You can't kill these monsters...
I love Jason Copland. I hooked him up with Stuart Moore in Western Tales of Terror #4 and then hooked him up with Matt Dembicki in Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened. I'll bring Jason onto any project I can fit him in. So, when he asked me if I was interested in editing his new book with Michael May, Kill All Monsters!, I was pretty much ready to jump on site-unseen.
Jason sent me the opening scene. At the time, I was finishing up on Elk's Run and ramping up Postcards - Kill All Monsters! was in a completely different creative direction than both of those books. But it was fun. And it was over-the-top and action-packed and still had some great character stuff underneath it so I figured I'd give it a shot.
We finished up the first issue so far - the pitch is going out shortly. I figured I'd share some pages with you guys and give you a look at my first little pieces of editorial insight. I like to do the quiet character pieces, sure, but I have to admit - with the right script I become that little boy with the G.I. Joes, setting up tremendous battle scenes in my bedroom. Except I curse a lot more now.
My first reaction to the opening scene:
I'm seeing this opening sequence with twenty or thirty planes and the only dialog going between the squadron leader and the man at command. Open it up the same way and slowly establish the squadron on the next to last, double wide panel - looking from behind. Last double wide panel repeats the shot but with a big fucking monster hand in the background, coming up from behind a rock or some shit. Then second page is just bam - three planes in his hand, another two crashing into him, the remaining fifteen break off. Recircles, missiles flying, the command screen is showing them going down and the commander is trying to call them back - ordering them back but they're getting slaughtered - giant monster arms swatting them out of the sky, deflecting missiles - total fucking chaos. Throwing planes into other planes. Monster walks off unphased, a graveyard of smoldering planes, the commander trying to get someone to answer but there's no one left.
The monster destroys the entire squadron within ten seconds kind of shit - set up how unstoppable he is.
After Michael told me that the larger story will reveal that the American military is on its last legs and it wouldn't work to show this massive force, I came back with
Ah - you see, I didn't get the whole North American forces depleted thing. There's a fun way to bring that out, actually, and that's by using a rag-tag collection of wounded fighter jets and improvised attack planes. How awesome would that be? Fighter jets from the north, paint chipped and patched up - on their last legs - older planes flanking from the south - Vietnam War hold overs that were refurbished from museums. 727s doing kamikaze dives to distract the monster while a crop duster delivers the old stockpiled-sarin.
That causes the monster to sneeze.
If I see that, I'd know that the military is FUCKED.
Michael took my advice and rolled with it - the tone was set and we had our opening arc plotted out days later. It's a fun little story - I hope you all enjoy it.
Jason sent me the opening scene. At the time, I was finishing up on Elk's Run and ramping up Postcards - Kill All Monsters! was in a completely different creative direction than both of those books. But it was fun. And it was over-the-top and action-packed and still had some great character stuff underneath it so I figured I'd give it a shot.We finished up the first issue so far - the pitch is going out shortly. I figured I'd share some pages with you guys and give you a look at my first little pieces of editorial insight. I like to do the quiet character pieces, sure, but I have to admit - with the right script I become that little boy with the G.I. Joes, setting up tremendous battle scenes in my bedroom. Except I curse a lot more now.My first reaction to the opening scene:
I'm seeing this opening sequence with twenty or thirty planes and the only dialog going between the squadron leader and the man at command. Open it up the same way and slowly establish the squadron on the next to last, double wide panel - looking from behind. Last double wide panel repeats the shot but with a big fucking monster hand in the background, coming up from behind a rock or some shit. Then second page is just bam - three planes in his hand, another two crashing into him, the remaining fifteen break off. Recircles, missiles flying, the command screen is showing them going down and the commander is trying to call them back - ordering them back but they're getting slaughtered - giant monster arms swatting them out of the sky, deflecting missiles - total fucking chaos. Throwing planes into other planes. Monster walks off unphased, a graveyard of smoldering planes, the commander trying to get someone to answer but there's no one left.The monster destroys the entire squadron within ten seconds kind of shit - set up how unstoppable he is.After Michael told me that the larger story will reveal that the American military is on its last legs and it wouldn't work to show this massive force, I came back with
Ah - you see, I didn't get the whole North American forces depleted thing. There's a fun way to bring that out, actually, and that's by using a rag-tag collection of wounded fighter jets and improvised attack planes. How awesome would that be? Fighter jets from the north, paint chipped and patched up - on their last legs - older planes flanking from the south - Vietnam War hold overs that were refurbished from museums. 727s doing kamikaze dives to distract the monster while a crop duster delivers the old stockpiled-sarin.That causes the monster to sneeze.
If I see that, I'd know that the military is FUCKED.
Michael took my advice and rolled with it - the tone was set and we had our opening arc plotted out days later. It's a fun little story - I hope you all enjoy it.
Labels: killallmonsters
June 8, 2007 4:20 PM
This is exactly the story I tell whenever the topic of "Why You Need an Editor" comes up.
Another brilliant piece of advice you gave me that you didn't mention here was to "blow up the Death Star." It's my writing mantra now.