16: Back Again
This time for good (we hope)!
Haven’t been as active with my newslettering lately, so the last time I sent one of these out was when the Webtoon Originals series I’m writing, Skullgirls, went on hiatus back in mid-March.
Well now it’s mid-April (roughly), and Skullgirls is back already!
Weirdly (or maybe not so much) twitter has stopped allowing tweets to be embedded on substack (thanks, Elon!) so I’m using instagram instead! Episode 17 dropped this past Friday (Episode 18 drops today!) and was received with open arms by the Webtoon and Skullgirls communities. Honestly, the response to the Skullgirls webtoon always amazes me. The fandom is extremely passionate and loyal, and my experience interacting with them online whether directly through their comments after each episode or while I’m exploring the expanded world of Skullgirls through social media posts, online discussion, fanart, gameplay videos, etc. has been really rewarding.
I’m not exactly comfortable sharing things or engaging through social media other than when I’ve got some project or other going. It’s just not easy for me to share my thoughts and feelings in an online environment, I guess. So it probably won’t come as much of a surprise to find out that the most “engaged-with” posts I’ve ever made on my twitter or instagram accounts have been related to Skullgirls.
Which is a bit of a double-edged sword in that I like that my posts about Skullgirls are being received well, but I do also wish some of my other posts got similar attention. For example, while my other Webtoon Originals series, MoonRise, has good subscribe and like numbers considering the amount of views it’s received, the amount of views it’s received are nowhere near the amount that Skullgirls gets. Obviously a big part of that is because Skullgirls has a built-in fanbase and is based on an established mobile/console game franchise, so the interest is naturally higher. But sometimes I wish MoonRise could get that amount of eyes on it too. Because I think if it did the numbers would be quite a bit higher than they are now. Not to say that MoonRise is struggling, necessarily, just that it could be doing better. And I want that for all my comics babies! That’s not too big of an ask, is it?
Well, realistically… yeah, it probably is. There are always things you’re going to put out there that will be better received than others, or vice versa. Trying to actively control that is nigh impossible. So mostly I just try to focus on putting out the best product I can to reward the readers who do happen upon (“Or even actively seek out,” he says with guarded optimism) my work.
Speaking of my work and how it’s received, things aren’t just hot and cold at times with the audience. It can also be that way with the publishers you pitch to or editors you work with. For example, right now I’m getting some pretty encouraging feedback about a project I’m developing with a very talented artist. It’s still very early in the process, but things are looking positive at this point. Not positive enough to proclaim I’ve got a new series coming or anything like that, but positive nonetheless!
But on the flip side of that, not too long ago another very talented artist and I sent a submission to contribute to a comics anthology and were ultimately shot down. In each case I think the work we put together was fantastic and worthy of acceptance, but unfortunately you can’t always (or ever, really) rely on how your work is going to be received.
Not to beat a dead horse, but again, the best you can do is put everything you have into every project you work on and then put those efforts in front of the eyes of the right people, whether that’s a publisher, editor or going straight to the audience themselves. Sometimes they’ll like it and sometimes they won’t. But you can’t let a little thing like dislike or rejection stop you. No does mean no, and if there’s something wrong or problematic about your approach, or you get a valid criticism, then consider it and adjust. But don’t stop striving to improve and connect. You can’t get better if you don’t keep going.
Quickies
Elseworlds. So I can’t say much about that project I’m pitching yet. But what I can say is that I’ve been working on it in one form or another for years (like, a lot of ‘em), and if it does see the light of day then I can’t wait to share the changes it’s gone through over that time. In fact, the evolution of the project kind of ties directly to what I was writing about above. Shoot your shot, and if it doesn’t work out use the advice, criticism or improvement you’ve undergone in your craft to rework it and try again. Even if this iteration doesn’t work out (knock on wood) then maybe the next one will. At any rate, expect to hear much more about this if things keep going in the direction they are now.
The MoonRise Patreon. So we didn’t get, like, a flood of patrons when I mentioned the MoonRise patreon page last Alert. Okay, we didn’t get any. And that’s fine! My expectations are not unrealistic, good readers. But! I feel like I did a disservice to all of you by not sharing some of the cool stuff you get by becoming a patron of MoonRise, and wanted to correct that error now.
Sketches! Cem does one of these every week for patrons of MoonRise and includes a downloadable digital copy, but not only that, they also get progress shots from sketch to final, and even a downloadable video file that shows a live drawing session from sketch to completion! Which, I gotta say is really cool to look at every time he shares it. What we’ve also started doing is making the first sketch of every month available to everyone, not just our patrons. So last month was The Mandalorian, which you can see below (or the live draw at the link above), and this month it was John Wick!
But that’s not it! Cem has done sketches and live draws of Batman, SHAZAM!, Wednesday, Blue Beetle, The Last of Us, The Marvels and a ton more! And there’s always something new each and every week!
Scripts! I actually post the script for every episode of MoonRise the day after the episode comes out on Webtoon. So if you’re looking to write comics yourself and are seeking examples of how to do it, or are just interested in the craft then this is the reward for you! Every once in a while I even have to remove spoilers from some of the scripts so as not to reveal something we’ve got planned, but hey… I’m only human! I may have missed something! And if you become a patron you can find out for sure…
Each script is available as a downloadable PDF, and as I just realized as I was adding the image below, comes complete with my email address and cell number! Smooth, Exner! So if you can sign up quicker than I can edit the scripts, then hey, feel free to send me an embarrassing text!
Behind-the-Scenes! Every week Cem selects a certain scene from one of the episodes of MoonRise and then tasks me with writing some background about the process that went into creating it, from outline to script to layouts to lines to finals. This is actually one of my favorite posts to make weekly because it allows me to go back and consider what I was thinking or what feeling I was trying to convey when I wrote a particular scene. I can also speak to how I may have wanted the scene to be drawn, and then supply some insight into how the look of the scene evolved once Cem actually got down to the business of planning and drawing it. These posts even more than the others showcase the collaborative nature of working in comics.
Character Designs! But just the character designs! When Cem and I post one of the character designs for our characters what we also do is a round-robin style discussion where we talk about what was involved in the creation of the character. We’ve only done one of these thus far, but it was a lot of fun and we’ll be doing more in the not-so-distant future for Anula, Kerberus, the pale pack assassins and even alternate designs for some of our main characters that didn’t make the final cut.
And that’s not all we’ve got planned. Soon we’ll be launching guided tours of MoonRise locations like REMUS and Myrrn, and we’re also planning to launch more content before the year is through. So if you like MoonRise and want to support it or us as creators then this is the way. See what I did there?
Consumption. I’ve been devouring plenty of content lately, so I’ll try and focus on it a bit at a time so as not to overstuff this section.
I’m currently catching up on The Flash on Netflix. Enjoying what is, to me, the latest season, Season 8. While I’ve always found The Flash entertaining enough, I will admit the episodes, and even seasons themselves, can be hit or miss. Season 7 actually missed with me for the most part. So much so that I considered holding off on starting Season 8 and jumping onto some other series before I came back. But I ultimately decided to stick it out and for the most part I think Season 8 has been an improvement.
Flash has “leveled up” and, even with how annoying it is every time they say it on the show (it’s A LOT), is dealing with threats that meet that increase in his abilities. And thankfully a good deal of the season hasn’t been a retread of some speedster or another trying to be “the fastest”, one of my biggest complaints about seasons past no matter what kind of spin they try to put on it. I get it, the guy is fast, so ideally you want an adversary that can match that. But to me the best adversaries are the ones that can challenge Flash without having to match him stride for stride.
Watched Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania just this week. Much like a lot of the recent outings from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there were things I liked and things I didn’t, making for a middle-of-the-pack offering overall. I actually thought the first half of the movie was pretty terrific, maybe even the first two-thirds of it. It was funny, had some intrigue and there were some dynamite effects. The villain was introduced in an effective way and fleshed out similarly. It actually had me questioning the rating like Kang questioned Scott Lang.
But then they answered that question, and not in a good way… I don’t know if they just weren’t sure where they wanted to go, or if they just left too much on the cutting room floor and things suffered as a result, but… the climax really dragged for me and the dialogue throughout that portion of the film went from clever and humorous to stilted and generic. A whole lotta “Let’s go!” and “C’mon!” or “Attaaaaack!” in there, and that was not doing it for me. One thing I was considering after it was over, was if due to the nature of the villain and what he’s capable of doing that maybe the climax wasn’t actually what we thought. But even if that’s the case the movie suffered unnecessarily as a result, and they’d really have to do something amazing to pay that off and make it worth that last half-hour or so of “meh”.
Briefly… watched Disney’s Pinocchio (w/Tom Hanks). Enjoyable enough as reboots go, but didn’t knock me off my feet or anything. Started the Netflix show The Imperfects with the wife. We fell off it for the time being, but it was enjoyable enough to continue down the line when we’ve got the time. About a trio of young people who get powers through a voluntary (but whose details certainly aren’t disclosed) medical procedure, develop unique side effects, and then go on the hunt for the doctor that did it to them. Lotta attitude, characters that contrast and so spark conflict as they attempt to work with one another. A good start.
And as for this edition of the Exner Alert? A good end?
…Meh.