published work—some Star Wars comics and some movies and other things because our topic is world building, which is a crucial one, one we get asked a lot about. So this class will be all about how to convey to readers the world that you've built, the lore, the mythology, the backstory, the characters, all the kinds of things that go towards building a fictional environment, whether you're doing sci-fi, whether you're doing fantasy, whether you're doing horror. We’ll look at all different genres. And it's a lesson, honestly, that’s really helpful, even when you're doing more grounded stuff in a dramatic genre. But above all, it'll be about how to convey enough, without giving too much, what are different techniques that you can use to get a reader to fall in love with and be immersed in this fictional world that you've created without it being overwhelming, without it feeling daunting in some way.

So we'll look at a whole bunch of different techniques, some showing, some telling, all kinds of stuff. So I think it’s going to be one of our best ones. I'm really excited for you guys to come check it out. So as always, you can join live if you're a paid subscriber, it's only $7/month or $75/year. If you want to catch it afterwards, if you can't make the 9:30pm EST, then all of our classes are archived for you. And this one will be up there the next day on Friday for you guys to browse at your leisure. So as a paid subscriber, you have access to probably 20 classes at this point for just $7, so I hope you'll give it a shot! We love doing it and we love having new students so you can jump in at any time!

But also, on a personal note, things are crazy here. Because it's the end of the school year. I got one kid who's stressed and going crazy with finals, maybe he could be a little bit more stressed and crazy, but that's who he is, I love him. And then another kid who's obsessed with the Yankees being on this hot streak, Judge hitting double homeruns the last two games and us making it out of last place to beat the Red Sox (sorry Mark Doyle and all my Red Sox friends). So it's all he can think about is the fact that we're no longer in last place, and school for him is less of a concern. And Quinny is bopping along. His whole new thing is Batman. So I did not push this on him, it is not something that I have tried to get him to like, but he sees it around the house and so all he wants to do is tell Batman story. So I think I posted one here for you last time.

I'll post another one on Friday, but he is full of ideas about how Clayface makes a Ferris wheel out of clay and how the Ferris wheel melts and then smothers everybody, and then they die, because he's fascinated suddenly with dying. I know it's scary, but at four, they have a lot of questions. But then he brings them all back in they're alive. But then they die again. But then they're alive again! So everything's good. And Batman tells him to be nice, puts him in Arkham jail and goes to sleep. So I'll start posting more of them. But yeah, he got a Batman nightlight and he's a little Bat-freak. So I don't know where that came from, but so be it. So I thought I'd answer two quick questions for you guys. I’ll jump over and talk a little bit in the paid section of the post about an event I went to last night that I was very moved by. I got invited as an alumni of the Columbia School of the Arts where I got my graduate degree in writing to come and see the graduate films at Lincoln Center at the Walter Reed movie theater. They're short films, they're all going out to festivals and to go be a part of that. And they asked me if I'd be up for having anyone intern with me at some point, I said I was. so I went in with our good friend and neighbor, Mitchell Riggs, who ran a public theater in the city with his wife years ago and knows a lot about theater and film in New York City, and whose son just got into USC for film. So congrats Luca! And I thought it would be really fun.

And it was fun, but it was also deeply moving. And it made me think a lot about not just those formative years, but about the work and putting the work first because of some of the stuff I saw. So I'll talk a little bit about that in the paid post. But for the free post here, for everybody that's part of Best Jackett:

Amy426 asks, “Not necessarily who you would want to write, but which character do you wish had their own title, but doesn’t currently?”

That's a great question. I had a couple of ideas. I mean, there are tons I'd love to see have their own series. But I would really love to see Detective Chimp have his own series. I actually pitched one right before I sort of got too busy to do it. There was going to be like a noir, but about how he became Detective Chimp. And some of them wound up in the issue I did with Grant Morrison in The Wild Hunt in the original Metal, actually.

Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt (2018) | Art by Howard Porter and Hi-Fi Design

But I had a big idea for revamping his origin. I’d be using the original origin, but modernizing it a bit and doing a series of cases that he's solving and he starts to realize that the cases have a connection, it goes back to Florida and his encounter with everlasting life and the sort of stuff that evolved him into who he is now. And so, Detective Chimp, I would love to read it by somebody else now that I'm sort of past the point of being able to do it. Maybe one day, who knows?

But also on a personal level, I'd love to see Duke Thomas, The Signal, get a series. I feel like he's a character that we had a lot of hopes for, and still have hopes for, but we had plans for and because of scheduling and events and corporate changes and everything, we weren't really able to do a long-form series with him that would get him on his feet, and really explore this idea of what it means to be a hero by day in Gotham City, which I thought was such a fascinating idea. We’d give him a whole cast of young characters, we were going to do an Arkham juvie, all kinds of stuff that we only got to touch on. So he's a character that I think has tremendous potential, also as a conduit to young Gotham, that I'd love to see have an ongoing series.

Okay, second question:

Charlie Adams asks, “Were you a fan of Chris Pratt as Mario?”

Well I will find out tonight. I think I'm supposed to watch it with Emmett. I have not seen it yet, but as a longtime Mario fan of all of the games, pretty much, and Emmett is as well, I would say that I'm skeptical, but I'm ready for it. He wanted to go see in the theater and we just couldn't manage it. So we're going to have a big movie night with it. On a side-note, Zelda. Oh my god.

We're not particularly far in. We've mapped like, four regions so far from the different sky towers. We've only uncovered a little bit of the story. We've got like three dragon tears so far and we have a lot of fused weapons. We're not naked anymore, we got the attire.

I can't get enough of this game. I love open world games like this that have narrative as well. And it's a game that Jocks daughter played with my Emmett, the last version five or six years ago, and so we're gonna do it again now. I can't say enough good things about Zelda for a openworld narrative game.

All right, so let me move over to the paid part of the post. Again, I just want to talk a little bit about staying focused on the work, but also this experience I had watching the student films last night that really kind of took me by surprise. If you want, you can always pay the $7 and hop over to the other side of the paywall, welcome to everybody. And again, you'll get the class, everything else that comes with it.

But quickly before I jump over the paywall, tomorrow night, Wednesday the 17th at 7pm, I will be at Anyone Comics over in Brooklyn, it’s Bed-Stuy, 1215 Union Avenue. It's for the launch of Good Deeds by my friend and amazing writer Che Grayson at IDW. It's her series under the Dark Spaces launch. It's such a good read, you must come get your book signed by her. It's a book signing, Anyone Comics at 7pm. I hope you'll show up and come say hi to her, most of all, congratulate her, and I'll be there too, so come say hi to me as well!