Tag Archives: Felicia Day

About the writing of the Fawkes issue of The Guild

I thought it may be interesting to some people to know a little bit more about how the Fawkes comic came together.

When we were up in Vancouver for Eureka, I was always bugging Felicia to come hang out with me and Neil Grayston, or to get out of our building and have an adventure. More often than not, she couldn't come play with us because she was writing scripts for The Guild comics. For the record, we had all the fun without her. So there, Felicia. Nyahhh.

At some point, we were having dinner or something and I asked her if she was interested in doing a Fawkes comic together. Because, you know, we didn't have way too much stuff to do already. She thought it would be a fun thing to do, and we started pitching stories to each other.

Eventually, we came upon something that we both thought was awesome, and we started writing it. It was surprisingly easy for us to come up with the story; the real challenge for me was keeping the story tight enough to fit into the pages we had. Luckily for me, I have a number of friends who are professional comic writers, and I was able to steal some of their writing tricks:

  • Keep things simple.
  • Format the script in what we call the Modified Brubaker, which is based on the Brubaker, which is based on the Ellis.
  • Have fun.
  • Do at least 4 pages a day when writing the first draft.
  • Read lots of comics and let them inspire you.

Oh, it also helps to have a co-writer who is a freaking genius and is also one of your best friends.

So the whole thing came together, and we ended up with a script that we both loved. We turned it in to our editor, got his notes, and did a final pass. I think the entire time from closing the deal with Dark Horse to giving our editor the final script was about 5 weeks.

The real fun for me was getting to ask for artists I love: I am crazy about Paul Duffield's work, especially on Freakangels. I loved Emma Rios's work on Osborn. Jamie McKelvie's work on Phonogram and Suburban Glamour belongs in a museum. Oh, he's also a good friend, which made it even cooler that we get to work together.

Paul said yes right away, but getting Emma was more difficult, because we couldn't find her. I asked my friend Kelly Sue (who wrote Osborn) to bug Emma on my behalf, and that whole thing came together pretty fast, too.

So I had two cover artists I was dying to work with, and an interior artist whose work I love so much I want to marry it. I don't know how it all managed to work out, but I'm going to guess that the stars were right and not ask too many questions. When we saw Paul's cover, we realized that we'd never seen Fawkes in game, so I think it's awesome that Paul got to design his avatar, and boy did Emma capture the sexual tension between Fawkes and Codex! I've seen some of Jamie's pages, and I don't know how he managed to get into my head and draw exactly what was there, but he's doing it perfectly.

I can't talk about the story too much, but I can say that I wanted to let Fawkes speak for himself, in his unique way, and see some things about his life that we didn't get to see on screen in The Guild. I'm incredibly proud of what Felicia and I came up with, and I think fans of The Guild are going to be really happy with what we did.

One of my super secret projects isn’t a secret any longer…

FINALLY, I can talk about this, and because a picture is worth a thousand words…

Felicia Day and I wrote a Fawkes story for The Guild comic together. There are two covers, the one above is by Paul Duffield, and this one is by Emma Rios:

 

Jamie McKelvie is drawing the book, which comes out on May 23rd.

Here's how Dark Horse is describing it:

Felicia Day and The Guild are back, along with costar Wil Wheaton, for a brand-new story spotlighting Fawkes, the dashing, debonair, and douchey leader of the evil guild Axis of Anarchy! His relationship with Codex threatened to tear the Knights of Good apart until he was thrown off a balcony for his treatment of her. Set after season 4 of the show, this issue reveals how Fawkes deals with his split from Codex and navigates the aggressive personalities of the Axis, and follows his journey to his surprising state when he returns in season 5!

Felicia and I talked to io9 about it last week, so if you want to know a little bit more, head on over there and check it out.

#GAMEON!

Just in case you haven't had your mind blown by the latest music video from The Guild, yet:

<br/><a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/season-4-music-video-game-on/y0da39gh?fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Season 4 – Music Video – "Game On"">Video: Season 4 – Music Video – "Game On"</a>

I didn't know The Guild was doing another music video (and why they'd want to, having set the bar so high with Date My Avatar last year, is beyond me) until minutes before we walked out for the panel at Comic-Con, so I watched this video with my jaw on the floor, completely blown away by the whole thing. Don't forget: this was produced with no budget at all. Think about that for a second … kind of makes you want to Get Excited and Make Things, doesn't it?

Bonus happy fun fact! Today is the third anniversary of The Guild's original release. I think this is a pretty awesome way to celebrate it. Congratulations to everyone involved on making something amazing!

Saturday at the 2010 Phoenix Comicon – the Guild, the TNG reunion, a journey’s end, and geek prom

Since I didn't write about it while I was there, I'm recapping some highlights of the 2010 Phoenix Comicon in a few different posts. This is about Saturday.

Saturday:

During the first round of the NHL playoffs, I made (and lost) another hockey bet with my friend Aaron Douglas. Because the Canucks defeated the Kings, I had to wear a Vancouver jersey. Next year, you frakkin' toaster … next year.

I had two panels on Saturday. First, Felicia and I did a panel about The Guild that was a whole lot of fun. During the Q&A, just about every question was for Felicia, which I expected since it's her show and everything, but it was still fun to play the part of Mister I'll Just Sit Here And Pretend I'm Invisible.

The second panel was the TNG reunion panel with Frakes and LeVar, which filled the room almost to capacity. We started out with moderated questions, which I felt veered way too close to "hey, let's dish a bunch of gossip" territory. I thought we were all pretty funny, though, and I did my best to keep things moving without bogarting the entire panel. It was pretty awesome when Jonathan said "it's not often that I'm the third-funniest guy on the panel!" after I'd made him laugh about something. 

I think the audience had a good time, and I did my best to balance entertaining them with speaking frankly and honestly about the few very serious questions we were asked. When the hour was up, I wished that we'd been scheduled for 90 minutes, because there were at least a dozen people waiting, and I was enjoying the whole thing.

On the way back to the vendor's hall (which, to give you a sense of how the con has grown, could have held the entire convention last year) I was able to thank LeVar for giving me an incredible gift that he never even knew about.

We stood on this loading dock behind the convention center, protected from the direct heat of the sun by growing afternoon shadows. "I have to tell you something," I said to LeVar.

He looked at me with what I hoped wasn't apprehension.

"Years ago, you asked me if I was going to be in Nemesis, and I told you that I hadn't been asked. You told me that you'd talk to Rick, because I was part of the family and I should be in the movie."

"You are family, Wil," he said.

"Well, you ended up doing something really important for me that was much more than just being in a movie," I said. "When we all worked together on the series, I couldn't appreciate it, because I was a stupid teenager. It wasn't until years later that I realized how lucky I was, and how much I missed all of you guys. It made me so sad that I took that for granted.

"When I worked on Nemesis, I was able to fully appreciate it, and I really needed that, so I could get over the incredible regret that I fuh-" A lump started to grow in my throat, and I took a breath that hoped would let me talk around it. "The incredible regret that I felt because I didn't know how much you all meant to me until I was gone."

I felt a tear spill down my cheek. I didn't care. "So I just wanted to say thank you, for that. I wouldn't have ever been able to move past that and have the life I have today if you hadn't made a phone call that you didn't need to make. Thank you for caring about me, LeVar."

I glanced at Jonathan, and I think I saw his eyes shining just a little bit. Before I realized it, LeVar was hugging me tightly. I forget what he said, because I was trying so hard not to cry. I'm pretty sure that it was the final, unwritten (until now) coda to the Journey I took in Just A Geek.

Saturday night, Felicia and I hosted the Geek Prom, which was mostly awesome. I say mostly because I was incredibly annoyed with the people who shoved video cameras – with lights – in our faces while we were just trying to enjoy ourselves and dance to horrible 80s and 90s prom music (oh, the final Femmes to Gaga ratio was 2:1). I mean, time and place, guys. Not cool.

Fun fact: I hate dancing. It makes me feel self conscious, stupid, uncoordinated, and like a complete idiot. Because I don't particularly enjoy feeling that way, I probably dance once a year, to only one song, and only to make Anne happy when she wants to dance with her husband at whatever thing we've gone to where they have organized dancing. I don't know exactly why — maybe it was because it was dark until the cameras showed up, maybe it was because I knew I was surrounded by my fellow geeks and none of us were under the delusion that we were, in any way, cool. Maybe it was the Stone IPA I had with dinner, maybe it was a combination of all those things but …. I really had fun dancing at the Geek Prom. I felt so guilty when I woke up the next day, I had to call Anne and confess.

"So does that mean we're going to go dancing?" She said.

"Sorry, KSSHHH, BUZZTT, KSSSH," I said, "I'm driving into a tunnel and the last thing you said was KSSHHH!"

"Nice try. I know you're sitting in your hote-"

"KSSHH WHRRSSHH FSSHHH!" I said, "I think I should call you back when we're out of the mountains."

Even though I couldn't see her, I know that I got The Look.

The con posted a ton of great pictures of all of us under the geek arch, which you can witness in all of their carefully-crafted awkward awesomeness at Flickr. We have ideas to make the Geek Prom even better, even more of an event next year, which I can't wait to put into action.

Up next: Sunday.

the guild the guild the guild THE GUILD THE GUILD THE MOTHERFRAKKING GUILD

I, uh, had trouble coming up with a title for this post. Sorry about that.

So season Three of The Guild wrapped up this week, and if the feedback I'm getting via Twitter and e-mail is any indication, we can make a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

Felicia has a post at her blog where she talks in a spoileriffic way about her creative process and the choices she made for this season. 

So the episodes. Two Guilds. Fifteen Actors. 20 Extras. What a nightmare, who thought of this storyline anyway?!?! Well, for episode 11 it is the finest frenzy we’ve ever done. I was determined to give everyone a grace note in one of these episodes, and I think everyone got wrapped up pretty well. There were, frankly, too many storylines going on this season, but out of necessity I made them work, because I couldn’t think of any other way to do the season. I think for season 4 there will be a more streamlined story on my writing part, but due to the chaotic nature of this season’s storyline I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Don't read it if you haven't watched all the way to the end, but if you have, I think it'll entertain you to the max, for sure.

Speaking of entertaining things … here's the episode 9-12 gag reel!

Felicia points out that you can watch all of Season Three at Bing Video, which is kind of a big deal because it means that Bing is finally useful for something. Mark this day in history, kids.

And Felicia, if you see this: Kick ass, dude. Once again, you owned it.

Warning: Assume that there will be Guild Spoilers™ in the comments.