Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/29/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 08/02/10.
BUDDY SCALERA
Books:
Comic Artist’s Photo Reference 1: People and Poses
Comic Artist’s Photo Reference 2: Women and Girls
Comic Artist’s Photo Reference 3: Men and Boys
Comics / Graphic Novels:
7 Days to Fame
Deadpool
Elvira
Necrotic
Pulp Action
X-Men (Various)
Official Site: http://www.buddyscalera.com/
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: April 10, 2010.
Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 21.
Meeting Program: Talk by Comic Book Writer/Artist
Notes:
Buddy was a late addition to the program. Speaker after speaker had either not responded to invitations or were not free on this date. Thank you so much, Buddy. Another note of thanks goes to Tom Schoenborne for the loan of the projector which made Buddy's slide show possible. George Galuschak helped me set up the screen and Moshe Yoder helped take it down. Thanks, guys. Thanks as well to Pamela Webber, Patricia Nash, Charles Garofalo, and John Jurich for helping with different aspects of the set up and clean up. Additional snacks were brought by several people: Robert Yeager and Irene Evans, Ingrid Staats, and Taras Wolansky. Taras put out some VHS tapes and books on the freebie table.
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2010 Philip J De Parto:
Comic book writer Buddy Scalera gave a terrific presentation at the April 10, 2010 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County despite being a last minute program participant. The meeting was held at the Saddle River Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River.
The pre meeting animation feature, JING, THE BANDIT KING, was held in the basement. Barry's Ice Nine discussion held upstairs moved from the Hugo Awards to upcoming movies to favorite STAR TREK books.
Buddy has crossed paths with the Association a number of times over the years, first as a representative of SCARLET STREET MAGAZINE, later with the amateur film spoof, THE B-FILES, and again with the cast and crew of a local access comic book show. He had also been to a couple of meetings as an attendee-at-large.
Our guest wears many hats. He is the creator of three photo reference books for comic book artists: PEOPLE AND POSES, WOMEN AND GIRLS, and MEN AND BOYS. He has written DEAD POOL and X-MEN titles for Marvel Comics, and is a partner in After Hours Press, an independent comic book publisher which produced a pair of titles he created: SEVEN DAYS TO FAME and NECROTIC.
His work at Marvel spotlights his playful side. For example, when he wrote the Dead Pool character, about a super fast-healing assassin, he took a page out of the Warner Brothers book on Wiley Coyote, even blowing him up in an explosion at the Acme Explosives factory.
(Continued next issue.)
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2010 Philip J De Parto:
Other just-for-fun stuff Mr Scalera did for Marvel was a "Legion of Super Pets" riff with Lockheed and Lockjaw, creating Kid Deadpool, and killing thinly disguised versions of many of his friend.
He is more serious on his creator-controlled independent comic books. SEVEN DAYS TO FAME, for example, is a dark mini-series about a reality television suicide series.
Buddy Scalera spent a lot of his talk comparing and contrasting his two loves: comic books and movies. Although comics are illustrated, they have more in common with books than with movies and television. Movies and television are passive media. When a movie is shown in a theater or a TV episode is first broadcast, it is the director who dictates the experience. Comic books and books, however, are interactive media. The reader is in control. To use video terminology, he can choose to pause, jump around, rewind, fast forward, and go slow at any point in the story.
Despite these differences, there is a very good reason comic books are so appealing to Hollywood. There is virtually a one to one correspondence between one page of a comic book and one page of a movie script, so a movie producer can take a graphic novel and have a pretty decent outline for a film script. A bonus is that the writer and artist have already done a lot of the set design, lighting, and shot composition.
Mr Scalera co-founded After Hours Press to publish uncommercial comic books. The venture loses money every time they print a title. However, it is a controlled loss. Even if the title is a complete bomb, they cannot lose more than say $ 10,000. But if the right person in Hollywood becomes interested, the sky's the limit!
Our guest loves the medium of comic book writing. When you're a comic book writer, 90% of what you write makes it to the comic. If you are writing for television, you are doing well if 25% of what you write makes it to the screen. But with that power comes responsibility. The author has an implied contract with the reader. The reader is making a commitment of time. If the writer gives the reader something awful, the reader will never buy another title from that writer.
Buddy also discussed the mechanics of writing comics. Depending on the publisher, comic books are 22 or 24 pages of material. Each page of a comic represents its own sub act of the larger story. Each page needs a hook or cliffhanger to get the reader to turn to the net page.
Our thanks to Buddy and to everyone who helped make this meeting a success!