Unseen, Unpublished: Emergents

Some of you who have stuck around since the early days of this Patreon might remember a mystery project that I talked about some time ago, which I eventually parted ways with because NFTs were involved. It was an amicable split. My longtime friend Brian David-Marshall created and was running the project, using his Emergents characters, which he developed for a trading card and online game system.

Brian asked me to write and do the layouts for a 24-page comic that would introduce the characters and their environs. He was looking for a more old school kind of superhero approach, traditionally-told, meat and potatoes stuff along the lines of the Bronze Age comics we grew up on.  This job came at a time when we really needed money badly and things were looking grim, Sarah was seeing doctors, and I didn't have much on my plate. I think that's also when we were going through a serious car buying/repairing nightmare (or dealing with the fallout). So, it was a welcome opportunity.

The layouts were going to be used by Emergents artist/designer Steve Ellis, who does really good superhero work. I was doing the layouts in 6-8 page chunks, working in all of the various characters (and the various sections of the city they operated in) while following a story throughline that Brian fed me. This was a character's search for a missing hero, following her around the city, encountering  -- or evading -- the Emergents roster of heroes, villains, mercenaries and wild cards.

It was a fun gig, I enjoyed doing working on it. As always, my very rough layouts got a bit tighter in places as I over-worried about whether or not they were communicating things well enough. After sending in a chunk of layouts I would then type up the dialog for those pages, and so on, until finishing up. I was familiar with the Emergents characters (and our kid played the online game while it was active) but not the backstories and world. I had the detailed Emergents bible and character guide to work from, as far as powers, personalities and relationships went. Brian's throughline helped a lot, of course, and I was constantly shooting him questions and ideas for his answers and editorial help. It was a lot like working on the WB animated stuff, a lot of plot and motivation ideas were already in place before you start putting things together in detail, adding meat to the bones.

An additional aspect of the project was a bit daunting. Not only did each panel need to move the story forward, but it also needed to be useful as a card for the game. Meaning, there needed to be a central image that could be turned into card art. So every panel needed to focus on a character, a character interaction or the use of a character's power. I think we could have a few location-centric images, I'd have to go through the layouts.

But, basically, the story had to be on the move as much as possible, establishing shots, action shots, dramatic shots. Nobody could sit still and drink a soda or talk to a bunch of kids or anything like that. It turned out to not be as difficult as expected, because the comic had very little room for kibbitzing. Even if two characters were just talking, that could conceivably be used as a card as "getting intel/information" or "convincing cooperation" or whatever the heck. This approach also meant that the pages had to be fairly uniform, we used a six-panel grid throughout. If I remember correctly I think we did have a few larger panels that were designed to be split up, placing important imagery on either side of the panel. The card aspect of the job did make for a few roadblocks and wrong turns as I worked on the layouts. On the one hand, it played into the "old school" approach well enough (six panel grid), on the other, it was confining and didn't allow for breaking actions down too much.

The publisher was InterPop, the game was Emergents TCG  -- I had to look that up because I could never remember any of that stuff. I just dealt with the story on what was going to be the intro online comic. I wasn't involved with the gaming end of it, Magic The Gathering and collectible card games is something I just never got into or got the hang of. I have friends who are into it, Brian especially. He's a name in Magic The Gathering circles and ran the real world, physical gaming site Neutral Ground in NYC (he's also who I turned to while working on the MTG-related material for Jerry in the last Eltingville story). I was even less knowledgeable about what blockchains or NFTs were when I started on the work.

Brian explained some of it to me in the early stages but it went in one ear and out the other. As many of you know, computer and tech stuff are some of my many Kryptonites. I can't remember exactly when NFTs emerged online and to the tech and general public, but I was either close to finishing up the gig or done with it. Long story short, NFTs were not for me. I felt bad because Brian had really helped us out and I enjoyed the work, on top of that, the plan was for me to do some more work on the project. And the money was good, by the way. But I couldn't continue, and I wasn't sure what to do about the work I'd already turned in. I liked Emergents just fine, but I didn't want to be a part of NFTs.

I talked to Brian about it. He told me about proof-of-stake NFTs (had to look the term up) which at the time was being promoted as being less problematic as far as environmental imprint went (or, in some cases, as being "safe", without any environmental impact). I think he was banking on that working out for the best. Anyway, he understood my position, and I told him I wasn't going to sign on for additional work. I couldn't ask him to spike the work I did, and wouldn't expect Interpop to bury it and eat the money they paid me (not to mention Steve Ellis -- he was turning in finished pages by that time).

I was in a weird position, and, as usually is the case, I worried about it a lot. I wasn't in a position to promote the work without feeling like a hypocrite. I wasn't sure what people would think when the project was announced. As it turned out, I was worried over nothing. In the end, the intro comic was spiked. I don't know how much of it was InterPop or Brian deciding to go with different material, or Brian rethinking things (partly?) because of my position and our friendship. There's always the chance that the work was seen as sub-standard, but I don't think that was it. It went through Brian, and the pages look good. I don't know! I haven't asked Brian. I don't think it's a sore spot but I haven't brought it up. 

For me, it was a bummer, but at least I was paid for the work -- and in the end, I didn't have to talk to anyone about my involvement with NFTs. I didn't follow the Emergents release online, I know some well-known comics people worked on some of the stuff, but I never got around to checking it out. I do know the project shut down a few months ago. Brian still owns the characters so maybe they'll pop up again in some format someday, and maybe I'll work with him again on it. Anything's possible as long as you're still alive (except for finding a spot in the parking lot by my neurologist's office).

Anyway, I have 24 pages of layouts on my computer, some bare-bones, some scritchy-scratchy and some just plain ol' basic rough sketches. I also have dialog scripts on file. I'd like to post the stuff here once I have it in order (and have the time). Hopefully it will be of some interest, at least to any process wonks out there. I also have some of Steve Ellis's pages on the computer, so I can show some of the finished work as well.

This post was a happy accident, though. I haven't looked in the Emergents file for some time, but I tripped over it today while looking for something else. I enjoyed looking through some of the files and playing "What If?". We shall see what emerges. Har har! 

Comics!