Mr Frolik is detective with issues. He has dark looks, a long dark coat and he smokes as he pontificates and ruminates on love, life and serial killers, much like Bill Hicks or Lenny Bruce, but a little more wry. His love life is seriously bad and he doesn't ...

Writing Timeclocks


Timeclocks are one of those elements of fiction that usually shows up in the middle or just before the final act, to give things a little boost in the adrenaline department, and make the drama more urgent. Not only are your characters facing big problems, but suddenly their ...

Last week, I was in a classroom and the plans on the desk were to show a DVD. “Oh good, Zootopia it is!” I said as I happily loaded the disc into the computer. I had already seen the movie three years ago when it came out in theaters, so ...

Happy June 1st everyone!

I have been youtube-crawling today around the cinema pop-culture side. And as I was watching assorted comments and commentary on a whole lot of YA (i.e. Young Adult) and children's books and TV/film/animation series, from Harry Potter to The Last Airbender to ...

May 2019 is right around the corner, and it marks a massive milestone in superhero comics - the 80th birthday of Batman.

His looooong running comic, Detective Comics, releases issue #1000! This is the second superhero comic to reach this impressive place - last year was Superman's 80th, and Action Comics ...

Since taking illustration and comics more seriously, I’ve been fortunate enough to improve in leaps and bounds. Our first comic is less that two years old and the other is coming up to it’s one year anniversary. In terms of a comic’s age, that is not very ...

Comics have always had a special hold on people’s imaginations, with stories immersing readers in fantasy worlds where literally anything is possible. And, unlike books, comics combine the power of words and pictures. The skills of the artist mean that those worlds and other phenomena are there for all ...

Having discussed a general approach to writing characters with mental disorders (with a lot of thoughtful comments by you further enriching what I had to say!) it's only right that we wrap up this very quick analysis with an example of a story that properly portrays them.

I chose ...

So, I’m still experiencing internet issues and have to do a lot of things on my phone, so the 10-year flashback article has been shifted to next week. Want to join the fun though? We’ve had so many amazing posts from people showing off their progress and next ...

Writing a character with mental illness can be a very tricky thing. Writers usually go for the extremely rare, exotic and spectacular: multiple personality disorders, extreme manifestations of psychopathy or sociopathy, high functioning autism with that ever alluring ‘savant’ magic going for the character, bombastically spectacular schizophrenia… in many ways ...