I just recently dropped By Taylor Phan, a Patreon exclusive (for now anyway), that I had written for the Killer Shorts Horror Short Screenplay Competition. It didn’t win, otherwise this would be a completely different post, but after a reread of the script, I felt like a short analysis/afterword could serve as a bit of insight.
Category: personal
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Narrative Distance Theory
‘I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing truly what you really felt, rather than what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel, was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced. In writing for a newspaper you told what happened and, with one trick and another, you communicated the emotion aided by the element of timeliness which gives a certain emotion to any account of something that has happened on that day; but the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or in ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always, was beyond me and I was working very hard to get it.’
Ernest Hemingway, 1932
It feels weird to write something like this when I haven’t really written anything substantial myself, but then again Jean-Luc Godard got his start in film criticism before making Breathless, so I guess I’ll go in real quick.
Whoa.
Certainly one way to put it. But I suppose it’s more fun to keep going.
Reading this might shatter any verisimilitude you might have for the story. Everything that follows is wholly worthless and unnecessary to begin with.
Pretty much the title. Scroll around and see all the stuff I write and draw and all that good stuff.
If you’d like, you can support me on Patreon!
If Patreon isn’t your thing, then you can support me through commissions, so hit me up if you want me to draw you up something nice! 🙂
Simple black and white drawing – $15
Waist up, colored – $30
Author of Existential Terror and Breakfast Rev. Fitz wrote a first impressions piece on the first chapter of my web serial, Entirely Presenting You.
Click here to check it out and read what he has to say.
On to my own brief thoughts about his own brief thoughts.
For me, the most important aspect of a web serial is its writing. Bad web design can be forgiven, bad art can be overlooked, if the writing and quality of the story can surpass those limitations. And that seems to be the case for Rev. Fitz. The writing worked (really happy about that) but the chapter one’s cover threw him off (which I completely understand).
At least he liked the banner image, that’s my favorite piece I’ve done for the site.
But, regarding bad design, bad art, that is not the case with everybody.
This wasn’t the first time this issue was brought up to me. And I get it, I really do. It betrays the tone of the chapter, the supposed ‘light’ nature of it doesn’t quite convey what happens later in the story, much less what happens later in that very same chapter.
I wonder how many people I’ve turned off from reading my serial because of one image? They scrolled down, saw her face, and scrunched theirs, and immediately left the page. Probably more than I think.
To (briefly) defend the art, I have to say I like it for the very same reasons Rev. Fitz said it might turn others away. It’s bright, off-kilter. It doesn’t quite convey what happens later in the story, much less what happens later in that very same chapter. I like contrast, how things don’t quite add up. How they clash, rather than work together. Maybe I’m just that type of person. As for the Japanese tropey-ness, well, that’s ingrained me, a part of my artistic identity. Nothing can be done about that.
Also, regarding her expression, the pointing to her mouth. She was drinking at the beginning of the story, and pointing… well, it’s to convey she wants to drink something else.
It’s blood, by the way.
Other details of the art hint at other events to come in that chapter. Take a look at red line that comes out of her left arm, and compare it with the very first piece of promotional art for Entirely Presenting You.
The left arm, the blood, the Morse code.
I dare not point out anything else.
So the cover art, for me, has an artistic purpose. It doesn’t mean it has to be good. I could drop the art down to the bottom, and do the same with all the other cover arts that precede the first chapter of their respective arcs. Maybe, I might remove the art entirely, if it has done more damage turning people away than I expected. And I expect a lot. There’s still a home for the art, in the gallery page.
If anything, my only qualm about the art is that it could be better. I’m generally not a fan of my own art, and I recognize the flaws that plague my attempts at drawing. As it stands, it’s fine, but if it’s stopping people from making it to even the first sentence, then it’s unacceptable.
I’m not quite sure what to do about it, myself.
All in all, I appreciate Rev. Fitz for powering through the cover art, and reading the first chapter. And I highly appreciate Rev. Fitz for having a good impression of the writing itself, which is the more important matter.
I’m an artist, first and foremost, so I’ll continue to pursue drawing, and I’ll probably continue to make cover art for the coming arcs of Entirely Presenting You. Just know that I’m aware of the impact they’ve had on potential readers, and that I totally understand why people say what they say about it. I can take critique, it’s a part of being an artist. I guess it’s just a case of, ‘oh well, shoulda done it right the first time.’
Or never tried at all.
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Entirely Presenting You- スタート！！
This is crazy. It’s here, guys. Finally here. My web serial has finally debuted.
I wish I could say more, talk about it, but I’m too excited for myself to say anything substantial at the moment.
Click here to start. Just… check it out if you can.
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Big Announcement!
Hey, this is Nippoten. This is pretty much my first real blog post that isn’t artwork, so this feels kind of weird. But hey, I’ll deal.
Right, let’s get to the point.
On Saturday, October 1st, I’ll be starting up my web serial, Entirely Presenting You. Dumb title, I know, but whatever. This is actually something I’ve been working on in the background for almost a year now, so it’s crazy to me that it will soon see the light of day.
The story will be found here, so be sure to check it out when the time comes.
And… that’s about all I have for now. I’ve got some teaser stuff I’m working on right now that I’m really excited to share, so hopefully I can get those out soon. I wish I could do the whole mysterious, elusive artist thing and do a bunch of weird cryptic stuff as a form of an announcement, but I don’t exactly have the audience for that. Or an audience at all.
So, yeah. October 1st. See you then.
