As a kid, nothing scared me more than the horror aisle at my local Blockbuster Video.

I would walk through it, head straight up, refusing to look from side to side. In the corners of my eyes I would catch strange demons staring at me, monsters that had been haunting my dreams since the last time I’d been forced through that particular gauntlet. But as hard as I tried not to look, they already had me. They’d crawled into the stronghold of my brain and they refused to come out. For years they festered and changed, manipulated by imagination into such unspeakable horrors that I’d yell at my friends for even just suggesting we pop in a scary movie.

It’s still funny to me that years later, when I finally embraced the horror genre, that almost none of those terrifying VHS covers lived up to what I’d imagined. I’d already written a horror movie in my head for each and every piece of box-art, and for the most part, my brain proved to be a much darker and twisted place than the horror aisle. I started looking back at those moments walking through the Blockbuster, trying to steer my way around the section, a little more fondly. Because the truth was, I could have avoided seeing any of those covers. The truth was I wanted the pulse-pounding experience of seeing vague, unspeakable horrors out of the corner of my eye. I wanted the nightmares. I never left the store without walking the horror aisle.

Now I walk it a little more deliberately.

Horror simply fascinates me, as both a consumer and a creator. It’s an entire genre designed to explore and exploit the darkest corners of our mind and dig out some deep, primal fear. Some of it is more successful than the rest, but that simply makes the challenge of making horror all the more enticing. Fear is such a deeply personal, subjective thing, the only way to really approach true horror is to dig into yourself and find the things that you fear the most. Then the challenge is to exploit that fear in a way you’ve never really seen before.

I’d only recently broken into the comics scene when I saw the potential of the Thrillbent format in action for the first time. The dynamism of the layering techniques, and the ability to change elements from swipe to swipe… It got my mind racing. I knew I wanted to write original horror comics. That had been the dream long before I wrote my first back-up story in Batman. In Thrillbent I saw the perfect opportunity to tell horror stories in a strange, new way. I didn’t know Mark Waid all that well at that point, we’d met at a convention earlier in the year, but I needed to tell him the potential I saw to do something frightening. My original pitch document for The Eighth Seal had the following section embedded in the first page:

A QUICK NOTE BEFORE WE BEGIN

Thrillbent seems tailor-made for horror in a way that traditional comics never have been. In a medium where the reader usually has the ultimate power to skim over a page, and see a frightening beat before he or she gets to it, this new potential for real jump-out-and-scare-you moments in a comic book format is tremendous. The tension of the reading experience is raised significantly… If you’re reading a horror comic on Thrillbent, you never know what that next swipe might bring. By establishing scares early in the story, each week a reader will be on the edge of their seat, not sure if they’re ready to hit that right arrow.

More than just the potential for cheap scares, though, is the chance to show reality breaking down like never before. The layering style you’ve established, where the art stays the same for multiple “pages” with a tweak that redefines it by shifting the focus, or showcasing motion, allows for a whole new method of storytelling previously reserved for film and animation… Imagine a woman looking at her reflection in the mirror, and when you swipe the page her face has changed into something inhuman… Something monstrous. And in the next swipe it changes back. That’s a moment that can be handled more effectively in a Thrillbent comic than it ever could on paper.

With THE EIGHTH SEAL I want to explore these new possibilities. I want to push the new set of tools you’re showcasing in these stories to their absolute limit.

And most of all… I want to scare people. 

I still do.

Today, we launch the fifth chapter of THE EIGHTH SEAL. Once you read it you’ll see that this chapter ratchets the series forward precariously. We have been destroying First Lady Amelia Greene’s life piece by piece, and this is the shattering point. Or at least the first of a few key shattering points in the months to come. This chapter has some of my favorite art in this series to date. All of you who have been reading our series month-to-month know that Jeremy Rock is absolutely incredible, but this chapter… Wait until you see what he’s whipped up for you. I remember when I showed Mark the breakdowns on my phone at San Diego this year. It’s my favorite moment in the series. At least until the next chapter.

This is a deeply personal story to me, as strange as that might seem. There’s nothing more frightening to me than losing control of your mind, and seeing that lack of control manifest as a creature far beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. And there’s no better format I could be telling this story in than in the Thrillbent format. I couldn’t be happier to see the response it’s gotten. It’s made me want, more than anything, to launch further series in the Thrillbent format to explore more of my deepest and darkest fears.

So, that’s the other thing I got on my soapbox to tell you crazy kids about today.

THE HOUSE IN THE WALL is an unconventional ghost story that we will be launching early in the next year here on Thrillbent.com. The series will be co-written by myself and Noah J. Yuenkel (a newcomer to the comics field, whose work I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the months and years to come), with art by the incredible Eryk Donovan. I can’t say much about the series just yet, but we’re designing it to push the Thrillbent format to the limit in a very cool and different way than we do with The Eighth Seal. I see the two stories as companion pieces of a sort, and can’t wait to see them running side-by-side on this website.

More than any kind of fiction, the stories I’ve always been drawn to tell are horror stories. I want to create horrific images that make you scroll by at top speed, trying not to catch another glimpse of the demonic creature staring right back at you on the page. And then you come back and scroll by again. And again. You try not to think about the creature, but you see it at night when you close your eyes and try to sleep. You go back to the website, thinking if you scroll by again, just a little bit slower, you might be able to let it go. You don’t want to go back there, but you have to. You need to get the monsters out of your mind.

But if you’re already afraid, they’ve found their new home.

Happy Halloween.

-James Tynion IV

Our monthly (and very popular) serial THE EIGHTH SEAL returns to Thrillbent next Thursday, but we’re trying a new experiment and reversing the distribution procedure. As always, the new chapter will be free to read–but if you’d like to jump on board today and read/download it ahead of time (and show your support for some terrific, groundbreaking work), you can do so in the storefront for a few coins. Worth every penny, says I.

(Writing 101 post, fair warning)

When we make serialized content, from comic issue to television episode, we deliver it in discrete chunks. Each of these chunks should feel somehow complete while still dragging the audience forward to the next installment. I know that over the long run you have a lot of cool stuff, well-thought out character dynamics, epic deep background, but how do we start when we’re just staring at that blank page? How do we build the basic … chunk?

First, some vocabulary. People tend to use two words interchangeably when talking about narrative structure: “plot” and “story”. E.M Forster wrote in Aspects of the Novel: “”‘The king died and the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief’, is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.” (Have you read Aspects of the Novel yet? You should. Now.)

Fair warning, I tend to alter those terms in my discussions, for purely personal reasons. “Plot” to me is the engine, the machine of causality driving the narrative. “Story”, to me, has an emotional feel. I think of Neil Gaiman stories, fairy stories, “tell me a story”, etc. “Story” is the whole package, the characters’ emotional journey, all that … feelings goop. I can abide a poorly plotted tale that winds up being a good story, but struggle to think of a bad story saved by a strong plot. No one ever walked out of a movie saying “I felt nothing, but man, the causal chain was fucking tight. Two thumbs up.”

Right, so for purposes of this and any further writing: Plot equals casual chain engine, Story equals the emotional playground, themes, etc. etc, arty bullshit.

So, when faced with the mind-devouring void of a blank page, how do I start?  Personally, I go back to basics. Plotting almost every story I’ve written (or supervised the writing of) I need to see the DISRUPTION, REVERSAL, and CONCLUSION to even begin.

THE DISRUPTION is readily apparent in episodic structure. It’s the inciting incident, the problem, the change which the characters in the show MUST deal with. In an episode of CASTLE it’s the body dropping, in an episode of LEVERAGE it’s the introduction of the case. It’s also, crucial, however, in serialized stories. In every episode of BREAKING BAD you can spot the disruption to the status quo — no matter how screwed up the status quo may be — in the first act. “I have a dude in the basement I have to murder, and I at this point still an in-over-my-head Chemistry teacher …” The Disruption is the accelerant, the problem which looms larger than all the rest for at least this little chunk of the long form story.

An old acquaintance, a former enforcer for the Irish mob in Montreal, had a great expression which anybody who’s worked with me has heard: “Is that a five-minutes-from-now problem or a twenty-minutes-from-now problem?” The full explanation, best done in a voice slurred just a bit with Bushmills, went like this …

“Some problems can wait twenty minutes. Sometimes you gotta solve a problem in the next five minutes or unpleasantness shall occur. And sometimes there’s a guy in the room with a fuckin’ knife. Deal with the guy with the fuckin’ knife, and move on from there.”

The Disruption, ideally, is the guy in the room with the fuckin’ knife. Now, it’s not necessarily that. As you move the intensity of the Disruption back in the timeline, the tone of the piece changes. “Guy in the room with a knife” gives you danger, pulp plotting. A “five minutes from now” problem gives you urgency, but control. Part of the fun is in watching the ad hoc planning your characters throw together to deal with the “five minutes from now” problem. Competence porn lives in the world of the “five minutes from now” problem.  A “twenty minutes from now” problem gives you dread.

See all those feelings? Tools in your Plot tune your Story. A good Story plays with these timelines all the time, changing things up. New problems emerge as knife/five minutes/twenty minutes problems, or the existent problems change in intensity as the Story progresses. The latter’s preferred, by the way, as you move forward in the narrative. Better to have a “twenty minutes from now” problem jump up at you than just dump a new problem in at the last minute.

Regardless, the Disruption is the main problem your character will be focused on solving for the amount of time you’re expecting the audience to pay attention. In episodic TV, the stays quo is implied (the continuing show premise or serialization), allowing you to drop the Disruption as close to the opening of the show as possible. In a TV pilot, however, you need to spend precious page weight describing the unfamiliar status quo. This is one of the reasons the pilot is rarely the best episode of a TV series.

THE REVERSAL is best described by my friend DJ McCarthey: “It’s the moment, when the movie … becomes an entirely different movie.” Too many scripts I’m submitted have a bunch of mini-reversals, the dreaded “and then” syndrome. Stuff happens, and then other stuff happens … Even in a well-plotted story when all the plot developments occur primarily because of the actions of the characters or logical but unexpected complications of the setting (the much loved SOUTH PARK creators advice “replace all moments in the outline  of ‘and then’ with ‘therefore’ or ‘but’) the story feels flat.

It’s a subtle distinction, but a good central reversal — and the middle of the story is the right place for it — always seems to elevate even a straight-ahead episodic-style story.

One of my favorite examples is ALIENS.  Their Reversal is when the missions transforms from a rescue mission to a desperate escape. In one issue of BLUE BEETLE I wrote, it’s the moment when Jaime’s problem goes from stopping the bad guy to saving lives, and realizing he’s not going to be able to save all of them.  In the LEVERAGE series finale, it’s when you realize that the story’s not about what Nate Ford did to steal medicine for a sick kid, but what he’s doing right now to steal something we don’t know about— when Sterling shows up. I’ll fully admit we didn’t pull this off every time in LEVERAGE, but we did our best.

To me — and hell, remember all this is very personal, your mileage may vary — the best reversal is the point of strongest conflict in any interpersonal conflicts in your Story. Because, remember, if you’re doing this right, the emotional Story is riding right along on top the engine of that Plot. That Disruption didn’t just introduce the change in the world’s status quo, it was the spark of whatever emotional Story you want to tell with this particular chunk. If the Disruption set up the differing opinions and viewpoints of the characters, the Reversal is what throws those conflicts into high relief. It’s the testing ground, what sets up the emotional payoff to …

… THE CONCLUSION. The end. The new status quo. Not the return of the status quo, but the new one. Whatever new equilibrium has been reached. “Equilibrium” because it’s a situation, in serialized storytelling, which should be able to be easily disrupted. The status quo is always a delicately balanced thing, little stepping stones of resolution as you leap across the river of your season-long Stories.

Even if your series is highly episodic and the Plot brings closure, the new status quo establishes the emotional balance of your continuing Story. If even a little bit, attitudes are changed, secrets revealed, the basic emotional dynamic of the characters is explored, and someone has shifted if even just a little bit. (Note: we’re talking serialized narratives here. Different purpose for the Conclusion in close-ended work.)

Narratives with no Story progress are almost impossible to sell these days, and I think that’s because the audience has moved past being simply amused by Plot, or perhaps become too meta-aware of Plot structure for it to hold their attention in a meaningful way. There are cheats, of course — “nobody ever puts down a whodunnit” is a hack we’ve been exploiting for decades now — but generally, audiences expect more than just a satisfying causal chain. They felt something. Maybe they need to see that reflected back at them by the characters.

End of day, when faced with a blank page, I start with those three ideas. Disruption / Reversal / Conclusion. FWIW, the fact that the Disruption and Conclusion are bound to each other by the nature of the Story you’re telling, I find the Reversal the most interesting piece of work in writing. The Reversal’s often more revelatory about the inner style of the writer than any other piece of their work.

The concept of Disruption/Reversal/Conclusion is fractal, of course, but we’ll discuss that in another post.

Hello all, and welcome back to a slightly different looking ARCANUM.

After the pilot story — “here’s your team, such as it is”, it’s time to dig into the meat of the ARCANUM 5-season arc. You’ll notice the art style is a bit different. This is not because we’ve changed artists. No, Todd just has multiple awesome styles in his back pocket. Clever bastard.

Old look:

New look:

(God, I love the hands in that image. Hands are a bear for artists and actors. Seriously, you can tell how good an actor is by what they do with their hands when at rest.)

The change comes about to a great degree because, over the course of the hiatus, we reconsidered the tone of the story overall. I kept talking about that 1st great season of X-FILES, where they are just suffused in that Vancouver grey. Like the X-FILES pilot our first real story happens in the Northwest.  This isn’t a matter of slavish imitation, but certainly the similarities resonated as I was plotting out this storyline. And like X-FILES we are an alien invasion story. The aliens just happen to be ancient fairy stories. (And hey, doesn’t that sketch kinda look like a grey …)

“I think we’re more a horror comic,” I said to Mark during one conversation. “Like a Vertigo book, in the old days when Vertigo meant Vertigo.” One of the main themes of ARCANUM is that magic is disruptive and scary and awful. Magic is a corruption, a rot. The big brassy high-colored 1st chapters made sense in order to give us the action look in that 1st Incursion, but as the story goes on ARCANUM very much becomes a tale of unsettling noises in the night, madness borne of broken physics. Soon we’re going to be in the realm of high-beam flashlights and basements filled with things that make you re-swallow your lunch. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS told through the DELTA GREEN lens.

So Todd is now giving us greys and washes, with slightly more impressionist backgrounds and faces very much built around the eyes and mouth. It’s more overtly an character-acting style, which fits. In particular, the Thrillbent process exploits facial expressions in an almost animatic way, which works well with this style.

It feeds back in to how I’m writing, too. Knowing we’ll be dealing with a more subdued palette, in my head I feel the action will come across as more grounded, more noir, and so I write different action sequences.  This may be more bleed over from my film background, but it’s even a matter of choosing close-shots during fights rather than wide-shots.

I’ve said before that I find comics writing brutally difficult, because you have to not just be the screenwriter but also the director and editor on every page. The artist, though, has to be the A-operator, all the actors, and the Director of Photography.  As everyone in Hollywood knows, Directors get all the juice, but the Director of Photography — the DP — is the real power on a set. In television in particular, Directors come and go on literally a weekly basis, but the DP is there for every episode. If your favorite show has a signature look, it ain’t the “directed by” guys giving you that candy. For an insight into the process, here’s an interview with the DP of BREAKING BAD.

(Bonus anecdote: On my first one-hour drama, I asked the DP what, exactly a Director of Photography does. He said “We’re the guy who stands behind the Director and whispers: “… you don’t want to do that.“)

All this echoes something Phil Hester (@philhester) recently tweeted: “The surest way to be seen as a great comic book writer is to get your claws into a genuinely great comic book artist.”

We certainly hope you enjoy the return of ARCANUM. Please do check it out, and our other fine comics like Mark Waid’s INSUFFERABLE, the dark, gritty crime drama of THE DAMNATION OF CHARLIE WORMWOOD, and the very creepy horror comic THE EIGHTH SEAL

Thrillbent is just beginning. Thanks for reading and spreading the word.

John Rogers has been in the entertainment industry for 20 years.  He created and ran the TV show LEVERAGE and wrote the comic BLUE BEETLE for DC Comics. For Thrillbent, John writes ARCANUM.  Follow him on twitter @jonrog1.