Ode to Bad Ideas

So, I've pretty much trained myself since birth to come up with story ideas. While other kids were running and playing and throwing around a baseball, I was conducting the extended adventures of Indiana Jones in my back yard. (Side note: Poor Bro wanted to be one of those kids playing sports and whatnot, but with me as his brother he ended up spending a lot of time as Indiana Jones's never mentioned in the movies sidekick, Illinois. Yeah) Ideas come naturally to me. The problem, of course, is that not all of my ideas are good ones. In fact, some might argue that none of my ideas are good ones, but that's neither here nor there. When I do have a bad idea, I'll rarely completely trash it. Instead, I file it away in a little spot in the back of my brain, and every so often I'll take it out and tinker with it. I'll work a bad idea over until it slowly transforms into a worthwhile idea. In fact, I think that's one of the keys to being a good writer, is to recognize when something sucks, and to be able to fix it over time.

I'll give you an example. Back in 2000 (aka TORC Press Year 1), I was producing a Xerox comic called Pulp Horrorshow on a fairly regular basis. It was a crude comic, simply written, poorly drawn, and the inks...well, let's just not go there. But, it was, and still is, a good comic because of the sheer enthusiasm and heart I threw into every issue. That, and every issue was violent as hell. Anyway, the main theme of Pulp Horrorshow was that I had these Monsterous characters who were sorta thrust into the role of superhero, who then fought other monsters (Sorta like Hellboy without the great art and writing, but with a lot more decapitations). I loved Pulp Horrorshow, but I needed more. So I came up with (cue the ominous music) The Bunnyville Experiment. It was different in almost every way. It was bigger (PH was 24 pages an issue, BE would be over 50), the stories were more experimental and wierd. The art was more experimental. And the characters didn't quite fall into the same mold as my previous ones. I worked my ass off, and I thought I had produced a masterpiece.

Except, I hadn't. After giving copies to my usual readers (aka, friends and family), I started to learn that my little experiment may not have been as successful as I thought it was. The general concensus was that, the art was bad/rushed, the stories were underdeveloped, and alot of my artistic experiments did not work at all. Now, generally speaking, when your own support network reacts this harshly to a work, it's not a good thing. Needless to say, I "canceled" the Bunnyville Experiment after one issue, and sent all of my story ideas for it to a little corner in the back of my brain.

Now, here's the important part of today's long winded Rant. Despite how crummy it was, the Bunnyville Experiment has served as the springboard for many of my best ideas. Pengy Penguin and Iggy Iguana both made their first appearances in that issue. El Gorio and Liquid Jar both evolved from concepts that started in the Experiment. A short strip called the Dystopian Reader led to a comic called "Mr. Macabre" (which also sucked) which I currently am revisioning and will probably reintroduce in a later issue. The surrealist tone of the overall issue was the starting point for many of my stranger works, such as King Smooth, Broken Tea Cup, and BoJangles. Plus there was a story called "Cogs in the Machine" that I have recently rebuilt and expanded on, and will probably appear in SDF sometime in 06 or 07. See, even from a total failure good things can come.