ALL PULP FOCUS-KIDS’ PULP, YAY OR NAY?

Introducing a new ALL PULP recurring event-ALL PULP FOCUS!  The purpose of this is to take up a topic within the Pulp community, much like ALL PULP  does with its panel, and broadening the focus to include other parts of ALL PULP.  This focus is on the concept of pulp for kids.  Is pulp appropriate for children?  Is there a distinct area within the genre that can be identified as ‘kids’ pulp’?  A new panel will be posted later today for the Spectacled Seven to look at this concept, but for now enjoy throughout the day reviews of stories from Martin Powell that just could be kids’ pulp….if there is such a thing..

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock
“RED RIDING HOOD: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL”
Writer-Martin Powell
Artist-Victor Rivas

One of Four Reviews of ALL PULP FOCUS-KIDS’ PULP, YAY OR NAY?

The story is the one everyone knows and that story at its most basic is a scary tale indeed.  A little girl traipsing through the woods on a humanitarian mission to her elderly grandmother, a chance encounter with a smooth talking wolf, that same wolf in grandmother’s clothing, and a slice of an axe ending the lupine evil makes the tale of Little Red Riding Hood a horror story in its own right.   What Powell and Rivas do in their graphic novel retelling of this popular legend is take that innate fear and terror to a whole new level.

Powell puts several distinct turns on this already twisted children’s tale that take it out of the realm of ‘fairy tale’ and put it squarely in the pulp area.   The story opens with an elderly woman visiting a fortune teller she’d visited before and that fortune teller giving her a warning of sorts and a gift colored in red.  The story becomes somewhat familiar at that point, the little girl wanting to visit her sick grandmother wearing the red hood made by said relative.  Where this story really takes a horrific twist is the introduction of the wolf.  Rivas’ interpretation of the wolf is basically a lot of jagged dark lines all converging into a face that is simultaneously pleasant and horrendous.  Powell continues that image by writing the Big Bad One less as a creature of the forest and more like a potential child molester grooming its prospect. 

Powell also ups the ante with Red Riding Hood, too.   She becomes the ultimate pulp heroine, facing the evil one on one and without her greatest protection even.  The final scene in the grandmother’s home and the subsequent chase through the woods on many levels had the intensity of any climactic scene in any horror movie.   Rivas’ art is as creepy as it is endearing and cute, adding to the disturbing content of a story that boils down to a little girl left alone in the woods to be ravaged by the evils in the shadows.  Well, this Red Riding Hood definitely ain’t down with that. 

The storytelling gets awkward at a couple of points and transition from scene to scene is a bit jerky, but overall RED RIDING HOOD in the hands of Powell and Rivas is a wonderfully delightful, scary ride through a children’s classic

Four out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat (usually reserved for heads of state, arresting officers, and little old ladies, which is pretty darn good.)

Consider the simple comic book page.

I know, your first thought is: this isn’t my problem. I’m the writer, not the artist. This is National Graphic Novel Writing Month. National Graphic Novel Drawing Month isn’t for a while yet.

No no no. The page is important as a unit of storytelling, and as a writer for graphic novels, you should be thinking visually to prepare for it.

Think about an hour long episode of television. Many people think of it as the five act structure, with eight or nine minute acts acts being broken up by commercial breaks. (Yes, 44 minutes of television.)

But it’s often more useful to think of it as twenty-two two minute scenes. It breaks the story down into much smaller bits, with each scene delivering some useful piece of information about the story or characters, while allowing for contrasting bits and alternating plotlines.

Think of an episode of House MD, broken up into two minute scenes.

1. Meet the patient, who collapses from something strange.

ROLL CREDITS

2. Doctors sit around table, House comes in, establishes problem.

3. Doctors meet with patient, run tests, get background info needed for the patient.

4. House gets involved in wacky scheme to get Wilson and Cuddy to appear in roadshow production of Guys & Dolls to pay for new MRI machine.

5. Doctors apply cure to patient, which fails spectacularly and leads to growth of extra arm.

END FIRST ACT, COMMERCIAL

This structure also works for comics, where you can go page by page and figure out what has to go where.

Page 1: The Green Goblin is testing his equipment, then he meets with the Enforcers to hire them to help him deal with Spider-Man.

Page 2: Goblin cuts a deal with a movie mogul to get Spider-Man to appear in a film.

Page 3: Peter Parker is at school when he hears about Goblin flying over New York; he excuses himself to change.

Page 4: Spidey meets Goblin, Goblin pitches the movie deal.

Page 5: Spidey goes to movie mogul, haggles over the deal, and signs to make sure he has money for Aunt May’s medicine. The Goblin lurks in the background, noting that Spidey is falling into his trap.

Simple sounding? Sure. And yet, that’s pretty much how Amazing Spider-Man #14 introduced the Green Goblin to the world.

In addition, the end of the page is a natural break point in your story, a good place to bring a scene to an end, while your reader is turning the page.

So take a look at how other people use the page in their writing– then try it in your own work.

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p class=”MsoNormal” style=”margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;”>Remember: you can follow all the NaGraNoWriMo posts here!

So, what are you planning on doing May 3, 2013? On or about that day, unless I’ve gone to a preview, I’ll probably be seeing Iron Man 3.

If that seems like a long time, it’s only a year (almost to the day) after Iron Man and Tony Stark appear in The Avengers movie.

Amusingly, Disney will be distributing both movies. Whereas they own Marvel, the distribution rights on these projects is still in Paramount’s hands so, according to Box Office Mojo, Disney is coughing up at least $115 million to assume the privilege. It wasn’t too long ago that you could buy all of Marvel for that kind of money. Paramount maintains distribution rights to this year’s Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.

No word about cast and villains, although Robert Downey Jr. is contractually expected to repeat in the lead.