For those of you just picking this up, feel free to download the story via some sort of capture software, or by simply right clicking and downloading from the link below each player. Play it on your .mp3 player, burn it to CD you won’t bother me. If you would like to host the audio file somewhere else or use the audio for something, write me an email and tell me what you’re up to, send me a link, show me your project. I was raised to share after all. You can also find these files and respective links on my podcast page- which will host more than one podcast some day.

As for the story, it’s a horror tale set in 14th century France around the time of the Inquisition (for that region anyway). I was inspired to write the story because I’d just finished reading Catherine Orenstein’s “Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked” which deals with the psycho sexual underpinning of the myriad versions of the Red Riding Hood tale, from its earliest print to its far older folkloric origins. If you’re fond of the “why” in stories look it up. But listen on, I think you’ll like. (PS- I apologize in advance for the quality of the audio. I don’t have a sound engineer, or even a very good mic, but I’m learning. Comments, questions and suggestions- please direct them below)

Download audio file (ExecutionerPart1.mp3)
The Executioner- part 1 Download audio file (ExecutionerPart2.mp3)
The Executioner- part 2

These few small images wield immense power when utilized within the narrative of the game. In a lot of ways they almost do this by themselves- which is why I’ve included them here. Used at the right moment they set an entire mood or stage the manner in which a character is viewed for the remainder of the game. If you’ve never played, they refer to the person running a game as storyteller, game master, referee or dungeon master. It’s a duty with a lot of past and a lot of weight to it both in and out of its sub pop culture. Most of these game master’s keep themselves fairly organized- it’s a necessary, positive and time-consuming factor of the roleplaying game. Orgnaization is key. Editing is done on the fly. It’s like trying to spin a story around a fireside off the cuff while the people listening do their best to participate and sometimes to throw you off your best intentions- that’s why you have to be organized.

This aside, I haven’t met many people doing what I do. Most keep a few note cards here and there. Refer back to the rules when they need to, and play it by ear after that. Maybe that’s a sign of greater skill- or maybe they’re less concerned with drawing the listener into a believable world, in doing that thing only fiction can do- make sense of circumstance. Either way it’s more fun for me and it makes it more fun for the players. I’ll try and post more of these as they come.

The image is drawn from a notion of physically manifesting what’s known as a method of loci or a memory palace, a method of mnemonic memorization that originated in 16th century alchemy and is currently employed by people competing in memorization competitions. Normally these constructs are fairly simple, though the Thomas Harris character Hannibal Lecter employs one in the novel Hannibal that is immense and deliberately beautiful. In the case of my own story the memory palace is representative of the idea that the events taking place in the story are inside the character’s head instead of the physical world. Nearly a third of the story plays out in this immense room. All that aside, I needed to see what the location might look like and I needed it to be breathtaking. Enjoy.

When I was told by teachers that a course would be taught for the writing MFA at the University of Houston I was very interested in seeing how it would be structured, what would be taught, and what the reading list would look like for a class as generally titled as the “Graphic Novel Workshop”. Pitched out of the English department and set up for what I have been told repeatedly is a rather prestigious creative writing program, they also opened the floor for five students from the art department’s MFA program. This, for me, was where I knew things might get a little ginchy. Simply, it’s the nature of the discipline of comics. In the mainstream these elements are separated for production. In the independent scene it’s more DIY. But how do you teach it in a formally structured class?

The answer was immediate. As artists, we would be getting help with the writing elements of work we would be producing. Mat Johnson, the instructor, whose approach to writing comics is of a more literary bent would be assisting us. Beginning his career with traditional novels, his comics work begins with DC’s Hellblazer series. Here he crafted a finer and more nuanced portrait of the character of Papa Midnight, who had a long history within the series as a villain and whose context as such was largely a collection of racist post-colonial imagery. After tempering those old bones with flesh he went on to pursue more personal projects like Incognegro, a Vertigo imprint about a young black reporter able to pass as white in the Jim Crow era south. The main character uses this to report for a Northern paper about the lynchings of the period. Pretty cool guy to learn the art and business of writing comics from.

For writers in the class, the deal was even sweeter. Funds were set aside to allow writers to work with artists both in the community of Houston and from the DC lineup. It was an opportunity for them to see work presented in a way that a writing class alone would not have enabled. As the semester opened up we began readings from superhero works like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight and Alan Moore’s Watchmen interspersed with Scott McCloud’s first book, Understanding Comics. We even had McCloud come to speak in the class and later that same evening in an open format to the university. All this in just the three weeks of the semester!

The readings for each class were in addition to the beginnings of two other assignments we’d be working on for the semester. These were the creative half of the class. The first to be a small 3-5 page piece, beginning with a synopsis and working towards a finished script. The idea being that these would be the pieces our artists for hire would choose from later on in the semester. (Actually they’re quite close to picking people as I write this. The teacher has emailed us samples of each prospective artist’s work before break began.)

The second of these would be a longer work approximately 22 pages in length. It might be an issue or the beginnings of a longer graphic novel if we wanted. Myself, I chose a piece for the longer one that I had been working with on and off for some time now. I did this because my intention was to finish both of these (as completed comics) for the close of the semester. It was a heck of a lot of work. Not surprisingly, It was the shorter assignment that became the more difficult. Producing something that starts and stops on a finite scale, that is coherent and enjoyable as a narrative is particularly tricky. To aid in this I decided to make a writing exercise of it.

On the website for the Center for Cartoon Studies (http://www.cartoonstudies.org) if you search for application procedures you will find a list, as with any art school, of things to submit with your application. Normally this would merely require a portfolio, but to test the skills of would be applicants storytelling abilities founder James Sturm requests, in addition to a portfolio, that prospective students add a comic story containing certain elements:

A minimum two-page comic story starring yourself, a snowman, a robot, the ocean, and a piece of fruit. You may combine characters! Format may be a zine, mini-comic, or plain black and white copies (must provide a printed version). Crisp legible reproduction is a must. Non-returnable.

I thought this was a pretty good idea so I went with it. I’d worked on an autobiographical comic last semester and didn’t really want to make a comic about myself at this point. Eliminating that feature I decided on the remaining elements instead. So this is what I produced two weeks into the semester:

       

       

For some reason I also forgot the bit about including the ocean. It was pretty difficult to put together something this succinct using things as disparate as a snowman, a robot and a piece of fruit. In the end my experiment worked. Scott McCloud seemed to like it. I hope you do too.