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| Page 3 from "The Unexpected, Uninvited, Unwanted Guest" with inks from Monica Gallagher |
At
least one term of "independent study" is required as part of my
Master's program. You must arrange a faculty advisor, propose a syllabus
and action plan. Many people use this as an opportunity to research or
prepare for their thesis project. I deliberately did the opposite.
Looking
to get the most out of my experience (learn more, do more), I created a
course "Same story, different medium" which focused on--in simplest
terms--adaptations. But not adaptations in the sense of "here's a movie,
and here it is adapted into a comic book." But here's a story, and
here's how it's told as a movie, and here's how it's told as a comic
book. It's an important nuance.
The idea came to me during my playwriting class reading Susan Glaspell's one act play Trifles.
After the success of the play, she rewrote it as a short story "A Jury
of Her Peers." While reading the play, I recognized it as an episode
from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was really interesting to me how each version took advantage of its medium, and away we went.
In
addition to reading and watching many stories written in different
mediums, I worked on a creative project in three forms: a comic short, a
teleplay, and a short story. In each case, I tried my best to work from
my root planning documents rather the completed versions (not always
easy!). I wrote the comic short first (so I could draw it), then wrote
the teleplay, then the short story. The first two were solid, the last
the weakest... not only is it my weakest story-telling muscle, but I
simply ran out of time. Ultimately, it was helpful to retell the story
in different medium. I found the creative process confusing at times (to
keep each version clear) but my ideas started feeding and growing
faster. In hindsight, I think I'd have scaled back on the reading and
watching and preserved more time for the creative... if I had to stick
to the length of the term. Or, I'd have get the syllabus intact and
lengthened the term!
Once
again, I got to develop an idea that had been stuck in my head for
years, never the opportunity to work on it until now. "The Unexpected,
Uninvited, Unwelcome Guest" is about an alien who crashes a dinner
party. It's a story about the inevitability of change and how we deal
with it (or not). The story also has racial undertones... tolerance,
acceptance, and struggles to do both.
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