I wanted to wait for things to calm down after San Diego to share this with you folks on the site. But since there’s nothing really going on now, allow me to present you with the first and only issue of The Remote, written by yours truly.
To download the PDF, you can right click and ‘save as” right here. It’s around 10 MB.
Let me know what you think. After all my yapping on the site and the podcast, I’m sure I deserve whatever it is I’ve got coming.
The short story is that I’ve been trying to think of a way to get some work writing comics, but without an artist, it’s pretty hard to get started. So, it was Ron who called me up and said, why don’t you shoot it with a camera instead? I wasn’t against the idea, but the script I had in my hand wouldn’t work for that at all, so I came up with this short story as something we could make.
So I wrote the script, and drew up some storyboards, and cast the parts. My wife shot all the photos, and did all the work on the images, including putting the pages together. (Visit her site! She’s an incredible photographer!) Then I learned how to letter, and that was about it. I had some copies printed up all nice for the Comic-Con, and handed a few out to some notable editors and companies. I doubt I’ll garner much work from it, but I did learn a hell of a lot about how to make comics. And I’m pretty proud of the work we did.
Thanks very much, and I hope you dig it.
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Your lettering skills are up to snuff.
My pick of the week so far!
What do they call that, fumetti? I liked the art a lot more than I expected to; I’m normally wary of photo comics, but your wife did an excellent job on the visuals. I always enjoy seeing proof that you can still tell a complete story in one issue and still have room for humor, action, and a glimpse at the inner life of the characters. And Perfect Strangers references.
I liked it, you can never be to sure when someone who critiques certain things decides to work in the medium. Like Roger Ebert writing “Beyound the Valley of the Dolls” remember that…no? My point exactly. But this was good tob notch writing, I laughed, I giggled, I was envious.
I thought it was cool. The visuals were great. I liked the photgraphs, wasn’t sure at first, but went well with the overall theme. The writing was good. Interesting idea about having power but it not being super. I was curious, did you use Comic Life on a iMac to make it? I just bought a Mac and was goofing around with Comic Life. Just wondering.
Is he watching Bill and Ted at one point?
Bogus Journey. Not intentional, that was just what was on. Station! However, you can credit Lindsay with the Balki grab. She put that there on purpose.
We used Photoshop for the image filtering, and putting the panels together. Then used Illustrator for the letters.
As for the photos, I felt exactly the same way, but we did some tests, and made sure to make it look as much like illustration as possible, because I didn’t want to see a photo comic either. And I have no idea what the word fumetti means either.
Thanks for the kind words folks. I really appreciate it.
VERY COOL! I’m impressed. Good job. It looks really good too. Modern technology is making so many things in life easier. Keep ’em coming.
pretty cool. Style kind of reminded me of Tom Goes to the Mayor. I laughed when will and grace came on.
Wow, I really like it! Bravo, Josh.
Can we expect any MORE comics of this nature from you in the future??
Yeah, I like to do more in the future, but I’d also like to find a penciller for some other stories I want to tell. This was a hell of a lot of work.
Thanks again everyone.
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=2884
Who wants to be a Rocket Pirate?
Joey Manley talked me into curating a mass webcomics site. I’ve known Joey for getting on for six years now. It’s partly my fault that he got involved with comics at all. I suspect this is his revenge.
People who want to make webcomics are invited to submit their ideas to me for membership in the Rocket Pirates, a webcomics collective which will be housed at http://www.rocketpirates.com.
Rocket Pirates will be the first site to launch with the new Webcomics Nation Collective Edition technology, which will be available as a commercial product for people wanting to quickly and cheaply launch their own multi-creator webcomics portals sometime in the next few months. Because we’re all about being quick and cheap, believe me.
Rocket Pirates will be free to all readers, all the time. This means, of course, that there is no cut of subscription fees to offer to creators. Instead, the system allows each creator the freedom to install Google Ads, Amazon Associates ads, ads for their own products, rate cards for prostitution services or any other damn thing on their comic’s Rocket Pirates page. Also, since we’re not paying, all Rocket Pirates engagements are on a non-exclusive basis, allowing the creators to run their comics on their own websites or any other place that’ll have them.
The non-subscription approach means that I’m also doing this for free, so anyone who wants to send food and clothing c/o Joey Manley at Modern Tales is welcome to do so. I also offer inexpensive adult services.
The submissions system is simply this: email your materials to me at warrenellis@gmail.com. I want to see at least three completed pages and an overview of what you intend to do. No need to be formal – rambly emails talking about the central concepts and what you want to achieve are fine.
I’m open to anything – series, serialised graphic novels, single panels, self-contained shorts, newspaper-style strips – in any style, from manga to clipart to whatever the hell you just invented in your basement. No limits.
I’m open to any kind of content. You’re going to have to work pretty hard to get me to accept a superhero project for the site, but if you’ve got something that knocks me flat, I’ll take it. But, seriously, I want to eventually curate something that takes in a wide breadth of what comics can achieve. Surprise me. Give me something straight out of literary mainstream fiction, give me a warped genre, give me something I’ve never seen before. That’s the *theme* of the site, the glue that holds it together. It is quite simply *stuff Warren really likes.*
The submissions process is open to everybody. I don’t care if you only decided you wanted to try and make a comic ten minutes ago – I’ll look at it. I’ll warn you in advance that the chances of my being able to provide detailed and constructive rejections are slight, but I’ll do my best.
(Also, if the site turns out to be all-male because only guys submitted, I’m going to be very pissed off, and will infect you all with this lung disease my girlfriend seems to have passed to me over the weekend.)
I’d like to be up and running by the end of the month, but I won’t kick the site live until I have enough work of quality. The submissions process will remain permanently open. Unless, you know, I change my mind. I am unpredictable and I drink a lot.
That’s all I’ve got. Please feel free to pass this unedited post on anywhere you like.
– Warren Ellis
(In-depth discussions will probably happen in the dedicated section at THE ENGINE.)
http://www.the-engine.net/forum/
*taps* Post held for mod approval. I though Josh might submit to Mr. Ellis’ new project.
Well done. A great read.