So, now that all 3 parts of "Revenge" have gone online, I can freely discuss some of my thoughts about this story. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I wrote "Revenge" in more than one setting. I had the idea for the Venom parody story and Man-Hat creation from the start but didn't know what to do after that, so it sat incomplete for a while. Then I thought about what if we could do something akin to zombies, but in the "family friendly" 3twins way. And I came up with the idea of the Man-Hat shooting mind control candy out into the city on Halloween night that would turn the trick-or-treating kids into zombies.I'm actually not 100% happy with my final version of the script for this because I think the zombie aspect kind of didn't reach its full potential. Part of it might be that I'm not the biggest fan of zombie movies, so I didn't want to dwell on it much in the writing and the other part, may have just been lazy writing. Ultimately, I think that I wanted to present the Cider-Man character so much that I shoved the story into that box and didn't let it breathe.
I think maybe what would have been the best for this story as a whole, in retrospect, would have been to prolong the dark Hatman stuff and explore that in a more Hatman centric way, more truly like the Black Spider-Man story was. But I think originally my fear was that we would be called to the floor too much for copying that story. One of the things I strive for is to attain originality in our parodies, to pay more homage than just hash out the same thing. That said, I would like to have explored a darker Hatman or Hatman as the villain more and maybe concluded the whole story with the creation of the Man-Hat and left him as a character looming in the night until next year Halloween.
I know I'm being kind of hard on myself about this as the writer, but we don't have many viewers, so we don't get any criticism, and therefore, we should examine our stuff more critically, I guess. All in all, I am happy with the finished product. I feel fortunate that we were able to get in on the ground floor of Tillian Wagner as a comic book artist. Her stuff definitely has a different feel and it has really grown into it's own style, especially with the upcoming comic she's working on for us currently. It's neat to be able to see her art grow, and I hope those of you out there that do follow our stuff will enjoy it as well.
Jason
First of all, I am a big fan of Tillian's work! She's brought some great stuff to 3Twins already and I'm excited to see what more she'll be bringing to the table!
ReplyDeleteSecond, the idea of carrying out the Dark Hatman stuff for a bit and really giving more time to all parts of this story was something Jason, Andy and I discussed after this comic came out. When the comic was on paper, none of us really caught that the story seemed rushed, but when it debuted as a comic I think it was obvious to all of us that we could have spent more time in parts (even though I think we're all still very happy with the finished product).
It's interesting to see the transformation a story takes when it goes from and idea to paper to the finished product. Sometimes things work on paper that don't translate well to the comic. Sometimes ideas that don't seem that great (like Cider Man) work really well in their finished form. It definitely adds excitement to the entire process.
Another thing you don't catch when you view the finished comic is the fact that many of the audio lines are actually ad-libed. Andy, especially when he does Indigo, is probably the best at this. You wouldn't believe how many great or classic Indigo lines were never originally in the script. In fact, some of my favorite parts of this latest series were ad-libed Indigo lines. If you take the time to go back through the comics, see if you can catch them!
I'm actually working on a darker Hatman story that probably won't come out for a long time because several things have to happen first, but I'm excited to kind of give Hatman is due in a more gritty Batman way while still walking that "family friendly" tightrope. I've only got ideas written down for it and a title so far (of which I will not share because it could give away too much) but I have high hopes for that story. My hope is that it will be one of those types of stories that feels like everything leading up to it from issue #1 on inevitably came to that point. We'll see if my writing can accomplish that or not! Plus, like I said, it's probably 2 years out at best!
ReplyDeleteIt is sometimes good to be a little hard on yourself when you are a writer. Constructive criticism. I have always enjoyed the parodies because it is cool to see how you guys transform the cover and the story into a true Hatman issue! I like seeing the cover on Jason's computer as he is working on renaming it with the Hatman characters, all the cover has is a name over the current picture and it is awesome how the imagination takes over and replaces them. Go Hatman!
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