Brave Ulysses, Mickey Free

May 26, 2011

Crazy weather, crazy times. Started this yesterday at lunch, finished it this morning before I came into work: "White Dove In A Crazy Storm."

Speaking of crazy, lots of heat on Mickey Free lately. After my foray into Rattlesnake Kate country, I'm back, hard at it with an episode that The Top Secret Writer has been hounding me to do. I have resisted, of course, and have gone off in every other direction but the one he wanted. Mainly, Mickey and his mule going off cliffs, fighting Pancho Villa's studs, stuff like that.

I read a good quote recently (see below) and when I mentioned this to Paul Hutton (The Top Secret Writer) he went harping back to the episode-sequence he thinks answers that equation.

Well, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, so I agreed with him and made up my mind that I would do this next Mickey Free episode exactly as he wants, frame for frame. I am Ulysses asking my crew to bound me to the mast so that as we sail by Siren's Island I will demand to be let free, but don't listen to me. We have to do this version.

I pulled out an unfinished painting of the Mickster straddling two worlds and put it in the layout as a fpo (for position only). Here it is:

He is caught between two worlds (and three cultures). This is a story for our times. How do I get everyone to understand this?

"First get the reader to care about your character, then get them to worry about him."
—Peter Bogdonavich