When I published the previous entry entitled “Podcasting and the Value of Intent” just over a month ago, I felt a sort of gut catharsis that I got enough of my thoughts on the matter to be coherent enough to actually make sense.  But later on I realized that I had only tackled half of the matter, making this thematic “sequel” necessary.  And by necessary I don’t mean all will be right in the universe once I hit ‘post’, it just means my OC-ness can take a breather or two.  So… onward with the talking very  seriously about very silly things.

When Reading Comics (!), sure it’s all well and good to be mindful of the creator’s intent when you’re reading his product, but the other more important half of the equation is what you yourself intend to get out of it.  What are your intentions every time you pick up a comic book to read it?  Simply put, what do you expect to get out of the experience?

To backtrack a little bit, the idea of this blog post was actually sparked when I saw a comic fan absolutely panning a graphic novel on his website, almost to the point that you thought it was personal.  If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that whoever made that book had snuck into that gentleman’s house in the dead of night and farted in his pillow while he was asleep.  And nobody likes that (I checked).  But the point in its totality clarified itself to me when this vitriolic pedant did nothing but sing high praises for the likes of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.  Now that is all well and good, and I agree that those two are quite talented, but (and spoiler alert) not everyone can be Moore and Morrison.

And that brings me back to asking you what you expect to get from a comic.  Coz look… if you buy a stack every week, sit down on your comfiest chair and sip on your loveliest beverage, and expect to read Watchmen every time you open a book, you’re going to be disappointed every. single. time.

Are you after closure? Maybe you shouldn’t be reading Spider-Man then.  Are you after realism?  Are you after grit?  Understand that a comic can tell you a story along that line the best way it knows how, but also understand that a comic book may also not necessarily be the best place to decisively deal with something like hunger in Africa.

Set your expectations.  Or better yet, learn not to have any and just let the comic do its job and tell you a story.  Do not, and this is something I myself am guilty of sometimes, try to think ahead of the story.  That can be fun and engaging, but depending on what kind of person you are it affects its own set of annoyances and grievances I’d rather not get into in this post.

To know what you want is to know your place.  Enjoy the Ride and Quit being a bitch.

All told.

I’ve been hosting and editing most of the episodes of a little something called the Tres Komikeros podcast since late 2008 — cutting out stutters, non-PC comments, and the occasional five minutes of nonsensical rambling.  It’s a tough job.  It’s an often thankless job, but looking at how far the show has come and the friends we’ve made, I can honestly say it’s all been well worth it.

Last month, TK hit a noteworthy 100 episodes.  Over the span of four years, we’ve grown from a small crew of just me, a kind and bright-eyed artist from Cebu; Alex Cipriano, a relentless comics and gaming fan and one of my closest friends, and EJ Afzelius; a writer/model double-agent based in Manila — to a man-sized serving that includes Miguel Santos, a hotel manager from Davao; and finally Nick Santos (no relation), a film school graduate also based in Cebu.  We are by no means the only comics-related podcast in the Philippines, but I can say with a stout heart that we are certainly the most prolific (for the lowest price consistent with quality).  From reviews to interviews to topic discussions and the like, the podcast has come a long way and, surprisingly, taught me a lot about art.  Specifically, the appreciation of it.

See… when you’re reviewing stacks of comics every week, the temptation to just compare them to each other or to something that came before is certainly present.  And while that can sometimes count as a valid review, it isn’t always a fair one.  All art is subjective after all, and are products of unique individuals with unique weaknesses and strengths.  Thus the act of compare and contrast to “review” their work is in itself a flawed practice.  Doing so not only opens you up to bias, because we all have our favorites, but it also has the potential to hurt feelings.  That may sound like a non-issue to most, but when you’re lucky enough (as we on the show are) to know some of these creators personally, the ice on Critic’s Creek can get surprisingly thin.

So the solution, though it may not come naturally to most, is to critique a piece of work according to what you feel the artist intended to do.  The focus on intent helps get you to the heart of the matter.  What is this story trying to tell you?  Are the characters, setting, dialogue and other elements contributing to a perceived tone?  Does the art do its job?  Does the story get communicated?  Is there even a story there, or is the artist just intending to have fun?  And the line of questioning goes on, because suddenly you’re judging a book on its sole merits rather than the cavalcade of books that came before.

Being mindful of intent helps one grow as both a reviewer and a creator.  And I find it’s helping me focus on the task at hand, which at the end of the day, is attempting to show people something they’ve never seen before.  Less historians, more pioneers.

Let’s all go read some comics.

It’s funny how things turn out.   I don’t much fancy myself the kind of person  who makes friends easily, much less keeps a ton of them.  It’s interesting how, over  the course of your life, you can become quite well acquainted with your heroes, only to feel disappointed and quite honestly lost at the end of the day.  If your idols aren’t the kind of people you’d like yourself to be, what does that say about you? Conversely, an old and withered part of you gets tickled when you find yourself relating a lot better to a face at the opposite bank of a bridge long burnt.

So no… it’s not the friends you make, it’s the friends you keep.

So my band’s gotten back together… though Sean’s still in North Carolina, and Jan and I live in separate towns here in the Philippines.  So we’re pretty much a virtual band at the moment, and that’s probably how it’s gonna play out all told.  The wife’s happy just to see me make music again, I’m just glad to find out the boys and I still get along even without alchohol involved.

Work has been work, and March is looking to be a month of new things and old commitments.  I’m pretty sure it’ll be my busiest month of this year, with a coupla things probably bleeding into April and May.  But you know what?  I sit at a desk all day and rub a stick on a clump of flat fiber.  On a tough day, I’ll break a sweat — one pathetic bland little excuse for a bead of salty effort.  And then I’ll take a break.

Christ.

I really shouldn’t even be allowed , legally, to complain.  Quit being a whiny bitch, John.

I find that It’s important to have a good idea of who your friends are when the usual order of every day has a session of self-loathing pencilled in.

Creating art as a profession teaches you things.  There’s a big difference between drawing for yourself, for fun, for art’s sake… and drawing to pay the rent, to feed yourself, and to keep the lights on.  It’s a job.  And while this distinction is clear to a precious few whom I love and respect immensely, I figured it’d be peachy to lay down a grocery list of the most common misconceptions that most people have about artists.

#1 Artists are proud of everything they create. Nope.  More often that not, we are painfully aware of how a piece could have been better, even when our peers compliment us or at least gently bend us over.  We know we can be better.  And while most of us can take constructive criticism like normal people, also keep in mind that no one sits at a desk, whips out his art equipment, and intentionally tries to suck.

#2 Artists are insulted by reference material. No way.  There may be a handful of artists who scoff at drawing from reference, but the majority appreciate it and tend to consider it a genuine effort to make our job easier, may you be a collaborating writer or even just a fan commissioning a piece.  Nah.  Whatever helps us make the finished piece better is usually appreciated.

#3 We like flowery scripts. This is a weird one.  Some writers tend to fashion scripts thinking of their collaborators as the audience.  Though there may be a bit of merit to that, nine times out of ten, an artist will prefer that you just say an alley is dark rather than “oppressed by the shadows of the adjacent concrete monoliths.”  While yes, it serves to help the imagery, keep in mind that you don’t need to sell us on the story.  We are already working with you.

#4 We don’t need praise. We do.  Admit it, artists.  The biggest reason you’re still on Deviant Art is the ego stroking.  Take me for example, after a day’s work, I’d like to hear more than “ooh, that’s nice.”  What’s the matter?  Am I a puppy?  Did you pass out because my page is so awesome and that’s why you can’t say anything more?  All I’m saying is… If you’re a writer receiving pages and you like them, tell your artist you do.  Don’t just ask for the next one.  Show the love.

#5 We’re always in the mood to draw. This is probably the most common misconception, and understandably so.  When comic fans see us at cons, it’s at artist alley.  When writers hit us up, it’s within the context that you are a collaborator whose job it is to illustrate a story.  But of course, just like every OB-GYN gets sick of staring at vaginas every now and then, sometimes we just want to sit at our desk and NOT be holding a pencil.

So that’s it.  Five common misconceptions about artists.  I’m pretty sure I’m wrong about a couple of them and very right about others, but this is all from experience, so bear with me.  Now back to work…

Not until illness renders you physically unable to work do you truly appreciate the work that you have in front of you.  It’s June in the Philippines, and with the change of season comes a drastic change in my constitution. I’ve been stuck in bed for the better part of this past week, sucking on air while my wife took care of me and made sure our home didn’t go to shit.  I’ve been stricken by a bad case of the flu, which has been threatening to wake my asthma up something fierce.  We’ve missed X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern, but I might be at 100% just in time for us to catch one of them.

Been toying with the idea of aiming for two pages a day lately, but Jad says I should ease it into five pages a week while I’m still recuperating.  She knows my limits a lot better than I do these days.

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The Tres Komikeros podcast has been on hold for half of June, no small thanks to me being a sorry pile of ache… but we’ll probably be back in full swing this coming Friday.  Alex has been itching for comic conversation, which is hard to come across in his all-work-oriented Singaporean Surroundings.

I’ve been catching up on some random things on my own though, while stuck in bed:

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights

A much better anthology than Gotham Knight was, mainly due to the strong through-line anchoring the little tales.  Art direction was very Dragonball in a lot of the fights, but that actually made it work a lot better than Jad and I expected.  A great primer for the film, even though it isn’t Hal centric.

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The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

For some bizarre reason I’d really rather not think about, my buddy Migs procured an entire season of this show and promptly recommended it to me.  Granted, I wasn’t under heavy medication when he did, but seeing this now makes me think this is probably how Charlie Sheen feels… all the time.

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Warlord of Mars (Dynamite)

I loved the original Burroughs books.  I love the Frazetta paintings.  This series is respectful to both, and though the text can be cumbersome at times, I feel there is a very real effort to capture the soul of Barsoom, making this a sometimes-steep read that is well worth the climb.  This could use a PG tag on the cover though.  No sex is depicted, but thinly veiled nudity (though tasteful) should still be filtered.

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So yeah.  Space Cop.  Weird Cabin Boy.  And Barbaric Nudists.

Never let it be said my tastes don’t vary.