A Supernatural Noir and
Online Penny Dreadful
by Allison & Emily
Updates Sundays.
My better half did not write up the text post she wanted to queue for today regarding some supplemental background info about some things in the chapter so good news, everyone! you’re going to have to deal with my sad rambling attempt instead! I cannot guarantee it is going to make sense and it is probably just going to end up a rant about things only marginally related.
I apologize in advance.
Which is just SO SPECIFIC but that is literally what it is! We have added a new link, “Extras,” to the sidebar on our Tumblr homepage; it is basically a directory of all the miscellaneous related work we’ve made and posted throughout this adventure. We’ll continue to collect things there so that newcomers can see it without poring back over the pages (though if you really want to do that, we don’t discourage that either!). This page is where you can find such events as the Halloween Special and the recently posted Valentines all gathered together in one place, as well as a lot of other items of interest. Check it out!
![victoriousvocabulary:
HOMODESIRAMANIA
[noun]
the obsession with wanting to become human.
So this is a really beautiful interesting and sadly uncredited piece of art! When I spotted it small-sized on my dash, I thought “whoa, that looks like Rune.” It does, kinda! Small-faced, skinny little lady with birdlike hands and headdress. Of course embiggening it revealed the actual machine-like figure. Which is equally cool. Keeping it because the resemblance is close enough.
I also like the words ascribed to it by the original poster. They fit surprisingly well with the themes from Quoth the Raven. Not that Rune wants to become human—if anything, she wants to be less human. But it’s certainly an issue for her, isn’t it?
Funny when things just pop up on tumblr and are perfectly suited to your needs.
(read Berlin Confidential)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwjglqwBaL1r47bczo1_500.jpg)
HOMODESIRAMANIA
[noun]
the obsession with wanting to become human.
So this is a really beautiful interesting and sadly uncredited piece of art! When I spotted it small-sized on my dash, I thought “whoa, that looks like Rune.” It does, kinda! Small-faced, skinny little lady with birdlike hands and headdress. Of course embiggening it revealed the actual machine-like figure. Which is equally cool. Keeping it because the resemblance is close enough.
I also like the words ascribed to it by the original poster. They fit surprisingly well with the themes from Quoth the Raven. Not that Rune wants to become human—if anything, she wants to be less human. But it’s certainly an issue for her, isn’t it?
Funny when things just pop up on tumblr and are perfectly suited to your needs.
Oh, uh, I guess while I’m here laughing at John Egbert’s hilarious irony I should mention that Chapter 28 IS on its way. Expect it tonight (if we’re very lucky) or tomorrow, or, if we’re UNlucky, the next day. As little difference as it makes, it’s actually not because we fell behind this time. It’s because our editor is also a college professor and this is the end of the semester and he’s only just getting time to even look at it. We’ll have it up soon, and then the next installment will be up on time with regard to the new update schedule (“on time” is, incidentally, Christmas! AND it has sort of Christmassy themes in it! WE DID NOT PLAN FOR THAT AT ALL, WHAT THE HECK ARE THE ODDS).
Anyway, it feels like forEVER that we put up a chapter! We hate this slow update schedule, except for the part where we are not freaking out 24/7 about getting stuff finished and have no time for anything else. That part is nice. Hopefully we can get a nice backlog going and speed things up again in the future, but for now, your patience is appreciated.
Emily has started up a secondary project which will be running concurrently with Berlin Confidential. It is about writing, reading, self-relfection and dealing with depression. It is called Everyday Panic.
Because of the weird way tumblr is set up, if you follow the Everyday Panic tumblr, Everyday Panic will not follow you back. Berlin Confidential will. Everyday Panic can’t follow anyone! Poor Everyday Panic.
Not much to post this week reference-wise, so instead we’re going to talk about some of our storytelling choices in Chapter 23, regarding how Herr Inspektor is dealing so far with his clear case of post-traumatic stress disorder. If you haven’t yet read Chapter 23, obviously you should move along. Also you should get caught up! Here’s the Story Archive.
Two important things happen in this chapter regarding the answer of a fictional character to an author’s cruel onslaught of unbelievable strain. The first one is vomiting. It’s about the first thing our hero does upon his escape into relative safety. We even went so far as to describe it as his body’s attempt to reject the experience. I know vomiting squicks a lot of people out, and honestly we’re not super fond of it either (I mean, hell, who is?), but it’s an invaluable device for when you need to convey trauma. Our line about bodily rejection is exactly what’s happening—the idea is when a person experiences something traumatic, there is an actual physical response, like a denial. If you have the stomach for it (lol), always consider whether or not your character might throw up after a particularly awful experience. Like any narrative device, it should not be overused, but it can be particularly effective.
The other thing is the bath. Where the vomiting thing is used by a lot of movies and TV shows and other forms of storyteling, we almost never see the ritual bath. Probably because a bath does not make for particularly dramatic storytelling. So why does Herr Inspektor’s bath have its own chapter? Because it’s necessary, that’s why. After a traumatic event, particularly one that involves being covered in blood for hours, not to mention being seduced and variously threatened with grievous bodily harm, a person is going to want to GET CLEAN. And not just a shower, if you ask us. A lovely, hot, luxurious bath. In our opinion, it is totally acceptable to sacrifice drama for a well-earned respite, and this is not something that is done nearly enough. It’s not just for the character, or even for believability; it’s for the reader/viewer. We shoved a huge amount of drama and tension into Chapters 19-22, and in fact throughout the whole story there’s been a building wall of suspense with very few periods of calm. This bath was mightily deserved. It’s a chance to breathe; it allows the story and its put-upon hero to settle and recharge and get ready for the next rise. This probably seems pretty basic, but it kind of seems like the only time characters bathe are when it’s for sexy or comedic purposes (see The 40 Year Old Virgin, which achieves both at once). But baths are wonderful and multi-purposeful! They clean! They soothe! In fact, we recommend them to everyone, not just characters. If you are tired and sore or even just depressed, take a bath. You will be so happy you did.
Maybe this stuff seems obvious, but we think it’s cool anyway. Writing!
As you were.
Stephen R. Bissette talks about the tangles and pitfalls of writer/artist collaboration on graphic novels.
Okay, here’s my big response that probably almost no one will read.
(I should edit to emphasize this is not a direct response to Bissette or even the article. This is me dealing with personal anxieties which I think are related.)
This is a very, very interesting article, and I think it’s very important for people to see it. It struck a rather confusing chord for me [this is Emily speaking] and I’ll tell you why.
When we decided to put Berlin Confidential on the internet, we mostly wanted to design it like a webcomic, despite its being a novel through and through. We wanted it to be read in a serial fashion, we wanted it to be followed closely by eagerly waiting readers, and we wanted art to be an important element in the storytelling. As time has gone on, the illustrations have become more and more integral to the process, as well as more complicated, and this may have been in a somewhat subconscious effort to move ourselves ever so slightly more toward the comic aesthetic. But our fans (few yet that there are) do not approach this like a comic, and they aren’t going to. It’s NOT a comic. Nonetheless, for me anyway, the influence of comics, and the desire to be I guess “part of the crowd” of webcomic creators, is still an important motivator at the root of this project.
So, approaching this article from the writer perspective, I found it terribly depressing. I understand completely everything that’s being said, and how difficult and nigh impossible good collaboration can be. Allison and I work together very well, but it is a partnership that has literally taken YEARS of work getting used to each other and knowing how to talk to each other. It has been exactly as tricky as actually being in a relationship, and I think it is no small coincidence that these two things developed simultaneously between us. On the whole, this project has been extremely rewarding for both of us. We’re still learning what the nature of the collaboration is—we have come to accept that I am the more experienced writer and she the more experienced artist, however I would never for a moment claim full authorship. She contributes quite a bit to the writing, and in the same respect I have a huge hand in the art. Even taking this into account, the question of “equality” in the partnership is a murky subject. It has never been a real source of tension between us, but I know for my part that I often feel like I’m not pulling my weight when my role in the art is essentially storyboarding. What we’re doing is less complicated and far, far less time-consuming art-wise than a graphic novel, but even one to five illustrations a week is very difficult. By the same token I know that Allison sometimes feels guilty that I have personally shouldered almost all of the outlining, not to mention online maintenance, itself a very difficult, stressful process.
Right now Allison and I are struggling with the added difficulty of collaborating long-distance. We started it working together from the same room, and now we’re having to contend with an hour of time difference, the added stress of her new job, and the general loss of shared enthusiasm that goes along with this kind of separation. I’m hoping to be able to join her soon, but in the meantime we are pressing onward. Just today we’ve been wrestling with the latest illustration, for which I have a very, very clear idea, and which is proving rather difficult for her for a variety of reasons. It was in this state that I came upon this article about the very subject.
Even though what we’re doing is not a comic, I felt that the article was speaking pretty directly to me. I am definitely “the writer” in the situation. I could easily ALSO be the filmmaker—I come from a strong filmmaking background, which is a lot of the reason my storyboarding ideas are often so specific. Also I have definitely spent a lot of valuable daydreaming time thinking up ideas for films that would also make great graphic novels. The idea of someday doing a graphic novel is very tantalizing to me and always has been, and I have often hoped that someday Allison and I will be able to attempt it, and with this strong collaborative partnership of ours, I choose to remain optimistic about the prospect. I suppose what depresses me the most about this article is not so much the great potential difficulty of a more elaborate collaboration, but more this great divide between authors and artists. It strengthens for me the knowledge I am reluctant to accept, that our novel is not a comic—this time not because of the different sort of response it will get from an audience, but because it does not benefit from the kinship that seems to exist between illustrators and comic artists. Everywhere I go in the webcomicking world has demonstrated for me a great sense of camaraderie between webcomic creators, whereas webfiction writers seem more like regular writers—alone. It’s tough to get this project noticed, tougher when you’re broke, and tougher still when you have this sometimes overpowering sense of existential loneliness. (I know being on Tumblr doesn’t help, and I promise we’re working on that.)
I suppose what I’m getting at here is that even though Mr. Bissette brings up some very good and underrepresented points, and does so fairly and eloquently, I feel a little bit burned by it. It makes me feel (and this I know is somewhat irrational) like as a writer I am going to immediately be viewed as a self-centered outsider. A well-meaning one perhaps, but self-centered nonetheless. Writing is a lonely business, and even when the writer hungers for artistic collaboration there are countless pitfalls awaiting. So while I want this article to get out and get read, I also want to speak up as a writer who also feels like a misfit, and who will remain ever-optimistic that art and writing don’t always have to be so segregated.
Hopefully that makes some amount of sense.
(P.S. I’d like to add that in the article’s comment thread, which is full of artists speaking up against “pain in the ass writers,” Bissette returns to argue against this same dualism I’m speaking of. He’s a good guy.)
We should probably just get it over with now and acknowledge that no, Germany does not have any historical basis for celebrating Halloween, and the presence of Halloween in German culture is due to cultural osmosis from America and American cinema, a process which really only began AFTER World War II. So, you hypothetically demand, why is Herr Althausen holding a big costume party rather conspicuously on the night of the 31st?!
The answer is two-fold.
First, we sometimes forget to research things as vigorously as usual (hey man, research is hard) and we were sort of blinded by our need to make an obligatory Halloween reference in this dark fantasy story of ours and also to have a big hilarious costume party happen, because obviously that’s going to rock (if you aren’t caught up, doesn’t this sound exciting? you should totally catch up).
Second, our sort of hand-wavey post-dating explanation is simple and also totally plausible: Althausen does what he wants when he wants to do it. If he wants a sweet-ass costume party on the last night of October, he is sure going to do it. Plus this dude is loaded, he has surely been out of the country a number of times and he probably picked up a few other people’s traditions. Why not? We ask you.
Now, however, the internet tells us that Halloween has become quite popular indeed with German youth. In fact, Cracked.com did a whole article about terrifying/awful costumes as found on what we presume are German websites selling Halloween costumes. We choose not to link to it because Cracked.com is about the second most dangerous place for time-wasting on the entire internet behind the magnificent TVTropes.org, and also because a lot of those costumes are damn horrifying. If you really want to see them and then spend the rest of your day reading about 8 Things You Never Knew Were Actually Invented By Douchebags or whatever Cracked article catches your fancy, then we are sure you will be able to effectively use the power of google. We believe in you.
Anyway, yeah. Not much to report this week. Decided we would instead aim to open a sort of channel of communication with readers. Hi, readers! How’s it going?
Karl Simrock was a poet primarily known for his translations. He also did indeed write the book Alma was reading, the “Handbook of German Mythology.” We were unable to find an English translation online, but the German one is here, and it is very very German. Interestingly, he also translated the work of Walther von der Vogelweide, who was previously quoted in this very tumblr. Coincidence? Yes.
Heinrich Schliemann was an archaeologist and also, according to Allison, ‘the biggest douche.’ She also claims to have included him as a mere shout-out that means nothing. This information we offer to you, dear readers; do with it what you will I guess.
Wilhelm Kraus is completely made up in spite of what a google search might try to tell you. We will respond with “Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.” Don’t think we won’t.
We found it practical to invent a scholar whose “books” would say whatever we needed them to say. The alleged Herr Kraus has proved very useful so far; he may be appearing again.
