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Boy, I’d sure love to tell you about it…

23 Comments

Today I scripted and a week of strips, and they arrived at a very powerful cliff-hanger. Then I pencilled them, and the cliff-hanger was even MORE powerful. It had ME anxious about what came next.

I was so very anxious that after I got home, I had to sit down and script the next strip. Wow, that one was a perfect resolution… dramatic, poignant, and yet still delivering the funny that I have to deliver day after day. Writing it gave me chills to the point that I had to take a hot bath to relax afterwards.

But if I tell you any more about any of these strips, I’ll ruin ’em for you.

Let’s just say that I know it’s a good story when I can’t wait to write what happens next.

23 thoughts on “Boy, I’d sure love to tell you about it…”

    1. Yup. We’re talking about the strips from April 8th through April 15th here.

      I just realized that tax-time in the United States is going to be… extra special this year.

  6. Let’s just say that I know it’s a good story when I can’t wait to write what happens next.

    I find myself envious, my work-in-progress having been stalled for longer than I care to think about….

  7. I know it sounds weird, but there is something very pleasing and relieving in learning that your host and writer is enjoying the story as much as you do, if not more.

    1. It’s not weird at all. There’s a very simple principle at work behind Schlock Mercenary, and I think it’s the one responsible for my success in attracting the audience I have:

      “Tell the story that you want to read.”

      Now I just need to figure out how to draw the pictures I want to look at. 😉

      1. This, BTW, is what made Looney Tunes (and, IMAO, Animaniacs and related works) so great: the creators were working to outdo each other in making themselves laugh.

  8. That’s a happy feeling. I want to hit one of those moments soon. Lately I’ve been feeling like the stories I want to tell are limited by my competence as a writer, or, more likely, my ability to give my full attention to those stories and write them the way they deserve to be written rather than the way they come out as I’m trying to squeeze them in between other responsibilities.

    -Janci

    1. For what it’s worth, at the beginning of this story I felt like I was limited by my competence as a writer. I’d never tried anything like this before, I was struggling with the form, and even though it kept coming out right, getting it out was a struggle.

      I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the buffer started hitting mid-20s and mid-30s at about the same time I started feeling more comfortable executing on the “en media res” trick.

      1. I love “en media res”. It is by far my favorite literary device. It is a good chunk of the reason why Quentin Tarantino is at or near the top of my favorite filmmakers of all time. When you nail “en media res”, it pops right off the page (or screen), and sticks with you.

        You’re right on the cusp, Mr. Tayler, and I join in the chorus of people stating the simple fact that you are an evil evil man.

  10. Hey Howard? Did you hear about the VW recall? I don’t know if TurboSchlock is affected, but my local news says that the newer Beetle is affected. It was for a brake light

    Quote from AP report: “The recall involves several vehicles: 1999-2006 model years of the Golf and GTI, 2001-2005 Jettas, 2001-2007 New Beetles and the 2004 R32. It expands upon a recall announced last year of some Jettas and New Beetles because of the same defect.”

  11. You’re evil, but I trust you. At the beginning of the current story arc, you were doing a lot of jumping around in time/space and showing enticing little tidbits that made no sense, and I hated it… but now you’re tying all those ends together masterfully into a beautiful tapestry, and I love it. As a writer, you have earned my utmost respect and trust. You’re still evil for telling us a cliffhanger is coming, though.

    1. Bah. I still don’t care for the beginning of this arc, and I still don’t think it was necessary – but I don’t particularly mind Howard experimenting with it. I just wish it hadn’t gone quite so long (about 6 weeks?) before starting to tie back to something that made any sense. There was a good solid month of lowered enjoyment for me while reading the opening arc, even if it did set us up for better things down the road.

    1. It wasn’t much of a cliffhanger in the script, but when I added the art there was a level of intensity and a subtext of body-language that gave me chills.

      It won’t be that bad. You only have to wait a day for the resolution. (And then a day to resolve that, and another day to resolve THAT, and so on, and so on, and so on…)

      1. It won’t be that bad. You only have to wait a day for the resolution. (And then a day to resolve that, and another day to resolve THAT, and so on, and so on, and so on…)

        You really want to go to the cornfield, don’t you? 😉

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