As an expression of surprise, Brent says, “Cried the Dutchess!”

I have no fucking idea what the hell that means, and I created the character. So, I’ve get an editor putting words into my character’s mouths, and I have no idea WHAT the hell the dialogue means.

I asked the editor what it was supposed to be, and he said he was thinking of Alice in Wonderland.

And I don’t recall “Cried the Dutchess!” as a key term in Alice in Wonderland, but more importantly, I cannot fathom why BRENT of all people would be QUOTING Alice in Wonderland. Seriously, that makes no sense at all.

Every time I would have a character swear and say “fuck” or “shit” or something, both TeH Crazy and the Donning editors would freak. One editor at Teh Crazy Publishing Co. actually demanded I remove Jason’s exposed nipple in one scene, and were extremely concerned about D’mer and Rieken and their cuddling.

And for those who know what Teh Crazy I am talking about, the irony in the expression of Teh Crazy’s tender sensibilities in these matters is obvious.

I protested vehemently and quit after a few issues, but the editor begged me to stay. The editor cut back on the heavy hack work, but contract violations and lack of payment became intolerable. I lasted a few more issues, then folded up shop and got a lawyer.

Then I went to the SECOND worst publisher I ever worked for, which was Starblaze.

It all seems like comedy now.

But repeating in captions what is in the art? Yuck. That’s one of Chuck Dixon’s No-noes about comic book writing: if the character is riding a motorcycle through city streets, you do not need a caption saying the character is riding a motorcycle through city streets. Duh.

But seriously… was there no way for you to protest the editorial intrusions that had nothing to do with making the story clearer? Or did he actually claim that it DID make things clearer?

I had a former small press editor who would impose these incredibly overwritten captions that would almost fill entire panels. Images were almost completely obscured. It drove me nuts.

They were redundant – describing action the reader could see clearly – and not at all in the voice of the story.

There were these long digressions that had absolutely nothing to do with the story. I recall one went on and on about rain inside very large buildings at NASA. This description was during a scene on an alien world. It made no sense at all. It would be like having narration in Wizard of Oz about Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, comparing it to that of the Emerald City. It wasn’t about the story, it was about the editor trying to show off knowledge and impose himself on the project.

I was so relieved to be able to redo the writing later and remove that intrusive nonsense.

I’ve gotten so when I encounter MULTIPLE narration captions — color coded with character logos stuck on them … why not just have the characters in the panel talking to each other? It starts to lose its effectiveness, when the boxes just become dialogue in a different form.

But puffy thought balloons…. they just seem visually dorky in current art styles.

And there are almost no thought balloons in this book.