OG’s BLOG

There are two new comic collections are now available for your comic buying and reading pleasure:

First, David Reddick’s first Legend of Bill comic is taking pre-orders. This comic will include a bunch of Legend of Bill strips, and a few extras, such as a 5-page comic-book format story which I wrote, as well as a three page short story I wrote and illustrated. These stories are not available elsewhere, so I would encourage you to snag yourself a copy and see what we’ve been up to lately.

Second, Brock Heasley’s first SuperFogey’s bonus-sized comic collection is taking orders. Lots and lots of extras in this bonus collection. The list reads like a list of extras on a collector’s edition DVD. Nice! In somewhat related news, I’ll actually be collaborating with Brock on a very cool upcoming comic. We’ll be making an announcement in a few days.

The latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast is up online. In this episode, I talk about creating and writing characters, starting with Simon Tripline, tracing his evolution back to the dark days of Moon Town the Parody and Superhero Superpilot Ace Tripwire..

She’s out there, the Suit with an opinion but no sense. You’re required to pass your work in progress past her, and she’s supposed to know it’s in progress. The temporary music will get changed. The temporary Voice Over will be re-recorded. The color will be processed. Everything will get smoothed out eventually.

But you still get Comments from her. We need better V.O. here. We need different music here. The color doesn’t match. Well, no duh.

Great satire of the Budweiser “Real Men of Genius” bit, directed at this Genius of the Production Office. Hallelujiah.

I enjoy writer Ken Levine’s blog most of the time. Like most blogs, it goes through its occasional bouts where the signal-to-noise ratio is heavy on the noise (more baseball announcing anecdotes, anyone?) But he more than makes up for it when he gets into a vein of absolute gold on his blog, and he’s on one now.

A couple of days ago, I posted a link from his Aaron Sorkin spoof. Today, I bring you his words of wisdom concerning developing your story-based entertainment. Seems Ken is approached frequently by people suggesting that their place of business would make a good premise for a sitcom. After a few moments of diatribal explanation why those encounters don’t yield Million Dollar Ideas, here’s what Ken has to say about story idea development:

Here’s what nobody ever pitches me: a show about a relationship. THE OFFICE is funny because of the relationship between Michael and his employees. It is funnier still because of the relationships among the employees. What they actually manufacture is completely unimportant.

Start with the characters first.

So funny, so obvious: you could say the sit-com is not so much about the Sit, but really about the Com, but the truth is, if you do it right, it’s about neither. Like every other good story worth telling, it’s about character. Add this to your List of Obvious Things that Need to be Written Down and Repeated. And don’t tell me you don’t keep a list like that because I know you do.

Spongebob Squarepants turns 10 this Friday. Worth noting, Spongebob Inc. is an $8 Billion industry. Eight. Billion. With a B.

Tell your friends that next time they tell you to stop wasting your time scribbling comics.

Man do I envy Aaron Sorkin’s amazing writing talents.

In the unlikely event you don’t know who this prolific writer is, he’s the scribe behind A Few Good Men, the developer and writer of Sports Night and The West Wing. His writing style is characterized by smart, rapid fire dialog, prize-winning non-sequiturs,  great story threads, and strong characterizations. I doubt he’s ever had a day of Writer’s Block in his life, turning out reams and reams of excellent scripts in the time it takes rooms of writers to turn out a fraction of the output, a fraction as good.

M*A*S*H*, Frasier and Simpsons writer Ken Levine did a spoof a few months back, a pretty accurate version of MoneyBall as written by Aaron Sorkin. Read it HERE.

What about you, my talented would-be writer friends? Care to offer up a little spoof of something written by Aaron Sorkin? Send it in to me HERE, and I’ll post the best ones here at the Blog along with a link to your website. At any rate, it’s a great exercise.

I look forward to reading your entries!

The latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast is up online. In this episode, I expand on my thoughts on webcomics and self-publishing, as well as my thoughts on the balance between creating and promoting your work.

Need some inspiration? Tons of art at Gorilla Artfare. Holy moley.