FA+
Shop
Furry Erotica and the Marvel Method
13 years ago
I suspect that some of you might have noticed a few delays in the release schedule of His Official Capacity. I felt like I owed my readers some explanation, and I thought, in the process, I'd give you some insight into our creative process.
Back in the '60s, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby pioneered what's known as the "Marvel Method" of making comic books. Stan and Jack would brainstorm the plot of an issue, Jack would draw the whole darned thing, and then Stan would sit down and add dialogue based on the original outline, the new elements that Jack incorporated into the art, and any random last-minute inspirations he might have had himself. While the Marvel Method isn't without its flaws (as the continuous, contentious controversy over creative credit for those seminal issues betrays), it does make for a very close collaboration, and I believe most Marvel writer/artist teams operated this way until the early 1990s, at least.
That's not too far from the way we produce HOC.
The original source material was a series of online RP logs between myself and
sheema (who was originally our "silent partner" until 
darkwulf dropped a broad hint about her secret identity). darkwulf took those logs, and started expanding the narrative into a full-blown story. I volunteered to add the journals that introduce some chapters, and to do a series of editing passes, fine-tuning dialogue, cleaning up punctuation, and occasionally rephrasing entire passages.
When we ran out of logs, Wuff and I started brainstorming directly, with occasional input from sheema. Otherwise, the process was much the same: collaborative brainstorming, darkwulf writing the bulk of the text, and then Yours Truly sweeping through, cleaning up the grammar, nudging the dialogue, and adding the plethora of purple prose that seems so popular.
In other words, like Jolly Jack before him, darkwulf does most of the hard work.
The keen-eyed amongst you might note that some of the previous gaps in our schedule have been with the chapters that start with an excerpt from Lord Velachko's private journal. That's right: I write those, and while I'm adept at polishing an existing body of text to a mirror sheen, it's a bit more of a struggle for me to weave words from whole cloth, even when I have an outline in front of me.
Chapter 8 consists entirely of Lord Velachko's diary entries. And in a brilliant move, I volunteered to reverse our usual process: we brainstormed together, but I'm doing the bulk of the writing.
This, of course, was the cue for a series of life-shattering catastrophes: a traumatic break-up, a long stint of unemployment, winding up with a sudden upswing in fortunes, including an excellent job that nevertheless leaves me very little "me time".
So yes. Even under the best of circumstances, Chapter 8 would have been a bit tardy. Once I get through the next couple of segments, though, it will wrap up, and we'll be back to our normal process (and pace) for Chapter 9 and beyond.
Right, darkwulf?
... darkwulf?
... could somebody wake up the wulf?
Back in the '60s, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby pioneered what's known as the "Marvel Method" of making comic books. Stan and Jack would brainstorm the plot of an issue, Jack would draw the whole darned thing, and then Stan would sit down and add dialogue based on the original outline, the new elements that Jack incorporated into the art, and any random last-minute inspirations he might have had himself. While the Marvel Method isn't without its flaws (as the continuous, contentious controversy over creative credit for those seminal issues betrays), it does make for a very close collaboration, and I believe most Marvel writer/artist teams operated this way until the early 1990s, at least.
That's not too far from the way we produce HOC.
The original source material was a series of online RP logs between myself and
sheema (who was originally our "silent partner" until 
darkwulf dropped a broad hint about her secret identity). darkwulf took those logs, and started expanding the narrative into a full-blown story. I volunteered to add the journals that introduce some chapters, and to do a series of editing passes, fine-tuning dialogue, cleaning up punctuation, and occasionally rephrasing entire passages.When we ran out of logs, Wuff and I started brainstorming directly, with occasional input from sheema. Otherwise, the process was much the same: collaborative brainstorming, darkwulf writing the bulk of the text, and then Yours Truly sweeping through, cleaning up the grammar, nudging the dialogue, and adding the plethora of purple prose that seems so popular.
In other words, like Jolly Jack before him, darkwulf does most of the hard work.
The keen-eyed amongst you might note that some of the previous gaps in our schedule have been with the chapters that start with an excerpt from Lord Velachko's private journal. That's right: I write those, and while I'm adept at polishing an existing body of text to a mirror sheen, it's a bit more of a struggle for me to weave words from whole cloth, even when I have an outline in front of me.
Chapter 8 consists entirely of Lord Velachko's diary entries. And in a brilliant move, I volunteered to reverse our usual process: we brainstormed together, but I'm doing the bulk of the writing.
This, of course, was the cue for a series of life-shattering catastrophes: a traumatic break-up, a long stint of unemployment, winding up with a sudden upswing in fortunes, including an excellent job that nevertheless leaves me very little "me time".
So yes. Even under the best of circumstances, Chapter 8 would have been a bit tardy. Once I get through the next couple of segments, though, it will wrap up, and we'll be back to our normal process (and pace) for Chapter 9 and beyond.
Right, darkwulf?
... darkwulf?
... could somebody wake up the wulf?
I think folks will enjoy the rest of the story. I know we do!