The chopped Jedi and other unusual transformations
An edition on how stories are structured and how to deal with unexpected changes
HELLO MY FRIENDS, WELCOME TO A NEW EDITION OF MY NEWSLETTER!
We are heading inexorably towards August and if, like me, you are one of those who don't like the heat, you know that the worst is yet to come. While we long for a polar cold wave, I leave you with a new edition of my ravings.
BUT FIRST, THE SPAM
Some of my new books that may interest you and that you can purchase if you want to support my work:
My KID MAROON OGN, written by Chris Cantwell and published by Vault.
Here you can read the first 44 pages:
https://aiptcomics.com/2025/05/19/read-kid-maroon-1-free-ogn-coming-september-2025/
And here you have a bunch of bonus and links to pre-order it:
https://blog.vaultcomics.com/notes-on-kid-maroon/
The complete GALAXY OF MADNESS series, written by Magdalene Vissagio, will be finally published as 2 paperbacks by Mad Cave. Mike Oeming (Powers) drew five issues and I drew and colored the other five.
https://madcavestudios.com/comics/search/?filters=product_cat%5B1931%5D&v=12470fe406d4
And for the Spanish readers, a new 25th anniversary edition omnibus of the series that made me a professional in Spain (and to my astonishment, many authors claim that it had a considerable impact on him) launches this month. LOS REYES ELFOS (The Elf Kings) is published by Dolmen.
https://dolmeneditorial.com/los-reyes-elfos-edicion-25o-aniversario/
STRUCTURE IS STORY
One subject about writing comics that has always obsessed me is how they are structured. I think that writing a story is relatively easy, but what determines whether the reader is hooked or not is how you present it: The pacing, the number of pages needed for each scene, where (which in comics is equivalent to “when”) you place that plot twist… So when I have a story in mind, before the idea has barely forming in my mind I think “What structure I’m going to use?”. Is it going to be a story in chapters or is it going to be read in one sitting? What length is necessary to get the message across but not be so long that it feels bloated?
Or sometimes I even have a format in mind and I think "I want to tell a story in this way and at this size.... What could fit?". This is the size of my obsession.
It's funny that in this kind of secondary job that I have, developing different audiovisual projects, I have been in the situation of changing formats. I had two projects, one was Left Hand of the Devil and other was a spy thriller I can't talk about it yet. I wrote both pitches and developments for movie feature formats and at some point (due to market demands of potential producers) they must be transformed into TV shows.
But of course, you can't take a movie script and chop it up and turn it into a series. Well, you can do it and do it wrongly and make Obi-Wan Kenobi. But you shouldn’t. Or you can have a Moana TV show for Disney+ and transform it into the sequel of the first movie due to monetary reasons, and then you have all these bunch of characters, conceived to have their own story arc, with no time to develop them.
It’s said that movies are driven by story and series are driven by characters, and it’s something you can apply in comic-books too. And this is the reason why the compilation of ongoing series like Marvel or DC superheroes don’t often work properly as graphic novels (even now that writers have the trade paperbacks as final format in mind). You can name great exceptions like Watchmen or Batman: Year One (although its episodic structure reveals its serialized origin) but the thing is not so simple as gluing all those comic-books together.
We could say that the ongoing series are rivers (in the case of superhero universes, affluents of a big river called “continuity”) and the GNs should be like lakes.
So returning to my case, when we've had to work on that restructuring from film to show, you have to completely change how you tell the story. The characters are presented gradually and the information is dosed differently. The basic movie three-act structure no longer works. And you have to expand what they call “world-building”. In essence, there is more time for things to happen and more time for the viewer to ask questions. And much more time to keep their attention focused on your story, which today is practically a chimera.
But whether in series or comics, you have to try. That's why we tell stories.
And this story comes to an end (for now).
See you soon in a couple of weeks with the second chapter of Ginger returns!
Victor
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