I faced some difficulty working out the style for Dragon Garage, and there were many false starts. It became so frustrating I did another entire graphic novel in the meantime.
With this version I tried for a light, squiggly line combined with a tone. Something different from what I've done before.
Unfortunately, it didn't have the energy I was looking for.
Back to the drawing board, as they say...
I like the first page, Zach looks worried, but the angle could be more dramatic
The framing is a little lacklustre here, a little straightforward. And the angles aren't extreme enough.
I like the dust in the top panel, it sets up the surprise for the villains in the third panel nicely.
Should have shown Zach getting out of the vehicle here, for context. Also, I'm not very consistent with his appearance. Ugh.
To get the story of Dragon Garage to work as a TV show or a movie would require me to simplify everything, front load the fantasy elements, and relegate the set up to flashbacks.
I can understand why: modern entertainment has to hook people fast. But I didn't want to do that. Not with this.
I like a nice linear build up, and thankfully, the graphic novel format offers a more forgiving arena in which to play, where I don't have to worry (as much) about 'channel' hopping. I still kept the story trim, but I didn't want to lose all the niche stuff I found interesting (Ultimately I still cut most of it... kill your darlings).
The collision of fantasy and reality, of the medieval with modernity, fascinated me and I wanted to explore that aspect in depth. I didn't do as much as I would have liked in the first volume, as I admit it's not all prime time material, outside PBS. Hopefully it can be organically incorporated into future books.
When I had a window of bonus time (thank you Covid), I set about redoing Dragon Garage as a graphic novel. The change in format brought changes in tone: I put more humour in my comics than in my scripts. Not sure why. Jokes and gags just occur as I draw. Perhaps it's because I'm meditating longer on the scenes.
I'd also been watching a lot of anti-hero TV, and that had seeped into the initial pitch and script. I excised a lot of that. Not all, but a lot, making the book far less dark and tragic, which suits the material better. And I added a back half (the pilot script would have been 45 minutes, but it really needed about 2 hours), without concern for page count / time limitations. It took as long as it needed.
Dragon Garage became a comedy-adventure, while still leaning more towards the adventure side. All of the threats to the characters are treated seriously. They are in frequent mortal peril, and yet they can see the humour in their outlandish situations. The comedy is driven by character and observation, and by what real dramas just gloss over and ignore, like gaffes.
They say drama is real life with the boring bits removed. It also strips out the missteps, pratfalls, and screw ups. Look at the outtakes from any movie. In the finished film, Guff McDraw will spin his pistol and shoot the villain down in one smooth motion. In the outtakes, we see the actor dropping the gun repeatedly, or hitting himself in the head with the pistol butt. Not dramatic, but more human. Even the expert gunslinger will mess up sometimes, with tragic consequences.
Dragon Garage gleefully incorporates the gaffes.
It took multiple attempts at nailing a style over three or four (?) years before settling, and even that evolved as I went. I had to either pick a look, or be locked in holding pattern for all eternity, pumping out endless variations.
Character designs from 2020 or so...
Once I got up steam, the book pages whizzed by. I added an appendix (every good fantasy book, as JRR Tolkien knows, needs an appendix!) in the form of Zach's Journal, covering material I cut from the book proper, and to tease tales to come. I then added an outtake page from the fictional Heroic Journey's Bestiary, covering goblins, just for fun.
And that's the convoluted path DG took to completion.
The pitch doc cover, in a 'clear line' (if wibbly wobbly) style. People thought it was dated.
Dragon Garage evolved over more than a decade; it started out as one of a cluster of ideas I came up with after doing my first graphic novel, Nil: A Land Beyond Belief. Rex Libris, Warlord of Ioand Rebel Angels (in very different proto-form) were also part of this batch. I picked Rex as an antidote to Nil, and the serialized comic book ran for 13 bonkers issues.
It took me years to work out an acceptable vector style for Warlord of Io. For Dragon Garage, I didn't think a digital look would work at all: it would have to be hand drawn.
I tried a couple goes at it, using a linear look, but the style was deemed 'old and dated', so I abandoned the effort.
Instead, I pitched it as a TV show.
By this time, I'd had a couple Hollywood options and made some contacts. I collaborated with them on some projects, and they were asking for more ideas, so I pulled out the pile in my ideas drawer. I later collaborated with an actress/writer in Berlin on a number of television concepts, which we put to studios like Sony and Disney.
Nothing substantial came of that, naturally. It's incredibly difficult for outsiders to break into the business. Writers mostly do spec scripts to get picked up by existing shows, and get a seat at a preexisting writer's room table. Comics are optioned often from highly successful series, but any film or show coming out of that will be written by seasoned professionals, not the person who originally came up with the idea.
You have to be exceptionally talented, successful and skilled to bridge that gap.And / or a self starter. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are all four of the above: they did an animated short holiday card for George Clooney (it's hilarious, look it up), and out of that was born South Park. They've not looked back since. They proved themselves in the medium by doing. No one wants to make a leap-of-faith on talent if there's a solid, proven bridge right beside it.
I am nowhere near that level, but it's something to aspire to.
Wreathed in a comforting blanket of (relative) ignorance, I made a pitch doc for Dragon Garage, and a pilot script. I workshopped it in a screenwriting class. Incorporating feedback proved a major stumbling block: good scripts are incredibly tight, and everything is connected. Pull one string, and the whole story can unravel into an unsightly pile of knots. That's a hazard you face when trying to shove new or revised material in.
I also ran it by working industry professionals. Their feedback was the same: the set up took too long, and there wasn't enough action (among other things). You have ten minutes tops to hook the viewer, likely less, and if you don't, they'll just flip to another of hundreds of streaming options.
This is one reason why I think Game of Thrones started out with a massacre by the White Walkers. That was the hook. The mystery of the albino ice goons intrigued me far more than the Stark kids practicing archery in the mud.
Yet as a novice, I found it hard to incorporate the changes. It went from (what I saw) as a lean and clean script to bumpy and messy. Changes cascaded through scenes, and every time I looked, I realized there was more that needed to be adjusted.
As far as interest in the idea, there was a nibble, and then... nothing. Which is the default, expected result when you aim for the sky.
