BLINK: Behind The SketchbookThe Making of “Wonka Wonka Kochalka”

©2012 Maximilian Ink

BLINK is published by Point Media

maximilianink@gmail.comwww.MaxInkComix.com

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Written, Designed &filled with Illustrations by

by

Max Inkwith editorial assistance by

Lia Eastep

Cover Design & Titles by

Joel Chastain

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or byany electronic or mechanical without having your parentsor official guardians filling out the necessary permission

forms. If you’re a reviewer or journalist or anintelligent/enthusiastic reader who wants to sing the praisesof Blink, feel free to post/print anything from the book you

Read the full 20-page original “Wonka Wonka Kochalka”comic from 2004 (in all it’s proto-type sketchy goodness)!

WWKcomic.info

It all began with a spark and a sketch.

Sketchbooks are where my artevolves from a concept in mymind into the content. On April10, 2003, the spark of whatbecame Blink sprang from myhead and with a few deftstrokes of my pencil, she wasconceived on a sketchbookpage. The prototypes of Blink,Sam and Hank were bornwithin minutes of each other,but it took seven months tocome up with a story for thesecharacters actually live.

In November 2003, I wrote andillustrated my first Blink comic as a 12

page digest-sized mini-comic. The storywas called “Poetic Pop,” and it featured

Blink and Sam hanging out at the CupO Joe in Easton Towne Center (a high-end shopping mall in Columbus). The

girls talked about funny poetry, Blink’scomic strip (the one that she draws and

is written by Francis Mellonaire) anddiscussed whether or not to go to a local

comic book convention, theMainstream Ohio Expo.

I was pleased with this, my first Blinkstory, however...

...since I didn’t have a clear direction for an overall plot/story for Blink,creating a follow-up to “Poetic Pop” became a daunting task. So, I justkept sketching the characters with stray lines of dialog and possiblesituations or locations for stories to take place.

Like all writers, I weave aspects of my reallife into my fiction: people, places, events andwhatever observations I come up with alleventually find their way onto the pages ofmy stories. In the beginning of 2004, I wasmaking my bi-weekly visit to the DowntownColumbus Metropolitan Library’s 741.5section (where they house the graphic novelcollections) and came upon two of JamesKochalka’s graphic novels, FantasticButterflies and Magic Boy and His Girlfriend

Amy. Something about James’ stories and art clicked with me and I gotto thinking that Blink would really enjoy reading these books.

Thus, on February 24,2004, I drew this littledoodle...

...and a few days later, I imagined Sam andBlink talking about how difficult it can beto pronounce James Kochalka’s last name.

“James Koh– James Kah– Oh, screw it,James Chocolate.” And that began the

whole thread of what was to become“Wonka Wonka Kochalka.”

© James Kochalka

I had a title, but I needed a story to gowith it. I decided to center the “Wonka”story on the first “official” meetingbetween Blink and Hank.

From the very beginning, Blinkand Sam were conceived as

life-long friends (they’veknown each other and been

friends since the third grade forheaven’s sake) and with

“Poetic Pop,” I had figured outtheir conversational patternpretty well. But with Blink

and Hank, it was acompletely different story.

Literally.

I decided to have eachcharacter doing something

that they’re passionate aboutwhich would then provide

material for them to talkabout. Blink was drawing an

autobiographical story andHank was reading a book by

Fred Alan Wolf aboutparallel universes.

Perfect subject matter forcute conversational banter.

Yeah, right.

If you want to subject yourself to 15 more pages of this train wreck of a “story”filled with convoluted conversation, awkward pauses and malformed versions ofBlink and Hank, visit WWKcomic.info

After a few weeks I ran out of steam and moved on to other Blink stories.

In the Autumn of 2005 that I finallygot around to publishing the follow-up to “Poetic Pop,” Up Leaves FallDown. The book was anotherdigest-sized mini and contained two4-page vignettes–“Autumn’sPlayground” and “Time And A FewWords.” (“Playground” appeared ina local `zine, Theatre Summit) Ialso started the tradition of placing“Columbus pin-up” drawings intothe book (Italian Village andSkully’s) and included a“sketchbook” section in the back.

Shortly after the publication of UpLeaves Fall Down, I got to work

on its follow-up, ExperiencingCreative Difficulties. I wanted to

expand what I had done withULFD by having slightly longerstories. I started off by revising

“A Brief, Hopeless Case,” whichwas a 4-page piece I did for the

Theatre Summit `zine in 2004 (atthe same time WWK was

conceived) and turned it into an8-page piece. I then created

“Snow Day” as a semi-continuation story which featured

Blink building a Snow Zombiewhile procrastinating.

As I was putting the ECDcomic together in February of

2006, I thought about what I’dlike to do next, and believed the

best course of action was torevise that other 2004 story.

Before I even began rewritingthe story, I felt confident that I

could figure out some way toreconfigure it the way I did “A

Brief...” So I drew up this“teaser” and placed it in the

back of ECD.

Since clothes are such a tellingaspect of a character’s personality,I am always on the lookout forclothes that I think my characterswould wear.

It’s not uncommon for me toflip through a woman’s clothescatalog or take notice of what

someone’s wearing and make a quicksketch in one of my pocket sketchbooks. I

have pages upon pages filled with sketchesof Blink, Sam and Hank wearing all sorts ofvarious outfits that may or may not appearin any of my stories.

However, something about having Blinkwearing overalls really got me jazzed...

Inside Blink’s SketchingDressing Room

When I figure out what a characteris going to wear for any given story,I’ll typically draw two or threepages worth of sketches.

I filled over a dozen pageswith Blink dressed inher overalls.

Eventually, I got “farmer Blink” outof my system and moved on to the

other star of this story–Hank.

Over the course of the previous twoyears, Hank evolved and grew into

his own, with interests outsidereading Mr. Wolf’s peculiar

scientific theory. For example, Idiscovered that he plays role playing

games and reads comic books(which gives him a little “fan boy”

cred) and he plays guitar (whichgives him a little “coolness” cred).

I don’t know howcommon it is for writersto have their characters

talk with each other aboutthe subject matter in the

stories that they’re“performing” in, but it’s

something I do onoccasion.

Since the majority of mystories are built from

conversations, exploringthe characters’ viewpoints

and opinions provide mewith more angles to

approach the topic(s)being discussed.

2006 WWK

By having the characters bounce off each other, it also helps me to refinethe script. Above is an example of Blink and Hank “improvising” on thetopic of non-superhero comic books. I used that to build a few pages inthe revised “Wonka” story...

2006 WWK

Like 2 years before, I “trapped myself” with tryingto work the subject matter into a natural soundingconversation. Overall, I had a hard time re-imagining the story into something that worked forthe characters. So, I put “Wonka” on the shelf againand moved on to a story that put my mind at ease.“Space To Breathe,” a short 6-page piece with Blinkand Sam relaxing in a field of grass looking up atthe night sky and talking about whatever came tomind.

The first Blink publication thatfeatured Hank was Let It Be As It Is, it was the first

Free Blink mini comic I did in the Summer of2006. But it wasn’t set up as a “first meeting”

story in the way “Wonka” was. However, it didfeature Hank talking about his “geeky” interests

(role playing games) with his friends, Kevin,Amy and Joshua.

I decided to fold in aspects of the “first meeting” ofHank from the original “Wonka” story into thenext Blink book–”Barefoot In America, BreakfastIn The Park” which was released in 2007. Imanaged to rework the dialog and subject matterinto a natural sounding conversation between thethree of them and built a satisfying story (andreceived a S.P.A.C.E. Prize nomination in 2008).

From then on, I was ableto write stories that featured the trio being

comfortable with being themselves andmanaged to put the ghost of “Wonka” to rest.

Or so I thought.

In March 2011, the first collection of Blinkstories was released under the title So Far, and

right away, I was writing the next adventurefor these three crazy Columbus kids...

About half of what I originally conceived in that initial flash of notesactually made it into the final cut. A few changes of note: So Be It is nowBook Three and the coffee shop, Kafe Kerouac, has been moved to appearin the third chapter of So It Goes. (Not “Kerouac Kafe”...Oy. I’mconstantly transposing words & letters)

So Far became “Book One” and I had the flash of an idea to create twomore Blink Books that would eventually contain multiple chapters: So BeIt (Book Two) and So It Goes (Book Three).

When I began work on the final “Wonka” script/plot two months later, therewere a few bits and pieces from the original 2004/2006 concepts that werestill rattling around. But after a few rewrites, I managed to create a wholenew story that was fresh and original (and made sense).

And so, a month later, I (finally) got down to brass tacks and figured outhow I was going to fill this “20+ page story,” but of course...

...I simply had to write a note to myself about, um, writing the script. (Andprovide a shout-out to Dave Sim’s Cerebus, for no reason other than itbeing a guiding source of inspiration in creating this comic.)

Then, I got into the nitty-gritty of making the “Wonka Wonka Kochalka”story that finally made the cut (after eight years).

See there, at the bottom, those tiny thumbnails of the first 3 pages?

Here’s the script for those pages.

The way I typically write scripts works is like this: I figure out the generalplot/action/beats of the story, then I just start writing dialog and charactermovements/actions/details without thinking too much about specific pagelayouts or breakdowns. After I get a few pages done (usually 4-6 pages), Igo over what I’ve written and chop up the action/dialog into pages andpanels. (I actually wrote the script on this page before I drew the tinythumbnails on the previous page.)

After I get the scripts thumbnails figure out, I proceed onto drawing therough layouts, then making full-size final pencils, inks, lettering, andPhotoshop tones and clean-up.

When I drew the rough layoutand the final pencils/inks for

page 1, I was only thinking ofthe immediate page at hand. I

wasn’t thinking of the pagewithin context of the entire

story (which is important topay attention to as a visualnarrative storyteller). As I

continued working on writingand drawing the rest of the

story, I decided that page onewould benefit greatly by

getting rid of the loud, blaringtitle and replacing it with a“quiet” place-setting panel.

Another page, anotherrevision. Once again, Irealized after the fact thatthe story would be betterserved by going for thequiet rather than the quick.

With the first draft, twoequal panels makes thepage read rather quickly.Inserting three small panelsto “set the scene” outsidethe building, moving thereader inside with the onelarge panel, with themusic/balloons, helpedslow down the pace andgive the page a lyricalquality.

Rather than chopping up thepanels to slow down thenarrative, I chopped up thelyrics that Hank is singing.The panel revisions of theaudience, from an overheardshot, to a medium shot, thenfinally to a close up on Blinkhelped to further control thenarrative pace.

Also, with Hank’s long/tallprofile, it gives him a sense oflarger-than-life-ness andshows that he is the focalpoint; not only because he’sonstage singing at the WildGoose, but he's now become afocal point in Blink's eyes.

Of course, with each new Blinkstory, there’s the figuring outof the wardrobe. While I was

fiddling with the “Wonka”script, I worked on a littleBlink 3-pager, “Lost &Waiting,” for an anthologyand decided to justbasically carry over their

clothes fromthere to“Wonka.”Figuring out

what the newcharacters

were going towear wasanother

matter...

Joshua and Kevin were pretty easyto figure out; they always wear thesame basic “uniform.” Kevin’s gothis khaki pants and polo shirt and

Joshua has his jeans and a wide array of t-shirts. They’re usually concertt-shirts or ones that have funny/geeky sayings. I actually created the

“Dinosaurs For Christ” tee special for this “Wonka” comic...

As for Amy’s choice of attire,she’s the sort of girl who’s

cool with wearing a casualdress shirt and sweater

vest while also sporting acouple of facial piercings

and (as of yet unseen)tattoos.

Something else that’sinteresting about

Amy is how similarshe is to another

“geeky” Amy–Amy Farrah Fowler on the Big

Bang Theory (as portrayed by MayimHoya Bialik). However, my Amy came first,in 2006. BBT’s Amy arrived in 2010. It’s just a

happy coincidence.

...and I made Sam’s“geek-bashing” t-shirt, too.

SAM vs. The Geek CultureSamantha Washington is not a fan. Sure, she enjoys

her fair share of music, film,literature, theatre and maybeeven a little television (solong as it’s cable), but she isdefinitely not a fan. Shemight be an intelligentperson and knows a thing ortwo about trivia (she is an

accomplished crossword puzzle solver), but she certainly doesn’t considerherself a “geek” and bristles at the very notion of being identified as such. Iknew this topic was going to be addressed to some degree in “Wonka” so Ithought I’d let Sam say a word or two on the subject to help me get a betterhandle on where she’s coming from...

It’s all well and good to understand where a character’s coming from, butjust because I know what they’re thinking, that doesn’t mean I shouldshow what they’re thinking in the story. Not all of it, anyway.

I knew there was going to besome kind of “battle”

between Sam and Joshua,but I didn’t know how it

would play out. However, Idid know that I wanted the

battle to be personal and thatI needed to stay away from

any rants about “what’swrong” with geek-culture.

I decided to have Sam come to Blink’s “rescue” after Joshua made abad joke; it seemed like a reasonable way to pit the two against eachother. Sam came out swinging and it wasn’t until I was writing Joshua’sdialog for the scene that the dynamic of the scene took shape.

I was surprised and impressed with how Josh responded to Sam’sattacks in such a humdrum fashion. It showed how different he isfrom Hank (Sam’s other geek punching bag) and it really took thewind out of her sails.

Back in 2004 (and2006), the reasoning fortitling the story “WonkaWonka Kochalka” was

tenuous at best. I mean,c’mon... Blink and Sam

nicknaming JamesKochalka “James

Chocolate?”Seriously? I tried to

ameliorate theconnection by havingHank make a “joke”about the difference

between women andmen being that

women like wine andchocolate and menlike beer and pork

rinds. Get it?Chocolate? Wonka?

Starting from scratch in2011 provided me with an

ideal opportunity torepurpose the reasoning for

the title (it is an awesometitle). I decided to go withthe universal language of

music. The natural choice totie Wonka is was taking a

tune from Leslie Bricusse andAnthony Newley’s WillyWonka and the ChocolateFactory soundtrack. “Pure

Imagination” fit the billperfectly.

Choosing a tune from JamesKochalka Superstar was a tadbit more challenging, but fun.

Kochalka’s catalog of musicboasts over 50 songs (mostof them under two minuteslong). Deciding which oneto feature in the story

seemed like a daunting task. Butafter a cursory glance of songs titles

like "Robot Shark," "Monkey Vs.Robot" and "Twinkle Twinkle RingoStarr," cute and clever though theymay be, I happened upon “Bacharach

Galactica” (from the 2009 albumDigital Elf). I knew I found theone. Not only does thealliteration of “Bacharach”mirror “Wonka” sublimely, thelyrics are supremely Kochalka:“Been to hell and back just likeBurt Bacharach / The law's onmy ass like Julio Iglesias / Ibetter lay low, just like BarryManilow / I'm humpin' thepumpernickel like EnglebertHumperdink will / On theBattlestar Burt Bacharach / TheBacharach Galactica / That iswhere I learned the facts / Thescience that I'll drop on ya”

Absolutely, James. The sciencehas been dropped and it has beenreceived indeed.

© James Kochalka

“From The Beginning...”Whew.

I am so glad to be done with writing this Behind The Sketchbook book! Don't getme wrong, I'm glad that I did it. The time and effort it took to put this “comicbook commentary” together was totally worth it. Over the months it took towrite and draw the “Wonka Wonka Kochalka” comic in 2011, I would tell peoplethat the story had been knocking around in my sketchbook for years before. But Inever felt that I was able to fully get my point across as to how much work I hadalready put into this story. How many years I struggled with a concept that hadnever been published―because it was never quite good enough and never meantto be published―until now. Now, this chapter of Blink is done and I can move onto the next one―the next chapter in the story of Blink (the character, compared tothe story of Blink, the comic book).

Ugh.

I really can't stand writing this non-fiction, essay-type stuff. I try my best to behonest and true. Both to myself and the reader.

But I'm always worried about getting my facts wrong. Worried that the words I'musing are wrong. Worried the grammar's wrong. Worried the punctuation iswrong. (Thanks English teachers!) Worried that I'm being too loquacious andoverstating my opinion. Worried that I'm missing some important tidbit ofinformation that prevents my point from being crystal clear to the reader.Worried about... nothing.

I'm far more at ease writing fiction: slipping on the persona of some character Icreated and speaking through them.

But over the years of writing and drawing Blink, Sam and Hank, as I've gotten toknow them through the dozen or so stories I've managed to complete and publish,through the hundreds of sketches and notes and... conversations I've had withthem in my many many sketchbooks, I've come to accept that they have voices oftheir own and they speak through me. They have their own truths which theyhold dear to themselves. And now with Kevin, Joshua and Amy, and a wholeslew of new characters that willappear in the Blink graphic novelsto come, there are more voices thatwill be heard.

More opinions to be expressed.

More truths to be revealed.

More honesty to be shared.

More sparks to be given life.

In the pages of a comic book.

Evolutionof a cover

Top & middledesigns byMax Ink

Bottomdesigns byJoel Chastain