the losers tv spot

Hey Cliff,

I got my galleys of Greendale today and I immediately sat down to read it from front to back. In that first reading since the lettering proof I found myself most proud of the points you forced me to wrestle with during our collaboration. The sections where you and I had conflict but stuck it through and hashed it out until we were both happy. The pages where you said, “what we have here simply isn’t good enough”. Upon putting the book down I realized that the moments we rethought together are its most clear, successful and moving.

I’ve said it to you in private many times, but I want to say it in public. You made this book better. And not just with your clean line work, wonderful acting and humanist approach to character design, but with your uncanny story sense as well. You really pushed us to go back to the script and rethink major sequences, even when I resisted. For a guy like me, a writer who loves comic books but can’t fully create them alone, you proved to be a rare gift. The perfect collaborator. That artist that pulled himself out of the role of hired gun and took on the project with true, personal passion.

So if you’re ever feeling it, I’m down to do it all over again. CHA!

Thanks for the art,

Joshua Dysart

– I build an outline for each arc with major story beats, some specific scene notes, maybe some important dialogue.  For an issue, I start by just numbering 1 through 22 and writing a brief description of each page.  Sometimes after that I’ll go through and breakdown each page into very brief panel descriptions and build from there.  Other times I’ll just start at the beginning and build the whole thing as I go.  It usually just depends on how long I’ve had the story in my head and how nailed down I’ve already got it.  My best days of writing, when I can churn out 12 or more pages, are always preceded by several days of no writing at all, but instead just a lot of thinking, so by the time I’m actually sitting down to write, the story is already nailed down and all I have to do is get it on paper.

– The first five pages and the last five pages of any script are usually pretty easy.  It’s always that shit in the middle that’s hard.

– I always aspire to have something memorable on every page, whether a line of dialogue or an action or what. I certainly don’t always achieve that, but I try.

– I write people throwing up a lot. I write sour looks and stern stares a lot.  I use “fuck” a lot.  Just making note of all that.

– I try not to dictate camera angles or set up shots.  I always figure that’s best left to the artist.

– I can’t listen to music or watch TV while I write.  I’m too easily distracted.

– I try to always talk my dialogue out, to say it out loud.  Would sometimes make for an interesting listen, no doubt, if someone happened to be passing by the window.

– I break the supposed dialogue rules all the time, in terms of how many words you shouldn’t exceed in a given balloon or panel.  Maybe I shouldn’t, but fuck it, if the story needs it, it needs it.  I don’t feel like I’m overly wordly overall though.  Maybe I was a couple years ago when I was first starting out, but these days  I truly appreciate a great silent beat.  It may sound weird, but I love being able to take out dialogue or narration from a page because you realize that you don’t need it, that it’s all there in the art.

– I suck at coming up with character names. I’ve reused lots of the same names, usually of people I know.  When I was in college I would always flip through CD liner notes to find good names, but these days all my CDs are packed up in boxes in the basement.  I try to keep a list where I jot down interesting names I encounter.  The sheriff in SCALPED takes his name from a road sign I passed years ago in Ohio for the town of Wooster.  I used to also keep a notebook for jotting down interesting bathroom graffiti, though I’m not sure anything useful ever came of that.

Okay, enough of this. I should be doing actual writing now.

SWEET TOOTH #6 hits stores today and it also marks the beginning of a new storyline “IN CAPTIVITY” . After the shocking conclusion of “OUT OF THE DEEP WOODS” we now start to delve in to the backstory of Jepperd and as his history painfully surfaces, his motivations are revealed.

http://andydiggle.blogspot.com/

ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT have released an exclusive preview of THE LOSERS trailer which debuts on the show tonight, Friday 29th January 2010.

Here’s a taste — turn the sound up, it plays pretty quiet:

[wpvideo hX8OPBri]

Even this brief glimpse shows how faithfully they’ve used lines and story beats from the comic — “If you want your life back, you’re gonna have to steal it,” Jensen shooting the guy with his finger, Aisha with the rocket launcher, “Outstanding!”

I’m chuffed they’ve even used THE LOSERS comic-book logo designed by Steve Cook (using the Quagmire font created by Rian Hughes, typography fans!).

I’m assured the full trailer should be released online within the next few days, and that it’ll play before Mel Gibson’s EDGE OF DARKNESS this weekend. Let me know if you see it on the big screen!

If this is your first taste of THE LOSERS, you can download the entire first issue for free (8Mb PDF), and buy the first 300-page graphic novel from your local comic shop, Amazon U.S. or Amazon U.K.