Lately, I’ve been writing for a website called Thoughtballoons, where they pick a different comic book character every week, and anyone can write a single-page comic script for that character. I’ve been finding this very fun, and so thought I would just take a quick look back at my own pieces, to see what made them work… or not:
Spider-Man…
A favourite of mine, Spider-Man, was the first character off the blocks, which was a good place for me to start. It should be noted that the site had already featured Iron Man, Molecule Man, Mephisto, Doctor Doom, Superman, and Blonde Phantom by the time I started playing along.
Anyway, in thinking of an idea, the first thing that came to mind was his costume. Now Spider-Man’s not exactly the think-and-ponder type, so what I ended up with was a script called, “Idle Hands”, about Spidey pondering the idea of the super-hero costume… but overlaid upon a bit of trademark mischievousness.
Because I was new to the game, and thinking about it frequently, I also wrote a second script that was a cross-over with the Lovecraft Mythos, specifically, “A Shadow out of Time”. In reality, it was more the Lovecraft part I wanted to show, so the character could have been any super-hero. It just happened to be Spidey seeing as he was the star of the week.
Aquaman…
This was a hard one for me to have as only my second character because I’ve never really been much of a DC Comics fan, so I knew very little about the character. All I really knew was that he lived in the sea, so I started tossing up any ocean-related ideas I could think of.
My first instinct was to go with Lovecraft’s Deep Ones, but I didn’t want to go with just a straight-up cross-over seeing as I had already done so in my last script, so I thought I’d add in a little reality and include The Bloop… though still ended up with Cthulhu and the Deep Ones.
I wasn’t entirely happy with that effort, so I tried to come up with another idea as well. It occurred to me that Aquaman’s “jurisdiction” was actually quite big—70% of the planet in fact—so I decided to run with that. Another writer had written of in-fighting within the Justice League of America (JLA), so I also took that on board as well and wrote I piece where an angry Aquaman makes a deal with the devil so that his colleagues can “understand” his efforts. I liked it more than my first one, but only wished I knew more of the DC universe so that I could have picked a character other than Lucifer.
The Penguin…
Another DC character had me out of my element again, and I started tossing up any idea I could think of to do with penguins or umbrellas… and then my girlfriend jokingly suggested having him fight with Catwoman over a fish… so I did! I wrote a page where Catwoman brings a “fish” to the Penguin’s house and it is only revealed on the last panel that they’re referring to Aquaman. This may have been subconscious payback for being such a terrible character the week before, I’m not sure, but no matter, I was quite happy with this one.
Again, I wrote a second piece, and again it was more the gag I wanted to show than the character. It was called, “I Couldn’t Draw To Save My Life”, but as one commenter suggested, it would have suited The Joker better. I wonder if he’ll ever pop up as a character of the week?
The Punisher…
I know of the Punisher, and I do like him more than the last two characters, but I still don’t know that much about him. I know his family was killed and he’s taking it out on… well, everyone… and he has a thing for guns, but that’s about it. My first instinct when dealing with unfamiliar characters is to turn to humour—as the Penguin’s week shows—because people don’t expect continuity when they’re getting a laugh out of it.
My first idea tied with the character’s gun obsession, and I was going to write something about him having a Customer Loyalty Card at the local gun shop, but as I sat down to write it, another idea came to me which I believe was the funnier option. It was called, “Hunting Season”, and featured a scene that was clearly—subconsciously—inspired by the film, Predator.
I only wrote one script this week—probably to everyone’s relief—because I drew some art for the site.
Gamora…
Unlike the previous “unfamiliar” characters, this was one I’d straight-up never even heard of, which made things quite hard. I did a bit of research, and found out that she’s a green-skinned, barbarian-like, alien woman… and that was about it. No powers, no nothing—even harder!
Again, being well out of my comfort zone, I went for the comedy route, and wrote a piece about the only interesting feature of this character: her green skin.
Where Now?...
Hopefully we’ll get back to some characters I know of—or have at least heard of—so that I can break away from these comedy sketches I’ve been falling back on lately. Only time till tell. For now, it’s all in the hands of the Tenures…
