the road to god knows...: an original graphic novel by Von Allan

Book launch!

2010-02-24T21:00:00.001-05:00

The one thing that hasn't happened for the road to god knows... is an official book launch. Well, on Sunday, March 14th that's going to change! Here are the particulars:

When: Sunday, March 14th from 4:00 to approximately 7:00 PM
Where: Perfect Books, 258A Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 1L9, Phone: 613-231-6468

There's a Facebook page for the launch if you'd like to keep up to date, too!

Booklist review!

2010-01-31T14:33:00.000-05:00

Booklist Online, a book review site for the American Library Association, recently reviewed the road to god knows.... For a first-time author like me it's actually a pretty big deal - and it's a very positive review, too! Unfortunately, Booklist Online locks the reviews behind a password protected wall, but I've included it here and I hope no one minds. The original link is at http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=3931702

The review is as follows:

"Marie is the fat girl neither peers nor teachers care enough about to really know. She has a golden best friend, one whose little sister looks up to her, and for escapist heroics she follows pro wrestling, which provides relief from the reality of having a schizophrenic mother. Allan sensitively makes Marie the focus of her own story, never preaching to readers or relaying more knowledge than Marie gleans on her own. Initially, his artwork appears awkward. The characters have disproportioned bodies and adopt strange postures. Soon it becomes clear that this awkwardness reflects a major aspect of Marie’s point of view. Facial expressions are distinctly rendered, though, and oppressive particulars of Marie’s life—the hole in the wall made by the pan her mother threw at her, her overweight and estranged father’s habit of sitting around in his Jockeys—drawn with stark simplicity. Allan is realistic about schizophrenia, too, including the dopey condition of a just-medicated patient. Good for those interested in mental-health issues as they relate to families, and also in girl spirit."

Dr. Mark Dombeck

2010-01-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

Dr. Mark Dombeck was nice enough to chat about my book over on his blog on MentalHelp.net. An excerpt:

"It's for this reason that I like to support people who want to talk about mental illness. I particularly like to support people who have something creative to say about mental illness; who are able to present the story of their experience with mental illness in a manner that makes it easier for people who have not experienced it to begin to relate to it and understand. When Von Allan, a young graphic novelist hailing from Ottawa, Canada, approached me this week asking for my help in publicizing his recently published graphic novel “the road to god knows...”, it seemed the reasonable thing to do to help him get the word out."

One of the nicest things about publishing this story is that it's allowed me to get to know new people. People like Dr. Dombeck. The internet has changed both how we communicate and the ease of communication. In days past, I don't think it would have been that easy at all to connect like this. Nifty, huh?

CKCU Friday Special Blend Interview

2010-01-08T15:56:00.000-05:00

I was on CKCU's wonderful program Friday Special Blend today talking with hosts Susan Johnston and Vanessa Davies. We chat about the road to god knows..., my background in art, and those tricky details that involve publishing a book.

Just hit play on the little button below to listen in. It's about 20 minutes long.

Talk Ottawa Interview from Summer 2008

2009-12-22T11:51:00.000-05:00

This is the full one hour interview I did with host James Hendricks of Talk Ottawa, a Rogers Television program. We discuss my graphic novel the road to god knows..., exploring mental illness, schizophrenia, my background as a book retailer and the scary but exciting prospects of jumping into making art and comics with both feet.

Just hit the play button below to watch it. Please note that if you can't see the "play" button, you'll need to download the latest version of Adobe's Shockwave program. You can do that by clicking here (link will open in a new window).

Radio interview on WCAP 980 in Lowell, Massachusetts

2009-12-21T10:58:00.000-05:00

The latest interview I've done, this time with WCAP in Lowell, talking about the road to god knows... and super supportive local retailer Larry's Comics.

Just click play on the player below to give it a listen. There's a brief hiccup at about 45 seconds so apologies for that (flaky internet connection). The interview is about 12 minutes long. And special thanks to Teddy Panos, Bernice Corpuz, and "Wireless" Mike Flynn for having me on.

What people are saying

2009-12-08T22:48:00.003-05:00

Well, I have to say I'm thrilled with the early reviews that the road to god knows... is getting. Below is a sample:

From Midwest Book Review:

"The teenage years are hard, and having a schizophrenic mother does not help that. "The Road to God Knows..." is the coming of age story of one Marie, a teenage girl faced with her single mother's increasingly complex schizophrenia. Forced to grow up before her time, she learns many important lessons. "The Road to God Knows..." is an intriguing and touching graphic novel with a unique art style, highly recommended." (http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/jan_10.htm)

From Small Press Reviews:

"With the road to god knows… Von Allan demonstrates that he’s talented as both an artist and a storyteller. The Ottawa he conjures is beautifully and lovingly detailed — on par, perhaps, with the London of Dickens or the Cleveland of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor. Stylistically, I’m also reminded of Black Hole by Charles Burns and Sloth (among other things) by Gilbert Hernandez. Regardless of his artistic influences, however, what’s clear throughout this graphic novel is that Allan is an optimist who strives to explore the human heart in all of its intricate complexity." (http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/the-road-to-god-knows/)

From Optical Sloth:

"All told, this is a remarkably insightful and honest book. The helplessness of Marie’s friend to do her any real good, her dad being unable with work to be any kind of full-time father to Marie, her alienation from kids at school (and even the teachers), all of these things would be bad enough. Throw in a mother who may or may not harm herself or Marie at any moment and who is incapable of being any kind of authority figure in Marie’s life and well, I’m impressed. There are all kinds of ways that this comic could have gone wrong, and Von managed to cut through it all and make an outstanding graphic novel. It looks like he has at least another project in the works, and judging from the quality of this book I’d say he’s someone to keep an eye on in the future." (http://www.opticalsloth.com/?p=5712)

From Jalopy:

"A fantastic and self-aware work, I am thankful in my own way to have come across it. Available through Von Allan's website as a free, downloadable pdf copy, as well as through the Amazons, I advise against going for the computer screen version alone however, as digesting a wholeheartedly brilliant book such as this will fully compel you to want to support the work more viscerally.

Most definitely one of the finest graphic novels of the year, I think." (http://nilskidoo.blogspot.com/2009/11/road-to-god-knows.html)

From Sequential Tart:

"There's a lot to like about Allan's art and his storytelling. First and foremost is the fact that Marie is proportioned and dressed like a normal girl, not like some hottie who's fallen out of a Hot Topic catalog. She's a cute girl, but also awkward. The book seems to revel in the adolescent energy and uncertainty surrounding her. Allan's writing is stellar, and his dialogue never feels forced or unnatural. What's to be appreciated most about this book though, is the frank, compassionate way it deals with mental illness. In a day and age when people suffering from these diseases are still ostracized and used as the butt of jokes in popular media, or depicted as gross caricatures, it is a relief to "meet" Betty. Allan never sways from his point: Betty is a good person and a good mother, but she is also struggling to cope with a disease as soul-destroying as any cancer.

The world needs more books like this." (http://sequentialtart.com/reports.php?ID=5455&issue=2007-09-03)

From Ich Liebe Comics!:

"This is a really strong debut featuring great characters and a fine illustrative style about a subject, mental illness / schizophrenia, that is close to creator Von Allan, as his mother lived with this. The central character of the road to god knows... is Marie, a teenage girl whose mother is schizophrenic. As if it's not awkward enough just being a teenager, Marie lives alone with her mother (her father doesn't live with them), but Von Allan's the road to god knows... doesn't sensationalize his characters or the subject matter, rather he just portrays how people try to live with this" (http://ichliebecomics.blogspot.com/2009/12/road-to-god-knows.html)

No Fly Zone:

"Sometimes, less is more. We don’t see or feel much from Marie’s father because he isn’t there. We share the absence with her. Similarly, the ending leaves the reader asking what happens next—not in the sense of giddy anticipation, but wondering if that’s all there is. But, that’s just it. The clues are there—that’s all there really is for her. Marie will go back to exactly the same situation with her mother. The story doesn’t continue, because there’s just more of the same waiting for her. This is a dark book, with only flashes of hope and whimsy. While it ends on a high note, we know that it won’t last. We all find our little pleasures and our tiny escapes, but for many people, life is a grim experience. No amount of pep-talking, optimism, or negotiation can change the fact that some people have it bad. Marie has grown a bit by the book’s end, but she still has an ongoing tragedy waiting for her at home." (http://www.mania.com/comics-may-missed-road-to-god-knows_article_119270.html)

Why I wrote this book

2009-11-27T09:09:00.000-05:00

Mental illness is scary. It's scary for the person going through it and it's scary for those who love them, watching and struggling to understand what is happening. This presumes, of course, that the person with the illness has loved ones around them at all. Too often they don't and cope with a devastating illness all by themselves. Even if they do have support around them, though, it can be hard (if not impossible) to really open up and talk about it. To share that burden. Instead, people often get pushed away. In the case of a parent with mental illness, husbands, wives and children that "pushing" can be devastating.

My mom was diagnosed schizophrenic when I was still pretty young, I think around 11 years old or so. It's funny; you'd think I'd remember this with crystal clear clarity but I actually don't. Probably because I didn't really understand it and probably because no one around both my mom and I were ever able to really explain it to me. Looking back on it, this is far more clear to me than it ever was at the time. That confusion (knowing something is wrong with my mom but not knowing what it is or why it's happening) creates some odd feelings of guilt, too. “Did I do something wrong? Did I somehow cause this?” Uncertainty, shame, embarrassment all go hand in hand with this. I certainly never talked with people all that much about my mom and I have no memory of talking with adults about it at all. I don't think my school teachers ever knew that there were any problems at home, but I doubt they'd have been able to do all that much even if they did know. What kid is going to sit down with a guidance councilor or some such and really open up? Some might, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have.

That's a challenge, I think, to health care providers. Even if the mentally ill person is getting help, it's not enough to stop there. The people closest to them also need help and support. Communication and understanding goes a long, long way to deal with feeling of isolation, guilt and confusion.

All of this explains why I wrote and drew this book. I wanted to shed some light on a very hush-hush topic and hopefully help others, especially kids but really people of all ages, realize that they aren't alone and that they haven't done anything wrong. Mental illness is often lonely. It doesn't have to be, but it often is. And until our society gets far more empathic about those who suffer from it, I don't think that loneliness will go away. the road to god knows... is my attempt to change that, at least a little.

And maybe get people talking.

People First Radio interview

2009-11-26T15:55:00.000-05:00

Kevin Midbo, the host of People First Radio in Nanaimo, BC, was nice enough to have me on the air to chat about the road to god knows.... The program broadcasts on CHLY 101.7 FM. His questions were extremely thoughtful so I hope my answers were, too.

To listen, just click the play button below. It's about 14 minutes in length.

CKCU Sound Mind Interview

2009-11-25T14:40:00.001-05:00

The ever lovely Heather Bruce was nice enough to have me on her radio program Sound Mind on CKCU FM this morning. If you don't know, Sound Mind is Ontario's only radio show dealing with mental health issues. Quite cool and it was very nice of her to have me on.

To listen, just click the play button below. It's about 22 minutes in length.

Sitemap

2009-11-21T18:39:00.010-05:00

Reviews:

Excerpts from Reviews of the road to god knows...

A review from the American Library Association's Booklist

Writing:

Why I Wrote the road to god knows...

Initial Brainstorming for the Script

Background Writing Part One

Background Writing Part Two

Background Writing Part Three

Background Writing Part Four

About Pages:

Main Information Page

Background Information

Radio Interviews:

CHLY radio interview on the program People First Radio

CCKC radio interview

Interview on the CKCU radio program Sound Mind

WCAP interview in Lowell, MA

Television Interviews:

Rogers Television Interview

Art:

Front Cover

Promotional Information:

the road to god knows... trailer

Shop Page

Downloadable Support Material

eBooks:

eBooks in various formats

Contact Page:

Email and Studio Address

Retailers Carrying the road to god knows...:

Retailer List

CCKC Radio Interview

2009-11-20T18:18:00.004-05:00

Erin Ashley of the Dartmouth/Halifax radio station CCKC was nice enough to do an interview with me about the road to god knows.... Just hit Play Button on the little player below and it should load for you. It's about 6 minutes in length.

the road to god knows... front cover

2009-11-09T13:22:00.001-05:00

There's a high rez version of the cover available as a high-rez jpeg or as a high-rez png file. Just right click and choose "save link as..." to download it to your computer.

Overview Part Four

2009-11-09T13:19:00.000-05:00

This is the final part of a look at how I wrote the road to god knows.... Here are links to parts one, two and three.

The first thing to really talk about here is the fact that since I’m a rookie creator, I didn’t have vast experience to draw on when it comes to writing a script. So back when I was running “my” bookstore (and yes, it was my baby despite the fact that I didn’t own it!), I started doing a fair amount of research into writing scripts. I think my favourite out of all of these was J. Michael Straczynski’s “Complete Book of Scriptwriting.” That really helped crystallize some of my thoughts on writing in general and script writing in particular. ‘Course, Straczynski’s really talking about television and film writing, but despite that it was a very useful took for learning the script writing process. At around the same time I also stumbled across a Word template created by Steve Gerber that he used to write scripts. And various similar books, too. So getting the format down wasn’t too much of a problem, but learning to be comfortable in that format did take some time.

The only way to do that is to do it. Practice, practice, practice. So I wrote a few short stories, analyzed actual comics to get a sense of how they were written, and so on to get comfortable with writing scripts. It was basically a form of play – seeing what other writers have done, figuring out what I liked and didn’t like, and then finalizing a format that I thought would work for me. Then, of course, I had to draw a few of those short stories to see if the script format I liked would actually work as a real-world tool. For a graphic novel, I’d be living with that script for at least a year, so I had to make sure it really was useful for me as an artist.

None of this, of course, came about quite as methodically as it sounds. I was doing many other things at the same time (not the least of which was getting my art to a point that I thought was “commercial” enough to have a real shot of doing the book) and this was just one element of my life at the time. I also believe that for a comic to work, the writing has to be fantastic. Great art (and I’m not saying mine is great here, folks!) might work for a time, but if the stories are “twee” then people will tune right out. So I knew that any writing I did would always have to be measured in this context. Kinda intimidating, that!

I had also used the various short stories I had done to get into a working rhythm with scriptwriting. Really what I was looking for was a “proof of concept” type thing – a format where I could develop the script from rough idea to final form in a fairly efficient way, building from each previous step to get something that actually worked. For me, these steps generally go as follows:

1) Plot Idea: I covered this previously, but basically a fairly straightforward synopsis of the plot. At this stage, this was fairly open-ended, since I was using it to partially explore what the story could be (as opposed to a very tight breakdown of exactly what the story would be). Regardless, this is what I based everything on.

2) Plot Breakdown: this is where the nuts and bolts start coming together. Basically done in bullet form that’s built up from my initial rough plot idea. All ideas go here. What I try to do at this point is start putting the story together, building up what needs to happen to move the plot along – and explore the ideas I want to talk about. This is the most malleable stage since I’m constantly tugging, adding and subtracting different elements to make the story work. Probably my most ruthless phase, too, since I’ll rework, rearrange, and modify everything and anything to get it to a reasonably final stage.

3) Refined Plot Breakdown: still working in bullet form, I begin to flesh out scenes. I’ll add dialogue, develop a nifty image, figure out chapter breaks and on and on. For the road to god knows..., this left the plot breakdown sitting at about 6 pages. Some scenes are fleshed out, some aren’t. Bits of dialogue are kicked in and some areas of have just a sentence or two to describe a scene. No rules, just tools – and these tools will enable me to turn this into an outline. But if you read the breakdown, you’d have a pretty good idea of what road is all about.

4) The Outline: this is pretty close to the classic “Marvel Method” of producing a script. I take my Plot Breakdown and turn it into a page by page accounting of the story. Everything that I want to happen on each page of the graphic novel is here. This is a key step and a fairly long one (about 45 pages when everything is said and done) since it gives me a good sense of how the entire story will look. And, of course, it gives me my first glimpse of what the actual page count will be. Not an exact hard count (since things will still evolve in the script stage) but a good approximation. If I had been working with another artist, I might have just turned this over to her (after tightening it up a bit more). But since this was for me, it was only another step along the way to a final realize script.

5) The Outline – Getting Feedback: at this point I gave the outline to a select number of friends to get some feedback. Since it’s readable and has a decent flow to it, I can step back and see what people think. These comments were critical in streamlining a few things and just polishing up bits and pieces before I went into the first draft of the script.

6) The Script, 1st through 4th Drafts: with my outline firmed up, I sit down and begin writing the actual script itself. This will be my tool; I’ll be living with it for a long time as I draw each page. So it’s gotta work. All dialogue, panel layouts, “camera” angles and whatnot are here. Not completely written in stone (I’m the artist, damn it, which means when I draw I’m still open to change. From a film point of view, I’m still the director – and not just the camera man!). The final script went through 4 drafts (though none had major wholesale changes) and I suppose you could call what actually hits the art board the 5th. Some of the drafts of the scripts went into various hands, too, to get some additional feedback of the story. In some ways, though, I learned that the outline is a better thing to give people. Why? Well, the script has all the formatting in place (panel breakdowns, dialogue balloons, and the like) and it’s not easy for someone who’s not comfortable with scripts to read. Kinda clunky. And on top of it the outline is shorter, so it’s not as much of a slog for someone to read.

So, there you have it. That’s the evolution of how I write. With the 4th draft of the script, I sat down and starting drawing the road to god knows....

Overview Part Three

2009-11-09T13:11:00.003-05:00

This is part three of a series exploring the creation of my graphic novel the road to god knows.... Part one can be found here while part two is over here.

So, the last part was discussing the creation of the characters that made up the story and how I created small biographies for each one. Part of the reason of doing this, of course, is to look for the differences from the real people they are based on. This is fiction, after all, so the characters aren’t necessarily the same as their real life counterparts. They can’t be or I’m back to square one. So for all the characters there are differences. This is most obvious with Marie (I’m not a girl!) but each character is different to one degree or another.

Building on that is another element of this type of writing. Fundamentally, we can only be honest with ourselves (well, hopefully). We know everyone else (those we love, those we hate, everyone else) primarily from our own point of view. We don’t know what someone is thinking at a particular time (unless, of course, they tell us) and what insights we have in another person is very much based on who we are and how we got to this point in time. On top of it, stories like this deal primarily with memory. Who we remember people being and what they meant to us. Call it the prism of memory. Or maybe where memory meets history and experience. If you ever read multiple biographies of the same individual, you’ll often see different interpretations based on the same data. It’s actually quite fascinating and more interesting still if that person then wrote their own memoir or autobiography and touched on those events. You can get wildly differing viewpoints all based on interpretations of the same event!

For this story, I was obviously building “the Mom” on my experiences with my own Mom. Part of the trick, though, is I never actually spoke to my Mom as an adult – as the man I am now. She died when I was 20 years old and she was very unwell for the last year or so. Tough but there it is. So building a fictional version of her was very much based on my own memories and reminisces about the time I was writing about. And I knew that when I designed “the Mom” I could never really get close to who my Mom was. That’s mainly a result of the narrative choices I made. By structuring the story around Marie, it meant that her Mom would only be a supporting character. One that figures prominently in the story, but a character that we wouldn’t really get to know. We’re seeing the world from Marie’s perspective and not her Mom’s. Actually, this gave me a fair amount of freedom in how I approached Marie’s Mom. I didn’t have to worry about being accurate or representational. I could let events play out and let the reader come to their own conclusions about her Mom. It allowed me to not be didactic or other-wise use the story as a soapbox on mental illness. Well, at least I hope that’s how it comes across!

So, what follows is what I initially wrote on Betty, Marie’s Mom:

Personality and Attitude: this is probably the trickiest character to write, ‘cuz, after all, she’s based on my Mom. The thing about Betty is at this point in time, she’s gradually losing sense of herself. She’s not who she wants to be, obviously, but dealing with some of the ghosts of her past that have been coming up lately have made things far worse. That, combined with a fair amount of heavy medication has left her woozy at the best of times. And downright catatonic at others.

She’s not a bad person, by any stretch of the imagination. But she’s not had an easy time dealing with her “stuff” – and that stuff has become overwhelming of late. And it’s so heavy that she doesn’t have anywhere to turn – aside from professional help. She’s been managing to get some, so that’s the positive. But it’s come in the face of nervous breakdowns that have left her hospitalized.

In some ways, she’s too sensitive. Too gentle. And with all the stuff coming up, it makes the outside world a very dangerous, very scary place to be. So she doesn’t often venture outside unless she has to (groceries, that sorta thing). And with money so tight (being unwell while on welfare is an absolute bitch), there’s not many opportunities for fun stuff. Through in trying to raise a 13 year old daughter at the same time and it becomes downright impossible.

She is strong in a strange way, though. The major proof being on two fronts – through all the pain and suffering she’s never raised a hand against her daughter, somehow managing to keep her violent side (we all have ‘em) in check even during the worst times. On top of it, shortly after her separation and while still living in a small Ottawa Valley town, she somehow had the gumption to get a degree in Psychology at the University of Carleton. No easy achievement, that. It did wind up costing too much and led to her eventual declaration of bankruptcy in 1987, but it was still remarkable that she could somehow do this nonetheless.

The demons that she faces are basically there daily. Sleep doesn’t come easy to her and she suffers migraine headaches – as well as general poor health overall that stems from a poor diet and the lack of exercise. It’s a very individual, very solitary war that she’s waging. One with no end in sight and no guarantee of victory. Actually, as it happened with my own Mom, there’s a very real chance of loss. Losing would mean losing herself and quite possibly her life.

With both Marie and her mom pretty much figured out, I next turned to the trickiest character in the story. Kelly, Marie’s best friend, is one of the truly fictional characters in the road to god knows... In some ways, she’s mostly an amalgam of different people I knew during my teen years. But in many ways, she’s uniquely original. I didn’t have any friends that were quite like her!

Part of the reason I wanted to include Kelly in the story actually had a lot to do with a theme I wanted to touch on subtly throughout the story. One of the things I’ve long wondered about is why do certain people turn out the way they do? In other words, based on similar events, why does one person crumble under life’s strain while another seems to get through it? Wounded, perhaps, but stronger for the experiences. I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this – it’s partially based on who we are, what happened, and how life girded us for to better cope with trauma. On top of it, that “trauma” can be a very different thing to very different people. Something so horrible at one stage of our lives might be far easier for someone else to deal with – or even for us to deal with if it just happens a bit later. Or a bit earlier. It’s odd to think of these kind of things and odder still to experience them. But learning to cope with what life throws at us is a critical life skill that’s pretty much unteachable. You just get through things or you don’t.

With that in mind, I felt the story needed more than just the dynamic between Marie and her mom. I didn’t just want Marie to go through all of this with no support – I wanted to be able to use the theme of friendship to give her an anchor that she could rely on. And, ironically, an anchor that her Mom never had. The script doesn’t really touch on this openly. Kelly’s there and as a result of their friendship Marie has someone she can talk to. And vent with. But the story would have had a very different feel if Kelly wasn’t around. Marie would be dealing with things completely alone – and that "aloneness" would have taken the story to a very different place.

Narratively, it also gave me an escape from some of the heaviness of the story, too. Kelly isn’t into wrestling and her life experiences are somewhat different than Marie’s. So she allowed a very different element to permeate the story. She’s clearly a supporting character, but her presence gave the story a lot of possibilities. This was important as I began to build the plot up.

Here are some of my earliest thoughts on Kelly:

“Personality and Attitude: Kelly’s a bit caught between two worlds. On the one hand she’s getting more alternative as she gets older, slowly getting punkier as time goes on. On the other hand, she’s the older sister for Emma and in a bit of position of responsibility as a latchkey kid. She loves Emma a lot, but she’s kinda burdened by the fact that she’s always looking after her. That tension kinda bubbles inside her. Her friendship with Marie has really helped, though, as it gives her a release valve to vent. She’s certainly not Willow to Marie’s Buffy – she should come across as fairly tough and ornery. The good thing for her is that her parents, while poor, do love one another and treat her well.

She’s also a fairly different from her younger sister Emma. Emma is very quiet and introverted, partially because she’s been forced (due to the family’s situation) to be with her sister and other older kids quite a bit. She’s kinda learned to keep her mouth shut for the most part. Kelly isn’t like that. She’s not afraid to state an opinion or say something that others might disagree with. Bright for her age and also opinionated. That gets her in trouble from time to time, but it’s a part of her character that she’s not gonna give up.

Kelly is a little more grammatically correct when she talks. Not that she can’t get excited or anything, but in being the older sister she’s more conscious of saying things “right.” In some ways, Kelly’s dialogue should come across as reserved in comparison to both her sister and Marie.”

This last bit was actually pretty important. By giving Kelly a different cadence to her language, I’d have two characters who speak and communicate in two entirely different ways. Again, it’s a subtle thing but I really wanted the reader to be able to hear the two distinct voices in their heads. If someone was reading the dialogue aloud you should be able to tell who’s talking with no other clue except their words. Since the story was going to be a “talkie” anyway, it felt right to emphasize the differing styles of speech.

I’ve already discussed the main players to some extent. But all stories have “supporting actors” to help fill things out and add other elements that further the plot and/or character exploration. So the next entry or two will touch on these minor characters and explain a little bit about why I chose them.

The main “minor” character I wanted to add was Emma, Kelly’s little sister. Emma is a very quiet little girl. Very bright but certainly not a key player in the road to god knows... So why add her at all, then? To put it pretty simply, I wanted to have another character that could almost represent the reader. Huh? Ok, ok…bear with me! This is a little abstract! When you read any story you have no control over how the creator(s) pace the tale they’re telling. This applies to comics, novels, film, whatever – you aren’t in control of the actual way the story unfolds. Now, the corollary to that is that the reader/viewer is generally in complete control over the speed of which the story unfolds. You can put down the novel or comic and stop reading and “break” the story in an unnatural way. You can pause or stop the DVD player, interrupting the film’s flow. Only live theatre and actually sitting in a movie theatre remove that ability (and of course, you can still get up and leave – you just can’t stop the action when you do so).

Much discussion has been made, especially in comics, on how you make the reader continue the story by turning the page. How do you keep their attention? Some writers believe in having a page end with a question. The “question” can be physical (i.e.: in a superhero comic, the last panel might show a guy winding up to punch someone. But you have to flip the page to find out if he actually hit his target or not), emotional (i.e.: someone proposes on the last panel and the page must be turned to find out if the partner accepts or turns it down), intellectual and on and on. I’m not crazy about this as a writing exercise mainly because it feels kinda gimmicky. I believe that if the idea of the story is sound, people will continue to read. It doesn’t bug me much if the story isn’t a riveting page turner that forces the reader to stay up all night trying to finish it off. I just want them to finish it! Hopefully not labouring too hard in the process. But if I’ve done my job right, the reader will naturally want to find out what happens next – and how the story ends.

That brings us to Emma. With the story unfolding in front of the reader, I wanted a character that could be experiencing a lot of what happens plot-wise along with the reader, really at the same pace of the reader, almost walking hand in hand together. In other words, I felt it might be a good idea to have a character really be almost a stand-in for the reader. In some ways Kelly also fulfills this role. But having the story partially seen through the eyes of a child seemed to make a lot of sense. Since the plot of the story revolves around mental illness, trying to come to grips with that is difficult even if we understand it. Marie and Kelly have a hard enough time figuring that out on their own. With Emma, I wanted to have a character that really couldn’t understand it. She could just watch, absorbing information but not really able to process it.

The other reason to add a kid to the story was much more personal. Being an only child, I never experienced the wonderful (?!) world of siblings that Moggy and others have. I’m not close to any family, either, so my experience with cousins and the like is pretty minimal. But I did have some heartwarming experiences with a cousin of mine when I was around Marie’s age. Being able to honour that memory was fairly important to me. And as long as it didn’t feel forced, I wanted to add a bit of that to this story, too. So you can quite rightly call Emma’s presence half a narrative choice and half a personal one.

Of course, Emma also adds a dynamic to Kelly that Marie, being an only child herself, doesn’t have. That helped differentiate the two friends and allow some story elements that might not have otherwise been there. I certainly didn’t want to have Marie and Kelly being too closely the same.

Bert Levesque, Marie's father, was one of the trickier characters to come up with. His role in the story is small and actually doesn’t get going until around midway through. Marie is also not close to him, so developing that dynamic was tough. The other problem was that I didn’t want to make him too close to my own father. Ah, the double-edged sword of fiction!

See, part of the trick of creating a story that’s somewhat autobiographical is balancing that very “somewhat.” I’ve already touched on some of the tricks with Betty, Marie’s Mom, earlier on. But Bert was a problem in a different way. Since my father and I aren’t exactly close, I wanted to ensure that Bert Levesque wasn’t just a stand in for my own dad. Life can imitate art and all that – I just didn’t want art imitating life.

With that in mind, I needed to keep a few differences. Thinking back to the wrestling connection, I looked hard at some of the ol’ magazines I have kicking around and searched for influences. A little was also drawn from shows like Degrassi Junior High (and damn it, I’m not the only one influenced. Look at Kevin Smith of Jay and Silent Bob fame!) and other 80s design. The popularity of the ‘stache, plaid and the like were pretty obvious – and something that’s really faded out in popularity. Aside from Jack Layton, I can’t think of another male public figure that keeps a moustache. Go figure.

Personality-wise, I felt I needed to keep Bert fairly removed from my own Dad. They share a common French Canadian ancestry (and accent) and that’s about it. I also felt that by reducing the role that Bert plays in Marie’s life I might be able to strike a bit of a balance between reality and the requirements of the script. Like I said – it’s a tricky thing. I didn’t want to slavishly (or illegally!) copy my own father but I wanted to have a paternal presence in Marie’s life. How well I’ve accomplished this is anyone’s guess. It seemed to work on my end, at least.

And that's it for the characters. The final part examines how I actually wrote the story's script!

Overview Part Two

2009-11-09T12:58:00.001-05:00

First, part one of this behind the scenes look at the road to god knows... can be found here. Probably a good idea to start there first.

So, the main story idea I wanted to tackle was mental illness and specifically, how a teen girl struggled to cope with her Mom’s schizophrenia. But I was now convinced that I couldn’t just tell this story. Not only would it not have an ending it would also be really heavy. And I was very worried that I’d lose readers by making it grim, gritty and sad. If I just focused on the illness then the entire plot would build off that. It would be pedantic and heavy – and pretty obvious storytelling, too.

As I chewed this over, I realized I needed something else. Another element to hang my hat on. That “something” also would enable me to have definitive ending. I might not be able to wrap up the Mom’s narrative in a neat little package, but I could end the story with this other element and have an actual thematic conclusion . This felt “right” – which, in any creative endeavor, is about the only thing you can hope for.

With this in mind, though, I needed to figure out what this other storyline would be. Since I was already reaching back into my past to tell the story, it again felt “right” to do the same thing here. I started to think about what helped me escape as a kid and as I let my mind play back over my early teenage years, it didn’t take long to isolate a few ideas.

What’s important to realize here is that I wasn’t a happy kid. I was pretty introverted and pretty lonely. Only child, split family, Mom not well…I tended, like a lot of kids in my place (I think!), to escape into other worlds. Much of this was fiction and TV (shows like Star Trek, comics like the X-Men and Alpha Flight) and I certainly chewed using one of these elements for the plot. But there was this other thing I also escaped into in my early teens and in many ways I thought it might even work better. And that thing was pro wrestling.

So, why wrestling at all? Well, it was something I fell in love with as a kid. The world of drop kicks and pile drivers was larger than life and I liked that a lot. There’s probably all kinds of psychological reasons for this (lonely fat kid looking at the under dog getting over the big bully, that sort of thing) but I certainly wasn’t aware of it. All I knew was that I liked it – and I kept watching it every week. The other thing I knew was that I liked tag teams a lot better than singles wrestlers. There was something about the rhythm of two guys working together to battle two other guys that seemed magical to me. Seeing the Rock ‘n Roll Express doing a double drop kick was pretty nifty – just beautiful stuff that I fell in love with!

Did I believe it? You damn betcha I did! I had no idea that it was all fake. I mean, I had ideas about it, of course, but I didn’t know how it worked. I was a total mark. I had no idea that the wins and losses were all pre-arranged and that the wrestlers all worked together to tell a story (this whole element of pro wrestling, I should add, is known as kayfabe). I didn’t understand any of this and I really didn’t care. I just knew that I liked it. I liked the underdogs, I liked the smaller guys getting over on the bigger, nastier guys and I liked tuning in to see what happened next.

The more I thought about this and remembered, the more it seemed like a good way to go. Could I interweave wrestling into the story? Would it give me the narrative answer I needed? Next time, I’ll get into the specifics of the story elements and how I started weaving the plot.

With the decision to add wrestling as the major subplot of the story, I needed to figure out just how to go ahead and do it. Since the entire tale is a fictionalized autobiography, I was able to really build the plot around a key event that actually happened: going to a wrestling show that was held in Ottawa in the late 80s.

What I had come up with was pretty simple. I knew the main character, the teen girl, was poor. So coming up with enough cash to get a ticket was going to be a problem for her. I also knew that she was pretty much into it alone. She didn’t really share her love of wrestling with anyone else and that meant she’d have to “come out” if she wanted any help gathering money.

That plotting choice actually helped answer another element that needed to be dealt with – friends. I didn’t have a large group of friends as a kid. In many ways, my pool of friends remained pretty constant throughout my teenage years - not that many of 'em. So how would I incorporate this into the fictional narrative? I didn’t want to have to worry about permissions and the like, so the obvious answer was to keep them fictional, too. More to the point, it seemed the best way to go was to create an amalgam. One or two characters that could represent a number of different people instead of trying to different characters. Besides, I didn’t want to tell an ensemble story; I really wanted the story to focus on one main character.

The wrestling angle brought this all into clarity. By having the main character and a close friend (who’s not really into wrestling) be the focus, I’d be able to turn a lot of the plot around the two of ‘em. And I could also use the friendship to help illuminate what was happening between the main character and the Mom. So that gave me a number of things I could use. Bonds of friendship that could help relate the emotion and uncertainty of the story to the reader. A plot point that I could revolve the entire story around and give it an actual conclusion. And, critically, I could still deal with the breakdown of the Mom in a non-simplistic way. I didn’t have to wrap that story point up all nice and tidy-like and sacrifice good storytelling for neat endings.

At this point, I was feeling pretty good with the very loose plot. I still needed to do a lot of work. Fleshing out the characters, figuring out exactly what was happening and how I wanted to tell it, and of course figuring out how to draw the entire thing – but I had solved a lot of the story and character problems I was having.

So, I had a pretty good idea of where the story was going now. Not fleshed out, but I liked that the story had a resolution without having to worry ‘bout resolving the emotional core in a neat bow tie. And, while the wrestling angle might seem quirky to some, it gave the story a very different element than just mental illness. Something completely different – and I felt that was very important to help the story connect with readers.

One of the tricks with writing, though, is that you can have the best plot in the world. The most interesting ideas, the most fascinating twists, and the most captivating ending. But if it’s happening to characters we don’t care about, then the story will be hollow. Readers won’t care and the story won’t work. So at this point, I really had to start fleshing out the characters. Fortunately, I knew quite a bit already. Since much of the plot was autobiographical, I knew that I would be drawing on my own past for the characters. Basically a fictionalized version of myself for the main lead and then fictionalized amalgams for the other key characters.

In some ways, this was the easiest part of the concept design. I had a young girl with no siblings, her Mom and Dad (and I knew already that these parents had been separated for many years), and a strong friend or two to act as major supporting characters. It’s one of those things that grew as the plot grew. I still needed to flesh them out, though, so that I could actually build the narrative around them. I also had to come up with all the sundry elements – names, relations, and all the rest. I felt that I was still pretty lucky at this point (since I was basing many of the characters on my own experiences. And one of them on me personally) so I had a lot to fall back on. But I still need to put those thoughts down on paper so that they’d become “real” people. Real personalities.

A quick aside: some writers have reported that their creations have a tendency to take control of the narrative. They come up with the character and as they’re fleshed out, these creations start to go pull the story in different directions – with the writer almost, like a travel writer, documenting what s/he “sees.” For me, writing isn’t like that at all. I keep a pretty firm grip on the narrative "tiller" – and my characters (and my stories) go where I want them to go.

That said, I still feel you need to know quite a bit about the characters. So with that in mind, here’s what I came up with for the main lead (who, by this point, finally had a name - Marie Levesque) back in the fall of 2004:

"Marie is basically ‘me’ at that age. Kind of a combination of introvert and extrovert. Definitely not a popular kid, picked on by other girls. But she’s finding her way and a little less embarrassed by what she likes (wrestling, for example). She doesn’t talk much about her background or her Mom, though that’ll change as the story goes on.

She’s a kind of Tomboy, at least in the sense that she’s not into real girly things. She definitely likes getting her mind stimulated, so everything from wrestling to sci-fi is fair game. She tends to be very chatty with those she knows really well but around others that she doesn’t know too well (at school, etc…) it’s a different ballgame and she becomes very quiet.

The big thing about Marie is that in many ways she lived in a shell for much of her life. The move to Ottawa was a fairly wrenching experience (though she wasn’t happy in Arnprior, it was still an adjustment from small town to downtown big city), made harder by the fact that she’s going to a school where, for the most part, the kids are quite wealthy. That’s never sat well with her, ‘cuz she’s never been able to afford cool clothes – or honestly, even new ones. The ones that are new still reek of poverty. Her shyness with strange kids combined with her look (definitely not one of the in crowd) has left her picked on. And insecurity is the result. So school becomes a necessary evil. And one she hopes that she can get away from soon.

Her problems at home sorta compound the issue and make it difficult for her to feel happy at the best of times, so she’s kinda grabbed onto things like wrestling with a bit more vigor than she might otherwise have. But the escapism is really important – getting away from the rigmarole of her everyday life for a little while is not a bad thing.

Through it all, though, she’s a fairly optimistic kid. Things might be worse if she was living in a really tough inner city – that could lead her to run with a really bad crowd or get really beat-up. But being introverted and shy (not to mention fearful of strangers) in a decent enough part of town has given her a very good shield. Not great in many ways, but in this case it’s helped her out quite a bit."

These were my early thoughts on Marie. Still required some work, but she was already becoming very distinct in my mind’s eye. Certainly to the point that I could build a story around her!

With Marie roughed out to some extent, I had to do the same with the other major characters in the story. What extent this is done is really up to each writer. How fleshed out do you make so and so? Do you spend pages and pages trying to get things down or do you just aim for the “gist” of that character? By doing a fictionalized autobiography, I had the advantage of knowing a fair amount about the characters right off the bat so I didn’t feel the need to really explore them fully. But I did want to break them down to some degree and get a bit more of a sense of who they were. That is explored fully in part three.

Overview Part One

2009-11-09T12:50:00.001-05:00

Now, this doesn't mean how did the whole art "thing" start. Or where did I get that Von Allan name. Those are questions (and answers) for another time. Instead, this will delve into the creative process of the road to god knows... - from the early idea stages to actually getting the book "out there" to the world at large. 'Course, the odd thing right now is I still have no idea how successful the book will be. Anyone who knows anything about the publishing knows how much of an uphill battle it'll be. I actually plan on doing some commentary on this front, too, but for now, I'll be looking at the specifics of creation. Why this story and not something else? How'd I get the idea for this one, anyway? And on and on!

So, let's start simply. Why this story?

To answer this, we first gotta take a peek at how I do the idea stage. This is pretty straightforward. Anything that pops into my noggin,' anything that seems even somewhat interesting as a story idea, I write down. Sometimes it's just a fragment of a narrative. Sometimes it can be just a simple sentence. And other times it can actually be very fleshed out. So, as I was still teaching myself to draw and taking a few classes, I was at the same time jotting down story ideas.

One of these ideas, actually jotted down sometime ago, was what I called simply a "coming of age" story. Had very little content in it, really. Just a few ideas of a story dealing with poverty, hardship, and possibly the realization that the main character was gay. A lot of this latter theme was inspired by a fantastic Swedish film I saw many moons ago called Show Me Love. It also touched on themes of my own life, too, since I knew a lot of gays (especially young women) who had to wrestle with coming out. So, it seemed like a good story theme. Poverty, homosexuality, love and life. I think Warren Ellis called this "social fiction" - some of the Love and Rockets stories immediately spring to mind. Writing believable characters with no sense of the fantastic thrown in. Just real characters in a real world.

It wasn't that fleshed out, of course. Just ideas roaming around my head. What eventually became the road to god knows... is very different from the above, though, since the story doesn't touch on homosexuality at all. Or rather, it doesn't comment one way or the other. Readers of the completed story may have their own ideas of what's what!

Now, at this point, the story fragment represented only one of a myriad different ways I could go. I had also jotted down everything from horror and sci-fi story ideas to some historical plots that interested me, too. So why did I choose to flesh this one out at all? This is perhaps the hardest thing to answer since it touches on a variety of different points. The main one, though, is fairly simple. I had always had the sense that a lot of the background details of the story (poverty, etc...) would be developed from my own life. Especially for my first script, writing what you know (as the ol' cliche goes) seems to make a lot of sense. I don't have first hand experience being gay, but aside from that I knew I wanted to add a fair amount of my own experiences to the script.

As I continued to think of the coming of age story, I realized that I was coming up on the 10th anniversary of my Mom's death. I also knew, by looking at other first time creators and the successes (or failures) they had had, that I would be far better off doing a story that meant something to me then trying to jump on any particular bandwagon or try and catch a wave of what's popular (zombies, anyone?!).

A quick aside: this is usually pretty good advice. Do something, anything, that means something to you. Doesn't mean you don't do market research. Doesn't mean you don't explore other titles that may comment in a similar fashion to the work you want to do. But you have to have something to hang your hat on. And you absolutely need something to say. Regardless of what you're working on, have something to say. Even with all that, it's very difficult to enter the comics industry doing superhero type stories. If no one has heard of you and you have no track record, it's a tricky thing to try and enter the industry doing these kind of stories. If you're passionate about it and have something to say, it may work for you (look at Robert Kirkman) but it's a rare thing. For me, it wasn't a direction I wanted to go with my first professional work.

Chewing this over a bit more, I realized that very few books tackle "social fiction" - plus fewer still deal with mental illness or abuse. There are some (Bryan Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat is probably the most notable) but not many. I started to think that it might be better to drop the homosexuality theme that I had been exploring and doing something more autobiographical. But how much autobiography?

Well, this isn’t actually a simple question. While autobiographical comics have been popular in the past, it’s actually a genre I’m fairly uncomfortable with. Why? Well, the trick with “pure” autobiography is that you have to be honest. Or rather, as honest as you possibly can be. That’s a pretty soul-bearing exercise at the best of times and my feeling on it is that you have to do this or it just ain’t factual. You can be creative in this, of course, but pure autobiography is a very difficult thing to do.

On top of it, I was faced with a reasonable problem. The events that I wanted to talk about didn’t occur that quickly. They were spread out really over a few years, with large gaps of time in between. The only way to make an interesting narrative based on that would be to fudge things up a bit. Play with time for dramatic reasons to make a (hopefully!) more gripping narrative. ‘Course, to do that would mean I wouldn’t be honest with the events as I knew ‘em. I’m probably a little more militant about this than I should be, but considering I was going to be touching on my Mom, I felt it only “right” to think about it this way. Weird? Probably…!

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that it would be a lot easier to fictionalize my life to some extent. If I approached the story this way, I would be free to play with elements and time. Move things around and make things flow better. This chunk of plot could go here and this other one could go there. Instead of dealing with events that took place slowly, maybe over months at a time, I could arrange them so that a lot of tension could be maintained. It doesn’t matter nearly as much to be factual – I’m not reporting my life here; I’m just trying to tell an interesting story with an interesting idea behind it.

In some ways, this approach is a lot closer to Matt Wagner’s approach with Mage than it is to the works of guys like Chester Brown. Wagner’s Mage is fictional (obviously!) but he built the plot on events that happened in his own life. So while his characters are larger than life, they are based on either real people or amalgams of real people. This seemed to be a sensible model to follow. While I knew road would be very different than Mage thematically, I liked how Wagner felt free to play with “his” narrative. I wanted that freedom – and the more I thought about the story, the more this approach made sense.

So, with the decision to base the plot on a fictionalized version of my own life, I needed to start figuring out exactly what would happen and who it would happen to. With it being a fictionalized autobiography, I already had some sense of the main characters. And right off the bat I had some ideas of the plot. But I also knew I had a problem at the same time.

Stories have definite beginnings, middles and endings. Life, on the other hand, doesn’t. Or rather, there can be little endings (quitting a job, leaving home or school, breaking up with someone you love, etc…) but the next day you still get up out of bed and keep going. You do that ‘til your either in a coma…or you die. My “story,” of course, does not have a definite end – at least not yet! I knew no matter how I chose to tell the story, there wasn’t a natural ending point for it. No “happily ever afters.” Now, I could end the story with my Mom’s death (she did die when I turned 20) but doing so would create a whole can of worms that I was pretty sure I didn’t want to open. Namely, I didn’t want the story to focus on my Mom. Sounds kinda harsh, but I didn’t want her to be the main character. And I also knew I didn’t want the ending to be a downer - I didn’t want it to be hopelessly optimistic, either – but I didn’t want it to wrap up all nice and neat with a big bow tie.

See? Tricky! In many ways I had a story without an ending and that’s obviously no good. So this was the problem I had to chew over and figure out. I should point out that at this point the entire story idea was just little paragraphs – there wasn’t a tight narrative by any stretch of the imagination. When I brainstorm, I’m just tossing whatever pops into my head down on paper (or in this case, the ‘puter) and trying to figure stuff out. I liked where it was going (the idea) and I liked the fictionalized autobiography element – but I still had no plot.

Actually, why don’t I give you a better example? Here’s what I wrote back in March 2003:

“Plot Thoughts: Growing up in a poor environment with a single Mom who’s really unwell. Tied into the main story of a young girl who’s trying to find her way in the world. Search for identity – possibly using my own background (having to leave to find my own life even though my very ‘leaving’ probably hurt my Mom quite a bit). I’ll have to chew that over. I’m not absolutely sure of the structure yet, but the main point is this – it would be fun to talk about my Mom and mental illness but couch it in a coming of age story at the same time. That would make it from the point of view of ‘me’ as opposed to using my Mom’s point of view (which, frankly, is not something I could really get a grip on narrative-wise right now. I’d have to do a lot more research to grasp on to it). The tension would really come from the conflict between worrying about ‘her’ mom while trying to grow up at the same time.”

Not what I’d call tight writing, eh? But at this point, it’s ok – I’m just trying to get ideas down on paper. That way, I can not only crystallize my own thinking but I can go back and review my own thinking, too. I kept adding to it (i.e.: do I make it a coming out story, too?), trying out plot thoughts, until I started to get a firmer idea of what I wanted to do. What that eventually became is covered in the next post.

Initial background thoughts to the road to god knows...

2009-11-09T11:40:00.001-05:00

I wanted to include some of the initial brainstorming I did when I was first coming up with the road to god knows... a few years ago. This is going to be a bit rambly, of course, as brainstorming often is, but it served as the framework for the eventual script. Here goes!

Thinking ‘bout my story:

In trying to figure out a plot outline for a story with me as the protagonist, I tend to kinda hit a wall. Partially ‘cuz I’m trying to be subtle about the autobiography thing but also because it’s not the easiest thing to get into. The key thing, though, is that I need to feel free enough to fictionalize it – move elements around ‘cuz I’m not trying to tell a pure autobiography. Rather, I want to tell a good story, one with some hope in it, but one that’s also pretty realistic about certain things (i.e.: my Mom won’t get better – I had that awareness for some time before she died and I want my fictional alter ego to have it, too). So, I need to figure out some of my history and especially my emotions at the time, build a realistic character of ‘me’ at that time, and then figure out where I want to play fast and loose with it. Not that easy to do, of course, but I think it would be a really cool thing to do.

The obvious first thing, right off the bat, is I want to change my gender with it. That gives me a bit of remoteness to the work – by making ‘me’ female, I can step away a bit from the whole thing. Almost like on another planet or something. A fictional alter ego. I also know that while I want to show my Mom with warts and all, I also want to be very clear about the lack of abuse (at least physical – though I don’t even know if what I went through could ever be called ‘abuse’ – my Mom certainly wasn’t conscious of it. And when you compare it to how other kids grew up, being raped or whatnot, it’s a pretty small kettle of fish. Big to me, but I don’t want to make it too big). I also need to show the positive side of my Mom – the sorrow that was there for what she had done. The regrets. And the love. Not to overplay it, ‘cuz the rest has to be there, too (the insecurity, the self-doubt, and the general screwed-up nature of the entire thing).

Since I’m a fairly optimistic guy (well, pragmatic, but y’know!), I want to make sure the story doesn’t totally dwell on the absolute negative. Building it around the Civic Center wrestling show is something I’ve long wanted to do ‘cuz it gives the plot an immediate framework to drive the story forward. The story starts with Marie’s awareness that a show is coming (so, on a Saturday afternoon watching Superstars of Wrestling most likely – probably early October 1988). The card actually occurred in November ’88, so that gives the plot the framing device I need. The wrestling show is really incidental, at least in a “real-life” sense, but it does give a beginning and end to a particular segment of time. That’s important, ‘cuz what’s really happening is mixed around that.

So, what’s happening? What do I want to show? The main punch line that drives it is Marie’s relationship with her Mom. ‘Cuz her Mom isn’t really well right now and she’ll get progressively worse as the wrestling show nears. Money is really tight, so Marie is going to have to figure out how to get some cash to go. In real life, my Mom and I went to the show. The show doesn’t solve anything, but it’s a moment of happiness in what’s otherwise been a pretty terrible month or so. The wrestling show ends the story, with Marie having the knowledge that while life can suck, it can also be fun, too. That’s a balance thing that I really want to have in there – I just don’t want to be on a soapbox, all didactic, while I’m telling it.

For the month to be bad, then I know I need to show it – and I want the ‘it’ to be Marie’s Mom and her nervous breakdown. What’s important, then, is for Marie’s Mom to be shown in a pretty good light before that – and just before the wrestling show. That has to happen or the reader won’t feel any sympathy for the Mom at all. And the story won’t work because of it. It’s easier to hate a wife-beater or rapist. My Mom certainly wasn’t anything like that, but if I just show her flipping out without building her up first, the story won’t work ‘cuz the reader will have no empathy. So, developing that empathy is going to be the biggest challenge, I think.

I initially thought of having the story start off kinda happy go lucky, with little dark clouds on the horizon, but I don’t think that will work. What might work better (and it kinda mirrors real life), would be to start the story off bitter sweet. Marie’s Mom coming home after being released from the psych ward, sort of on an upswing. Marie happy to see her Mom with really no frame of reference to what happened. I could keep it really masked – not clearly explaining why her Mom was away, but having it be pretty clear right from the get go that it wasn’t a normal thing (I’m thinking a scene with Marie’s dad dropping her off, and then saying to her if it happens again you know who to call). I could slowly show the unbalance, the haggardness, the instability in Marie’s Mom leading up to her collapsing nude on the hallway floor (‘cuz she was so drugged up). That would lead to a 2nd nervous breakdown shortly thereafter. Marie’s dad winds up picking her up (showing Marie’s terrified phone call to him). That would lead to the psych ward, Marie’s visit there, and then her Mom’s return home for the 2nd time (obviously mirroring how the story began). Things are rough at this point, strained between the two, before reaching a kind of balance. And then some kind of understanding (though again, Marie knows that if her Mom doesn’t change, and it doesn’t look like she will, that “her” story can only end one way).

I really like where this is going, ‘cuz I can interweave moments into the larger narrative. Small, happy moments (be it wrestling or otherwise) that keeps Marie sane through it all. The wrestling show is the big one, but there could be others. So, the two things to figure out then are simple: do I want to make the wrestling show difficult to get to? Originally, I thought yes – Marie would have to scrape and struggle to get money. That might not fly with the greater overall struggle between Marie and her Mom, so it might be easier just to show her saving her pennies, picking up Coke bottles and the like, instead of turning it into a big thing. Possibly her Mom giving her the final amount needed to kick her over the top. Secondly: I had thought of telling a second story to break up the first, with Marie’s friend coming out to her. I like the idea of having a separate plot line so the plot isn’t so focused on Marie – I mean, it obviously is, but I think it’s easy to dwell on her just a little too much. And if I’m going to put a friend in the story, that friend just can’t be decoration – she needs to have her own story, too. I need to figure out how to handle it in such a way that doesn’t over burden Marie’s story at the same time. Whole books and movies have been told about a character coming out. Since this is a period piece, I can’t just have it be a kind of blasé affair – I don’t think it is now and it certainly wasn’t back then. It might be interesting to have the girl (Kelly) actually be a kinda background player, sorta there and not developed. And then have her take center stage for a little while as she comes out. It’s an interesting idea as it builds depth to a secondary character that wasn’t initially there, but I’m a little worried that it might start to overshadow Marie’s own story. Hmmm...we'll see.

Why Do This Story Instead of Something Else?

2009-11-09T11:09:00.001-05:00

As I've mentioned in various interviews, the road to god knows... touches on my own situation growing up. It's not autobiographical except in the loosest sense, but some of my own experiences definitely mirror Marie's. I also wanted to do a story that was a bit different than what I was seeing published in comics and graphic novels. Mental health and mental illness is still a taboo subject so trying to shed some light on it, in hopefully a positive and healthy way, was and still is very important to me.

This is going to seem strange, but I also wanted to do a story that girls could read. I fell in love with comics very young, but it was very obvious to see that comics were primarily aimed at boys and men. Not girls and women. Not by a longshot. Which is remarkable when one thinks how many girls read comics back in the 1940s and 1950s. Romance comics alone were a key demographic at the time but girls weren't pigeon-holed, at least to my mind, about reading just that genre. But as superheroes became the dominant genre by the early to mid 1960s, boys dominated the market. Ironically, Western comics never really solved this issue and there was a decades-long stereotype that girls simply didn't or wouldn't read comics (crazy!). This has been slowly changing but ironically the driving force is coming from the Far East in the form of manga (in particular Shojo (or Shoujo) manga and Josei manga). Despite this change, I wanted to do a story in my own style that anyone, male or female, could read. I've been surrounded by strong women most of my life and I think I would have been kicked (hard!) in the shins if I did anythin else, too!

Is it all about "chicklit" or "girl power," then? No, of course not. That's not the point. What I tried to do was create a compelling story that happens to feature girls and women as main characters. For the story to work (for any story to work), the characters have to be real. Hopefully, if I've done my job right, they are (though, of course, you could always let me know what you think, too). The story deals with themes of empowerment, body image, self-confidence (especially in the face of events and situations that can tear one down) and self-esteem. Marie's story isn't easy - it's not meant to be. But the courage she draws from her experiences make her stronger and she grows from it. Maybe kicking and screaming, but she grows all the same.

It Has Got "God" in the Title - Isn't it a Religious Story Then?

Nope. The title is actually a play on The Pogues song Sally MacLennane, written by Shane MacGowan. I love The Pogues (and Celtic punk in general) and this song is one of my favourites. The actual lyric that I was thinking of when I came up with the title is the following:

"Now Jimmy didn't like his place in this world of ours
Where the elephant man broke strong men's necks
When he'd had too many powers
So sad to see the grieving of the people that he's leaving
And he took the road for god knows in the morning.

Great, great song by a great, great band. And it was fun to give them a tip of the hat with a riff on the song lyric.

The trailer for the road to god knows...

2009-11-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

The music sampled in the trailer is licensed through Creative Commons and is as follows:

General Union's I'll Tell Me Ma: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/170009

Old Women Folk Choir: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=59542

Walking Shadow: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=44708

Haunting Mask: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=51310

Thunder Storm: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=2523

Please support their work!

Shop books, prints and merchandise

2009-11-07T16:42:00.013-05:00

First, if you're looking for a local retailer who carries the graphic novel, please click here to see a list of stores. You can also use the Comic Shop Locator Service to inquire with other stores. Most retailers can easily special order the book through Ingram Book Company if they aren't actually carrying it, so please don't hesitate to ask your local retailer to do this. They'll need the ISBN (it's 978-0-9781237-0-3), but to make this whole process a little easier I've created a simple order form that you can download, print, fill out and then present to your retailer.

Alternatively, you can purchase a copy online quite easily. The links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble are below:

I also published a small short story collection featuring many of the characters from the road to god knows... This collection, titled Li'l Kids, is available at better retailers. Links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound are below:

I would like to offer a few select prints from the road to god knows... but I'm debating on how to offer this. Probably 11" by 17" on 90 lb. archival quality hot press watercolour paper. Possible prints would be the grey wash and colour versions of the front cover (see below). If that interests you, please leave a comment below.

"the road to god knows..." ebooks

2009-11-07T16:40:00.003-05:00

A number of ebooks in multiple formats are available for free download:

the road to god knows... in PDF format (approximately 19 megs). Click here to open the PDF (right click and then choose "save link as..." to download directly to your computer). Please note that you will need a copy of Adobe Reader. This free program can be downloaded on Adobe's website at http://get.adobe.com/reader/

the road to god knows... in CBZ format (approximately 46 megs). Please right click here and then choose "save link as..." to download it to your computer. Once that's complete, you can use a variety of graphics readers to view the file. A good one is CDisplay, a freeware program that can be downloaded at http://cdisplay.software.informer.com/.

the road to god knows... in LRF (Sony Reader) format (approximately 20 megs). Please right click here and then choose "save link as..." to download to your computer. Full disclosure: I'm not positive if this will read on a Sony Reader eReader properly. I don't actually own one so apologies if it isn't readable. I used Calibre to make the conversion. If you don't know, Calibre is a free (and fantastic!) ebook program that can convert multiple file formats into files that eReaders can read. If the LRF file doesn't read properly, I would deeply appreciate someone converting the above PDF or LRF files into something that will. Let me know and I'll host it here and give you credit, to boot!

Downloadable Support Material

2009-11-07T16:26:00.015-05:00

First, please don't hesitate to contact me (via the comment fields at the bottom of this post or by email) if you require any additional support material. I can't promise I'll be able to help, but I'll do what I can.

The full press kit in PDF format (including the press release announcing the road to god knows..., the tip sheet with key details and my biography) can be downloaded right here (click to open the PDF or right click and choose "save link as..." to download it to your computer).

In the meantime, three different shelf talkers are below (in PDF format). Plus, I also created a trailer that can be downloaded and used in stores. It's also on Youtube. Lastly, I've provided a single page "tip sheet" in PDF format that contains pertinent sales information for the road to god knows..., too.

Shelf Talkers

Approximately
1 Meg PDF Download

Approximately
1.8 Meg PDF Download

Approximately
1 Meg PDF Download

High-Rez Versions of the Front Cover

Two high resolution image files are provided for the cover available as a high-rez jpeg or as a high-rez png. Just right click the one you'd like and choose "save link as..." to download it to your computer.

Trailer

The trailer can be downloaded right here (approximately a 14 meg WMV file). You can also view it in the player below:

Tip Sheet

The tip sheet can be downloaded here (right click and then choose "save link as" to download it directly to your computer). Or you can right click the image below and save it that way, too.

Contact Von Allan

2009-11-06T18:29:00.006-05:00

First, I'm all over the internet! So, I'm on Twitter (@vonallan), Livejournal, and Facebook. You can also contact me via email. If you prefer snail mail, my studio address is as follows:

Von Allan Studio
P.O. Box 20520
390 Rideau Street
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1N 1A3

Retailers carrying the road to god knows...

2009-11-06T18:19:00.040-05:00

The following is a list of known retailers who are carrying the road to god knows.... I've provided an order form that you can print out and present to your local comic book shop, book store, or other specialty retailer if they currently don't have a copy of the road to god knows... in stock. It's in PDF format and be found here (just right click and choose "save link as..." to download it to your computer) or by clicking the image at the left. Then all you need to do is print it out, fill in your name and the quantity you'd like and then present it to your local retailer.

Don't forget that you can use the Comic Shop Locator to find a store in your area. And if push comes to shove, my book is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers. In addition, your local retailer can order a copy through Ingram Book Company for you, too.

New Zealand

Market Books, 85 Cameron Street, Whangarei, New Zealand. Phone: +64 9 459 6517

United States of America

California

Atlantis Fantasyworld, 1020 Cedar Street, Santa Cruz, California, Phone: 831-426-0158

Comikaze, 5517 A/B Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, California, Phone: 858-278-0371

Flying Colors Comics, 2980 Treat Blvd. at Oak Grove Road, Concord, California, Phone: 925-825-5410

Colorado

Time Warp, 3105 28th Street, Boulder, CO 80301. Phone: 303-443-4500 (1-800-552-9108 (toll-free))

Florida

Coliseum of Comics, 4722 South Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando, Florida, Phone: 407-240-7882

Georgia

Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore, 3428 Canton Road, Marietta, Georgia, Phone: 770-422-4642

Illinois

Chicago Comics, 3244 North Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois 60657. Phone: 773-528-1983

Maine

Casablanca Comics, 151 Middle Street, Portland, Maine, Phone: 207-780-1676

Coast City Comics, 656 Congress Street, Portland, ME 04101. Phone: 207-776-1719

Maryland

Third Eye Comics, 45 Old Solomon's Island Road, Suite 102, Annapolis, Maryland, 21401. Phone: 410-897-0322

Massachusetts

The Outer Limits, 437 Moody Street, Waltham, Massachusetts, Phone: 781-891-0444

Larry's Comics, 66 Lakeview Avenue, Lowell, Massachusetts, Phone: 978-459-5323

Comicopia, 464 Commonwealth Avenue #13, Boston, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-266-4266

Michigan

Green Brain Comics, 13210 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn, Michigan, 48126. Phone: 1-313-582-9444

Nevada

Alternate Reality Comics, 4800 S. Maryland Pkwy, Suite D, Las Vegas, NV 89119. Phone: 702-736-3673

New Jersey

The Record Store, 6299 Route 9 North, Howell, New Jersey, Phone: 732-905-9056

New York

Jim Hanley's Universe, 4 West 33rd Street, New York, New York (opposite The Empire State Building), 10001. Phone: 212-268-7088

Jim Hanley's Universe, 325 New Dorp Lane (at the corner of Lawson Avenue), Staten Island, New York 10306. Phone: 718-351-6299

Cosmic Comics, 10 East 23rd Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York, Phone: 212-460-5322

Midtown Comics Times Square, 200 W 40th Street (Corner of 7th Avenue), New York, New York 10018. Phone: 212-302-8192

Midtown Comics Grand Central, 459 Lexington Avenue (Corner of 45th Street), New York, New York 10017. Phone: (as above)

Forbidden Planet, 840 Broadway, New York, New York 10003. Phone: 212-473-1576

Bergen Street Comics, 470 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, New York 11217. Phone: 718-230-5600

Ohio

Laughing Ogre Comics, 4258 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio, Phone: 614-267-6473

Oklahoma

Speeding Bullet Comics, 614 North Porter Avenue, Norman, Oklahoma, 73071. Phone: 405-360-6866

Oregon

Cosmic Monkey Comics, 5335 NE Sandy Blvd., Portland, Oregon, Phone: 503-517-9050

Texas

Dragon's Lair Comics & Games, 6111 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas, Phone: 512-454-2399

Austin Books and Comics, 5002 North Lamar Blvd, Austin, Texas, 78751, Phone: 512-454-4197

Boomerang Comics, 729 Hebron Pkwy #190, Lewisville, Texas, 75057. Phone: 972-315-5291

Titan Comics, 3701 W. NW Hwy, Ste 125, Dallas, Texas, 75220. Phone: 214-350-4420

Washington

Zanadu Comics, 1923 Third Avenue, Seattle, Washington, 98101. Phone: 206-443-1316

Canada

Alberta

Another Dimension, 424 B - 10 ST NW Calgary, Alberta, Phone: 403-283-7078

Ontario

The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6G 2L7. Phone: 416-533-9168

Perfect Books: 258A Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Phone: 613-236-6468

Quebec

Librarie Astro/Astro Books, 1844 Ste.Catherine Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Phone: 514-932-1139

Nova Scotia

Strange Adventures, 5262 Sackville Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Phone: 902-425-2140

Strange Adventures, 68 York Street, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Phone: 506-450-3759

Online

If you'd prefer to buy the road to god knows... online, you can certainly do that, too.

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca

Amazon.co.uk

Barnes & Noble

Chapters Indigo

If a store is carrying it that I'm not aware of, please let me know in the comment field below and I'll get them added to this list.