“To Blog… Or Not to Blog…?”

By Tony Lee

That is indeed this week’s question.



So anyway, this is a slightly more different and hastily written Two Drunk Guys In A Bar this week than usual. Why’s this? Well, the original plan was to record me and Dan on Monday while we signed copies of the Tizzle Sisters in London. We were going to talk crap for a bit, giggle like schoolboys, and then I was going to transcribe the best bits. Because we have news. Oh yes, there’s gold up in them mountains.

However, my car broke down on the M25, ten miles from my destination (and after two hours of driving) and I wasn’t able to make it in the end. In fact, my car broke down to such a spectacular extent that not only did a wizened old farmer in dungarees and a shotgun come and shoot it to put it out of it’s misery, just like Old Yella – but I ended up spending five hours doing absolute sod all while I waited for roadside assistance, tow trucks, garages, and journeys home. All the while getting texts from Dan saying hurtful things like ‘your car is gay’. This from the man who drives the Lord Winchester – a car with flags instead of indicators.

But I did manage some things. You see, as ever, I follow the minimalist futurephone school of offices, and had my Ipaq 3970 with fold-out keyboard on my lap, connected to my cell via Bluetooth as I sat in the sun beside the motorway. For hours. I couldn’t do my current work, the script adaptation of Evil Star, but I could do other things – write a synopsis to Witness, do a chapter of Magpie, surf the net, check my emails, post on my blog – that sort of thing.

Which quite nicely links us to this week’s thoughts, as suggested on the forum we have here at Silver Bullet Comic Books by a Mssr Christopher Lynch, Esq, an insane person who has unfortunately as of this point not been restrained by the police and therefore removed from the public eye before his insanity returns once more at the deviant, deviant I tell you www.monkeyswithmachineguns.com. Has that made you want to go and look yet? You know you want to. Go now. I’ll wait. Go on.

Still waiting.

There! Wasn’t that madness and horrific intent incarnate? Anyway, I digress. He commented on the fact that I had a lot of bloggage on the internet, a claim I can hardly refute. His question was as follows –

Hey Tony, (You see? I allow all my loyal and adoring minions and acolytes to call me by my real name. I find it adds a little more humanity to their requests.)

You must be one of the most prolific blog-service subscribers out there - I see you everywhere! Live Journal, Blogger, MySpace, ComicsSpace. I'd be really interested in hearing more about this in a future column - does having so many online identities really ever pay off?

Just a thought

Chris

And a fine thought it is, young Christopher! So good, that I have stolen the idea and message title for my own nefarious ends! Now stand back as I twirl my mustache and consider yourself lucky I even read your note to me. Hell, you got a plug for www.monkeyswithmachineguns.com, your brilliant tale, okay? I mean, don’t push it! Hell, you just got two, you know? Bendis would charge you three midgets and a Shetland Pony for that on his WizardWorld column.*

So, anyway. Where was I? Oh yes, my incredibly brilliant idea for a column this week.

Blogging. It’s becoming an international pastime. It’s almost as popular as sex, and most of the time takes longer. There are many ways to blog. You can use your own homegrown php on your site, you can post on a blogger site, a Myspace blog, a Livejournal, a Suicide Girls blog, the new Comicspace blog – hell, there are tons of places. And I pimp my filthy, decrepid thoughts on all of them. Except for Suicide Girls. At the moment, at least.**

Why? Why do I do this? Because as I’ve said before – I’m pretty much a C-List hack that needs to make sure his name is seen. If an editor is flicking through the blogsphere, he/she/it may find my blog. And when they do? They may find something of interest. They may hire me to write the Spider Man Loves Mary Jane / World War Hulk crossover. Actually – that makes a sick kinda sense, think of it. Happy Mary Jane and her teen drama life as she’s squished like an ickle bug beneath the Hulk’s rampaging foot.

But realistically? That’s a load of horseshit. Creators do blogs for two reasons. Firstly, they do it because they have a fanbase of loyal readers who want to know what’s going on in their creator’s life. And this is gold to a creator. Say I’m Warren Ellis, Peter David, Neil Gaiman, etc. I have people reading my blog and I mention a new project. Each one of my fans will read my blog. And each one of them will see about this new project. If they’re a fan of me enough to read my blog, log onto my forum etc, they’re a fan enough to go out and buy this comic when it’s released. And like a drug pusher, I’ll give them little snippets of the ‘good stuff’ – sneak previews of art, maybe some ‘behind the scenes’ news – keep them drip fed until the day it’s required. And it works. Ellis is a genius at this – his BAD SIGNAL list has thousands of people subscribing. And his book numbers sell incredibly well.

Secondly? They do it because they’re egotists. I hasten to add this is my own opinion, but anyone who posts a blog going ‘look at me! Look what I done!’ has to have egotistical tendencies. You’re putting yourself in the crosshairs and you’re daring them to shoot at you. But you know what? You only go as far as your talent lets you. You’re a nobody and you’re off spouting like Ellis or Morrison, demanding people to love you? Expect a serious lack of replies, bud.

So then you have the ‘persona’ start to appear. And I’ve seen this on several people’s blogs. The ‘mask’ is put on for the fans. Now, it could be as simple as a pen name, as several writers and artists use, or it could be a bluff and bluster front for the cameras. It’s magic. It’s misdirection. I’m often seen as brash, and arrogant. And there has to be a part of that somewhere as I wouldn’t be able to do it so well if I wasn’t a little bit so. I mean, last May I had badges made – OFFICIAL TONY LEE MINION they read. And you know what? People wore them. Lots of people wore them. Because they knew it was a joke, they knew it was all ‘part of the act’ and they were happy to play along. And unlike John Byrne, I’ve not yet forgotten how to self mock. And so my online ‘persona’ pimps my work to the masses.

Now. Blogs. I’m not going to talk about forums, because then we have a whole different kettle of fish. But, blogs. People use different ones. Some RSS blogs from one to another. Me? I do them all by hand. Firstly, I’ll post on my Livejournal. I like LJ for a couple of reasons – first off, I’ve used it since 2001 and have a lot of non-comics friends. Which means that I can filter my posts. And, when I have a long, rambly rant I can cut the text. Always good.

Then I have my website. Not as often updated, but I do the big things. This is done through blogger, so I’ll post it up – at the same time uploading to Myspace and possibly a bulletin on Comicspace. If it’s massive news, I’ll put it on some forums too.

Does it work? I honestly couldn’t tell you. Have I got work from it? Not to my knowledge – but I know that editors who have thought about hiring me have looked at my Livejournal and website – and this might have helped me on some of the gigs I have. But if I hadn’t done them? If I’d kept quiet? I would have possibly have gained the same gigs. Who knows.

One thing I do know – is that I’m a total attention whore. So much so, that I’m writing a column about how to attention whore to you, my reader. Kinda makes the point, doesn’t it?

Still, columns and blogs are primarily to make announcements. And an announcement I shall make. You will notice that Dan’s not spoken this week – no words of wisdom alas yet, but this is because of something wonderful.

As leaked a couple of weeks ago in All The Rage, I’m releasing a five-part supernatural thriller through Markosia called Hope Falls. It was once titled Of Vengeance, continuity following fans and was going to be drawn by Rantz Hoseley. Unfortunately Rantz dropped off when schedules and deadlines clashed with his upcoming 2008 GN with Derek ‘Stagger Lee’ McCulloch, and it went into hiatus for a while.

A week or two back, Markosia managed to see a copy of the script and told me that they would love to release it in November. I was over the moon, but there was one problem. I still didn’t have an artist who was stylistic, cool – and at the same time could do dark horror or thriller. After all, this story is Twin Peaks meets The Crow by way of Pale Rider and The DaVinci Code. I spoke to Dan about this, looking for suggestions. I wasn’t expecting the one he made.

‘I’ll do it.’ He said. He had just finished final art on The Gloom (coming out late 2007 as a trade) and was looking for something new to get his teeth into. It would be another glorious collaboration. But – could Dan pull it off? It wasn’t a cartoon style we needed. If The Gloom was Cartoon Network, Hope Falls needed to be HBO.

Dan did some sketches. And they knocked the ball out of the park so well that we sealed the deal there and then. In fact, here they are, right now. You’re the first people to see these, so be gentle (click for the full-size version).

So Dan’s not about much this week as he’s busy trying to get a lead in on this. We come out in November, but we want to have the bulk done by solicitation. We want an ashcan preview of some kind to be available for Bristol in May. This is possibly the biggest creator owned project either of us have done and we want to make sure it’s massive.

So of course, we have our own blog for it – just visit www.hope-falls.com. Or hope-falls.blogspot.com.

Aw, go on then – here’s some Dan Boultwood goodness, just for you.

---

“Gaunt faces and haggard eyes stared blankly at myself and my constant companion the rapscallion that is Count Woogie. The ever-present odour of decay and desperation railed against our high society nostrils causing my bowels to vent in a most untimely fashion into the upturned bowler of my canny chum.

“Steady on!” He cried as the pure ether emanating from his hat reached his eyes.

A single tear rolled down my cheek in answer, dislodging my best moustache, the monotonous swaying to and fro was taking its toll on my hip flask and the jaunty angle of my top hat.

“This monotonous swaying to and fro is taking its toll on my hip flask and the jaunty angle of my top hat.” I stated through a haze of offal.

Unable to talk for fear of birching, my colleague, the now ether-mad Woogie had devolved to the point of eating his own feet. Panic gripped my heart at the sight like a small mammalian mammal. Acting on instinct I swung my cane for his jaw line, shattering his left eyebrow and dislodging half an ear lobe.

The obligatory masses around us, urged to life by the impending smell of drama turned soulless pits of eyes upon our defeated mortal shells. Directing their malingering omni mind against the last bastions of our sanity.

“Back! Back you swine!” I cried valiantly proffering my umbrella before my bedraggled assailants.

My eyes concaved in their desperate search for escape, and crying ‘foul play’ I leapt atop the heap of naysayers and ghouls, the prone and lifeless form of Count Woogie cradled in my crease like a deflated bush baby.

In an uncharacteristic display of selflessness I knew what had to be done. Impaling my chum head first onto the nearest hat stand I bent over with a dignity rivaled only by Yul Brynner, and with but four stops to go, prepared myself to take it like a man.“

---

I hope you’re happy now.

Before I go, did you like the ‘CAP WAS RIGHT’ T Shirt I have at the top? Want one just like it? Well, if you go to www.cafepress.com/hopefalls you’ll not only find that, but also a ‘DON’T F**K WITH AN ANGEL’ Hope Falls T-Shirt and much more over the next few months! Go buy things and spread the word!

Also, people have contacted me about the conversation I had on a Bendisboard forum with Y The Last Man artist extraordinaire Pia Guerra about Doctor Who. Several have suggested that this is a hint to a Doctor Who project with the two of us.

No such luck, I’m afraid. I did however keep my promise, and Pia now has the editor in charge of the Doctor Who Magazine’s contact details, and if we all think happy thoughts something nice may happen.

That’s about it, really. Apart from

*There is no factual basis to this deal, as there is no factual basis that Bendis wouldn’t just stiff you with the midgets and keep the pony.

**At the moment I just prefer to read. Very slowly.

Tony Lee is the award-nominated writer of things including The Tizzle Sisters with G.P Taylor and Dan Boultwood, Starship Troopers, Doctor Who, X-Men, Wallace & Gromit and Robin Hood – Outlaw’s Pride with Sam Hart. Michael Moorcock says that ‘Tony Lee is one of the best story-tellers working in comics today’. Mike Oeming says far worse things. Tony’s website is www.tonylee.co.uk. Feel free to email him and interrupt his day.

---

Discuss this column at the Only A Forum forum.
© 2008, Tony Lee

---