Back Matter #2 - ACT-I-VATE's Dan Goldman & Anything Goes issue 2

With the “Back Matter” series of posts, I am reprinting my initial writings on comics from roughly 2006.  A more detailed explanation can be found here. 

-Thanks

BACK MATTER #2

                        One of the boons of the internet has been a new outlet for comics’ creators to self-publish their work.  It used to be that one would write and draw their story, go to Kinko’s to make copies, and then sell them at conventions or distribute them around town.  Now people just need an internet hookup, a domain, and access to a scanner.  Webcomics are the new mini-comics.         

ACT-I-VATE was created on LiveJournal a little over two months ago by comic creators Dean Haspiel, Nick Bertozzi, Josh Neufeld, Tim Hamilton, Leland Purvis, Michel Fiffe, Dan Goldman, and Nikki Cook.  An online experiment, ACT-I-VATE is a cyber studio where these comics creators get to do their own thing, scratching that itch that’s been gnawing away at the back of their mind.  Done for free, in between paying jobs and other responsibilities, each of the artists works to get a new installment uploaded once a week in order to keep the site vital.  And, with the recent addition of Dean Trippe, Chip Zdarsky, Dave Wallin, and Rami Efal, some of the burden will be dropped from those initial artists’ shoulders while still allowing the site to remain fresh with material.

            I admit most of these creators were unknown to me and I initially linked over there thanks in part to one of Warren Ellis’s Bad Signals along with the name recognition of Dean Haspiel.  But upon my arrival I was confronted with the header for Dan Goldman’s “Kelly” – clean, crisp linework with a coloring style unlike anything found in a print comic. 

So I entered, and was I ever glad I did.  “Kelly” is brilliant in its presentation of a simple premise with a dynamism and experimentation found in too few comics.  Goldman starts with a situation we all can relate to, having to rely on others just to get by, and sucks us into his narrative.  Max, our protagonist, has been trying to save enough money for his own apartment in New York – not something easily done – while crashing at his brother’s place.  This might not be such an uncomfortable situation except for the fact that his brother’s girlfriend also lives there.  Goldman hammers home the awkwardness of the situation when Max is contemplating his life just as sounds of mad, frantic sex screech through the walls like nails on a chalkboard.  Luckily, he has come across an ad for an apartment share, something he could pull off with his meager income.

Max answers the ad – from the office – just as his boss comes over to chastise him for using the Arial font instead of the correct Garamond font as called for in all client memos.  Seeing Max on the phone, his boss reprimands him as well for making a personal call on company time.  Yes, we all know that boss and we all know Max’s inner reaction.  From here things go from crazy to bizarre to mildly insane, and it’s all wildly engrossing. 

Max is leery of his potential new roommate but hopeful of the possibility to finally be on his own.  However, once he meets Kelly and gets inside the apartment Max’s radar starts buzzing again.  Maybe he should have been more leery.  Why is Kelly “excited” to see me?  (I’m not into guys)  Does Kelly really wipe his ass with paper towels?  (mental note: gotta pick up toilet paper)  Do I really want to know what his special super secret surprise is?  (I don’t think so).  Goldman plays on your expectations, presents you with scenes that will get that perverse gutter of a mind churning, and then throws you a big curveball with his revelations.  And when Max’s ex-girlfriend finally rings him up after four months it’s time to pull out the peace pipe and get conceptual.  What happens next is anyone’s guess.

This is easily one of the most entertaining comics I have come across in a long time.  Through eleven installments we have been able to learn quite a bit about the main character Max, while Kelly still remains an enigma.  His odd secretiveness and lust for a good enema are enough to make anyone uneasy, but this is only part of what we know of Kelly.  He is also a sympathetic good-hearted person, albeit with a skewed take on the world.  It’s this complexity that makes him a compelling character, and one about which we want to learn more.  Why is he like this?  Is he hiding something?  What’s going on inside that gap-toothed head of his?  Goldman pulls off this dichotomy of character with Kelly masterfully.  He can make you feel uneasy, while at the same time coaxing a smile of recognition from you.  And maybe, if you’re willing to admit it, you’re laughing along too because it’s so damn funny.  Just don’t tell your Mom.

And what can be said about the art?  This was what enticed me to click on “Kelly” in the first place.  The closest in style to what Goldman is doing might be Ben Templesmith’s work in Fell or any of the painted works from Scott Morse.  Goldman takes clean linework and overlays it with swaths and spatters of digital paint.  The end result is a feast for the eyes and adds an additional layer to the story, eliciting feelings of wonder, or surrealism, or alarm.

Goldman also utilizes other techniques to accentuate the mood of a chapter.  The most obvious example of this comes in chapters 6 and 7, when Max’s ex-girlfriend Theresa rings his cell phone.  As Max realizes who it is Goldman turns the panel on his protagonist, whose face is melting away – the ink running off the bottom of Max’s face like tears.  This is painful.  We know just from the image what he is going through.  In the following chapter Goldman continues to showcase Max’s mental state by running Theresa’s name across the backgrounds of all the panels Max is in.  After lying dormant for months, she has sprung to the forefront of Max’s mind and the psychic backlash is written all over the walls, literally.   

Comics can get so boring, especially if you remain in the superhero mainstream.  I want to be surprised, transfixed, and just blown away by what I read.  Gladly, the ACT-I-VATE site does all that.  To check it out go to http://act-i-vate.livejournal.com  and start clicking.

Back in the vault this time we have another anthology of sorts, issue #2 of Anything Goes! from Fantagraphics Books.  Published in the summer of 1986, Anything Goes! was a benefit book that caught my attention because of the list of creators involved.  Where else can you take a few minutes and enjoy a complete story – a complete experience – created by the likes of Jaime Hernandez, Sam Kieth, Alan Moore, and Art Spiegelman? 

            Like most benefit books, pin-up pieces by noted artists are included and this comic happened to showcase the works of two giants in the field.  First there is the cover from Frank Miller.  Beautifully colored by painter Lynn Varley who brought a sophistication to comics coloring that would not become more widespread until years later, this piece contains all the hallmarks of Miller’s work in his signature “Dark Knight” style.  Ninja, Japanese swordsmen, futuristic warriors, arrows and bullets flying across the canvas, this is the frenetic artwork fans had come to expect from this wunderkind and he didn’t disappoint.  And inside we find three plates from Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott, who had not worked together for fifteen years before this collaboration.  Together, the pieces comprise a short story.  Although Kirby’s art is not for everyone, and this story sadly does not contain the dynamic power for which he is known, Kirby was still a giant in the field.  Despite lacking his trademark energy this contribution does have one of the more surreal pieces I’ve ever seen drawn by Kirby – a Martian egghead one man band.  After almost fifty years in comics he was still able to give us something new from his fertile mind.

            Jaime Hernandez, co-creator of the incredible anthology Love & Rockets, is also present here.  Providing a new 4-page “Locas” short featuring Hopey and Maggie, this is a good introduction to the beauty of Hernandez’s comics.  Not only is his art clean and smooth, the envy of other artists, but he also infuses his stories with all the humor, sadness, and drama that can be found in everyday life.  Despite being set in California with a predominantly Spanish population – drawing upon his own life experiences – anyone can relate to Hernandez’s stories because the emotions and the situations are so true to life.  More people should be checking out the work put forth by him and his brothers, Gilbert and Mario.

            Next we have a Sam Kieth 2-pager titled “And Speaking Of Those Abstract Pretentious Stories That Make You Feel Stupid If You Don’t Get Them. . .”  One of his earliest works, you can already see his soft, fluid art style coming forth.  We are also treated to his distinctly surreal viewpoint evident in much of his later work such as The Maxx.  This particular tale is about a man and a woman very much in love.  But, as the man comes to idealize the woman his feelings fall into depraved, sexually perverse territory.  Unwilling to treat her as a whore, he hides his feelings in a box buried in the backyard.  Eventually, the woman finds the box and the spawn found within is something that could only come from the fevered mind of Kieth.

            Two pieces near the back of the book are “Chrysalis,” an adaptation of a Jack Cronin fantasy poem by Dennis Fujitake, and a 1973 strip from Art Spiegelman titled “Walt Disney Lives.”  The former deals with being an outcast and eventually leaving behind those that scorn you.  The artwork is reminiscent of Moebius and Bilal and will have me looking for other work by Fujitake.  The latter is a cautionary fever-dream from comix master Spiegelman.  What if Walt Disney were revived from cryogenic hibernation and decided to purify the world and lead it into a new millennium?  Here is the answer.  Anything more I might say could not do this short story justice.  If you are familiar with Spiegelman’s more political work then you know what to expect.

            And that brings us back around to the centerpiece of this book, “In Pictopia,” written by Alan Moore and drawn by Don Simpson.  Like most of Moore’s best work this story can be read on a couple of different levels.  On the surface this is a day in the life tale relating Nocturno the Necromancer’s experience in the surreal city of Pictopia.  Here is a place where all the types of characters we have ever read about in comic books and comic strips live side by side.  Superheroes, funny animals, adventure heroes, western characters, and one who looks very much like the Yellow Kid – the very first comic strip character – along with countless others.  They’re all here living together, though not necessarily in harmony.  The brightly clad superheroes, overly-muscled and excessively scowled, are pushing out all the older characters including outdated models of some of the spandex set, and nobody seems able to do anything about it.  In the end, Nocturno goes looking for his friend Flexible Flynn, a Plastic Man variant, and discovers an ubermensch with rippling muscles and a sinister look wearing Flynn’s costume.  Alarmed, Nocturno runs out into the street and heads toward Funnytown, a small section on the outskirts where the funny animals dwell.  He knows there he can find the consolation he so desperately needs after this jarring experience.  But when he gets there he finds it all dozed under, any consolation he might have found now a faded memory.

            Of course, having been written in 1986 when the effects of the ‘grim and gritty’ movement were about to lay hold of the comic book marketplace, this tale can also be read as a lament of where the industry was heading.  Moore has stated many times his disdain for the hyper-realistic, relevant anti-hero movement that was spawned by Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and his and Dave Gibbons’s own Watchmen.  The problem that arose after these two seminal works were published was that everyone wanted to replicate the glossy sheen of these stories but didn’t dig any deeper to find the core relevance in these landmark creations.  “In Pictopia” is one of Moore’s most poignant discourses on this subject and serves as an illuminating counterpoint to this dark era as well as a beautiful love letter to comics’ rich history, all in only 13 pages.

            I would be remiss if I did not mention Don Simpson’s contribution to this piece as well.  The facility he showed in mimicking varying artists’ styles added very much to the story’s ability to work on multiple levels.  The goofy dog, the Phantom, the Lone Ranger, and the hyper-real superheroes are all recognizable as being of their time.  Without his attention to detail this could not have worked as well.  Once again, Moore managed to bring out the best in his artist.

            And there we are, two more comics I hope you’ll check out.  As always, let me know what you think.  I’m always interested in hearing any opinions or recommendations you might have.  And we’ll see you here again in two weeks. 

            Lost in the Back Matter.

FYC Replay: The Process with Joe Infurnari

The archiving of my Pulse columns continues. Here's a look at one of the more inventive webcomics I've read by the incredibly talented artist Joe Infurnari. Check his stuff out!

For Your Consideration: Joe Infurnari’s The Process

By Chris Beckett

FRONT PAGE: Joe Infurnari is the artist for Oni’s Borrowed Time, written by Neal Shaffer. With that book, he showed that he is an accomplished comic artist. But online, Infurnari is experimenting with style, pushing himself to evolve as an artist while pushing the boundaries of comic storytelling. His webcomic, The Process, is an entertaining experiment that is well worth checking out. Click on in and find out more about this intriguing artist.

The 411:

The Process webcomic

Story & Art by Joe Infurnari

Color, b/w, collage

theprocesscomic.com

What It Is (with apologies to Dave the Thune):

At Joe Infurnari’s website (artist of Borrowed Time and Wasteland #14), the artist is experimenting with his art – with style, with storytelling, and with the process. The tale begins with a mad stampede of strange creatures barreling over the rolling dunes trying to stay ahead of a great storm that pushes them forward. Witnessing this mad dash is a scrit, a small land crustacean similar to a small crab that is able to curl into a ball and shield itself with its hard outer shell. Unlucky enough to be in the path of these wild animals, the scrit rolls itself up and manages to avoid being crushed. But the storm is close behind and the tiny animal moves off searching for shelter.

Hiding under an overarching leaf of a tall plant, the scrit does not avoid being drenched as the upper leaves of this same plant quickly fill with raindrops, the rush of water cascading down from one upturned leaf to another before reaching the one just above the scrit’s head, sending the crustacean sluicing along the now moist ground. Realizing the flora of this strange place will not provide the shelter it needs, the scrit scuttles off to a cave. There it is indeed dry and warm, but as the scrit moves further into the darkness it discovers another inhabitant residing within the cave. A young boy has already sought shelter there, and when the boy sees the crustacean he smashes the tiny animal with a rock, killing it instantly and bringing chapter one to a close.

With chapter two, things become surreal. The soul of the Scrit leaves its mortal body, devolving down to its component DNA as it returns to its maker, the mind of the artist – Joe Infurnari. This is a beautiful sequence, and the images created by Infurnari are beautiful and strange and elegantly communicate these strange events. With this transition, readers are now invited to experience the inner workings of the artist as the audience watches Joe finishing up his day. But when he steps away from the drawing table, the work is not done. His mind is still swirling with ideas and images, and it is obvious that the fantasy world he created for chapter one is working to push its way into the artist’s “real world.” As these two worlds overlap, readers must try and decide which of the two is real and which imagined, because it is not readily evident from the narrative, though readers should be excused for their bias toward one perception of reality.

Joe Infurnari is an accomplished artist. That was apparent from his work on the Oni press series Borrowed Time, which he created with writer Neal Shaffer. But the work he is doing on The Process at his website is far beyond what he’s already achieved. His coloring is nuanced and creates a fully realized fantasy landscape, while the choice to showcase the “real” world in black and white gives the story a nice dichotomy that helps to differentiate the two realities as the fantasy world pushes up against its boundaries, threatening to break down those barriers and become part of this “real” world.

As the second chapter moves toward its conclusion, Infurnari again moves outside of the familiar and utilizes photography and sets created out of cardboard in order to push along the narrative. Infurnari seems unfazed about leaving traditional comic art behind for new and inventive techniques and choices. And contrary to what one might believe, the transitions from full color to black and white, and from traditional pen and ink to photography and constructed sets is not jarring in the least. The story continues to flow along smoothly, keeping readers engaged while raising questions of what will come next and what will be the fate of the artist.

With The Process, Infurnari is working to push the boundaries of comic storytelling while also pushing himself to evolve as an artist, experimenting with design, style, and technique as he creates this webcomic. Most of his pages divert from the traditional panel borders, preferring to allow the various images to provide their own borders (another reason to create the fantasy in full color and the reality in black and white). This not only helps to convey the feeling of panic and tension that is evident in the middle of the second chapter, but it also accentuates the flowing realities, enhancing the possibility they might merge as the story continues. It’s a masterful blending of technique with story that showcases the unique ability of comics to not only tell a story, but also show that story and allow its audience to experience it in a manner they could not if they were watching a movie or reading a novel. Each medium is different with various strengths and weaknesses, and the best creators are those that are able to grasp those unique strengths of a particular medium and utilize them.

The Process is an entertaining webcomic that is also an intriguing experiment – one for which Joe Infurnari should be applauded. Few artists are confident enough to put themselves on display in this manner, and even less are able to pull off such an experiment with as much facility as Infurnari. What will come in successive chapters is a mystery, and I am anxious to find out what Joe Infurnari has in store for us.

An Interview with Joe Infurnari:

Chris Beckett: Why comics? What was it that attracted you to this storytelling medium?

Joe Infurnari: My attraction to comics fits the usual profile; a childhood fascination with them combined with a love of drawing and art made the temptation to create my own comics too hard to resist. As an adult, after years of studying fine art, I came back to this medium intrigued by some of the things unique to it. Readers can experience an extended period of time, travel across vast distances in the space between two images, become different people and much more in just one page of comics! There's a wonderful synesthesia at play, too. Sounds and smells and other senses are all experienced visually! When I get a comic or graphic novel I love to take in the art by flipping all over the book and there's a really fun sense of time travel to that. Simply scanning the various pages let's me drop in and out of a story at different stages. There are strange forensics to that where I can imagine what is happening between these events experienced out of order. It's not unlike what happens between panels, except I just do it between pages front and back. That's another thing about this medium and its fusion of word and image. It's very cerebral. Comics can be easily adapted to the representation of thoughts, memory and consciousness. It very closely approximates for me the way the mind works as a very fluid flow of images and words.

Beckett: The first chapter of The Process is unlike the art you did for Borrowed Time. That may have to do with the coloring of the work, which was terribly impressive. How did you achieve the coloring of those pages (it looks like well-blended colored pencils) and did your approach to these pages differ from how you create your black and white pages?

Joe Infurnari: For every project I work on, I try to adapt my visual style to tell the story to its highest effect. The pages for chapter 1 of the Process were definitely approached differently from Borrowed Time. I wanted to draw the reader into this world by creating a visually rich and immersive experience. The style is very similar to what I did for Mandala where I used ink for the drawing and watercolors to flesh out the colors. In some cases I used grey or colored Pitt markers for some of the line work and sound effects. Very little coloring was done digitally. What you see is pretty much what happened on the page itself.

Beckett: Chapter two was a major change in the narrative and felt like a stream of consciousness piece. It flows naturally, as if you are making it up as you go along, and I was wondering how structured is this story you’re creating, and, being the writer and artist, how is it different from doing art only?

Joe Infurnari: When I'm working from a script by another artist, I can focus all of my attention on making the art tell the story. Certainly, I'm going to try and be inventive and take some risks here and there but for the most part I have a map and I know where I am going. All that's needed is for me to take the journey in the art.

It's much more difficult doing the Process! Going into Chapter 2, I sort of knew what needed to happen at the end of that chapter with most of the key events mapped out in between. Then it's just a matter of building the story page after page until I get there. Along the way, things change, get reconceptualized and new ideas find their way into it. What starts out as just an idea ("at the end of Chapter 2, I'm going to black out!") has to be given form ("I'll use thought bubbles to thread the various storylines!") and that form has to adapt as I approach Chapter 3 where it will change all over again. This sort of ad hoc approach works for this project because it fits in with the stream of consciousness narrative; it keeps it open enough to allow new things to happen and it lets the process of its creation influence the story. Sometimes I have to redo pages later or insert pages here and there but that's okay. This webcomic is about finding your way and art, like life, can go in many directions at once. Part of this story is its own creation and so I have to let that unfold as it happens. It's that story that keeps me really invested in this, too. If I had all the answers and knew exactly what was going to happen and how I would do it, it wouldn't be half as much fun! Right now I am making a chandelier out of cardboard for Chapter 3 and I didn't know about it until just over a week ago!

Beckett: What was the inspiration for The Process, and how were the images that open chapter two conceived (did you picture them immediately, or was there an editing process involved in creating that opening sequence so that it would flow, and what are you hoping to accomplish with this work, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

Joe Infurnari: I'm inspired by all kinds of comics, myths, movies, books and art. I am a comics omnivore and I read everything from Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library to Eric Powell's The Goon. Some specific creators whose works have been influential on the Process are Rick Veitch who I think has one of the wildest imaginations in comics. Abraxas and the Earth Man and his dream comics collections are necessary reading. Another writer who I admire is Grant Morrison for a lot of the same reasons. He is constantly surprising and his imagination seems to know no limits. Jim Woodring's work is also influential because he touches on a lot of universal and primordial themes in a way that always seems to hit the right balance of mystery, poetry, beauty and horror.

The Process has been something that I've been thinking about doing for a long time. Its first incarnation was the minicomic, Mandala, which was a very condensed version of the larger storyline. For the Process I wanted to do something epic, mythic with many layers of meaning and something that used art's openness to interpretation to expand its mystery. I felt that it shouldn't be easily categorized as either arty autobiographical comics or pure sci-fi/fantasy escapism. It should be both and everything in between. Since it was going to be a webcomic, this diary-like aspect could be adapted to reveal the process of its own creation. I want to bring people into the story of how this is created. People who comment or review this project are participating in it and are influencing its development. I wanted to be conscious of that and let that happen. Audience participation is unique to this web format so I want to use it! Another goal for it is to create a vast clearing house of visual ideas. This thing is going to challenge and push my art into new areas and will test what I can do in this medium.

As you already pointed out, Chapter 2 is very different. It's a shift out of the imagined world of Chapter 1 into the 'real' world of its creator. This happens by showing how this world is encoded in its creator. Chapter 2 starts off showing a spiritual aspect of the scrit creature leaving its body. Already we've taken a step closer to the immaterial and the world of ideas. We discover from it's anatomy that it was a female creature with many eggs. Focusing in on one of the eggs, we zoom in on its DNA strand. From there we pull back again to see that this DNA structure is part of a neuron or brain cell. Pulling back even more reveals that this brain cell structure belongs to my brain, the creator of Chapter 1. How I came upon this is similar to the rest of the chapter. I knew I needed to bring the story to my world and I also knew that I needed to shift the visuals into a new style. That sequence of images afforded me those two goals the best, I felt.

Beckett: What other projects are you working on that you would like to tell readers about?

Joe Infurnari: Chapter 2 of the Process is coming to a close with the art shifting its way into Chapter 3 which should begin later this month. I'm currently working on Borrowed Time 3 with Neal Shaffer for later this year and have just finished doing the art for Wasteland #14 which is in stores now. Later this month, I have Mandala reprinted in Ape Entertainment's Fablewood anthology of fantasy comics. I've started work on a short story for an upcoming series on the web. Looking even further down the line, I have a short story that I worked on with writer Alexis Sottile that will be published in an anthology based on missed connection ads. That book is called I Saw You…Missed Connection Comics and it will be published by Three Rivers/Random House in 2009. Anyone curious about that story, called Nocturnal Transmission, can go read it now on my site. I think that's most of it. Other projects are still too early on to discuss but I have a few other fish in the frying pan!

FYC Replay: Vulcan & Vishnu with Leland Purvis

Now that CGS Super Show is over, I'm trying to really get back to this blog. One of the aims I had with it was to archive all of my columns from when I wrote for the Pulse back in 2007-2009. So, here is the next installment of For Your Consideration, looking at the wonderful, and sadly unfinished, Vulcan & Vishnu from Leland Purvis. And note that this piece, and the attendant interview, were done in late 2007.
Enjoy.

FRONT PAGE: Following the travels and travails of two working men in search of riches, Vulcan & Vishnu is a classic adventure serial told with intelligence and obvious enjoyment by its creator, Leland Purvis. With two multi-book deals that will see Purvis’s art sprung upon an unsuspecting public later in 2008 through 2009, this is a great chance to “discover” this impressive cartoonist before everyone else does.

The 411:

Vulcan & Vishnu

Written and drawn by Leland Purvis

Webcomic available at

Act-i-vate

What It Is (with apologies to Dave the Thune):

Encountering one another across a deep gorge, Vulcan and Vishnu – one with a donkey, the other a wagon – build a makeshift foot bridge, dropping the keystone into place just as their temporary staging falls away. Vishnu leads his donkey across to join his new companion, but not without a bit of trepidation as the ass halts halfway, sending his master over the side. Clinging precariously to the harness, Vishnu dangles above the deep crevasse, and there seems to be no help for him as the donkey remains glued to its spot. But Vulcan acts quickly, brandishing an apple to entice the pack animal across. Grabbing the reins once it reaches his side, Vulcan pulls his new friend up from certain death.

Understandably enraged, Vishnu wants to be done with the animal. But his new friend reasons with Vishnu, asking if he wants to be the one dragging the wagon across the bare plains ahead of them. Settling down, they hitch the ass to the cart and set off. Thus begin the travels and travails of these two explorers from a bygone era, what appears to be the late 1800s.

That night, as the two men sleep, a large earthquake shudders through the layers of earth, sending the two men running out of their tent, fearful of any cracks that might form from this upheaval. Once things settle down, they discover their donkey has gone missing and their wagon is stuck in a sinkhole. Cursing the donkey, they dig out the wagon and settle in again for a less peaceful sleep than before.

The next morning, they set out with the wagon over their shoulders. Dragging it for some time, they eventually come across the donkey, its harness lodged in some rocks. Freeing it, they hitch the animal back up to the wagon and move along at a brisker pace. Making for the only city in the area, they come across another rent in the Earth. Not as wide as that which they traversed at the outset of their adventure, they peer into this gash in the rock and see an ancient edifice they assume was buried with the eruption of an ancient volcano.

Making their way down through the Ionic columns and past the scent of death, Vulcan and Vishnu, their donkey in tow, enter the centuries-old structure cautiously. Optimism and the hope of gold spur the two men on, sending them through a mysterious and Byzantine maze of tunnels. But will they discover untold wealth or the hidden death those who came before them encountered? Only time will tell.

Leland Purvis has created a wonderful comic that is unlike anything else you’ll find today – a piece of historical fiction about the adventures of two treasure hunters that is told without words. But that doesn’t mean this is a silent story. Purvis has ingeniously chosen to utilize images and symbols to convey the words of Vulcan and Vishnu, and it is as inspired in its execution as it is simple.

Purvis’s Vulcan & Vishnu evokes the feeling of wonder from the pulp fiction of the twenties through the fifties without the larger-than-life characters and exotic settings for which they are so fondly remembered. The story of these two adventurers moves along at a brisk pace, with obstructions popping up at every turn. But these men are up for the challenge, working to think their way out of tight spots and around more pliable ones. The thought that Purvis has put into this story is very welcome to this reader, and again, the resolutions for the characters’ predicaments are as simple as they are inventive. For readers, what appear to be impossible situations are navigated skillfully by the two men and leave the audience collectively slapping their heads wondering, “Why didn’t I think of that?” It is a breath of fresh air to see such careful though put into a story.

Purvis’s clear artwork and precise storytelling are ideal for this type of wordless story and complements the tale he is creating wonderfully. Not unlike the tale being crafted, Purvis’s style evokes a golden age feel coupled with the refinement of a contemporary artist. He wastes little time in endless cross-hatching, preferring to delineate a clean, lush setting with characters that have a weight to them. These two adventurers, along with those people readers encounter in the latest installment, are three-dimensional characters that look as if they could be living up the street from you – if your street were lost in the barren plains where Vulcan and Vishnu find themselves.

Purvis also understands upon which details to focus. Having to carry readers through the narrative without the help of any spoken dialogue or captions, he needs to show the steady progression of activity through the images, and under the hand of a lesser artist it would soon become a succession of full to medium shots focused on the protagonists. But Purvis realizes that all the action is not taking place within this small window, and moves the “camera” around, finding just the right shot to convey the action, whether it be a close-up of a foot, a wide shot within the sunken edifice, or some other detail that allows readers not only to understand the story better, but also alleviates any tedium that might arise from a continuous parade of similar shots. Vulcan & Vishnu is a great lesson in how to tell a story with pictures.

Vulcan & Vishnu is one of the first webcomics I discovered and have continued to follow regularly. I had been aware of Leland Purvis’s art from some work he did with Jim Ottaviani, but before Vulcan & Vishnu, I had never taken the opportunity to read anything of his. The story of these two travelers is about halfway through its run at Act-i-vate, and if the first few hundred panels are any indication, this is going to be one helluva fun ride. I would recommend you to check it out. It’s new, it’s different, it’s great, and it’s free. How can you go wrong?

An Interview with Leland Purvis:

Chris Beckett: What is it about comics that attracted you to this storytelling medium?

Leland Purvis: Originally, it was the drawing. I’ve been drawing since as early as I can remember. I think all kids draw but most stop after a while. When I realized doing comics was a way to integrate my continuing love of drawing and art with telling stories, it was clear that comics were going to be the thing for me.

Beckett: Why did you choose to make Vulcan & Vishnu a silent comic?

Purvis: I don’t think of it as silent, because the boys do talk to each other. But I don’t use any text. My thought with Vulcan & Vishnu as a webcomic was to explore it as a new medium. Digital rather than print. So I was thinking from the beginning about turning it into a pod-cast when it’s done. That’s why all the panels are the same dimensions. But at international postage-stamp size, I knew there was going to be no way to read any lettering once it was reduced for iPod reading. So it’s all pictures. And when they talk, they talk in pictures rather than words.

Beckett: Following on that, having produced Vulcan & Vishnu for a number of months, what is it you gain as a storyteller – or, more generally, what do you like about creating a silent comic?

Purvis: It does make for occasional problem-solving. If I want one guy to say something to the other, how am I going to make it clear? Text really does operate as a shorthand for meaning. So trying to get all the meaning across without taking up tons of room with visual explanations can be challenging and interesting.

Beckett: Is Vulcan & Vishnu planned to be released in print form at some point? And , if so, with all of the panels being the same size are you going to be able to play at all with page design in the print format or is this how the story was always envisioned?

Purvis: I would love for it to see print. But it does present certain logistical problems. It was designed to take in one panel at a time, and not with page-turn reveals in mind. It’s going to be between 700 and 800 panel-pages when it’s done, and a book at 800 pages, one per page just isn’t very practical. I could reformat a print version at 4-to-a-page, but it wouldn’t read the same. Who knows? Maybe Pixar will call and say they want to turn Chapter One into one of those pre-feature shorts they do…

Beckett: What other projects are you working on and when can fans expect to see them?

Purvis: I’m swamped with work right now. I’ve got a couple of contracts which will amount to five graphic novels. Three for First:Second, and two for Simon&Schuster. They’re all historical fiction, ranging from before the Revolutionary War, before the Civil War and into World War II. It will be late 2008 and into 2009 before this stuff starts hitting the stands. But there’s going to be a lot of material out there before too long.

Also, I’ve got some other irons in the fire, short stories I want to try and get out there and I’m developing an idea for the next webcomic after Vulcan & Vishnu.

And I’m also reminding myself how to paint. So, I’m staying busy.

FYC replay: Parade (with Fireworks)

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: MICHAEL CAVALLARO'S PARADE (WITH FIREWORKS)
BY CHRIS BECKETT
The 411:
Parade (with Fireworks)
Story & Art by Michael Cavallaro
72 pages, full color, $12.99
http://www.imagecomics.com
http://www.act-i-vate.com



What It Is (with apologies to Dave the Thune):

The setting: Maropati, Italy. January 6, 1923. The occasion: the Feast of the Epiphany, a day of celebration and prayer. Revelers parade down the main street in their costumes while others attend services at the local chapel. It is a good day, one in which people can shrug off their cares for a time and enjoy the festive atmosphere floating over the land.

Of course, there will always be those few who are determined to blight any celebration. Gato and his minions – though goons might be a better description – disregard the celebration and glare at the masses from one street corner. Promoting fascism, they are a vocal minority in this tiny hamlet, which, despite the rise of this new ideology in Rome, is made up more of socialists than fascists. As the parade ends and worshippers exit the chapel, the band makes its way from the town square. Gato and his crew fall in beside them.


Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the street – both literally and philosophically – Vincenzo, Francone, and Cordiano also fall in behind the band. Heading in the same direction to meet with Vincenzo’s brother Paolo, and having been the ones to hire the band in the first place, they’d rather not see them harassed by Gato’s group of fascists. Despite rising tensions, the walk back to where Paolo and his friend the Professor await them elicits little more than raised voices and verbal barbs. It isn’t until they reach this destination that things go terribly wrong, with guns brandished, bullets flying, and Cordiano and Vincenzo in the dirt, blood spreading across their clothes.

This bloody turn of events sends Paolo into a rage. Pulling out the gun he brought back from Chicago, he fires wildly in the direction of Gato and his goons. For a long minute, all is chaos and very few people escape unharmed. As Gato flees and things calm down, the doctor is called. But before the Captain can arrive, Paolo too must flee. The Professor suggests he lay low while things blow over. Paolo runs down a side alley, his brother miraculously still breathing, though that reality may change by the time night descends on the small town.

Parade (with Fireworks) is a beautiful piece of historical fiction. After a short prologue delving into Paolo’s childhood and subsequent maturity, Cavallaro drops his readers right into the middle of this tale. With fully realized backgrounds and precise prose, he immerses his audience in small town Italy, 1923. Gazing back at the early 1920s from our position here in the infancy of the twenty-first century, it is easy for one to wax sentimental about a more innocent time, and Cavallaro evokes that beauty and simplicity masterfully. But Cavallaro is also cognizant of this “rose-tinged” view of bygone eras and refuses to sugarcoat anything because, despite the romanticizing of this time, this is as painful and harsh a place as one might encounter today. It is this balance that helps make Parade such an interesting read.


Although some might consider the storytelling in a 2-issue series to be rushed, those doubters would be sorely mistaken as Cavallaro’s pacing of Parade is superb. He allows the story to tell itself, raising the tension by small degrees through the pages of the book. With sharp dialogue, he manages to fill in the histories of these characters and their feud, which is not only ideological but also personal, in a manner that does not come across as overbearing. It would be easy to fall into the trap of forcing dialogue into a character’s mouth to relate this back story, but Cavallaro’s words all flow effortlessly, allowing his characters to breathe in a manner not often seen in comics.

Cavallaro also provides the art for this series, and his pared down style works well with the serious tone of his narrative. By simplifying his art, he is not only able to draw readers in more easily, but he also allows the characters to live this story in a way that makes it feel more genuine. And when I talk of his style being simplified, that should not be construed to mean that it is a simple achievement. The biggest hurdle cartoonists have in utilizing a style such as Cavallaro does on Parade is that if they falter in their execution, they are unable to hide behind the myriad crosshatchings that can mask poor anatomy or perspective. And luckily for readers, Cavallaro has nothing to hide. His work in Parade reminds me very much of the best of Gilbert Hernandez’s work on Love & Rockets.

Cavallaro is another alumnus of the Act-i-Vate web collective. His work is of a quality and individuality that demands readers of great stories to take notice. Cavallaro has spoken of this initial two-issue series being only the first of many tales he would like to create based upon his family history. One can only hope that Cavallaro will have the opportunity to continue his stories of 1920s Italy with Act-i-Vate as well as with Image, because as nice as it is to be able to view this great story online, I still enjoy having an actual physical copy in my hands that I can leaf through at my leisure.

An Interview with Michael Cavallaro

THE PULSE: Why comics? What was it that attracted you to this storytelling medium?

MICHAEL CAVALLARO: That's a great question. I'm not really sure what the answer is. Once I discovered comics, I couldn't get enough of them. They really captured my imagination. As a kid, I spent hours lying around on the floor drawing. I think if you're like that, comics are a natural, obvious thing to latch on to. Comics seemed, at the time, to combine some of my favorite things; imaginative, fantastic stories and rich, dynamic artwork. For 35 cents, I could get lost for hours in a single book. There's nothing else like them. The prices have gone up since then, but there doesn't seem to be an end to the steady stream of great books from all over the world.

THE PULSE: Your art style is very clean and almost cartoony, which is meant as a compliment. How do you feel your art style meshes with a serious narrative such as Parade (with Fireworks)?


CAVALLARO: It's funny you should ask that, because the Parade "style" was something I worked at developing specifically to tell this story. I redrew some of the first pages 5 or 6 times each, struggling to simplify my line work and exclude everything that was not essential. That's what the story itself does. I could have gone off for another hundred pages on the surrounding politics or family relations, but I wanted it to retain that oral-tradition feel. When telling a story like this, it's easy to let your research take over and run away with the narrative. But I wanted to stick to just what you needed to know to make the story work in a form as close to how it was first told to me as possible. The artwork had to reflect that. What I was working towards was something that was more of a visual handwriting, so that it's not "part story, part drawing.” It's all one cohesive thing. More realistic artwork may have worked just as well, but I kind of feel that it would have drawn attention to itself. I didn't want the readers to be conscious of the drawing. I wanted them to just absorb the whole thing, unified.

THE PULSE: Being the writer and artist, how do you break down an issue? Do you think in terms of the visuals and tailor the dialogue to the story at that point, do you work from a script, or is it some combination of these processes?

CAVALLARO: I guess I think very visually. I don't write scripts. For Parade, I sat down with my dad and just took notes as he retold the story. I worked the notes into an outline. It was maybe two typed pages long. From that outline, I did little, two-inch high roughs of each page, with stick figures and simple shapes inside the actual panel layouts. I worked out and wrote the dialogue right on these. They're a mess. Only I can read them. From those, I went straight to the board and drew the final pages.

THE PULSE: When I spoke with you at the MoCCA Arts Festival in June, you talked about how Parade is actually a story from your own family’s history. Have you found the need to rework the actual facts in order to better dramatize this tale, and how do you reconcile your role as a creator with that as a family historian (for lack of a better term)?


CAVALLARO: I'll answer the last part first. I saw my role as that of a storyteller, and my goal was to tell a good story that would be interesting and entertaining.

As far as working or reworking the story, you have to recognize that even a good story needs to be composed in a way that dramatizes the events to their fullest effect. Think of a joke as kind of an extremely short story. Two people can tell the same joke, but only one makes it funny. Why? One teller understands composition and timing, and the other doesn't. Although the story was dropped in my lap, it was up to me to compose it in a compelling way. It was necessary to create scenes and dialogue that are essentially fictional in order to better convey the factual story in this format. That's just the nature of storytelling.

THE PULSE: What other projects are you working on that you would like to tell readers about?

CAVALLARO: Well, always on my drawing board is my self-published series, 66 Thousand Miles Per Hour. 66kmph takes place in a fictional New Jersey town called Squareville, and chronicles the story of Evie Pryce, a hapless teenager who becomes stranded in her home town when the entire area is scooped-up and abducted by an alien on a secret mission. It was my way of taking a town like the one I grew up in, putting it under a microscope, and looking at what made it tick. I've published 4 individual issues that are available for mail order from www.66kmph.com, and I've sketched-out a 200-page graphic novel continuation.

I'm also well into a 154-page graphic novel for a major publisher, on which I'm working with another writer, but I can't say anything more about that right now. Hopefully, we can do another interview about that when the time is right!

FYC Replay: Dean Haspiel's BILLY DOGMA

For Your Consideration: Billy Dogma in “Immortal”

By Chris Beckett

FRONT PAGE: Warren Ellis has called him the heir to Kirby. As one of the founders of the Act-i-Vate webcomics site, Dean Haspiel has been working to expand the boundaries of what is possible with the comics medium. His latest Billy Dogma adventure, “Immortal,” does just that. A fun action-adventure romance that incorporates so much more, this is a comic you should be reading. Check it out.

The 411:

Billy Dogma: “Immortal”

Story & Art by Dean Haspiel

Available as one half of the split-book

Brawl from Image comics

3 issues, $2.99, b/w & red

Also available online @

Act-I-Vate and

Dean Haspiel.com

What It Is (with apologies to Dave the Thune):

Enraged, Billy Dogma sends a man to the hospital for the capital offense of flirting with his girl, Jane Legit, an action that lands Billy in lock-up for the night. Though he could easily force his way out, Billy “indulges this ruse” and settles in for a long night alone. Being apart incites the love within his and Jane’s breasts for one another to a fever pitch.

But Jane, unwilling to accept this estrangement for a single night, breaks Billy out of the jail, crumbling the outer wall of his cell into a pile of cinderblocks and dust. Reunited, they embrace, and then something strange happens. The floor beneath their feet shudders as a crack spreads out away from them releasing a giant alien that has been hibernating beneath the city.

Though formidable singly, and even moreso as a pair, Billy and Jane have no luck against this new creature. The quick battle results in heart-shaped shards of brick and concrete scattering over the two lovers as they lay battered and beaten. Exiting the confines of the jail cell, the giant rises high above the city, staring down at Billy and Jane and a host of others wandering into the street. Jane recovers and yells for Billy to dispatch this beast as he did the fellow at the bar, but instead the alien drops Billy down its gullet, engulfing our hero in complete darkness.

Luckily, Billy has certain skills and uses his optical rays to ignite his shirt, which is wrapped about a stalactite, and more easily make his way around the insides of the beast. There he discovers, carved upon the creature’s intestinal lining, hieroglyphics that give Billy the entire story. This immortal arrived on earth and discovered a world built upon hatred and mistrust. Compelled by its nature, it sacrificed its heart in order to try and spread love, irradiating the sky with a deep red hue. But this sacrifice caused an unforeseen circumstance, mutating the giant into an empty husk. Confused and lacking a heart, it instead spread destruction across the land, killing thousands of people. Overcome with grief, it chose to bury itself under the city in the hopes of regaining that which it had lost.

A second result of this alien’s sacrifice was that the fallout from the irradiated sky sparked the fire of Billy and Jane’s love, igniting the hot embers that burn within each of them for the other. A violent and unrelenting love affair, their “war of woo” – in a cyclical irony – is what results in the waking of this monster. And now that it is awake, how will these two heroes save the city? More than brawn will be needed in order to see this to a happy end.

Dean Haspiel has been chronicling the romantic adventures of Billy Dogma and Jane Legit for twelve years now, and his characters have survived the intervening years quite well. This latest tale of lust and violence – along with the partially completed second chapter, “Fear, My Dear,” of a proposed trilogy – is as entertaining a comic as one can find. Haspiel propels readers along a roller coaster ride, refusing to pull back on the throttle, hurtling his characters toward a dynamic conclusion that is inspired.

Originally serialized on the Act-i-Vate site, “Immortal” is broken into crisp, bite-size chunks that keep readers on the edge of their seats while meshing together seamlessly to tell a grand cosmic tale firmly rooted in Billy and Jane’s world. Despite the surface sheen of action and violence, Haspiel imbues this story with far more than the typical “Hollywood blockbuster” plot. Dealing with thematic elements as diverse as jealousy, inherent human fears, and sacrificing that for which one cares deeply, Billy Dogma’s “Immortal” is a multi-layered tale that satisfies in so many ways. But for all these layers, at its heart, “Immortal” is the continuation of the love story of Billy Dogma and Jane Legit, a love that has grown and evolved over these many years.

Upon reading “Immortal” online, Warren Ellis was prompted to name Dean Haspiel the heir to Jack Kirby, and I can definitely see what he means. Like the best of Kirby’s work, Haspiel’s “Immortal” is a very personal story brimming over with wild ideas that many creators might milk for issues on end, but which Haspiel utilizes briefly within the greater context of his story before moving on. Eschewing the self-imposed boundaries of the medium, Haspiel – like Kirby before him – is working to expand the possibilities of comics with the tools afforded him, and one can only wonder what Kirby could have accomplished within this newly burgeoning medium of webcomics. And if any doubted that Haspiel were a worthy heir to “the King,” one should look no further than his artwork on “Immortal,” which bursts off the page – and computer screen – with an energy and vitality that can be matched by very few artists.

Dean Haspiel’s “Immortal” is a brilliant example of the type of story comics can tell when editorial edicts are dropped for creative freedom. A breathtaking adventure that stands up under repeated readings, anyone that has already experienced this story knows what I am talking about. And if you haven’t read it yet, click on over to Act-i-Vate or Dean Haspiel.com and find out what you’re missing. Or, better yet, go to your local comic shop and pick up a copy of Brawl from Image comics, which includes both Haspiel’s “Immortal” and Michel Fiffe’s “Panorama” in a split-book format similar to the old Marvel titles Tales to Astonish and Strange Tales. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

An Interview with Dean Haspiel:

Chris Beckett: Why comics? What is it about the medium that drew you into this career of yours?

Dean Haspiel: My childhood love affair with comic books was so profound I must have subconsciously surrendered my soul to the medium and let it rule my career path as I never embraced any other work more passionately than I do comic books. If memory serves me right, C.C. Beck's Shazam was my first introduction to comic books. Soon after, I read a ton of Marvel & DC superhero comics during the 1970s/80s while discovering alternative comix the likes of Chester Brown's Yummy Fur, Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, and The Hernandez Bros.' Love & Rockets. In 1985, my senior year in high school, I was afforded the opportunity to assist Bill Sienkiewicz, Howard Chaykin, and Walter Simonson, which had an eye-opening impact on my picture making process. Other cartoonists who have heavily influenced me are: Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Miller, Baru, Max, Katushiro Otomo, Michael Golden, and a slew of others.

Beckett: At its heart, Billy Dogma is a love story, but it is also about big ideas, giant ideas. Was this latter aspect always at the heart of what you wanted to do in comics or a happy byproduct of the stories you were telling?

Haspiel: No matter how many genre curve balls I throw into the mix, Billy Dogma will always be a bruiser romance comic. "Immortal" is the most cosmic Billy Dogma story I've told to date and its sequel, "Fear, My Dear" is a psychedelic origin of sorts that gets to the mind of Billy's heart. The improvisational nature of telling these tales online without a fully realized plot keeps my characters personal and fresh.

Beckett: In comparing “Immortal” and “Fear My Dear” to Daydream Lullabies from 1999, it is obvious your storytelling has evolved. In Lullabies, Billy and Jane Legit are quite verbose and very direct in stating what is on their mind. But with your newer work, the pictures convey the story and its emotions more than the words. Is this a conscious change on your part or a matter of story dictating style?

Haspiel: At their base, comix are a series of informed pictures and the more I "show" the less I have to tell. Thankfully, I've been granted the time and space to evolve my storytelling chops and learn my creations without getting fired by the Comix Gods. I needed to go through my punk phase before getting into disco.

Beckett: With this latest Billy Dogma foray, you have chosen to publish it on the internet. Why did you choose to go the online route first, and what would you say are the benefits and the drawbacks of producing comics, and specifically Billy Dogma, for the web?

Haspiel: Five years ago I started working on a 48-page Billy Dogma story called "The Devils Muumuu" that was supposed to be published by Top Shelf. I got as far as page 21 when I scored Muties #3, my first Marvel Comics effort, and I've been working fulltime freelance on other people's stories ever since. The time that has passed forced me to abandon that ill-fated Billy Dogma story but I'd been itching to write again and to return to my own creations. When I reread "The Devils Muumuu," I discovered that the story no longer resonated for me and my avatar had traveled a different road. Meanwhile, during my freelance career, I'd been keeping a blog and when I decided to launch Act-I-Vate in February of 2006, I realized that this was the right forum in which to revamp the Billy Dogma mythos. The digital age has served my sensibilities quite well as regular feedback from fans, friends, and peers helped me make a better comic.

Beckett: For people that do not normally read an “independent” comic, what do you feel they are missing and what would you tell them to encourage them to try something outside the superhero genre?

Haspiel: The lines between mainstream and independent comics have blurred considerably since the days when 64-color superhero comics were sold at newspaper stands and black and white underground comix were sold in head shops. With the exponential expansion of the modern graphic novel into local bookstores and the rise of webcomix, I don't see that much of a difference between Marvel Comics' World War Hulk, DC Comics' All-Star Superman, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, and Josh Neufeld's A.D. – New Orleans After the Deluge. Readers are limiting their enjoyment by placing comics into categories and I see no need to polarize genre from journalism and memoir. With comics you get it all. Literature, art, pathos.

Beckett: Do you have any other projects on the horizon you might want to tell readers about?

Haspiel: I'm currently illustrating The Alcoholic, an original graphic novel written by Jonathan Ames for Vertigo Comics due for release the Fall of 2008, and I hope to soon announce a kids book I drew in collaboration with legendary underground cartoonist/writer, Jay Lynch, for Francoise Mouly at Raw Jr. Other than that, I recently drew a Hulk for fun and had fellow DEEP6 studio mate, Mike Cavallaro, color it. I'm slowly chipping away at my free webcomic, Fear My Dear, and the first issue of Brawl, my new split-book mini-series with Michel Fiffe from Image Comics hits comix shops Oct. 10th.