Sneak peak at a (probably) upcoming project, with a key (if obvious) lesson for freelancers! (Patreon)

So!

A few months back, I got an offer from Udon Productions to write a Street Fighter one-shot featuring the popular, kinda-sorta-new-to-me character "Juri."  As I am rarely if ever offered the opportunity by any company to even pitch on writing a comic, I jumped at the chance to dip my toe into the "writing-only"  end of comics production again.

Right off the bat, however, I rather foolhardily chose to pursue a rather premature workflow on this freelance gig that I knew could wind up biting me in the butt; details to follow, as you'll see.

Anyhoo, I worked up a story idea, crafted it into a two-page pitch synopsis, and sent that along to Udon to (eventually) get approval from the license holders at Capcom. Ah, but in the meantime, I got fired up about the prospect of working solely as a writer for a li'l bit, as opposed to the seemingly endless and so far fruitless effort to develop a viable "digital workflow" process for projects I would draw myself.

So, in what I thought was a properly calculated risk, I optimistically proceeded to lay out all the one-shot's pages and then worked up all the dialogue and panel descriptions into a finished script. I went even further to redraw my loose page layouts into a series of tight, partially colored thumbnails, as seen here years ago in earlier posts on projects Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell and the abortive Empowered and the Mask City Meltdown:

This old approach isn't a particularly efficient use of my precious and limited worktime, TBH, but I thought I'd try "tight thumbs" out one more time to see how long they would take me. 

I had already timed out exactly how long the script's predictably time-consuming panel descriptions had taken (15:15 work hours total, BTW), so I did the same with these thumbnails (12:45 total, over two workdays).

The original layout pages were roughed out "full-size" at 8.5" X 13" or so, then redrawn in this smaller format after I had finished the script's dialogue and panel descriptions.

Adding color to the "tight thumbs" wasn't necessary in the slightest (and again, required more worktime) but I liked the look, so what the heck.

And here's the next set of four thumbnails; note that showing this sequence isn't particularly SPOILER-iffic, for reasons soon to be revealed:

(Note also that much of the bright violet in this second set of thumbnails was added in Photoshop after I scanned in the analog media originals.)

I had elected to work Street Fighter Big Bad "M. Bison" (or "Balrog" if you prefer the original Japanese nomenclature) into this one-shot because he's a key if not all-important figure in Juri's history and, hey, he's always appearing in Udon's SF comics, so this shouldn't be a problem, right?

Right?

Right...? 

Wrong!

Turns out that, for continuity reasons of some sort, Capcom wanted no appearances by M. Bison at all in this one-shot, which seemed a bit of a death blow to a story wholly dependent on his appearance. Whoops!

The lesson here, which I already knew but had carelessly ignored in my (over)enthusiasm, was that you should never sink extensive worktime into writing or drawing a work-for-hire story with a plot that hasn't yet been approved by the license holder; otherwise, as happened here, your work might well have been rendered essentially useless.

TBH, I was thinking of posting this preview under Failed Project Friday after this unfortunate setback, but Udon editor Matt Moylan suggested a narrative alternative that might just work. I was a tad dubious of the suggestion at first but, after writing a quick dialogue pass with the first few pages of an alternative Big Baddie replacing M. Bison, I have to admit that said alternative does seem entirely viable after all.

A revised plot synopsis is going out to Capcom as I write up this post; with luck, perhaps this ill-starred effort might still avoid ending up in a future Failed-Project Friday post!

Regardless of this one-shot's fate, though, I'm still glad that I worked up this story, as I found the work mostly enjoyable (or at least tolerable) and fulfilling, in contrast to the maddening frustration of so far futilely struggling to establish some kind of (possibly mythical) "viable workflow" for comics drawn by me. 

So, as noted before, this one-off freelance gig started me thinking about doing more "writing-only" comics work in the immediate future, as I have roughly a bajillion different story ideas that aren't ever going to seen if I remain dependent on my own drawing availability (or lack thereof). 

In the aftermath of the Juri near-debacle, a long-standing fantasy comic pitch (one never addressed in detail here, BTW) is stumbling towards Possibly Actually Happening with an artist whose work I admire greatly, while I'm working up a rather less likely, mainstream-adjacent proposal with another artist whose work I also admire greatly. Also, as seen here the weekend before last, I'm mulling over switching The Chaste and the Chained to a "writing-only" project as well; thanks much for your artist suggestions, dear Patrons, which I've not yet had the chance to explore in detail due to other pressing matters occupying my attention (including this unfortunate Juri situation).

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH, but something should be coming up in the next M/W/F slot. Let's find out together, shall we?

UPDATE: In fact, I have some (arguably) mandated content to post here before the end of November, so Wednesday should see a Distressed Damsels update for the $5+ tiers and Thursday the 30th will likely feature the month's Exclusive Bonus Post for the $10 & $20 tiers. (No idea about Friday, though.)