Atomic-Robo.com

Is that man speaking into his wrist?

Sure looks that way.

Anyway, Brian, as much as I love AtoRobo (I'm coining that now), I have to wonder if you're concerned you're (by writing in "volumes") falling into one of the traps you have decried as detrimenting the Comics Industry–writing for the trade. It makes sense, in many ways, to do so (especially in a case like this where you want any over-arching stories to be brief, so as to ease new readers into the series at any given point). It just struck me that it seems an easy and tempting snare.

Regarless, keep up the great work here and at nuklearpower.com

–OddlucK

No, it's more of a recoiling in horror and pointing kind of thing with bringing his hand up to his face melodramatically. Or some such.

Thank goodness you guys are with Red 5 then. Having said that, much of their success lies on Robo's awesomosity, so I suspect they wouldn't mess with you too much anyway.

I would like to mention that I'm really interested in Robo "filler stories", such as a one shot issue dealing mostly with the Action Scientists or what have you. It's not filler if it's entertaining.

Thanks for the reply, Brian.

I knew you guys were/are working in terms of story lines and want to keep them from getting too long as to be overly convoluted and inaccessible. I guess my question would better have been phrased, rather than "Are you worried about falling into the 'writing for the trade' trap?", as "Do you feel pressure to do so?" It's good to see that you're left to your own devices (for the most part, at least).

Keep up the great work!

I agree! For example, I'm a big fan of Rick Remender's Fear Agent from Dark Horse, but some of my favorite stuff has come from those "Tales of the Fear Agent" backups…much like the Robo ones, actually. Okay, I guess I didn't really have a point, I just wanted to say something.

Hey…. just a thought. Don't you think it might be a good idea to get Red 5 to take down the "The action starts October 2007" splash page http://www.red5comics.com/?cat=7 hereabouts?

Love your stuff Brian. So much so that I can even forgive you being a smug Floridian.

Almost.

Yeah, there's a TON of side stories about Robo or the people in his world. I mean, we've got 80 years of adventure to deal with, and hundreds of historical figures, and as many fictional ones as we need on top of that.

The problem is finding the time to produce the stories and then finding the space to include them. The best balance so far has been to use back up stories for this kind of thing.

Well, first, we have to say what's so bad about "writing for the trade."

The broadest definition I can think of is: When a creative team must artificially contract or expand a storyline to fulfill a minimum or maximum quota of issues for collection of the material in a trade paperback.

To be more precise, it's not bad that content merely can be easily collected into trade paperbacks, it's when you force content into a trade paperback in a way that does not service the narrative or somehow "damages" the individual issues' abilities to deliver the story "naturally".

The way Robo works, we can't possibly "write for the trade". Scott and I first figure out what we want to do with a given mini-series, then we break it down into the major events we want to see, then we break those down into each issue, then I break down each issue into Acts, and each Act into beats (gags or action or story/tone). Red 5 has no editorial input (beyond, y'know, being sure that we maintain a "PG-13" rating and that we have 22 pages of story per issue), so they can't tell us that a mini-series with 5 issues of content must be forced into 4 or 6 issues for the sake of the trade.

Red 5 has told us they'd like to keep mini-series between four and six issues, which is fine by us. It becomes increasingly difficult to keep a given mini-series accessible to new readers the longer it is; and it's difficult to justify collecting 3 or fewer issues into a trade anyway. Red 5 also told us they would prefer our mini-series to be four issues because it's easier to sell a 4-issue trade for $12 than a 6-issue trade for $18 when, like us, you're an indie and you have to convince people to buy your stuff. But we are under no mandate to deliver 4-issue mini-series.

Here's how the issue breakdown worked for Volume 2, just to illustrate how hands-off Red 5 is: Scott and I originally thought Volume 2 would be six issues, like Vol 1. Then, when we started working on it we felt that the series would be stronger in four issues. But after reflecting on that, somewhere between finishing the second and starting the third issue, we weren't confident that we could do everything we wanted in 4 issues without rushing it. So, we bumped it up to five. All along, Red 5 would have preferred four issues for the sake of a cheaper trade, but the choice was entirely ours and they put no pressure on us either way.

The only way we can actually "write for the trade" is if we royally screw up our calculations and plan for, let's say, 5 issues in a mini-series only to come up with 4 or 6 issues' worth of content. Even in this case we're better off than most books. If we're an issue short, then we can easily do another one-shot story to finish up the series. Robo's got a long life filled with adventure and other weirdness, so there is ALWAYS one more story to tell. I guess this could be construed as filler, but since we only do stories that are fun and add something to the overall mythos of the character and his world, that's a bit of a stretch. And if the series needs to be one issue longer to properly pull off the conclusion, well, is anyone really going to be upset that there's another issue of Atomic Robo to look forward to?

It's just not a concern at all. I think it's more of a problem when you have an on-going book because you've got to juggle storylines with lead-ins to the next storyline in between tie-ins to whatever big crossover is happening and heaven forbid someone on the team should get sick and you've got to scramble for a fill-in team to do a filler issue or two. If you've got to handle all of that when you sit down to figure out what goes into which trade, you're going to have some problems eventually.

But a book like Robo is already presented in a mini-series format, so it avoids the myriad of pitfalls that can come with a monthly book. And it's natural to include a full mini-series in a trade. And there's no reason to include extraneous material or exclude parts of the mini-series in that trade.

I do think that Vol 2 will read better in trade format than it does in individual issues, but that's only natural given that the stories are far more connected this time than in Vol 1. I think the ever-increasing tempo of Vol 2 is easy to miss when you're reading it monthly, but if you look at the issues one after another you'll see that you were on a roller coaster the whole time.

That wasn't me writing for the trade, that was just me still learning how to write long form comics

"Robo awesomosity". Brilliant.

Working with Red5 is about as perfect as it gets. I wouldn't really say that they have to let us do whatever w want because of Robo's success. We need/owe them just as much as they need us. It's been a very nice partnership thus far, and looks to continue that way for a long time.

as far as that "writing for the Trade" thing goes -there's a big difference between breaking down ongoing monthly stories to artificially fit within the format of a TPB, and writing in mini-series with the express intent of then collecting that series into TPB format.

I don't know if that made sense.

But basically, we do things the way we do because I can't draw fast enough to meet a monthly deadline. When I worked for Marvel I did get two books done in 8 weeks -but it nearly killed me. Working 12hrs a day, 7 days a week, over a long period of time would just never work.

It's been nice that Robo ended up working better in mini-series format.

One thing I have to ask about Red 5… when are we getting some swag? I think we've all waited long enough for a Robo figure. Or is it even up to them?

This comment system is nifty.

We will focus more on merchandising in 2009. Stay tuned.

Oooh, exciting. : )

Statues, action figures, posters, shirts where the image doesn't start coming off after the first wash…I want it all!

I like the new comment system… its all fancy and stuff.

Holy movie pitches Batman! Thats awesome!

Nothing's written in stone yet. But, hey, needing to do pitches is better than not needing to!

Not specifically, as Scott's never played the game, but it kinda fits the context.

Is his finger in "Objection" pose?