Other characters from nowhere referencing other characters not seen yet? I suspect it is time to put cards on table in regards to this turkey.
You've read the blog so you are well-aware by now that I fly by the seat of my pants on most things, so it will probably surprise you not a jot that barring one or two sketches lost in the big PC switchover of 2013, this is more or less the entirety of my planning for the J6 pitch:
True to form, I have lost the actual pitch I made, too, but it was something along the lines of:
Whereas other superheroes find their way around the globe, working-class Brummie superhero team J6 usually have their hands full just finding their way around the UK to the spots of mythic or historical interest to which their adventures call them - places like Loch Ness, the Williamson Tunnels or Mary King's Close - in a series of family-friendly adventures that emphasise the fun and surreal adventure of superhero tales over grim angst.
I referred to the sketch page occasionally for visual reference because I just have the absolute worst memory, but that's more or less it apart from the outline for the main story (these and the pages I've still to run on the blog are proof-of-concept as the submission guidelines called for an example of the finished artwork and lettering as well as a thumbnailed chapter), but I shan't be putting that up here as I might yet get mileage out of it one way or another.
I've worked with less than the above, though - the current project I'm working on was based on something like two notes I found that read "homeless He-Man" and "don't just make the cat a bear again," but I'll muddle through on that one, too.
Showing posts with label failed pitches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failed pitches. Show all posts
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
I once lived with forty birds and they all flew away and I moved on
J6 is a pitch I made to the Phoenix, but nothing came of it so I thought I would avail myself of the chance of some uncomplicated blog filler by breaking the pages down into dailies and running them for a month or so instead of the usual screen grabs. Because I really am that lazy.
On the plus side, putting work out there did at least get me to sit down and figure out where I needed to improve (anatomy, colouring, stronger opening scenes, better-establishing new characters faster, less hatching, etc), so it was literally back to the drawing board for this pitch, but the basic premise will remain the same as in the proof-of-concept pages I'll be running here: a family of six from a working class estate in Birmingham deal with strange occurrences and the occasional crime.
It's all-ages stuff so despite the odd dip into potty humor there's no swearing, no graphic violence, no screaming "NOOOOOO!" into the rain, and no sexual violence of any sort - which I imagine would be the real deal-breaker for the average superhero fan and those very, very odd people who find their way to the blog via some disturbingly specific search terms in the old Google there, but I assure you the intent was not to subvert any genres or expectations, it was just to do a silly superhero strip in four A4 pages' worth of space, because when I first sat down to do a pitch worthy of a kids' comic, my first thought was "what genre is unashamedly for children?" and "superheroes" was the first thing that popped into my head.
There are only three stories' worth, so if you absolutely hate it (you are apparently not alone) it shan't last very long and the tiresome business of me shouting at the wind because of some sub-par episode of a teenage drama I watched that morning shall resume soon enough.
On the plus side, putting work out there did at least get me to sit down and figure out where I needed to improve (anatomy, colouring, stronger opening scenes, better-establishing new characters faster, less hatching, etc), so it was literally back to the drawing board for this pitch, but the basic premise will remain the same as in the proof-of-concept pages I'll be running here: a family of six from a working class estate in Birmingham deal with strange occurrences and the occasional crime.
It's all-ages stuff so despite the odd dip into potty humor there's no swearing, no graphic violence, no screaming "NOOOOOO!" into the rain, and no sexual violence of any sort - which I imagine would be the real deal-breaker for the average superhero fan and those very, very odd people who find their way to the blog via some disturbingly specific search terms in the old Google there, but I assure you the intent was not to subvert any genres or expectations, it was just to do a silly superhero strip in four A4 pages' worth of space, because when I first sat down to do a pitch worthy of a kids' comic, my first thought was "what genre is unashamedly for children?" and "superheroes" was the first thing that popped into my head.
There are only three stories' worth, so if you absolutely hate it (you are apparently not alone) it shan't last very long and the tiresome business of me shouting at the wind because of some sub-par episode of a teenage drama I watched that morning shall resume soon enough.
Labels:
brum,
failed pitches,
filler,
J6001,
J6002,
J6003,
parrot beatbox,
pirates,
rapping,
superheroes
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