If it works for an exorcist, it works for you

An edition about writing stories from the character and other tips from my past me

HELLO AND WELCOME TO A NEW EDITION OF MY NEWSLETTER!

Hi, friends!

A new year begins full of promises, hopefully most of them good. This year several series I've been working on during 2024 will be release this year (Or so I hope). Some in the USA, others in Spain and France... even one of my comics was recently bought by a Russian publisher! During 2024 I've been very quiet, with hardly any signing sessions, but surely this year I'll have to roll up my sleeves and work harder in promoting what's to come.

THOSE DAMN WRITERS

This 2024 I had a little bit of a bitter experience on a professional level, with a fellow writer. Nothing dramatic, but it is one of these cases in which you take the chance to reflect how you must behave as a collaborator of other professionals.

He was someone I knew and wanted to work with him on a creator-owned project. We started a previous project a couple of years ago and he left me high and dry with it after doing several designs and concept art, but I didn't keep in mind. That's life. He approached me recently but he wasn't interested in our previous project: He had one new in mind that he had been working on and was very excited about it. The whole conversation turned to how important it was to him. I tried to respond to their enthusiasm, but when I received the story, one thing became clear: It was not for me. The references, the setting, the genre... didn't really fit me. It wasn't a question of quality, I could see right away that it required another type of artist with a much more baroque style. It also required a huge development work, and we are talking about someone who had already left me alone with a half-finished project. Plus, I was coming off a very tough year of several very demanding jobs and preferred not to tackle something so ambitious so soon. So I told him all this with complete sincerity and opened the door for us to work on something where our interests were aligned.

His response was to cut off communication completely. He ignored me totally. A total silence that continues right now.

I made attempts to contact him to make things right but I gave up soon. Not worth it. In the best case, he will appear later telling how personal circumstances or his emotional state influenced his bad decisions. Perfect. But what about my circumstances? Because I didn’t feel very well with the situation.

I have worked on both sides of the chain. Sometimes I do everything, I'm often an artist illustrating others’ stories, and I write for others on occasion. And I'll tell you something: No one is here to fulfill the dreams of others. No one is anyone else's tool. Artists, writers, colorists and letterers, no one is anyone's servant. The great artist Carlos Pacheco compared the process to rock bands. Maybe in the bands there are more visible members but no one is at the exclusive service of anyone.
What that writer got with his bruised ego is my firm resolve never to work with him.

Luckily, I've had great experiences with writers and I've repeated with many of them. The problem is when a creator won't take no for an answer, and that's when an artist (especially a young one) has to know how to spot the red flags.

STORE UPDATES

I had some time to curate and scan the original art I have in my home, so I will be regularly updating my online store, where you can find signed and sketched books, blank covers, never-seen original art and drawings, and original pages from series like Polar, Against Hope, Bad Girls and The Mice Templar.

BUILDING FROM THE MAIN CHARACTER 

When I studied arts in college, I had a lot of arguments with teachers. Sometimes the reason could be I was an arrogant brat. But sometimes I was right. Of course, this is my newsletter and I will tell you one of these times I was right.

One of the problems at my university -I suppose it’s not the only place where it happens- is that most of the professors had never worked as pros. Many graduated and entered the university machinery until they became professors without going into the world of work. The real world. Frequently they even didn't know the technical vocabulary that the professionals used outside the walls of the school, and that they did not know how to use it.

I once had an argument with an animation teacher because she said that you should always write a story before taking any other step. The plot was all. But I told her that you could build a story based on many things such as creating a character and developing a world through it. She told me that it was never done that way. Again, you make the story, characters later. I didn't need to get a degree to see she was wrong.

I had the idea of writing about this subject while watching Russell Crowe’s movie The Pope’s Exorcist. Although I love horror films, surely exorcism movies are my least favorite. I find it kind of random how an exorcist solves the situation, it seems that the possession finishes basically when the runtime of the movie is over. And this movie is not an exception: It's a very routine story with all the twists you can expect from it. But it works. And it has been an unexpected commercial success. And the reason is because Russell Crowe’s character, the father Gabriele Amorth, is damn well built.

Usually exorcists in movies are serious and solemn, basically stuffy scholars. But the movie subverts this trope with a cheerful and careless rascal (this Mediterranean joie de vivre that makes mature American women fall in love when they visit Tuscany in Hallmark movies) who doesn’t hesitate to take a sip from his flask between prayers. You can't help but be on his side because he is also a man compassionate to human frailties. He is definitely not like the priest who gave me communion. He even owns his own Batmobile, a small Vespa that gives him a mundane nuance.
Writers also introduce elements of the crime genre that give a fresh touch to the story: He is an exorcist with his own methods and the ecclesiastical bureaucracy itself wants to put a stop to his methods: “I answer to no one except the Pope, suckers.”
Everything works so well with it that really the plot is the least of it. It’s not a surprise that Hollywood is working on a sequel.

Following the idea of series whose title is the main character's name, some other examples came to my mind.

Jack Reacher books follow the path of the Western genre heroes (or Eastern ronin warriors). So if you have an errand character with a different environment and rest of the cast changing, the author, Lee Child, obviously focused his efforts in creating a character so charismatic he never gets tired of him.

In manga series, one of the most habitual ways to build a project is defining the main character and developing the rest of the cast around him/her. The creator of Naruto, Masami Kishimoto, explained that the most difficult part was creating Naruto’s personality and backstory with his editor. After this, his friends and foes were created to reflect or oppose aspects of the little ninja.

So the lesson is that the paths of creation are numerous and the concept of classic approach (writing a story plot into three acts) is just one of them.

MOVIES, COVERS AND BOOKS

While visiting my family for the vacations I read the novel The killer's game by Joe R. Bonansinga. Since spending time with family can be really heartwarming but stressful at the same time, I wanted something really light for my nights. It's a very funny '97 dark action comedy that has just been adapted into a movie starring Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella and my homoerotic obsession Scott Adkins. I’ve only seen the trailer but it looks like they took the original premise (an elite hitman misdiagnosed with cancer puts a price on his own head) and little else. But it’s about professional hitmen fighting each other, so of course I’ll see the movie.

I've said it in previous newsletters, I feel a lot of sympathy for those editions of books with the poster of the movie on the cover, whether they are adaptations or novelizations. I have a good handful of them. I would have loved to get an edition of my Polar GN with Mads Mikkelsen on the cover. Maybe if a sequel ends up being made I'll get that chance.

But culturally these “movie-books” are considered something like the lowest point of literature but for me it's just the opposite: The fact that they are a kind of strange pop hybrid is what makes them so special. And also that if someone tells me that something is not “intellectually high enough”, I feel a special urge to oppose.

And that’s all for today! See you in the next edition of my newsletter. As I comment from time to time, if you have comments, proposals for topics or questions, the comments section is at your disposal. And don't forget that sharing helps too.

Take care!
Victor

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