Perhaps you're a friend, a fan or even a foe. Wherever our paths have crossed, welcome to the Chuk Chronicles – my newsletter keeping the world-at-large up-to-speed with my comics, books, TV episodes and other writing. This time, I recall the first (and harshest) lesson I learned about crafting stories. There are dispatches from my latest signing and con, some filthy grammar and juicy tidbits about my latest appearances on the tube.
Last week, Comics Toys ‘N Toons (T.N.T. to the cool kids) in Tustin invited me to do a signing. Meeting readers and making new friends there was real rad. I was quite impressed by how deep their inventory went, too – especially since it led to some handy on-the-spot recommendations.
One of their staff, Jacob, would notice when customers had, say, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? in their check-out pile and then bring up how Remember Andy Xenon? was similar in spirit. Or if they had Astro City issues, he’d point out our blurb likening Andy to that series. And folks would try out my book, right then and there, based on his recs! It reminds me yet again why I prefer shopping at a comics store. Getting suggestions from a clerk who’s noticed what you’re reading in the moment? Far more personable than a website making cold algorithm-based predictions of your tastes.
I should mention, as well, that once I finished signing and headed home, I stopped at Ray’s Comics & Collectibles in Garden Grove on the way back – and now they’re stocking Andy, too. Both Ray’s and T.N.T. are really cool, really indy-friendly shops, so if you find yourself in the O.C. any time soon, do check ‘em out. Tell ‘em I sent ya.
I dropped by the L.A. Comic Con after I left Ray’s. (It was a packed Saturday, for sure). I’ll confess I wasn’t able to plan far enough ahead this year to table at the con, nor speak on any panels, so my agenda was brief. Mainly, I caught up with friends and colleagues (like Alex Chung and D.J. Kirkbride above). Reunions were that much fonder, realizing we hadn’t seen each other in-person in almost three years due to the pandemic. Yikes!
I also talked to some creators I may collaborate with (if scheduling works out) and ran into some whose stuff I just admire, like Shelly Bond. I find random encounters like the latter to be such a fun part of cons. I quite enjoyed Shelly’s new how-to book, Filth & Grammar, and never expected I’d get to share my appreciation face-to-face (more on that below), but then I simply crossed paths with her in one aisle. Almost like spinning a roulette wheel, really.
Drawn In’s first season marches on. No less than four episodes I worked on have screened since last time. There’s so much to like about where the art team has taken our scripts, but this citadel above takes a special place in my heart. It’s from one of the two-parters – my homage to fight shonen and the tournaments that preponderate them. Actually, there were probably four or five homages going into this particular stew, from the “Iron Ref,” to the “Throne of Games” he sits on, to our gang debating the relative merits of the original “Z-Team” roster and the line-up of “Kid Colossi West Coast.” But it’s this one, a literal “Challenge Tower,” which makes me grin most.
The First Writing Lesson I Learned
Martin Sexton asked my philosophy about teaching during our chat on the Geek Vibes Nation podcast a couple months back, and the question’s stuck with me. I’ve been thinking on a pivotal chapter from my “secret origin” as a writer…
So, I knew I wanted to do this stuff well before I got to eighth grade. English class that year, though, really felt like the stage where I'd need to step up and get serious about it. I was way more excited about creative writing assignments than my classmates and would hand in short stories much longer than theirs. And whenever our teacher asked us to read these pieces aloud to class, my hand would shoot up, dying to volunteer... only for her eyes to roam. She’d pretend not to notice me, searching for somebody, anybody, else to call on.
You see, I was writing science fiction, and this teacher considered memoirs the only valid type of literature. Suffice to say, we had friction. It came to a head at the end of the school year, because Creative Writing was offered as an elective in high school. She told us that getting in would be highly competitive, that only the most advanced writers should consider it and we'd need to meet with her if we wanted a recommendation. I just had to take Creative Writing, of course, so we sat down together. She beat around the bush, repeating that it was “only for the cream of the crop," and I kept insisting I felt up to the challenge, promising to take the class seriously, until her patience finally thinned. She sighed, "You're just not creative."
Even at 14, I found it absurd that any middle school teacher – a “mentor” on paper – would ever say that to any student. It was too ridiculous to sting, really. But she stood firm, as if it were her solemn responsibility to tell it like it is, and asserted that I wouldn't be taking Creative Writing the next year because she wouldn't recommend me. Well, as motivated as I was before, defying her motivated me even more after this.
My story should sound familiar. I've heard countless variations on it from creatives, and I doubt it’s a coincidence. There’s a lot to be said about defiance being a more powerful motivator than any other. Though, to be honest, when some talk in interviews about holding decades-long grudges, and how they still want to stick their work in these bad teacher’s faces, it doesn't sound like they're winning to me. I don't have anything to prove to mine, but I keep having to rehash my experience with her, because whenever I interview to teach a writing class or workshop, I’m asked to provide an example of what I consider bad teaching, and well… she’s an easy example. As I’ve grown up, too, I’ve come to see more complicated layers to our fateful clash…
First, I did wind up getting into Creative Writing in ninth grade without any further fuss, and that teacher, Walt "Doc" Fibiger, proved a great mentor in all the ways the prior one wasn't. He shared her preference for Capital-F Fiction, but he could handle sci-fi. More importantly, Doc recognized my passion, told me "writing's in your blood" and encouraged me to pursue it. He also advised me to consider how an argument at the dinner table can feel just as apocalyptic as an outer-space battle – which is a fine piece of advice I’ve hung onto. Still, later in my semester with him, I just had to ask Doc about what happened in eighth grade. Hearing my story puzzled him. He didn't take recommendations, nor had he even heard of this teacher. So, my “advisory meeting” with her turned out to be even more pathetic than it seemed at the time. Apparently, she was just that desperate to present herself as a gatekeeper, even when there was no gate to be kept.
Second, I think often about a display at Barnes & Noble I saw a few years ago. It was for a young adult romance – I want to say it was the Fault in Our Stars – and featured a pullquote that really caught my attention. In so many words, it hailed the book as offering a "breath of fresh air in a field dominated by dystopias, vampires and wizards, at last letting real kids just be real kids dealing with real problems."
“Hold on,” I thought. “Fantastic fiction is now the rule in school curricula, not the exception?” When I was growing up, it was the opposite. I heard rumors of another middle school reading the Giver or Ender's Game, or a high school where 1984 was assigned reading, but Animal Farm was the closest I ever got in all my English classes. And when you're a teen, there’s this desperate need for your tastes to be validated. I yearned for my school board to embrace this type of story as much as me, but after enough years, I came to accept that school simply wasn’t the environment for it. I’d have to look elsewhere, and that was fine. So, you can imagine my bemusement, seeing this ad suggesting that a slice-of-life Y.A. novel is the underdog in that environment, now?
Part of me wonders how much of it is a case of pendulum swinging. My age group was maybe two years off from the one where Harry Potter famously got onto curricula, opening the gates for Hunger Games, et al. Just simple, arbitrary timing. Every other movie blog headline I see these days seems to be about fantasy supposedly muscling dramas out of theaters, too – which doesn’t feel like winning, either. It's also entirely possible that the rumors I heard were true and there were kids in the next school over, or next county, whose English teachers loved sci-fi. Maybe there was even a teen in that class who preferred slice-of-life and found the reading stifling. Maybe I just landed red on the roulette wheel that time.
Anyway, the point I’ll pull out of all this reminiscence and musing is that if you want to write, you can’t depend on anybody’s permission. Because there were students in my class whom that teacher championed, and they all lost interest in writing on their own soon after.
With education on the mind still, let me circle back to Filth & Grammar, because it’s a book I really wish had existed years ago when I was learning to make comics myself. Most how-to books on the subject are more concerned with theory, or just focus on a specific part of the process. I haven’t seen one before this that’s been about stitching everything together (which is what “editing” really translates to), or gotten into nitty gritty details like avoiding the “name toss,” what “S.W.O.P.” entails and how dialogue should be tweaked to fit changes in the art
I’ve edited most of my comics, even though I’ve never been credited as such, and it definitely begs a skillset separate from writing. There were many tricks I learned through trial-and-error which I recognized in this book, and plenty more I hadn’t understood as clearly as somebody who’s edited seminal titles at Vertigo, like Shelly has. I’d recommend any aspiring comics creators read it, since I’ve seen too many indy books’ good writing and art undercut by bad, or even non-existent, editing.
The Chuk Chronicles will return. Maybe before 2023. If you have any writing questions, thoughts on my work, or bon mots, shoot me a message. Catch you then.