COMMENTARY:
Inked by DICK AYERS!
SOUND EFFECTS!
More exciting sound effects in panel one, including “Buh-Choo”, B-CHOW”, the “chugga-chugga” of a railroad train, “guh guh guh”, and karate noises such as “pok” and “buk”. And bullets riccocheting with a “vip vip vip” (pronounced “Vee Aye PEE”).
PANEL COMPOSITIONS
Narratively, I wanted to show that Doris was trying to take pictures in every panel, but I needed to leave room for all the action she was taking pictures of. I was new at drawing comics, so you’ll notice I just crammed her very similarly into the left corner of the first three panels.
“THE FEZZIES”
Panel two introduces what I’ve come to call “The Fezzies.” However, the more politically correct term that I often use is “The Fez-Wearing Men.” I didn’t ever read up much on secret societies, however the image of a Fez-Wearing Man in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and this idea that he had this secret order to protect who-in-the-hell-knows-or-cares-what, and he’s doing it by sneaking around through ancient catacombs and labyrinths deep below all our prominent buildings around the globe, and he’s supposedly so secret that no one even knows about this ancient order, even though he’s running around with a fez on his head and there isn’t one other person in history that ever did that, let alone now, so he sticks out like a sore thumb – I thought this was such a fun and ludicrous and exciting idea, and it just seemed to fit perfectly for these Doris Danger comics.
(Above: Still from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), dir. Steven Spielberg
“AT LEAST THREE” SPLUHH MONSTERS
You’ll notice they talk about “the others.” My thinking at the time was to imply there were many giant Spluhh monsters, and that would explain why I had introduced so many other names (Asploop, Splazoo, and on the next panel, Spampoo). I hammered this home in panel three, with Doris believing she saw some other giant monsters in the cave. And of course the dialogue we overhear, referencing “we seven”.
However (SPOILER that may not surface for years!), I’ve since realized (i.e., “decided”), that when you hear “We seven may proceed”, this voice emanating from the cave is actually NOT the monsters talking to one another! It’s NOT a stuttering voice, right? Someone ELSE is talking in there! This is a reference to something else, something very specific that is a major part of the Doris Danger story. And who knows, it may never be revealed, at the speed I’m going – unless I can tell an awful lot more of stories.
HOW THE DORIS DANGER STORY DEVELOPS
But this is kind of a major idea-generating concept of the creation of Doris Danger. The comic’s structure is such that I can basically stream-of-conscious brainstorm kooky ideas and just draw them as I go. And later on, while mulling over all these disparate and insane and often really stupid elements, it becomes a brain puzzle, trying to make sense of it all. So that I can say, Well, as dumb as that is, it WOULDN’T be dumb if THIS is why it’s happening. And then it would tie in with THIS.
Now keep in mind, I’ve basically had all these stories stewing in my head since 2002, and even though I’ve done many other projects, Doris’s adventures are always lulling in the background of my mind. I’m constantly realizing connections or explanations for scenes, and jotting them down in a notebook that is literally hundreds of pages thick now. All plots, gags, story ideas, explanations, or greater details of what has come so far. And it’s all pretty carefully mapped out and explained in my head at this point, and fitting together mind-bogglingly well, considering the way I just described of making it cohesive. But even so, just yesterday (December 2010) I found myself realizing there was yet another hole that needed an explanation, and realizing the hole was an opportunity to brainstorm about it and come up with a solution.
ORIGINAL CONCEPT, BEFORE IT DEVELOPED TO WHAT IT IS NOW
But none of this was my intent at the story’s conception, while I wrote and drew this page. During this earliest stage and first story, I was just trying to come up with whacky, seemingly idiotically random events that made the story look like there was a bigger picture that the reader couldn’t possibly know in entirety, because that’s what I thought you were supposed to do when you write conspiracy-theory fiction where “perhaps this is only the TIP of the iceberg!”, AND I was pretending the story “had been running so long in Tabloia Weekly Magazine, and you were just getting one of possibly hundreds or thousands of on-going chapters.”
GIGGLING SCIENTIST
I found there to be something unnerving about a scientist in a lab coat, wielding some odd mechanical remote-control or joy-stick type device, amidst all the crazy action – to suggest he may be orchestrating or controlling some of the madness. I just threw him into the story, not really aware yet how his character would evolve into something big. I took his likeness from Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s “Vandoom, the Man who Made a Creature,” from Tales to Astonish #17 (Atlas Comics, 1961).
ED WOOD INSPIRATION
As for panel four, it was heavily influenced by the 1994 Tim Burton biographical film of filmmaker Ed Wood. Ed Wood (played by Johnny Depp) was trying to raise money for his next film, (Bride of the Monster – probably my favorite Ed Wood film) and he found a financier, but this guy felt the film should end with a really big explosion. This guy, he didn’t care what the story was, or what it was about. He just wanted to see a big explosion at the end. Romance? Comedy? Tear-jerking emotional drama? Didn’t matter – let’s see something blow up. So in the film, Bela Lugosi (played by Martin Landau) fell into what looked like maybe a drying creek-bed, and then was eaten by an octopus, and something huge blew up and the titles announced, The End. What a film!
Here is the full ending to Bride of the Monster on Youtube (the utterly unexplainable explosion is at 2:45, and you can witness just what a laughably terrible climax this is, with Bela Lugosi rolling in a puddle with a fake octopus. So this all made me understand, that producer was absolutely right! A big explosion is a fantastic way to end ANY film! So I wanted an explosion in the end of this story! And I thought, what better explosion than a volcano exploding! And wouldn’t it be even COOLER if UFO’s were flying out of the explosion??! What imagery!
THE SHOCKING CLIFFHANGER ENDING!
And as for panel five … what a shocking twist (!!!), if it appears that some strange, giggling scientist (wearing a stereotypical white lab coat) is holding a remote control, and could possibly be controlling the UFO like children in a playground with model airplanes!… What could it possibly all mean??! As I mentioned, I didn’t care at the time what it meant, although now it’s all become basically the whole reason for the whole story.
And what a cliffhanger on panel six, with the FBI catching Doris! He didn’t even SEE the scientist, who’s bolting away from the scene with his remote control!
Panel seven, all text. I had planned to do this from the beginning. In fact, it was the first thing I wrote in my notes, after the text for the splash page. (See page 005 – Script for those notes.) This is a technique that appeared in particular in the comics Kirby wrote himself.
YOU CAN’T DARE MISS NEXT ISSUE!
Here are some samples, from Miracle Man 8 (DC Comics, 1972), New Gods 8 (DC Comics, 1972), and Kamandi 31 (DC Comics, 1975):
Using these as my model, it was important to me to reiterate as many of the mysteries in the story as I could in that last panel. Because I’d created a story that a reader, hopefully, couldn’t possibly follow it all. And the thought at the time was, most likely I’d never explain any of them anyways. It was my way of saying, “Look at all these crazy plot twists! What in the heck could possibly be going on??! I don’t even care, so long as you thought it was fun! Aren’t we all enjoying ourselves, everybody?” And it was an exercise to see – CAN we enjoy ourselves, if we don’t know what’s going on? Can we enjoy just seeing a piece of a story so big and crazy that we can’t possibly have any idea all the absurd plot elements streaming through it?
I tried to make sure the reader was asking her/himself: who, what, why, where, when. Looks like I didn’t fit in “when,” but I managed to add the recurrent question, “did?”
DICK AYERS INKS
I sent this five-page story to Dick Ayers on 11/1/02, Basically having completed it (the whole Doris Danger idea and brainstorms and themes, writing and drawing this five-page story) in a month. They came back in the mail 11/11. When I got the inks back from Dick, I really enjoyed what he’d done. On the giant monster splashes, page two and four, he added all those cross hatches and blackness in the sky. On page three, first two panels, he added all the black in the background. Generally he blacked more areas out and used more feather-lines to shade. It was interesting as an artist who was only beginning to make comics, to see the choices he’d made.
When Dick returned the first story, he included a note that said how much he enjoyed inking the story, and how it took him back. He said if I wanted to do any other stories, he’d be up for it.
That was kind of my fantasy, that we could continue this feature. I immensely enjoyed the concept, story, and my tries at emulating the King Jack Kirby’s artwork. I had already begun brainstorming other kooky ideas for kooky stories. I immediately replied I’d put two more five page stories in the mail as soon as I could finish them.
