Having a Great Idea

by Gary Walters

(All characters herein referenced are the explicit property of Gary Walters and Walters Comics Limited, LLC and may not be used, copied, or referenced without explicit permission of the companies President and CEO.)

Since becoming a comics pro, one of the many questions I get asked the most is "Where do you get your ideas from?" It's a common question that creative people get asked, but a hard one to answer. Where do we get our ideas? Do we pull them out of some imaginary land of ideas like a professional comic book writer such as Alan Moore believes? Or does it take time and hard work to think up a good idea, like other writers believes?

Moore's idea, while intriguing (and explaining why he also had the same idea as me of taking public domain characters and putting them in a superteam!), ultimately means that the creator is not in charge of their gifts. If they have any gifts at all. Moore's idea of the imagination is like a candy store, wherein creative people buy (or steal, as the case may be) ideas from a rack. And if you both grab the same idea, oh well. Sorry, that's not the way it works. In America we have something called copyright protection. And you better beleive that if you steal my idea, you'll be hearing from my lawyer. In other words, I'll sue you.

I, however, believe that creators create ideas from their own (unshared) imagination. They think up a good idea, expand it, and then create it. The process can be hard to explain to a non-creative type person. Let me illustrate my creative process by explaining the character that I created and copyrighted/trademarked and hope to bring soon to a comic shop near you and too Previews.

So here is the "background" for my supernatural character, "Even Steven":

Steven Humphries was your average high school kid. Did fine in school, had some buddies. Liked to write. The ladies might not have realized yet what a great catch he was, but that was sure to change if he just kept "introducing himself and being friendly" as his mother would say to him on Friday nights. He was sometimes picked on by the troglodites who couldn't appreciate those who loved write and express themselves and instead had to bully those guys who's creativity secretly made them feel inferior.

Then one night, through a horrific accident, Steven is transformed into a dark avenger of the night. Throught the terrible accident, he gained power over darkness. He can move through shadows and project darkness into shapes and forms that he can use to attack enemies. Disfigured resulting from his tragic accident, his entire body is wrapped in bandages, like a mummy, save for his two red glowing ruby eyes. He also wears a high school jacket and jeans allowing hims to walk among people almost unnoticed at night. Living now in the ceiling and basement of his high school, he fights the school's surprising number of supernatural evils and fighting for the downtrodden and bullied. If things get bad, just call his name three times three times into a mirror and he will set things right.

So, where did this idea come from? I don't know. I was looking through my old high school yearbook one night and it just popped in my head. I fleshed it out the next day during downtime at work. And made Steven a more realistic teenage hero. One that could speak to kids and be a champion for them and a hero/role model. I thought that was important. Kids need heroes and male role models. Especially in our modern society where many kids are raised by single mothers and have fathers that are deadbeats who only send them a card once a year on their birthday.

So, there, you have it. You might believe the theory that ideas come from Alan Moore's Ideaplace or you may beleive the reality that ideas come from creators. When an idea for an exciting, marketeable character comes to a comic book writer, it's exciting and they can't wait to share it with you, their readers. In my next column, tentatively entitled "Writing the Character you Wrote", I'll explore writing a comic script. How to format it, what computer programs you must own, and what you should do to put a final polish on it so it's ready for submission and pitches.

Read Volume 1, Issue 1 of The Tricks of Turning Pro.