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Zombie Ranch is a comic where I constantly wrestle with issues of presentation, due to its “show-within-a-show” nature. For instance, should every image presented be considered something that was filmed?
The revelation that there are hidden cameras about allows that to be possible… but while I’ve had that twist in my plans for quite awhile, I’ll be honest that I didn’t (and don’t) feel it necessary to constrain Dawn to treating everything primarily like a camera shot. You may have noticed that even the panels we’ve done that are meant to represent raw, live footage are not uniform in shape, and may or may not have a ‘CAMERA 3’ slapped on them. Of course we can fudge that and say the futuristic camera technology allows changing the shape of the lens, but the real reason is first and foremost an aesthetic one. Every panel uniform, with “TV Lines”? That’d get old, fast.
Then again, sometimes I do want to have panels happening from an obvious camera perspective. Sometimes we have “media breaks” showing aspects of the larger world. Sometimes we have those ‘A Moment With…’ segments where previously unseen footage intrudes briefly upon the present, or (as was the case near the start of Episode 2) even runs in tandem with the present as a meta-commentary. Crazy stuff, man.
The saving grace here (in my head, at least) is that one of my themes for the comic is regarding the blurring of lines that “reality television” inflicts on its subjects. What’s real? What’s edited? Did these events actually happen in the order we’re seeing them? How much of these peoples’ lives is on the cutting room floor (so to speak), and what changes when those missing bits are picked up and revealed? How do people act with a camera in their face? How do they act when they think one’s not there? And what does it say when even peeks into the secret back rooms of the show’s producers seem to be staged for dramatic effect?
Mind you my goal isn’t to hit anyone repeatedly over the head with all these questions, including myself and Dawn. This in fact is one of the reasons I rewrote the Exec’s speech last week, since he started spouting off a little too much about metaphysical things, when the focus of the story should remain grounded on the trials and tribulations of one Susannah Zane and her compadres. We always return sooner or later to the Z Ranch, and the happenings there continue on without much regard to the structural antics of some egghead writer and his crazy artist wife.
So when I reflect upon all this, I am content to continue to let the lens (or lack of lens) through which we show the story alter as needed, and by doing so hopefully weave its own tale without sidetracking the main one.
Zombie Ranch is a comic about cowpokes who wrangle zombies for profit. Never let us tell you different.
We have a lot more fun showing you instead.