I’m trying to stay awake for a 3am shift. I’ve been off several hours before this shift and I should have at least napped during the hours, but of course, I’m an idiot and I’m sitting here half awake and trying not to screw things up with any of the half a dozen projects I seem to be working on right now.
I am now 3 and a half weeks ahead with my comic and I want to get to be at least 5 weeks ahead but I’m taking a break from writing for the next couple of days. I don’t want to burn out too quickly and frankly, I don’t want to get TOO far ahead. It’s getting harder to write this far in advance because I’ll get into a groove and change something or get a new character started and want to go back and put him or her into the series for it to make sense.
For example, Taylor in the 4-2 second take. I realized I had written him into the series without actually introducing him as Johnnie’s newest foil. So writing 4-2 second take came weeks after I had written Issue 4 as a whole but I did get to insert Taylor and a couple of the other new characters into it just for a taste of what is coming.
Of course, in 4-2 second take, I had to cover some things up. I’m slowly but slowly fleshing out rooms. As I buy more stuff (and yes, Paypal donations are always welcome from the “Support the Site” tab on the media elite page), I’m adding it and some of the rooms are getting facelifts. Like the break room was pretty plain in the couple of appearances its had. The giant USA flag was covering up a microwave and a fridge and some other things. I’ll probably add a coffee maker once I track down a free model for it.
The hobby isn’t cheap. It’s not like the Sims where there’s a billion freebies out there or you get insane add-in packs for $20 or so. Some of the sets cost real money and while I try to model things on my own, there are times with clothes and little things (hand bags, guns, guitars, etc.) I do resort to paying for them just to move the story along.
I guess to me, the comic is like the ultimate action figure game. What most people don’t know is that I probably have agoraphobia. It stems from a childhood where both parents were away working most of the time and I was on my own compounded by hearing problems and severe allergies. I hate loud things and as I got older I was able to channel my lack of a life into playing with action figures.
I inherited my dad’s lack of the ability to take things in moderation. With me, if I had one GI Joe, I needed 6 to go with him because I couldn’t tell a proper story with one. Honestly, I could look at a figure and come up with a background story and a motivation for what he or she was doing in the story. In the few times I’d play with friends, they’d sit ack and let me just tell the story and fill two or three hours with simple twists and turns.
With Iclone 3, I make my own action figures on screen. It’s much like when I was little and had my action figures. Everyone has some sort of story and you’re not going to see the same characters in every issue. While Johnnie, Celine and Patricia are the three main characters to the story, there are times when only one of the three will be in an issue. I’ve got 30+ other characters and stories to tell so they’ll come and go as the story requires them.
But now I’m about to be late for work, so part two of this later today.
Happy gobble day.
Jim