Black Snow Comics

I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show, A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes, Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain, And celluloid heroes never really die – Charlie Sheen

Recently I posted something on Facebook that got a lot of attention, and that was my dream casting for a Black Snow movie. This is not the Black Snow movie I plotted out with Alex last year, but something that would be closer to a more accurate representation of the comic. Now remember, I was a film major and probably spend more time thinking about movies than most people.

First off, the movie would’ve come out in the mid 80s. Why? Haven’t I gone on record saying that the comic book takes place in the late 90s? Because that was a boom period where comedies could be dark, dramatic, action packed and light hearted all at once. It seems like a perfect fit for the broad tone of the comic book. For instance my favorite action comedy, Midnight Run came out in 1988, and contained most if not all of these elements. Look at the tone of the original Batman movie in 1989. Even something as outrageous and comedic as Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure in 1985 had darker elements. We’ve been compared to Kurt Russel action comedies in review, and just take a look at Big Trouble in Little China from 1986 as a prime example. For that matter look at the entire Indiana Jones (1981-1989) and Back to the Future (1985-1990) trilogies. Not mention you’re coming off the Blues Brothers in 1980 and Stripes in 1981. You wanna dark a dark movie with all kinds of elements? Look no further than Less Than Zero from 1987.

My point, I think Black Snow’s story could’ve fit right in with this crowd and been accepted by mainstream audiences. So let’s talk about my dream cast.

Bill Murray as Black Snow

Bill Murray as Black Snow

There is no one who could’ve better embodied Black Snow than the mid 80s Bill Murray. Look at his work in Stripes (1981), epically the beginning of the film when his life is falling apart. Also look at his amazing show stealing performance Ghostbusters (1984), and for the hell of it Scrooged in 1988 and Groundhogs Day in 1993. Not only is he one of my favorite comedic actors, but he always has an edge to him. His characters are always deeply flawed and full of vice, yet somehow the likable underdog hero you root for because of his odd charm. Not to mention he is not the most handsome or impressive looking man. Put that all together and I think you have one hell of a Black Snow.

In fact Alex once revealed to me that a scene in the comic was directly inspired by Bill Murray’s performance in Ghostbusters. Which scene? I’ll give you a hint, it’s in Issue 2.

Andrew McCarthy as the Anti-Nazi

Andrew McCarthy as the Anti-Nazi

As far as I know Andrew McCarthy has never acted with Bill Murray as they ran with different crowds, McCarthy a peripheral member of the “Brat Pack” and Murray a part of the Harold Ramis crew, but I can just imagine the chemistry the two would have. I would love to see it. In the 80s McCarthy was appearing as a lovable nice, yet often misunderstood guy in movies like Pretty in Pink (1986), St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), Mannequin (1987) and Less Than Zero also in 1987. He has a likable charm and comes off as an intellectual, yet is also someone that tends to get pushed around and taken for granted. He’s also fairly handsome, yet has a geeky, intimidating quality. I have no doubt he could’ve pulled off a compelling portrayal of Eric and given him the depth needed to portray the character properly.

Tom Cruise as the Lone Wolf

Tom Cruise as the Lone Wolf

Before Tom Cruise was known for being a crazy Scientologist, he was a handsome cocky 80s actor. And to be clear I’m talking about the less wacky, more arrogant and intelligent Lone Wolf from Black Snow, versus the more insane cartoonish Lone Wolf of I’m Famous! Although I’ve never really cared for him, Tom Cruise in the 80s was the man, making movies like Risky Business and All the Right Moves in 1983, Top Gun in 1986, Rain Man as well as Cocktail in 1988. He was on fire in the 80s and played the cocky cool guy to the max. He could have a more overt jerkiness to him though. Rain Man is a prime example. Although he is physically small for the role, I think he would’ve nailed the portrayal of Black Snow’s brash, eccentric rival. Just think of the rather dumpy Bill Murray trading barbs with an ultra popular, handsome Tom Cruise. It would have been amazing!

John Candy as Elephant Boy

John Candy as Elephant Boy

Honestly, I was never a huge fan of John Candy. So why him? He’s fat. I would’ve gone with John Belushi, but he was already dead by the mid 80s. Actually, John Candy is probably a better choice as Elephant Boy is more mellow than Belushi would’ve played it, but he would’ve gotten the sloppiness better. John Candy was good at playing lovable losers, so he could’ve probably handled Elephant Boy without issue. Some of his better movies were Spaceballs and Planes, Trains and Automobiles in 1987, Uncle Buck in 1989, and The Great Outdoors in 1988. The more I think about it the more I’m confident John Candy would’ve done well with the role. Plus he had pretty good chemistry with Bill Murray, as seen in Stripes.

Anthony Michael Hall as Lightning Lad

Anthony Michael Hall as Lightning Lad

Another member of the “Brat Pack”, Anthony Michael Hall was always a good innocent dweeb, much like Lightning Lad. He could also be a bit irritating, again much like the characters. He was known for his roles in The Breakfast Club and Weird Science in 1985, Sixteen Candles in 1984 and National Lampoon’s Vacation in 1983. He is really a natural for the role, as it was very similar to what he was playing at the time. Imagine him annoying Bill Murray and following him around!

Kim Basinger as Angel

Kim Basinger as Angel

Kim Basinger as the slutty blonde unrequited love interest of Andrew McCarthy? Works for me. I know Kim Basinger more for her work in the 90s, but some of her 80s films include Batman in 1989, the Bond film Never Say Never Again in 1983, Nine 1/2 Weeks in 1986, and Blind Date in 1987. She was a big name is the 80s and worked with a lot of huge actors, and would make a fine addition to this all star cast.

Robert Downey Jr. as Hawaiian Mike

Robert Downey Jr. as Hawaiian Mike

Yet another peripheral member of the “Brat Pack”, Robert Downey Jr. played great, flamboyant characters, often with a mysterious or dark edge. Long before he was Iron Man he was in movies like Back to School in 1986, The Pick-up Artist in 1987, Johnny Be Good in 1988, and an amazing performance in Less Than Zero in 1987. He already had chemistry with Andrew McCarthy and Anthony Michael Hall, and it would’ve been interesting to see him play off of Bill Murray and Tom Cruise. He could’ve added some dimension to the character and handled the secret plans we have for the character’s future in the comic.

Robert De Niro as Brad

Robert De Niro as Brad

My favorite actor, period. He could probably handle any role, and you may think this role is too small for him, but reread the comics. Brad has a lot of face time and his own plot. And we have big plans for him in the future. De Niro could’ve brought the intensity needed for this role, and it would’ve been amazing to see him play the older brother of Bill Murray. Brad is a volatile, fairly complex character with a lot going on, and De Niro could’ve brought the dimension needed to the role. In the 80s De Niro was making movies like Raging Bull in 1980, The King of Comedy in 1982, We’re No Angels in 1989, Brazil in 1985, Angel Heart and The Untouchables in 1987 and the aforementioned Midnight Run in 1988. He would’ve rounded out this amazing cast!

I could list more characters, but those are the most important ones. So what’s all this dream casting mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe it will effect the way Alex and I write/draw things. It did give me an idea to possibly create a fake trailer for the movie, finding appropriate lines from each actor in that era. It also gave me an idea to draw the actors as the characters, or even make a short “movie” version of the comic. Who knows, but it was fun to think about.

Everybody’s a star.

The last of the 4 I wrote, before Alex asked me to take over the writing of I’M FAMOUS! while he concentrates on Black Snow: Last Call.  That’s write, I’m the temporary writer now and he just reviews or edits what I do.  In today’s strip he added that very last line of Rosenstein’s.

Since I’m doing the writing I thought I’d try some different things.  Here I went for some larger meta jokes and broader commentaries about the general lack of creativity in movies for the last decade.  Sometimes it seems there are no new ideas, only movies based on books, comics or remakes, and that’s what motivated this.  Just look at how many old TV shows and comic books were adapted to feature films in the last ten years, simply ridiculous.

What about that last panel?  Another meta joke, on multiple levels.  It plays off the idea that any comic book can be a hit movie, as well as the fact that we have been writing the script for a Black Snow movie.  Will it ever really get made?  I don’t know.  If a studio wanted to buy it, then yes.  It is fairly complicated and high budget, so it would be very difficult for us to make ourselves, unless we got significant financial backing.

Does this mean Black Snow is getting his own movie in I’M FAMOUS!?  Or that his comic book exists in I’M FAMOUS!?  Not necessarily.  I’m trying not to take it so seriously or worry about the strip being a cohesive story.  I know Alex likes to treat it more like a traditional narrative, but I’m going to try and take a bit more advantage of the strip format while I’m writing it, and go on non sequiturs when I see fit.  So get ready for!

Happy New Year!  And what a year it was!  Here it is, already time for another year in review post.  Doesn’t seem all that long ago when I was writing this http://www.blacksnowcomic.com/blog1/?p=381.

Lets start by addressing what I wrote last year.  I basically stopped work on my children’s book.  Why?  Just lost interest I guess.  Maybe I’ll revisit it some day.

If you cared about my pets, then read on.  I hatched 3 more Crested Geckos and bought a beautiful, bright red female.  The first baby, Cresty, is doing very well, almost a full grown male now.  My sister has the second one, Alice, also almost a full grown male.  Unfortunately my sister doesn’t want hers anymore, so now it’s my dad’s.  Too bad you can’t keep the males together.  We sold the other two, in exchange for a 6 foot tall screened cage.  Really cool.  I recently broke down my salt water fish tank and my fresh water community fish tank.  I opted for African Chiclids instead, and they are awesome.  The other tank I gave to my dad, and he stocked it with big land hermit crabs.

Looking at my goals I posted, some where achieved and others weren’t.  Did I keep my vow of at least one completed page a week?  No, I missed two weeks, but that means I did do it for fifty weeks.  Not so bad.  I will attempt to keep that resolution going this year as well.  I did draw a lot.  10 Day Camps in 2010.  Why only 10?  That’s all we wrote, then we just kind of stopped.  Why?  In favor of the 2010 born comic strip I’M FAMOUS! Speaking of, since it’s creation in January I drew 72 pages.  And a cover.

As far as Black Snow Issue 0, well I guess we put that on hold.  What was it going to be?  A better intro for new fans than Issue 1.  Somewhat of an origin story that would explain how these characters all came together.  Why didn’t it happen?  We had a hard time writing it, and eventually felt it hurt the comics overall momentum, opting to move on to Issue 7 instead.  It never got beyond a collection of ideas.  I wouldn’t mind revisiting it some day.

Why didn’t Issue 7 happen?  Mostly because I couldn’t get Alex to write it.  He was too focused on I’M FAMOUS!  Honestly, it has become pretty obvious to me over the years that it is really hard to get Alex to write anything.  It is frustrating, and the best solution I’ve found is to basically start writing things myself until it motivates him to take over.  Hopefully he’ll step things up some day.  So I finally got him to start on Issue 7 a couple months ago.  Some scenes got written, some were still just outline ideas.  Then we made the decision to scrap the Issue format.

We will be going forward with the graphic novel format.  Everything written for Issue 7 has been incorporated into Black Snow: Last Call.  I put up the cover a few weeks back, hopefully I be able to start drawing some pages soon.  Again, most scenes still need to be written and some are not even outlined yet.  Alex seems excited about being able to tell a longer story, so maybe that will get him to write faster.  It hasn’t yet though.  I may need to just start writing some myself.  In any case, I’m really looking forward to drawing it.

You may remember reading about Black Snow the Movie several months back.  Well, I wrote up a very ambitious outline after Alex and I discussed it, then I handed it off to Alex to review and start on a script.  You can probably guess what happened.  Yes, Alex didn’t write anything.  You feel my frustration?

What good is a writer who won’t write?I’d always hoped if he wasn’t writing he could at least help in other areas, like promotion or the website.  Unfortunately that hasn’t really happened yet either.  He does do a bit now, so I do appreciate that, but he could do a lot more instead of relying on me to do it all.

What else did we accomplish in 2010?  We successful became Black Snow Comics, as we now offered 3 titles.  We had good, consistent traffic to the website.  I totally redid the website, designing it myself from scratch, and making it a lot more creatively in line with how I always wanted to present these comics.  We had a booth at the Alternative Press Expo, where we got to connect with fans and other comic makers.  We got advice and praise from the legendary Larry Marder.  We sold some comics, hats, keychains and stickers.  We learned a lot about printing and made hard copies of all 6 issues of Black Snow and the first 50 pages of I’M FAMOUS!.  Gained more of a following on Twitter and Facebook.  We also found out that people love I’M FAMOUS!, as we had apparently stumbled upon a comic with more mass appeal than Day Camp or Black Snow.  I started the very popular blog posts where I comment on each new page.  I was also shocked to find that people LOVE it when I write about wrestling, reading the posts by the thousands.  I recently drew my first totally digital art and sped up my drawing process.  Lastly, we reconnected with our love of comics, with weekly trips to our local comic books stores and reading a lot of current and classic titles.

So what does 2011 hold?  Hopefully the start of Black Snow: Last Call.  I won’t hope for the completion in 2011, as we plan for it to be somewhere between 120 and 160 pages long at this point, and that seems unrealistic.  Maybe in 2012.  We plan on continuing with I’M FAMOUS!, and I’d like to keep completing at least one a week.  With this new digital style speeding things up hopefully it can be even more than that.  More Day Camp?  You never know, but I sort of doubt it.  Alex doesn’t seem to have any interest in it, and our hands are fairly full with the other projects.  I plan to continue to improve my drawing.  I have A LOT OF IDEAS when I finally get to work on Last Call that I think will raise things to another level.  The digital art of I’M FAMOUS! has the promise of experimenting with new, exciting ideas as well.  We plan on returning to APE this year, with a full table this time.  We may look into other shows as well.  I’d like to see us complete our movie script and shop it around.  Maybe we’ll start selling some of our stuff online.  And finally get some shirts.

Well, only time will tell what will actually transpire, but thank you (in advance) for being along for the ride!

Happy 2011!

Usually when someone says that something has gone Hollywood they mean that it’s “sold out” (changed its core ideals to conform to the mainstream to have more mass appeal and in turn make more money).  I find it funny that when the ultimate pop show, American Idol, lets someone know they passed the audition they say “You’re going to Hollywood!”  I also find it sad that I know that without having actually seen an episode of American Idol in my life.  So is the nature of pop culture being shoved down our throats.  BTW, I’ve been to Hollywood, several times in fact, and it is not something to squeal out of joy or jump up and down about.  It’s a very trashy town, although it is exciting to bump into celebrities, it’s probably less exciting to be killed in the crossfire of gangs or accidentally step on a junky’s infected needle laying out in the street.  The last time I was in Hollywood was the day Michal Jackson died.  I could tell you some stories!

I’f you’ve been reading I’M FAMOUS! you’ll likely know that going Hollywood is a central theme of the comic.  This is true in the sense of selling out that I mentioned and a literal plot point about moving from Detroit to the LA area.  Here’s a small spoiler for you, skip to the next sentence if you don’t want to know…Lone Wolf and entourage finally get on the plane in the next comic. One question I’d ask is “Does the Lone Wolf actually have enough integrity to even be considered a sell out, or is he morally bankrupt from the start?”  Also consider the side characters when you look at this theme.

In  a situation of life imitating art Alex and I have begun work on a Black Snow movie.  If you followed the Twitter or Facebook you know there was quite a bit of buzz about this a few weeks back.  Well, it’s true.  The outline is complete and we’ll be starting on the script very soon.  You may remember, but in case you don’t, I have a BA in Film from UC Berkeley, so working on a Black Snow movie feels like it’s a pretty natural progression to me.  Check out my YouTube Channel.  I’m very happy with the outline and think it would make a great movie.

What’s it about?  It’s based on the comic books, but it’s a totally original story.  It features most of the main characters and plenty of original characters as well.  We debated whether we should adapt the comic’s story or go with something new, and opted for the latter.  I didn’t want to be a slave to what we had already done, and I think this is where a lot of  comic book movies get hung up.  They stick to things that don’t translate well to film, try to cram too many things in, and worry to much about fan service.  We didn’t want to get caught up in any of that.  We also realized that we’d change a lot of things if we were to start the comic book over again.  So we took this opportunity to reboot some things.

Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t change everything.  Most things are still the same, and there are plenty of nods to the comics.  What we really tried to do was focus on the essence of the comics and streamline it.  So what’s the movie actually about?  I don’t want to reveal too much, but if you read the comics you can probably guess where it’s set, what the tone is, and who the main characters are.

What kind of movie is this?  Not animated, as several people have asked.  It’s a big bucket live action blockbuster, like many other summer comic book movies.  My main concern when adapting the comic to this format was that I was fundamentally changing what I like about the comic by turning it into something more straight forward and epic.  The comics play a lot on the mundane life of a real world, not very good super hero, and are pretty weird when it comes to tone and plot.  Not the best attributes for a feature film, thus the need to change some things.  It’s still a concern, but I think we’ve handled it well, and much of the comic feel will come out as we start to write scenes and dialogue.  A big difference between this and writing an issue is that I wrote the outline by myself, based on ideas Alex and I had discussed, whereas the comics are more of a collaborative effort when it comes to plotting.  He confided to me that I am better at writing plot and actions than him, which is understandable as I’ve taken several classes on it.  He’s  more about the dialogue, and that’s where he shines.  I should have realized this when he made me write all the fight scenes in the comics.

So, are we selling out?  Alex and I often joke about how we’d love to be in a position to sellout and cash in.  But no, I don’t think we are.  I think we’re being true to what we created.  Honestly though, I don’t particularly care if we are and don’t concern mysel with such issues.  Selling out is very much a teenage concern, and I’m a mature adult.  All I care about is enjoying what I work on, and I am.  Why are we writing this?  In the hopes that a studio will buy it and pay us a lot of money!  Oh, and make the movie and expose our creation to a much more vast audience than the paltry collection of ragtag miscreants we’ve accrued here on the net.  You’re great, but you’re small and you ain’t paying my bills.  So we’ll see you on the big screen!