Every Day I Write The Book #3: Creating Cody

So, as you may or may not have heard on the Facebook page, we have a very awesome opportunity we're going to try to seize in the coming months. It's times like these where previous plans kind of get pushed to the side to pursue bigger goals. Which means the new short, the working title for which was "JC's Suburban Rants", has been pushed back, just a bit. Don't worry, you WILL see it.

In the meantime, let's talk about Cody. If you haven't seen "Cody's Pro-Tips", you can find it in the post bellow. I think it's a pretty great introduction to the character, too.

The very first sketch of Cody. Art by Iris Febres.

Cody was created kind of as this "what-if" scenario for me. During my time at Tisch, I began to strongly consider the idea of just...not being able to fit into society as a functioning human being. I think one of the most important things you need to realize is that film school doesn't exactly boost your ego. I was put down a lot for the kinds of projects I wanted to do. I went to Tisch during a period where everything "indie" was in. I usually felt this strong hatred for anything that might conform to a mainstream taste. As you'll see in future episodes of Failing Upward, I constantly like the lampoon the mindset.

But, my point is that I seriously thought there was no place for me in the world of film and television. For all I know, I may be right.

The idea of Cody started with the prediction that I was still going to be living at home at the age of 24 or so. I've always kind of had this weird fascination with kind of reclaiming lost time from my childhood and teen years. Suddenly, I'm living in the city and it's a bit scarier that I had anticipated. I kind of felt like most people where they felt it had gone by way to fast and that I didn't have the experiences that I wanted to, but you know, I'm a rational person. We get over these things.

With Cody, that thought process is taken to a much crazier extreme. He's a character that literally will do anything to avoid any kind of social responsibility. It's not that he's stupid or a jerk, it's just that he's got this ideal life in mind. He legitimately loves suburbia. Now, it's not to say he's not lazy, that's a given. However, in the first episode that I had written, there's definitely a bit more going on mentally with this kind of refusal to grow up. I think, once Cody has been kicked out and is forced to move to the city, a lot of these things start to come to fruition.

The side of Cody that was the most influenced by my own personal life was Cody being a geek. I guess by popular label, you could call me a "geek", and I'd be hard-pressed not to disagree with you. However, I think the thing that separates Cody from the normal sitcom geek, is that, all of his nerdiness is based in pop-culture. There's no real intellectual side to Cody and I actually really prefer it that way. We're living in an age where being a geek is pretty much defined by how much you know about trivial topics. I never really understood the correlation between being smart and loving science-fiction and comic books, considering the latter almost always slaps logic in the face. I think actor/comedian Donald Glover said it best;

Early Redesigns for Cody. Art by Steven Ray Brown.

"Strange specific stuff, that's what makes what makes a nerd a nerd. If you like strange specific stuff, that's a nerd. Kanye West is a black nerd, he likes strange specific stuff. If you go up to Kanye West and say; 'Hey, what are you favorite things?', he'll be like 'Robots and teddy bears!', that's a nerd!"

That's what makes Cody unique on the surface. He'll be talking and just whip out a reference to this B-movie movie you may only know by name, at best. It's this strange, habitual trait that his brain is hardwired to jump to. This isn't random either, he always has legitimate points to make using these references. It's not done to prove anything either. That's one of my biggest problems with the sitcom nerd, it's feels like name dropping for the sake of name dropping. I'm looking at you, Big Bang Theory.

I guess the last thing I should mention is Cody's design. If you ever see me on a livestream or doing a Q&A video, the first thing you're going to automatically notice the resemblance between myself and Cody. I kind of made pact with myself, that this would be the one and only character that would ever look anything like me. I think it's mainly because Failing Upward is such a personal story for me. On the flip-side of that, I knew there had to be some differences.

One of the major ones was giving him glasses, which is kind of just the Clark Kent trick, but I really do think there's a lot of character in those glasses. From Iris' first design, I just thought they made a world of difference between me and Cody, it allowed me to step back and not look at him as myself, but as a character. Steven came in and did some amazing touch ups and one of the things that I love about Cody now, is the dotted eyes. I think those emphasize the glasses and give him even more character. Of course, there's also the slew of geeky t-shirts, which, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to be guilty of any kind of reference dropping, it might as well be something you have to recognize and think about.

So, I guess that's Cody in a nutshell. Despite all the geekery and silliness, I'm glad he kind of became an entity that didn't entirely represent me. I can't wait to really explore him further and I'm sure you'll grow to at least tolerate his antics. In the next post, I'll talk about how I was able to take a bunch of other stuff about me, and mold it into a redheaded girl named JC.

See You Space Cowboy,

- Gary