Striking Writers Still Have Options for Writing

By Ron Hogan on November 6, 2007 8:00 AM

Variety‘s “Bags and Boards” blog had a smart post yesterday about the effect of the Writers Guild of America strike on the comic book world, including a thoughtful analysis of whether comic book writers could ever unionize the way film and television writers have. Reporter Tom McLean also links to a Comic Book Resources article that quotes several writers with feet in both markets on how the strike frees them up to write more comics or catch up with their existing deadlines, including a particularly interesting line from Daniel Knauf (left), the creator of the HBO series Carnivale and current scribe on Marvel‘s monthly Iron Man comic: “I’ve been much happier with the creative freedom I have experienced with comics for some time, and have considered redirecting my efforts toward graphic storytelling rather than television series creation.” Knauf doesn’t see a lot of his television peers making the jump as a new career option, though:

“[Comics] is a very unforgiving medium, and requires an ability to crunch story and make each frame convey a lot of information with very little dialogue—virtually the opposite of television, which is 80-90 percent talking heads. The vast majority of television writers are not visual storytellers. So the answer is yes, some TV writers might want to turn to comics, but very few will have the talent and craft to pull it off.”

But screenwriters looking for new creative outlets can always try words without pictures. Sharlene Martin, best known these days for helping the Goldman family shepherd If I Did It to publication, issued a press release last night stating that her agency would be willing to hear out any WGA member who doesn’t already have literary represenation about fiction or non-fiction book projects. The agency will also organize free workshops on book proposal writing for WGA members in New York and Los Angeles.