It was inspired by a visit Frank Herbert made to my tiny little home town on the Oregon Coast. Not NEAR my hometown, my tiny hometown specially, which has some of the tallest sand dunes in the world.
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Frank Herbertβs daughter lives here currently, and kindly donated her fatherβs research materials to our relatively small, but still awesome public library, the Siuslaw Public Library, where itβs currently on display.
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One of the reasons I love it here is the bizarre strata of natural landscapes..
It goes immediately from the ocean, with volcanic rock formations, to the tallest sand dunes in the world, then forests and lakes, all within just a couple miles, a bit further and itβs mountains. 3/
Herbertβs daughter hooked up our library and theater with Frank Herbertβs grandson, who consulted on the new movie. The theater (which is awesome) is CityLightsCinema, and they are having a Dune/Herbert celebration until November 4th.
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Itβs a wonderful little theatre run by genuine lovers of cinema.
If you are a big Herbert fan, or Dune fan, some of this stuff canβt be seen anywhere else.
You might consider a day out here, come take a look at the dunes, they really are awe-inspiring.
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Itβs very strange that this tiny town inspired both DUNE and STAR WARS, making it possibly the most important place in SF history.
I was born here.
We have three stoplights. We have no Indian food.
But we changed SF forever.
:)
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Population 9,000, inspirational birthplace of Paul Atreides AND Luke Skywalker.
Not too shabby.
:)
Have a great day, everyone.
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P.S. The very dunes that inspired Frank Herbert�
Literally across the street from my house.
I used to pretend they were Arrakis or Tatooine.
A lot of people feel their home town is magical, but for me, IT REALLY WAS.
I have read a lot of first comic scripts by new writers lately.
A lot of them have very good ideas, but make basic mistakes in execution.
Here are a few bits of advice if you are just starting out writing comics, things to avoid.
Other pros welcome to add to this thread.
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NAME YOUR CHARACTERS.
This is annoying, and even pros do it. If you have a character we are supposed to know, you have to name them ON PANEL, not just in script.
I read a major publisher book recently where the main characters were never called by name.
A huge mistake.
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TOO MUCH DIALOGUE
Almost all writers do this at times.
But it is wearying, it is exhausting to read, and mostly it shows a lack of awareness of how to use a comics page. There are people who do this well and a LOT who do it badly.
Okay, this is a fun story, s o I am going to retell it quickly.
We live in the boonies, donβt really have neighbors, on a very secluded lake in Oregon. As we live in the woods with lots of water, we get bears sometimes. One decided to live in a tree attached to our house.
Many of you already know I used to be a hairdresser. I had a salon of my own, in a nice area of my little town, right near the waterfront. It was lovely. Instead of fashion magazines, I had graphic novels. My clients were great.
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Most of my clients were well-off, quite a few were retired, and I never felt unsafe in my salon, even when I was alone.
I had a lot of male clients, they would pick up the graphic novels because there wasn't anything else to read, and they'd scoff a bit, then get hooked.
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I loved my clients, I was damn good as a hairdresser (to the point that, even years and years later, former clients were always hoping my writing career would crash and I'd start doing hair again).
I have a short little story of a thing that happened yesterday. I don't know what the message is, but it gave me a lot of feelings.
As many of you know, we live in a small town on the Oregon coast. There are a couple grocery stores and one variety store called Bi-Mart.
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So we went to Bi-Mart, which is a local chain that is very casual and friendly and less corporate than a lot of national chains. We went to buy key fob batteries and some planters for my garden.
While shopping, there was this older couple there, in their seventies, I'd say.
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The man was oldschool in all ways, crew cut, quite fit with big muscles and a tan from working outside. Wife was pretty and petite and soft-spoken.
He was NOT soft-spoken.
He was quite loud, and got mildly annoyed at seemingly everything.
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Every year on his birthday (which is today), I write a little letter to @JoeQuesada, wishing him health and happiness for him and his family. We have not spoken in person in years.
In that note, every time, I thank him for asking me, out of nowhere, to pitch for Deadpool.
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Because I had a comics comedy column on CBR and I made him laugh. He used to read the column on the phone to friends. Garth Ennis didn't have email, so he called him long distance to read one about Garth TO Garth.
Even when I made fun of JOE HIMSELF, he would laugh about it.
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So every year, I say something to the effect of, "Thank you for taking a chance on me, and for opening the door that had made my life's dream come true over and over."
And he always says something humble and sweet, that I make it happen myself.