AMBER LOVE 29-NOV-2012 By day, he’s a corporate video writer/producer/director; by night, he’s a comic book writer. He’s also one of the human caretakers of the adorable fluffball Cletus and his menagerie of pets. At times, he’s buried under them and can’t get to the computer.
ROMEO & JULIET MEET MAD MAX… That’s the nutshell tagline to describe what’s in store for Joey Groah’s DRY SEASONS four-issue comic book miniseries with artist Ryan Cody.
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Joey goes into detail about the Kickstarter process and divulges how that horrible initial anxiety when launching the campaign didn’t last long. In the Comics Experience Creators’ Workshop message boards (an online subscription based forum for people of all skill levels interested in making comics), Joey was able to submit the DRY SEASONS scripts for peer review which guided him to making necessary revisions to improve the rough ideas of his story.
“My usual approach, especially on the corporate video side, if we’re writing something that isn’t kind of a creative concept per se, but is more informational about a company and it’s got a decent runtime, it’s two to ten minutes or something of content, I usually write the audio out first; and I realize that in comics that may not always be the best approach is to think ‘dialog first.’ ” ~JG
Joey’s other projects are SPACE CORPS (as story editor) and ZOMBIE LAD (tentatively named) with artist Gannon Beck.
“I think I’ve got nine other things that could be in stages of THIS CAN BE A THING for comics specifically” ~JG
That seems to be a typical mental place of creative types. All writers have more than one story in progress. Artists often need to prioritize several works in progress based on deadlines.
“My generation [influence] it was STAR WARS. It was sci fi. It was space. It was this epic kind of space fantasy. This other group it’s more kind of influenced by magic.” ~JG
As a relatively new comics creator, Joey can look back at the past year and see how he’s improved in learning the language of comics, the page mechanics, transitions, and visualizing the reader experience. He thumbnails panels even as a writer though he doesn’t share that with his artists. It helps him break up the panel counts and reign him in when things get too wordy. Joey also gives his advice on how to handle a situation when a client has a completely different than you (the team).
A lot of times the key positions are the people that know how best to work with clients and follow a budget. As the creative person on a team, you need to also have those other skills.
LINKS:
HalfaMonth.com
Joey Groah is an award-winning writer/director/producer creating content for a variety of national and international clients including the Travel Channel, Discovery Communications, Comcast, and more. He’s produced hours of video including original documentaries like Beardo the Movie. Joey also currently story edits the Webcomic Space Corps, as well as writing Space Corps short stories.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.