Pray For Death

 STANDARDS AND PRACTICES

After winning the Zuda contest, I was ready to get to work. It was exciting. I was now writing a comic for DC Comics. But the contract had to be signed first. That sounds pretty easy, but it was so much more complicated than necessary. They had to send me the contract from New York to Los Angeles. Then I sign it and mail it back to New York. Then they sign it and send a copy back to me in Los Angeles. If that sounds like it took longer than necessary, then just imagine the same process with Dani in Italy.

Meanwhile, I had the next chapter of the story demanding to be written. So I got to work. The next 9 pages poured out of me. The first 8 page story that I wrote for the contest had to be a complete story that set up the bigger story and created a cliffhanger that begged to be resolved. With the contest won and a contract to finish the story, Things were wide open. I wrote a 9 page scene about the killer torturing and crucifying a woman and her two children. it was cruel and brutal, but that's what this comic was always meant to be. Violent, gruesome and visceral.

And then I waited until contracts were complete. I'm not gonna lie, I got a little antsy. I wanted to make my comic book. When we finally got the go ahead, I sent my script to our editors for approval. The response was not what I was expecting. "It should be more Hitchcockian."

I wasn't so naive as to expect my editors not to have any input, but this seemed like they were trying to change the very DNA of the story. When I asked for clarification, I got tips such as:

• Allude to things, you don't have to show everything.
• create tension.
• Sometimes it's more interesting to not show things.
• Just.. You know.. Be more Hitchcockian.

This all still seemed very vague and counterintuitive to the story I was telling. So I asked for some examples of things that they thought could be more Hitchcockian in the script.

• I'm not gonna tell you how to write your script. Just make it more Hitchcockian.

At this point I was super stressed out. They had even said that it was unpublishable in its current form. I didn't know what to do. This was my first professional job for the company I had always dreamed of working for. I was happy to take feedback and make changes, but none of this made any sense to me. How do I tell my editors that they are wrong? On the very first pages delivered?

I crafted a very carefully worded and respectful email (I'm not being facetious, I worked very hard at being respectful.) That laid out my feelings about the story and pointing out, that this was never meant to be Hitchcockian. It was always meant to be graphic and hard to look at. The brutality should be on display. Then the truth came out.

• Well DC's Standards and Practices won't allow you to show a crucifixion. You can't even show a crucifix on a necklace around someone's neck. This is not allowed in any Comic that DC publishes.

My Mind was blown. But I was totally relieved because THIS I could work with! I hadn't even been specific about exactly what was and was not shown inside the panel borders. I left a lot of that up to Dani. Dani is a stellar artist with amazing instincts. Leaving the descriptions a little vague allows him to shine. So to fix this, I had questions.

• Can I show the cross on the ground without a person on it?
• Can I show it in silhouette?
• can we show part of the crucifix? Maybe cut it off below the knees and just show the feet?

to my utter astonishment, the answer to all of these questions was, "yes." So I changed the script and made it more specific about what was shown in the panels and we had an approved script that moved to Dani for art. I should point out the original contest story had a man crucified to a fence and that seemed to pass. I guess the combination of human and cross was where the line was drawn.

Dani got to work and there continued to be some back and forth about things that appeared in the panels. First, when they saw the crosses on the ground, they asked Dani to change them to posts by removing the crossbeams. 

They requested this from Dani directly without including me. But Dani showed it to me first and told me what they wanted. I asked him to not even show them this version. They had already okayed a cross on the ground, so we will move forward with that.

The next concern was over the silhouette.

It would have to be obscured.

Again, this was requested without including me, but I could see how that silhouette was pushing the line and I accepted it. However, it should be noted that the original version will be restored in my new edition that is available on Kickstarter right now. brokenoarcomics.com This is actually my favorite page in the whole book. This is the only page of original art that I have kept for myself, the rest are available as kickstarter rewards. Dani's depiction of the killer casually and coldly addressing a woman with thick spikes through her palms and feet is chilling.

We got through these pages with only minor tweaks and I still love them. As I continued to write new pages, I had a better understanding of DC's policies and never ran into any more problems like this. In fact, It seemed like our editors became fairly complacent and rarely offered any notes at all. Dani even decided to sneak in another partial crucifixion without anyone saying anything.

We were both surprised that this got through. This time Dani gave only the top of the cross, assembled with various pieces.

DC eventually changed this policy, but over the years I noticed a few examples of DC's Standards and Practices upholding this policy. Most notably with a boy hanging from the foot spike in DC: New Frontier by Darwin Cooke.

I think that EVERYONE involved with Zuda Comics will tell you that it was highly educational for them. It definitely was for me. My editors didn't seem to want to admit that Standards and Practices were an issue. I think they were afraid of a bad reaction from a very green, indie creator protecting their "vision." But once I knew what the limitations were, I had no problem working with them.

I'm thrilled that I am finally publishing this book in an amazing deluxe hardcover and I hope that you will join me on this gruesome adventure. The kickstarter will continue to run until November 2, 2025. Check it out at brokenoarcomics.com

Nick