reading, I went to Meltdown on Sunset yesterday and asked a very helpful young man for some comics with "women who kick ass." I'm doing research for my comic book inspired, LA lesbian webseries I want to make and so I figured I need to finally do some proper research. I watched Sin City for the gritty comic book aesthetic and I immediately thought, I must buy the graphic novel to see how this was translated. I want this feel from my webseries, but obviously I won't be CGing everything on green screen. I'm thinking of integrating artwork into the show as Sin City did, but I want the series to have more of a Girltrash feel than a CG feel. Anyway, most of my experience with comics is through cartoons or movies. Despite having bought some excellent X-Men books at comic-con last year I still haven't gotten around to reading them. What struck me most was just how cinematic the panels were. It felt like a storyboard for a movie, in fact I could almost picture it moving just like a film. No wonder they have become such rampant fodder for films.
Aesthetically, what struck me most that I want to incorporate into my webseries is the use of color. Often times whole pages where tinted either red or blue or orange to separate emotions, locations, etc. I think a mix of black and white and stylized color schemes like this will really sell that comic book feel I want in the webseries. Ultimately the show is about women superheroes so I don't want this to be a gimmick, but rather linked to the psychology of the characters. It could be flashbacks or during their superhero moments only. I don't know yet, but I want these women to be as real and complicated as possible. No Sydney Bristow where everything is hunky dory after you kill 5 people. Will it have a camp feel like D.E.B.S. or Girltrash? I don't know, but that seems to be the way to make it engaging on many levels. Must have humor, action and drama to work within that click-away happy medium.
Ok, back to The Authority. My Meltdown informant was right on the mark. Jenny Sparks, the leader of The Authority (a superhero group not unlike the X-Men) is one tough cookie. She is 100 years old and can harness the power of electricity. She smokes like a chimney and all the men are terrified of her. She wants to make the world a better place and will kill hundreds to save thousands. At the end of the first book, "Relentless," The Engineer, also a woman and a genius scientist with computer nanotechnology for blood, (that she created, like a self-made superhero in a world where many people are born heroes) says "We just did something very frightening...we changed a world" and Jenny replies by saying "maybe we just did what we said we would, all along. Changing things for the better. "One earth down, one to go." So I thought that they were calling it "frightening" because they were essentially playing god. They wiped out the entire population of Italy to remove the evil leaders there and give the world a second chance without the evil regime controlling it. I thought it would get philosophical as to whether they were entitled to judge what was right and wrong, but this wasn't an issue. Evil and good are black and white in this comic book, even when the good guys have to kill countless innocents to change the fate of millions. It was all about body count. They were happy to trade and barter lives as long as the net was positive in their favor. I'm not sure this moral certainty can be so easily achieved. I'd like more struggle as to whether it is okay to kill to save and whether or not they are fit to judge right and wrong and what is "better." Humans certainly aren't this simple. Jenny Sparks does appear to question herself once. After the first big battle she is talking with Apollo and says she doesn't like leadership, but then says "Bad things happen when I run teams. And bad things happen when I don't run teams. All this is a hellish gamble for me Apollo. But there had to be someone left to save the world. And someone left to change it." Very altruistic, with doubt and vulnerability that she never shows again. I think exploring this doubt and the psychology of superheroes and murders who claim to save lives is fascinating and definitely a struggle worth exploring. Would I kill one person if I was told it would save 2 others? I don't know if I could. This is why superheros are so fascinating to me.Another void I felt in the book was that of the humans they were
claiming to save. They were faceless children and regular people. No where do we see what it is like to live in a world where half a city is obliterated by super humans and thousands of people are killed by the good guys so that millions can be saved. What kind of climate and quality of life would that create? I'd like to explore the psychology of real people who live in this world. Are they grateful for the help? Fearful? Does it lead to riots and fear and terrorism politics? Who gains what from superheroes? What if a saved person isn't grateful? That could be funny and campy. Lots of panels were devoted to fighting and much less on the characters. I want this ratio to be reversed. To me fighting isn't cool unless we know why and what is at stake for everyone involved. Plus less fighting is easier to shoot. I'm sure with some practice I can keep things exciting with much less action. It will all be about balance, and refining the YouTube medium.
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