It might not look like much, but here's the first glimpse of The Battle Of Bosworth as shared with members of the mailing list and my Kickstarter supporters. Soon the ranks should be filled with the faces of various sponsors, who'll get the chance to stab or be stabbed on the field of battle. Should be fun.
Meanwhile yesterday, on Friday 18th August, I finished writing the book. Hooray. I'm not sharing this information too widely cos, frankly, you'd have expected me to finish writing it before I started the Kickstarter, but that's the way it's worked this time round. In fact I got most of the writing done over just a a two day period this week. Getting your head down and getting stuck into the task is really what it takes. Oh yes, and then drawing the damn thing, which is what takes all the time.
Looking back at my previous works-in-progress, I see that Findlay Macbeth took me nine days to write, 5 days to lay out the pages, then a month to draw all 120 pages.
Prince Of Denmark Street scripted in five days, 7 days to lay out, and approx a month to draw (not accurately recorded in the blog I'm afraid). The Midsummer Night's Dream Team was another nine days to write, 6 days to lay out, and approx a month to draw (a bit more spread out, MNDT took from June 5th's Treatment to Oct 1st book assembled).
The initial three graphic novels had an interesting production background, of course. Findlay Macbeth was begun at the end of 2019, and drawn through the quiet work months of January; PODS was at the start of lockdown, with nothing to distract me, so completed in the shortest time; and MNDT coincided with my growing schedule of Zoom classes and Socks shows, as lockdown continued.
Richard The Third was conceived as a notion during the Macc Pow comic festival on July 1st and by the following weekend I'd scripted and drawn the first 10 pages. I then wrote the first chapter and drew 16 complete pages, and rather excitedly launched the Kickstarter. For the very first time I was running a Kickstarter for a book I hadn't even finished writing. But I knew what I wanted to write. But I suddenly got a bit busy.
July saw a busy schedule of classes and comic festivals, including a few nights away, followed by the busiest August which will see me having done 13 days of schools, including lots of nights away including a week in Northern Ireland, all of which served to delay me getting down to actual writing, but doing a lot of mulling. And video watching - I watched Ian McKellen's Richard III in my hotel room at Belfast Airport, and have gone through innumerable performances, a good few study notes, and lots of research reading.
I have to confess the hardest part of the revision for Richard The Third is working out who the hell everyone is. Did quite so many Royal people have to be called Edward and Richard? So when Richard kills Edward, then later kills another Edward, and is reminded he's earlier killed another Richard - and his brother Clarence is also called George - well, it gets a bit much. You can see why so many productions amalgamate characters or do away with them entirely. If only Shakespeare had used the "some characters have been invented for dramatic purposes" get out of jail card, he's have saved us a lot of extraneous characters.
For my part, I've played up the role of Buckingham - Jim Broadbent in the Ian McKellen version - in a way that I think gives us a nice relationship to develop through the course of the story, not leaving Richard quite so isolated as he'd otherwise be.
It's been a treat for me to get a Shakespeare play back in my head, and reminded me how pleased I was with my previous books. It was selling them at comic and book festivals that really encouraged me to get back into writing them again. If Richard The Third gets any positive response, I really hope I'll have the impetus to finally get round to finishing Twelfth Thing (which exists as rough notes and plot, written back at the end of 2020, derailed by the end of lockdown) and maybe even get started on The Merchants Of Leicester.
One thing at a time. Richard The Third artwork resumes very soon. 16 pages drawn, 100-and-a-bit (not sure of total length yet) still to go.
Update: Took pages with me on my 4 days away in Nottingham and Derby and, on the Wednesday night, got two pages drawn! Result.
Richard The Third - Kickstarter runs until August 31st. Join The Battle Of Bosworth!
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