Anyhoo, I’m close to launching the interactive iPad optimized web app edition of my SuperSpud digital comics.

I thought I’d share a sneak preview of the three comics that will launch with the app. Particularly, their covers!

Thanks Eric!

What makes a compelling story?

In my experience, the three most important elements in making a compelling story are A) a relatable protagonist (more on that in a sec) who has [B)] a clearly defined and emotionally-driven goal or goals as well as C) interesting situations and circumstances separating them from that goal. If we like our protagonist and understand what he/she wants, then we will root for them and want to watch the story unfold.

What are common mistakes people make in storytelling?

In moviemaking these days, one of the most common mistakes I see is the belief that you MUST stick to the three act structure, or the Hero’s Journey or the Save The Cat structure or some other book of story development. Knowing these structures and techniques is all well and good, (In fact, it’s downright recommended to deal with executives) but it should be remembered that they are just tools and not the end all be all. In the last 3 years, I have seen dozens of (usually big-budget) movies destroyed by trying too hard to adhere to some structure or another. Storytelling is not some science or logic puzzle – it’s just about telling a good story!

Another trap that’s really easy to fall into in storytelling is getting too ‘claustrophobic’: after months of working on the same story, you start to get bored. You start to get antsy. You start feeling like your whole story is stale and boring and you begin changing things just to make it different. Before too long you’ve chucked out everything that was good in the first place!

One reminder I always give myself is this: Remember why you like your story. Just because you’re bored of something after 6 months of it doesn’t mean it’s boring – that’s just part of the process!

Another easy mistake to make in storytelling is doing things because they’re ‘cool’ instead of because it makes the story better. It’s the syndrome that comes from someone saying “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?”

If you ever find yourself adding a moment or a character or a scene or anything because “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”, make sure to assess it and ask yourself “Is this really necessary?” Because, yes, it would be cool to have a car chase through the flea market, but why a car chase? Why the flea market? If you can find a way to relate the car chase to the rest of the story (and most importantly, the protagonist’s goal), then go right ahead! But if you’re just doing it because you think it would be cool.. well, it might not be the right fit for this movie!
Which leads me to my next point…

Don’t be afraid to cut scenes, characters or other elements! I know that you love that character. I know that you love that scene. But if it doesn’t seem like it’s working, maybe it’s not right for this movie. I can think of a half-dozen times that I’ve tried to keep a character in a story because I love writing him, but ultimately he holds the story back. Sometimes you just need to put a character on the shelf and wait until you find the right project.

What makes a character relatable?

Ahhh character relatability, that’s a funny and tricky subject.

Relatability is, as it says right in the word, how much you can relate to any given character. Now, this doesn’t mean that a relatable character is EXACTLY like someone in your audience. That’d be boring! For a character to be relatable, it needs one simple thing: A goal driven by a strong emotion or connection to another character.

It doesn’t matter if your character is a space pirate; if his goal is motivated by his love for his father or his desire to prove himself to the universe, your audience will be able to relate to him. Sure, they may not know what it’s like to be a space pirate or fly through the vacuum, but they’ll be able to relate to having a father or having someone they’re insecure around.

If you can find the emotional reasons driving your protagonist, the relatability will come from there. Oftentimes, the strongest characters are driven by strong central emotions: The desire to succeed, a thirst for adventure, a quest for knowledge, the belief that love will triumph over all, revenge…

If you can find an emotional drive (commonly called your character’s “engine”) that resonates with you it will do wonders for the relatability of your character.

A graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Eric Stirpe is a screenwriter and filmmaker originally from Rhode Island now living and working in Los Angeles. By day, Eric works on the story team at Divide Nine Animation, where they are working on their first animated feature. Eric is also just finishing his first live-action screenplay, a comedy about a radio station in 1950s Canada, which is being produced by The Ben Proudfoot Co. and should go into production later this year.

Angry Birds is the digital cultural reference for this release. In case you aren’t familiar with Wells’ classic, Martians resembling octopi invade Earth. The vision of Martians dropping from the sky made me think of the birds being sling shot into the pigs in the Angry Birds game.

However, I initially worked on a totally different idea for this cover. Email spam. Well, it’s like an invasion. My concept had many cans of Spam (the food item) —with an octopus on the label— invading the Earth.

Fortunately, I thought of and proceeded with the Angry Birds concept. I like it very much! Not sure was Wells would think, though!

I had also originally planned a companion release. The script of the famous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles (no relation). I had planned to continue with the Angry Birds theme but using a caricature of Orson. Alas, I had discovered that the script is in fact not in the public domain.

Anyhoo, here’s the pencil sketch of my Orson Welles caricature.

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells is available for free in both .epub and .mobi format.

My 4th Sketchbook Video has me flipping through my watercolour Moleskine sketchbook from sometime in 2008 or 2009 (I really should add dates in my sketchbooks).

In spite of having grown up frustrated with the medium, I was inspired by the beautiful watercolour work by Calvin & Hobbes creator, Bill Watterson. I thought perhaps I should give watercolours another try. Plus, it gave me an excuse to buy the watercolour Moleskine.

Also featured in this video is a wordless comic strip mystery. Can you figure out what is happening in the story?

My latest sketchbook video features the sketchbooks I used to draw my Snert Oh No web comic in 2010.

I’d draw a one-panel comic during the 1.5 hour wait for my Toastmasters meeting every Wednesday after work. Then I used my iPhone for photographing, post-processing and posting (until a suitable app came along) it on snertohno.com (I wanted to use my laptop as little as possible). You can read all about it on my blog from way back when.

I enjoyed the challenge of drawing in ink without means to erase any mistakes. It sharpens your drawing skills. You’ll see evidence of that in the video – I call them retakes.

I mentioned my 2007 trip to Paris in my last Sketchbook Video. So the sketchbook I used during my trip is featured in my latest episode (I like how that sounds. I guess I’m a video podcaster now).

It’s a Paris Moleskine City notebook. I highly recommend these little things. They are the tour guide you create yourself!

You’ll see quite the strange colour palette I used in this sketchbook. That’s the fault of some Japanese markers I bought in a Japanese store in Pairs (go figure!). They came in weirdest combination. Though frustrating, it did provide some creative ideas on its own (as seen in my previous video).

My second sketchbook video features my followup pocket Moleskine from 2007ish (unlike the first one, I didn’t date my sketches).

I remember this time vividly. I loved the idea of having sketchbooks full of colourful works of art however I ended up forcing myself to create works of art for each page as quickly as possible.

So naturally, that hampered creativity. You’ll see a lot of unfinished pieces among some gems that I am really pleased with.

Lesson learned.

Well, thanks home video technology in my DSLR, iMovie and Vimeo, it can happen a little more than often. I’ve begun making short videos of my flipping through my sketchbooks. So, if you want to flip through them, you’re saved a trip!

Above is my first video which features my Moleskine sketchbook from 2006. This was a time where I was trying different mediums and techniques other than my usual pencil. You’ll see how some methods worked while others didn’t. I further developed those that did work and learned a lot from what didn’t.

The third release in my “tech joke” cover ebook series is 1950s short sci-fi story, The Stutterer by R.R. Merliss.

My goal with the series is to create ebooks with illustrative covers of literature in the public domain. I design the covers using comparable references to today’s digital culture.

My preceeding releases featured the Twitter Fail Whale on the cover of Moby Dick and steampunk on the cover of Wired Love.

The Stutterer is about a stuttering robot from another planet. So naturally, I chose to parody the Android mascot. The robot has a message for the people of Earth. Hence, the RSS logo. Earth in the book has some sort of telepathy P.A. system (Internet, anyone?).

I went for a bit of the Saul Bass style and lots of negative space to reflect the atmosphere of loneliness which the robot endures in the story (not to mention us stutterers have to go through).

You’re going to have to read the ebook (epub, mobi) in order to figure out what the Tesla coils relate to :)

My workflow

First I sketched my designs on paper and planned out the layout. I scanned in the chosen drawings and went straight to work with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. Made the background black and all the objects white. That’s it!

This cover was the fastest of the three for me to create since I didn’t need to work with strokes or many different colours. Only black and white.

Most of the Illustrator work was playing with the bezier curves until I achieved the look I needed then proceeded with the fonts.

The right font for impact

I used Impact. Nice and blocky. I find it fits in very well with the overall design and layout. And it’s very readable. I placed the author and my illustration credit at the top right corner to prevent it from interfering with the negative space above the robot and RSS logo and underneath the book’s title.

This look is a lot of fun to create as it’s playful, wild and comes naturally to me. I enjoy designing with this look and will definitely use it again in the future.

Stuttering

While the book has nothing to do with stuttering (nor does it explain stuttering accurately), I chose to work on this book to coincide with this year’s International Stuttering Awareness Day happening on October 22. I stuttered all my life and produce a successful podcast on the topic at stutteringiscool.com.

You can download my ebook for The Stutterer for free in both epub and mobi formats.

If you’re interested in pulp fiction sci-fi, check out my friend, Glenn Schmelzle’s podcast, Science Fiction Afterlife where he reviews golden age sci-fi books.