Love spells have been a part of literature for a long, long time. A Midsummer Night's Dream comes to mind, by that William Shakespeare fella, where a love triangle/quadrangle is made more complex when the wrong target is affected. The correction has only one dude under the spell ...
Love Spells and Love Potions
Banes at 12:00AM, Feb. 8, 2018Damaged Protagonists
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 18, 2018
A well written protagonist will generally have some flaws, starting out as an underdog of some kind, with lessons to learn and improvements to make over the course of the story.
Granted, some heroes are, well, just heroes, who are pretty much who they need to be from the beginning ...
Time Stand Still
Banes at 12:00AM, Nov. 9, 2017
Time doesn't really exist in comics. Someone can blast through multiple pages in seconds, or linger on one panel for years. Well, that would be rare. But you see what I'm saying.
What if you want to make your readers slow down? To give your pages the pace ...
Cosmic Horror
Banes at 12:00AM, Oct. 26, 2017
So you've got your maniacs, masked or otherwise. Scary! Or how about savage animals from, whether realistic or altered in some way? Or maybe monsters like vampires, zombies, were-folk and…er…mummies are your jam? Or what about ghosts, spirits and alien beasties?
When it comes to horror fiction ...
Steve Ditko
Banes at 12:00AM, Sept. 21, 2017
One of the greatest comic book stories ever written, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are known as the main architects of the Marvel Universe. But there was a third originator of that landmark creation:
Steve Ditko was an artist who originally worked as a ...
Before the Beginning
Banes at 12:00AM, Sept. 14, 2017
One of the great things about the original Star Wars movies was the strong sense of a grand, adventurous, and terrible history before the movie started. So much is hinted at through Obi Wan Kenobi about the Jedi Knights, Anakin Skywalker, great friendships, laser swords, and terrible war and loss ...
Single pages, larger issues and archive panic
Banes at 12:00AM, Sept. 7, 2017
SINGLE PAGES vs. The GREATER WHOLE
I'm at a nice place in my webcomic right now. Well, it's nice as the writer, at least.
The characters have a nice history now, with some adventures behind them, some established relationships, and a stable of supporting characters who can be ...
Your Emotions in Motion
Banes at 12:00AM, Aug. 24, 2017I was a big fan of all the Indiana Jones movies back in the day. When the fourth one, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, finally came out, it was exciting times! Harrison Ford only seemed to get cooler with age, and what a treat it would be to see ...
Damn Lies
Banes at 12:00AM, Aug. 17, 2017I'm a bit obsessed with “before” versions of characters. Where they start. The damaged dude or dudette who shows up at the beginning of a story REALLY needing a change in their lives, and usually not knowing it.
Even when the plot kicks off, these folks often don't ...