Would You Read This Comic Book?

First of all if you're wondered what happened to Decoy, I've decided to put it on hold. I've got a bit of writer's block trying to figure out scenes inbetween the heroine's arrival in New York and her getting hired by the Maury Povich-esque show.

But that is not the reason of why I created this post.

I have noticed that many of you guys like comic books. I like comic books too but I don't usually read the monthly ones due to most of them featuring stale plotlines and the same old bullshit every issue. I am also a big fan of nostalgia. I like to read to the stories of people in the later parts of the twentieth century and watch old footage of things on YouTube. I've been working on an idea for an epic comic book series. It's not an action series but I believe I can create a story.

The plotline:
this is the story of Edward Mannino and his life in Long Island, New York (I chose Long Island because it was the easiest place to research without going to the usual places). The fifth child of a Catholic family of Sicilian and Irish/Cajun descent, it tells his story about growing up, learning the lessons about life and the world of cinema getting him through life. It will show brotherly love, the love of family, first loves, broken hearts, true love, sex before marriage, marriage and modern love. It will show childhood, the loss of innocence, adolesence, the importance decisions of life, adulthood, parenthood and everything after. And there will be the feeling of the nostalgia. The story starts in plan to write this series and I will probably face rejection due to it not being like other comic books but I understand that. Not everyone want realism in a comic book. But I believe that we will someday have a successful realistic comic book, similar to the great novels of the twentieth century but as comic books.

Do you want to know more? Because I do have a list of ideas and characters and I would love to share those ideas.

Yeah Boosch, I'd like to read a bit more about your idea. Sounds interesting

You would have two choices, self pubish, although in this econmic enviroment, getting comic stores to take a chance on anything is going to be risky, or going with a major firm (And by major firm, I'm not talking Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, etc.). If you opt for the second route, you're going to need a good bit more to put together a proposal to show an editor. You're going to need an artist (Obviously) who is going to have to do character designs as well as showing that he has the ability to tell a story sequentially. The next thing you would have to do is develop the plotline a good bit more as well as backgound on the main characters and what exactly is the story you plan to tell.

Being rejected because it is not like other comic books would be the least of your worries.

If you don't think that there have been successful, realistic comic books done before, then you must not be familiar with the work of Will Eisner, Joe Kubert or Harvey Pekar.

From Harvey Pekar, check out American Splendor (And I'm not talking about that god awful movie they made with Paul Giamatti)

From Will Eisner, first read "Comics and Sequential Art" and "Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative", then read "A contract With God", "The Building", "Dropsie Ave.", and "A Family Matter".

From Joe Kubert, Read "Yossel" and "Fax from Sarajevo"

Another good book to read would be Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.

Interesting, Keyser, why didn't you like the film of American Splendour? I thought it brilliantly reflected the tone of the comics, and Giamatti was perfectly cast, not to mention the playfulness of media, having Pekar narrate and include him in the film with those mini-interviews and conversations.

I actually thought it did an awful job of depicting what Harvey was doing with the comics. I thought Hope Davis did a really good job as Joyce, but to me I could never buy what Giamatti was doing as being Harvey. I guess that probably comes from knowing both Harvey and Joyce.

Actually American Splendor (the film, as no stores around here carry the comic book) did somewhat inspire me to do a realistic comic book. I also read Pekar's Quitter and that was a good inspiration. I also like to read non-fiction and nostalgic novels such as The Basketball Diaries and James Gunn's The Toy Collector (this book needs to go back in print).

I have artist friends and I plan to begin work on a first issue soon (possibly a double issue, similar to two hour pilots for TV shows). Though I don't know what things will look like, I want to create a style that combines raw with realism and nostalgia. The plan is to make a series feel similar to one long and potentially neverending novel.

I should get a full plotline ready in a jiffy.

The series begins in 1954 when John Mannino, a teenager of Sicilian descent from Valley Stream, New York and Sandra Flannigan, a teenage of Irish/Cajun descent meet at the St. Arnold mass graduation party for Nassau County Catholic schools. The two kids hit it off and three years they get married despite the brief objections of John's parents due to love of someone who wasn't Italian.

One year later in 1958, their first child Ginevra would be born while John was in college studying to work in banking. In 1959, their second child Adrianne was born. John had become an employee at a successful Long Island bank while Sandra was a housewife raising the children. In the early 1960's, John was working his way up the corporate ladder and him and Sandra became the parents of two more children, Sean in 1961 and Christina in 1964. Then in 1966, our main character is born.

Edward Mannino was born on August 13th, 1966 in the now upper middle-class Catholic family, the fifth child in the family. Later in 1968, another sister named Davinia was born and in a way, he becomes a role model to Davinia while looking up to his older brother Sean. His first few years of his life were a blur except for some photos and 8mm home movies. But his first major memory, a showing of the Rossano Brazzi film The Christmas That Almost Wasn't at a theatre in Levittown, New York, would help shape the life that became Edward Mannino.

At first, going to the theatre was just a weekly ritual. But then when visited Manhattan and started seeing some of the big musicials in the movie palaces, it became an obsession. At first, he wanted to become a director but he decided that he liked watching movies more so he decided to become a writer. Along with his brother, they worked on a number of short films with Ed writing and Sean directing. They wanted to become like the directors of the great action films of the era.

In his childhood at St. Lidwina Primary School, Ed didn't have many friends because he chose to keep to himself and he was too intelligent to the other students. But he did have a long-term best friend. He met a girl named Diana Florio in first grade. She wasn't very popular with the girls because she couldn't afford things that the other girls in the school had and her mother was unmarried and a teenage mother, leading to her having a poor reputation. But Ed really adored her. They shortly after became best friends and stuck together throughout primary school.

In the late 1970's, Ed, Sean, Diana and Sean's often-changing girlfriends would spend weekends at the local malls or drive-ins and often have little "dates". In 1979, Ed and Diana officially became boyfriend and girlfriend while at the St. Drogo Catholic Junior High. They dated for two and a half years (Ed and Diana losing their virginity at the beginning of the relationship) and went to the St. Francis de Sales High School before Diana dropped out due to her mother's death in 1982. They broke up but continued to be friends and she became a Manhattan prostitute named Mary Magdalena.

Though incredibly devasated, Ed managed to overcome it by working in a recently triplexed theatre owned by RKO specializing in mainstream action and horror films. He dated a couple of theatre patrons but they only seemed to be interested in sex and deception. Though he enjoyed working at the theatre and for the RKO chain, he found a golden opportunity when he saw that a National Amusements theatre with sixteen screens was hiring in the fall of 1982 for a December opening. He went applied for an interview and he was hired a few days later. On December 16th, 1982, the new life of Edward Mannino began.

To Be Continued...