DESTROY ALL MONSTERS by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips, with Jacob Phillips

 

1988, Los Angeles, and Ethan Reckless is feeling his age. His body aches all over -- reminders of the gunshots, stabbings, and explosions he's survived -- and he's a step slower, in both a literal and intellectual sense. How did it all go to shit so fast? 

Anna, Ethan's more-than-sidekick-but-not-quite-partner-slash-best-friend is also feeling her age. Approaching thirty, with a steady boyfriend, she wants to get out from beneath Ethan's shadow, find out who she is and what she wants to make of her life. To that end, Anna's decided to move in with Dmitri, crossing the 405 freeway -- across town from where she and Ethan have worked and lived, it might as well be across the country -- and it scares Ethan. So much so, that he acts like a dick, making it easier for Anna to cut the ties necessary to shack up with her boyfriend, even if he talks through classic movies. 

Untethered, lost, Ethan dives back into his work and takes on a case that's bigger than he can handle by himself. He calls Anna, both to borrow her car and see if she wants to go in on the case with him. She agrees, but remains distant. 

On its surface, this job should be a cake walk. So, of course, everything goes to shit, just not in the way Ethan could have anticipated. Maybe if he was younger . . . ah, but there's no good to come of pursuing that thought. Even once the case is completed, despite its unsatisfactory conclusion, it isn't really over. Their target still has one card up his sleeve. How will Ethan & Anna escape that final play, and can their friendship survive, even if they get out alive? 

Destroy All Monsters is the third book in the Reckless series from writer Ed Brubaker & artist Sean Phillips, with colors by Jacob Phillips, and it's another home run for this stellar creative team. Brubaker's writing feels effortless, as he continues to hone his craft to a razor sharpness. The pacing of the book is top-notch, allowing me to dwell on a page or a panel, even as the narrative urges me forward, turning pages to see what's next. The twists and feints evolve naturally from the characters and the setting, the seedy underbelly of 80s L.A., with none of it seeming forced. And the people (using the term characters just seems wrong) all feel fully realized, even when the limits of space only allows for a quick sketch. 

In particular, for those who've been following this series and already know Ethan and Anna, this third book offers the readership a wonderful insight into their personal history, as well as their relativistic present, providing a better, and fuller, understanding of these two friends. One feels for them, as their friendship is tested throughout this story, and the audience is left to wonder how their relationship will look, going forward. It is this -- the dynamic of Ethan and Anna's relationship -- that I found most fulfilling in my reading of Destroy All Monsters, even with the expected excellence of the plot. This rupture in their friendship is the core of the book, as their relationship is the core of this entire series, and Brubaker adds so much to that dynamic with this third installment of the Reckless series. 

Sean Phillips equals his collaborator with this book, as he has done for many years. Phillips's clean linework grounds these stories, and his clear storytelling means readers are never lost, even if they're unsure of where the story may be heading. He evokes 1980s L.A. -- from the buildings to the cars to the fashions -- allowing the audience to lose themselves within the story and enhancing the reading experience to a great degree. Like Brubaker, Phillips, with his economy and precision of linework, makes it look all too easy. It is not, but it's a testament to his skill that it comes across this way. What a wonderful synergy of creative talents. I suppose that's what comes of working together these past couple of decades. 

And Jacob Phillips, Sean's son, is no slouch himself. His colors are reminiscent of watercolors, adding another dimension to the story. Sometimes the coloring is representational, setting us directly on a sidewalk in a residential neighborhood, while other times the color choices feel abstract, to a degree, evoking an emotion or feeling rather than anything resembling photorealism. And yet, it all works brilliantly. This is one of the aspects of this team's creative output that allows it to stand apart from the rest of the comics on the shelves, and I, for one, am here for it. 

Destroy All Monsters, as with so much from this creative team, is a master class in comic book storytelling. Whenever a new book from Brubaker & Phillips arrives, I always place it on the top of my to-read pile. And when I close the covers, I am never disappointed. This latest endeavor, a series of self-contained graphic novels that combine to tell a broader narrative with Ethan and Anna, has been outstanding. I love the characters. I love the stories. And I love the format. I am excited to know there is a fourth book arriving relatively soon. I can only hope there will be many more after that. Regardless, I can't wait.

-chris

FYC: Black Science vol. 1, by Rick Remender & Matteo Scalera

I used to write an online column, For Your Consideration, in which I recommended a comic series or standalone story and included a short Q&A with the creator(s).  It ran for a bit over a year and was a blast.  I thought, since I'm back to writing regularly here, that I might also include recommendations of comics I'm reading, whether current or not.  I don't have the cachet to pull in creators for quick interviews, but I can still offer some suggestions of what books might be worth your time. And here's one I've been meaning to read but hadn't gotten around to, until recently:  BLACK SCIENCE.

I read the first volume of this science fiction comic series, from Image Comics, and it was pretty great.  An obsessed scientist, Grant McKay, has discovered how to successfully traverse parallel dimensions in the Eververse, but the machinery is immediately damaged, continuing to regularly jump those within the proper vicinity to other dimensions but without the ability to navigate where it takes them.  Through the course of these first six issues, the group, which includes a bodyguard, assistants, the antagonistic head of the project, and McKay's two children--one a pre-teen and one in high school--jump from one harrowing experience to another, with a few of their numbers meeting a fatal end.

I was impressed with how quickly the story moved along, and how ruthless Remender was about his characters.  He is more than willing to kill a character to throw up more dramatic roadblocks to the protagonist's desire to get home.  It makes for good drama and engages a reader, spurring me to ask, how the hell is he going to get them out of this fix?

The art from Scalera is a wonderful complement to the story Remender is telling.  Similar in style to Sean Murphy, Scalera's ever so slightly loose linework overlaying a photorealistic approach provides an appealing base that is infused with a franticness, mirroring the narrative.  Also on display are Scalera's design chops:  asked to create strange alien creatures for some of the parallel dimensions, while "dressing" others in distinctly "futuristic" costuming, when the denizens of a dimension closely resemble the humanity we are all familiar with.  And all of these creatures and settings are brought to wonderful, chromatic life by colorist, Dean White.  His color palette for this series is sharply distinct and makes the images pop, when needed, or become somber and disturbing when the story calls for it.

Overall, this is an exciting series, and I can't wait to read more.  Check it out!

-chris

[replay] Back Matter Interviews #3 - Erik Larsen

When I first started writing about comics, I wrote for a now-defunct website called "Independent Propaganda."  The name of my column was BACK MATTER, and a fuller explanation can be found here.

Along with spotlights on specific comics, I also interviewed a handful of people working in comics.  This interview was with Erik Larsen, known today for his creation, Savage Dragon.  One of the Image founders, his experience and knowledge of the comics medium is vast.  I hope you enjoy the interview.

Thanks.

Erik Larsen grew up in Bellingham, Washington and Albion, California where he created numerous comic books featuring a character known as ‘Dragon.’  Continuing to make his own comics, Larsen eventually published a fanzine which led to him landing his first professional gig on the comic book Megaton for creator Gary Carlson.

Over the next twenty years Larsen worked for nearly every major publisher on characters that included Spider-Man, Doom Patrol, DNAgents, and the Punisher.  Currently, he continues to write and draw the adventures of his creation the Savage Dragon, with issue #128 set to hit comic stands in July, while also steering Image Comics forward, the company he helped found in 1992, as its publisher.  Needless to say, Mr. Larsen is an incredibly busy man and I want to thank him for taking the time to answer a few questions for Independent Propaganda.

As the publisher at Image, what are some key things you look for when reading through a series proposal?

The basics.  It has to be good both conceptually and in its execution.  Too many guys try to do too much and their pitch gets murky.  A book needs to be solid.

 

What cardinal sin do you most often see from aspiring writers?  Artists?

Bad writing and art.  Writers tend to lean too heavily on clichés and artists often don't set their scenes well.  You get lost or disoriented.  But the bulk of them are simply not good.  Most are crude and incomprehensible or boring and ugly.  It's sad but true.

In your opinion what is the most valuable thing an aspiring writer can do to improve his/her chances of becoming published?  Why?

Produce comics in whatever form they can--even if it means drawing it themselves in stick man form.  It gives a potential client something visual so that they can tell that you're serious and that you know how to tell a story

What is the most valuable thing an aspiring artist can do to improve her/his chances of becoming published?  Why?

There are no tricks here.  If you suck there's nothing I can do or say that will make you NOT suck.  The thing most artists don't do is mail out copies of their work.  We're not mind-readers.  If an established pro is suddenly unable to get work, other publishers don't necessarily know who they are and how to contact them.  There are talented unpublished artists out there who haven't let people know what they can do.  Unless they send in samples, their phones will never ring. 

What do you feel is the most important factor from your personal history (education, family) that has allowed you to be successful in the comic industry?

I haven't the foggiest idea.

Marvel and DC seem to be pushing sales through a series of crossover “events” and relaunches meant to feed off that hive mentality of needing the next new thing.  Admittedly, they have to answer to shareholders, but what could they be doing differently in order to promote sales?

Doing good work would be a nice first step.

This apparent need to utilize gimmicks in order to artificially inflate sales in the short-term almost begs the question, what is missing from mainstream comics today that has caused this sales drop-off?  In your opinion, what do you feel is lacking in today’s mainstream comics?

I just don't feel that the characters are at all internally consistent.  When you can read several issues in a run and characters don't speak with the same voice or remember events that transpired--there's something wrong.  There isn't a lot of feeling that anything matters--like it will have a lasting effect.  The big crossover events are sold on the notion that they will "forever alter" their respective universes.  They're essentially saying that "THESE books DO matter.”  But I don't get a sense that the monthly books are anything other than disposable.  When the next creative team comes onboard, I've come to expect that anything that came before will be jettisoned or retconned out. 

The perception by some is that during your tenure as publisher at Image you have revitalized the Image brand by branching out from what had come to be seen as “the norm” at Image with a number of critically acclaimed series in a mix of genres, including Godland, Fell, and the recent acquisition of Rocketo.  Do you lend any credence to this statement and was this a conscious effort on your part as publisher?

Revitalizing the Image brand is job #1 and if folks seem to think that's going on then I'm glad to hear it. 

You can see what Mr. Larsen is doing and learn more about the publisher of Image comics and creator of the Savage Dragon by going to www.imagecomics.com as well as his own website www.savagedragon.com.

FYC Replay: Age of Bronze with Eric Shanower

Another one from the archives and another opportunity I was afforded to interview one of the masters of the form. Eric Shanower's art is incredible and some of the most beautiful work you will have the chance to enjoy. Age of Bronze is his magnum opus. Read on to see why you need to check this book out.

-chris

For Your Consideration: Age of Bronze: Betrayal Part One

By Chris Beckett

FRONT PAGE: Eric Shanower has taken on the daunting task of fully researching the many tales that have sprouted up around the Trojan War and blending them into one single comic narrative. Almost halfway through, this important piece of comic literature, Age of Bronze, is a book well worth checking out.

The 411:

Age of Bronze vol. 3A: Betrayal Part One

Story and Art Eric Shanower

176 pp. b/w

$17.99

Image Comics

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

At this point, it has been years since Helen was taken from the city of Sparta by Paris, one of the princes of Troy. Paris was sent by his father, King Priam, to retrieve the king’s sister Hesione, captured in an Achaean raid many years prior, but forsook all of his duties when his eyes fell upon the unmatched beauty of Helen. Seducing her and bringing her infant son Pleisthenes with them, Paris escaped Sparta and made for home while Helen’s husband Menelaus swore to get her back and exact revenge upon the Trojans. Presenting Helen as a substitute for Hesione, Paris and his new wife are at first rebuked by King Priam, but when it is revealed that Helen now carries Paris’s unborn son, there is nothing to be done. Despite the enmity that will come from this act, Priam welcomes his family into the city.

Finally, after an initial aborted attempt, the Achaean army is able to set sail for Troy. Trying to conceal their approach by moving from island to island rather than skirting the coast, the Achaean fleet comes to rest off the island of Tenedos less than half a day’s sail from the city of Troy. Anchored in the bay on the far side of this island, the inhabitants of Tenedos – people that do not tolerate strangers – greet the Achaean army by slinging stones at their ships, spurring Achilles to swim ashore in order to answer this unprovoked incident. Achaean soldiers follow in Achilles’s wake and the battle is soon joined. During the melee, Achilles comes face to face with Tennes, the King of Tenedos, and kills him, putting the first nail into his own coffin. For Tennes was the sun god’s son, and the prophecy states that the sun god will kill Achilles in retaliation for Achilles killing one of his sons. But Achilles has already chosen a life of glory over a long life, and tells Mnemon, who was charged by the boy’s mother Thetis to watch Achilles, not to worry. All he must think about now is the glory.

After routing the warriors of Tenedos, the Achaeans take care of their dead and prepare to celebrate their victory with feasting and blood sacrifices to the gods for continued success. During their celebration that night they discover a small reconnaissance party led by Paris. Chasing them off, the Achaeans return to their feast where they decide to send an Embassy to Troy in an attempt to forestall any more casualties on their end. And even if the Trojans do not accept their offer of a peaceful conclusion, they will fall before the great might of the Achaean army.

Meanwhile, with the Achaeans on their doorstep, the Trojans accept the offer of an Embassy. King Priam is still working to gather more kings to his cause and feels he can use the time given over to the Embassy for calling these armies to Troy. Each side is taking a great risk in accepting this truce, and there are factions within the Trojan city that do not care if Priam has given the Achaeans his protection. Tensions boil just under the surface as the inevitable battle looms on the horizon. But who will come out the victor in what will be little more than a bloody mess?

Eric Shanower has taken on the overwhelming task of researching the legend of the Trojan war and assimilating the many disparate tales that have grown up over the centuries in order to create one single narrative comprising all the essential aspects of the those myths from long ago. It is an incredibly daunting task, and one that Shanower has executed thus far with great skill. The degree to which he has researched the peoples, architecture, and realities of that age so long ago is impressive and can be seen in the extensive bibliographic listings in the backs of the three trade paperbacks comprising his series to this point.

Even more impressive might be the fact that he not only has been able to incorporate all of these varied articles and accounts into one narrative, but that he’s also created an exciting tale that keeps his audience anticipating what comes next. Age of Bronze is one of the most engaging tales currently being told in this or any other medium. When I opened the first page of the initial collection, I didn’t want to put it down until I’d reached the end, and when I closed the covers I wanted that next book in my hands as soon as possible. Shanower’s storytelling is seamless and poignant, and yet, for all of the strange names and ancient history included within this book, he is able to make it accessible to a contemporary readership. This is a task not easily done, and one that Eric Shanower achieves with seeming ease.

Shanower’s precise renderings are a natural vehicle for the recounting of a tale such as this, with his sharp black and white lines keeping his audience grounded within the tale. The beauty of Shanower’s artwork as showcased through his work on such diverse fare as Badger and his own OZ series of graphic novels draws readers in, allowing them to become enamored with the story once the lush art entices them. Although an economic decision, Age of Bronze is a book that looks amazing in black and white. I cannot conceive of this book in color and think it might lose some of its luster were it not presented in black and white, yet another testament to Shanower’s talent.

Age of Bronze is the book that Eric Shanower seems to have been born to create, and lovers of great comics or history or myth are all the better for it. This is a book that anyone with a passion for these subjects should seek out, you will not be disappointed.

An Interview with Eric Shanower:

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

Eric Shanower: Ever since I was very young I’ve written stories and drawn illustrations. When I was a child I knew I wanted to publish my stories and illustrations, but at first I assumed this meant illustrated prose. I’ve read and loved comics ever since I was young as well. I started drawing comics when I was about ten years old. It was when I was about 14 years old that I decided I wanted to be a professional cartoonist. I’m not sure what attracted me to the medium of comics since I can’t remember my first exposure to them. But telling stories through a synthesis of text and drawings seems completely natural to me. I still love illustrated prose and have done plenty of that professionally, but I consider myself first a cartoonist.

Beckett: Age of Bronze is obviously a tremendous undertaking. What inspired you to begin this project, and what is it about the book that keeps you motivated?

Eric Shanower: In February 1991 I listened to a book on audio tape called The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman. The chapter on Troy made me realize that there are many different versions of the Troy story. I thought that combining all those stories into one, while reconciling the differences and setting it in the correct period, would make a wonderful comic book. I certainly realized at the time that it would be a major undertaking, although I underestimated then how major it would actually be.

I’m kept motivated because I’m not finished telling the story yet. There are still so many wonderful episodes to go and I look forward to telling them. It’s very exciting. And I love all the characters. Age of Bronze is a large project, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by how much of the story is left for me to work on. So I try not to think of that. I just work on the piece that’s in front of me.

Beckett: A huge amount of research is going into Age of Bronze. How different is this project for you compared to other works such as the series of Oz graphic novels?

Eric Shanower: Age of Bronze isn’t as different from Oz in that aspect as you might think. They both require a huge amount of research and an absorption of that research that provides an authentic knowledge of and feel for the source material. When I began seriously working on Age of Bronze back in the early 1990s I specifically determined that I’d have to school myself in the knowledge of every aspect of the Trojan War to the same extent that I’d schooled myself in the knowledge of every aspect of Oz. The main difference was that I’d been reading Oz books since I was six years old. When I started Age of Bronze, I’d never read the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid, or any of the Troy-related Greek tragedies, much less more obscure sources.

Beckett: Your art style is very precise and lends itself nicely to the black and white format of Age of Bronze. Was there ever any consideration to do it as a color book, and what do you gain as an artist and storyteller with this black and white aesthetic?

Eric Shanower: I’d have colored Age of Bronze if that had seemed feasible. But the pace of publication would double if I were coloring it, and that pace is slow enough already. Color is more expensive to print than black and white and when I began Age of Bronze, I figured that it wouldn’t sell enough—at least initially—to support the expense of color. The expense isn’t such a big deal now that Age of Bronze is established and sales are fine, but the time factor is still a problem. Also, I’m not that fond of painting. It’s certainly not out of the question that Age of Bronze may one day appear in a colored version too.

Beckett: If I’m not mistaken, you have been able to market Age of Bronze to libraries and schools, and I am curious what this has meant to the project itself and to you personally?

Eric Shanower: When I began Age of Bronze, I was confident that the traditional comic store market wouldn’t provide a lot of support for such a project. I was pretty confident that if Age of Bronze could find a mainstream audience, then it would then be possible for me to spend most of my working time on the project itself rather than trying to figure out how to keep publishing it. Fortunately the market for comics has changed and Age of Bronze has found the mainstream audience that I envisioned for it. So that means the project is published relatively regularly and people can recognize it and find it. If I’d had to publish it myself, say, each issue coming out only after I could scrape together enough money to print it and then spending most of my time trying to build distribution channels and find and keep an audience, this whole thing would have been much more difficult. I’m very glad the market for comics has changed along the ways that have meant good fortune for Age of Bronze. Of course, nothing ever stays the same, the market will continue to change. I just need to stay aware of things so that Age of Bronze can stay afloat. I hope the day never comes when I have to relegate it to a back burner.

I’ve spoken to several library conventions, and it’s really gratifying how interested the attendees are in learning about graphic novels and comics. Of course, some librarians have known about them for years, but to others comics and graphic novels are new on the radar. I try to be as useful an ambassador as I can be.

Beckett: Do you have any other projects you are working on, or is Age of Bronze taking the bulk of your creative time?

Eric Shanower: Age of Bronze takes the bulk of my creative time, but of course I work on a lot of other things, too. Presently I’m finishing a short comics story for a gay/lesbian Young Adult anthology edited by Michael Cart to be published by the Joanna Cotler imprint of HarperCollins. It’s a story about two teenage boys who release a genie from a bottle and each gain a wish as the result.

I’ve got a three-page Uncle Scrooge story to be published by Gemstone. I’m still waiting for approval of the pencils before I letter and ink it. Disney has to approve everything and, boy, do they take their time. But I’ve loved Uncle Scrooge since I was a kid, so it’s really nice to finally be writing and drawing one of his stories myself.

I’m writing a comics adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum for Marvel’s relatively new Marvel Illustrated imprint. I love this project. Skottie Young is going to be drawing it and I really look forward to seeing his artwork. There have been many comics adaptations of this story throughout the years, but we’re committed to making this one definitive.

FYC replay: The Scribbler with Dan Schaffer

Here's another one from the vaults - a look at my Pulse column spotlighting the OGN from Dan Schaffer, the Scribbler. His artwork is akin to Bill Sienkiewicz or Dave McKean (without the multimedia aspect) and that style worked incredibly well with this story about mental illness. You should definitely seek it out. And here's why:

For Your Consideration: Dan Schaffer’s The Scribbler

By Chris Beckett

FRONT PAGE:

Daniel Schaffer, the creator of Dogwitch, is a creator whose art and storytelling have evolved with each subsequent creation. Come inside and check out his most recent offering, 2006’s The Scribbler and discover an artist working to expand his personal horizons and strengthen the medium of comics.

The 411:

The Scribbler

Art & Story by Daniel Schaffer

96 pp. b/w

$7.99

Image comics

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

Strange voices linger on the periphery of Suki’s consciousness. She has multiple personality disorder, and it has eroded away her life for too long. Dr. Sinclair is now using an experimental technique involving a Siamese burn module, a device that sends low-level voltage through targeted areas of the brain. This self-prescribed electro-shock therapy is meant to regulate the synaptic firings of the brain and bring the disparate personalities back in line. A cutting edge treatment, Suki experiences no physical pain, but the dreams induced while the device is running are incredible.

This treatment has worked so well that Suki is now able to take up residence in a halfway house called Juniper Tower. It’s a step forward for her, but things start inauspiciously at the Tower – called Jumpers Tower by some – as a suicide jumper lands fatally at Suki’s feet just as she approaches the front door. Not the best introduction for one with a fragile state of mind.

Inside, things are a bit tamer as Suki meets the Easter Bunny, Cleopatra, and Stigmata Steve and also gets a visit from an old friend also living in Juniper Tower. Hogan was ostensibly cured the last Suki knew, but trying to slash his wrists managed to get him re-committed. They catch up, discuss the residents of the tower, and then get more intimately reacquainted. Afterward, Suki sees Hogan out of her room and plugs in the Siamese burn unit, allowing herself to fall into her dreams. When she awakes, it is three days later and a dog is now living in Suki’s room.

Distressed that the machine has been running the entire time she was asleep when it should have turned itself off after five hours, Suki goes for a walk. Living on the sixteenth floor of the tower, Suki steps into the elevator, which – when it threatens to break down and suffocate her – compels her to take the stairs. In the stairwell, Suki’s day goes from bad to worse as she meets Alice, one of Hogan’s ex-girlfriends. A pusher, Alice sends Suki down one flight of stairs and then another before telling her to send Hogan home if she sees him.

Suki continues to use the Siamese burn unit as instructed, and days keep dissolving away. The voices that had been receding increase their chatter, while in the tower proper more apparent suicides occur as an escalating number of patients find solace diving into the pavement. With things spiraling out of control, Suki begins to wonder what connection she might have with the increasing rate of suicides in Juniper Tower.

Despite the troubling aspects of the Tower, at least Suki only has one extra personality left, the Scribbler. It’s just too bad this personality seems to be ascending during the therapy sessions as evidenced by the many notes written backwards now plastering Suki’s walls. Things are coalescing, a vortex forming around those missing days that now haunts Suki, posing the question: what will the outcome bring for her and for all the other inhabitants of Jumpers Tower?

Dan Schaffer has created a taut, suspenseful story that begins as a meditation on the mentally ill and eventually turns into a criminal mystery. Schaffer’s writing is sharp, parsing out pieces of this puzzle in short bursts, heightening the suspense of the tale before unleashing the climax in one longer final act. Revealing the dominance of the Scribbler, Schaffer pulls together all the varied threads while leaving room for interpretation by his audience. This is a book that can be enjoyed on a couple of different levels and rewards those returning for subsequent readings.

And the art provided by Schaffer is fantastic. A combination of painting and digital enhancement that he first used in Indigo Vertigo, the graphic novel on which he collaborated with writer/singer Katiejane Garside, the imagery springing forth from Dan Schaffer’s brush is reminiscent of some of Bill Sienkiewicz’s less abstract artwork. Despite being in black and white, Schaffer is able to layer his artwork, using light and dark to give the book a more intense feeling than if it had been rendered with a more traditional pen and ink style. The Scribbler is a sharp melding of words and pictures that showcases the breadth of possibilities for comics. With his next project, Schaffer hopes to take another evolutionary step with his artwork and storytelling, pushing the envelope of what can be done within the medium. I am anxious to see where Schaffer will go next with his comic work; he’s a creator to watch. Experimental, engaging, and entertaining – what more could one ask for?

An Interview with Dan Schaffer:

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

Dan Schaffer: I couldn't decide if I wanted to be an artist or a writer! When I started working in comics I didn't know anything about the industry or the direct market or fandom or superheroes or any of that. I grew up on British punk comics from the late seventies, old war comics, bizarre French science fiction, and I came into the business just as the light from the nineties indie comics explosion was fading. I'm not sure what's going on in comics now or why I’m still here. Hardly anything in the current comics market makes any sense to me at all.

Beckett: While trying not to divulge too much in The Scribbler, I was impressed with how you laid the bread crumbs for the final revelation in the book. It's difficult to make something like that flow naturally through the narrative without giving away the ending and still have readers be able to piece it together once they reach the climax. How did you approach this aspect of the story and did it involve much editing on your part?

Schaffer: I'm not very good at deconstructing my work retrospectively, mainly because I write intuitively in the early stages, collecting ideas until they reach critical mass and fall out onto paper. At that point I usually don't know what I'm doing. I'm just following a feeling. But then I go digging through the mess looking for clues and, once I’ve found them, I start editing, moulding the story around these clues and building onto a thematic framework. With The Scribbler, it all started with the concept of the Siamese Burn Module - a machine designed to cure disassociative disorder - and I just followed it from there. I'm not sure how I ended up exactly where I did, challenging concepts of good and evil and all that, but the multiple personalities were always intended to be personifications of Suki’s skills, dreams, and ideas, with the mute Scribbler being a physical representation of her individuality. This is the one that won’t go down without a fight. Instead, it rises to the challenge, grows bigger to fill in the gaps and, in essence, becomes an evolutionary step above the bureaucracy of everyday life. The Scribbler started out as quite a small, intimate little story. The psychological and thriller aspects were kind of deliberate but the unusual ending was a logical conclusion of events and themes, and that more or less wrote itself. I'm sure I got criticized for it, but there was really no other way to go. I had to be very careful not to break the aesthetic distance of that book. It had its own logic.

Beckett: The two books of yours I've read - The Scribbler and Indigo Vertigo - have been black and white, but the artwork seems to be painted. Is this the case, or is it a digital facsimile, and how did you develop your art style?

Schaffer: It's part paint and part digital. It was a style I developed for Indigo [Vertigo] to suit Katiejane's writing, but three years of intricate line art on Dogwitch was making my fingers hurt so I'd been looking to do something new for a while anyway. Indigo Vertigo was set in a surreal world of underwater imagery and strange metaphors, so I needed an art style that could visually display the tone and mood of Katie's writing as well as illustrating the story between the lines. I paint using only black and white paints, then scan the artwork and layer it with home made digital filters. I recently did the same thing in colour for the first time on a comic short called Lesions in the Brain (also a collaboration with Katiejane Garside), but most of the time I prefer working in black and white.

Beckett: With these last two books, you've worked as the artist in a collaborative capacity, and you've worked as the sole creator. What benefits - and, conversely, what drawbacks - are there for you in each process, and do you approach each process at all differently?

Schaffer: When you're working alone, your focus point is somewhere in the middle of your own head, but with a collaboration it's all about finding that same point between yourself and somebody else. Generally speaking, I've never been interested in collaborating with anyone in comics. Maybe as a writer, but certainly not as an artist. Trying to stick rigidly to someone else's script would drive me crazy. Working with Katiejane was kind of a special case. We weren't following any structural rules of storytelling with the art or the narrative, and we had a pretty tight creative connection at the time so we could trust each other to approach everything organically without going off the mission profile. So, the closer we stayed to the intuitive end of the process the better because we were trying to communicate on a different level, subliminally or subjectively, through a sort of dream logic. That kind of collaboration appeals to me. Being somebody’s pencil monkey doesn’t excite me in the slightest.

Beckett: I would think creating a book dealing with psychological disorders would be a daunting task. How much research did you do for The Scribbler, and is the technique used for rehabilitating Suki's multiple personalities something created by you whole-cloth, or did you come across it in your research?

Schaffer: The Siamese Burn Therapy is a metaphor for the machine-like nature of authority or the general rigidity of the modern world. Seems like the more free we get and the more enlightened we become, the more we tie ourselves up with rules and regulations. The idea of a machine that resets you back to normal mental health displays a certain arrogant assumption that the people who made the machine know what mental health is. I've spent a lot of time researching various forms of psychology, I live in a house with psychologists so the place is filled with text books, but The Scribbler isn't really about that stuff. It's all just a metaphor for life in the twenty-first century where everyone is expected to think in a particular way or do their jobs by the book without question, and this kind of spreadsheet-mentality leaves no room for personal style. Individuality is slowly becoming outlawed. To me, that’s insanity. Surely we don’t want to live like ants, right? The Scribbler is basically saying that the more you suppress people's creativity, the more creative they will become. It's an optimistic book looking towards a world where the people with all the answers finally realise they don't know shit and stop hassling the rest of us with their theories.

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

Schaffer: The third Dogwitch trade, “Mood Swings,” should finally hit the shelves later this year. There's a new comic project on my desk called Killdarlings which I hope to finish drawing soon. It's part horror, part brutal Hollywood satire. It's actually more twisted than Dogwitch, I think. Both the art and storytelling styles are a bit experimental 'cause I wouldn't want to stop doing things the hard way. Outside of comics I've been writing for film. I sold a screenplay last year called Doghouse. That's due to start shooting in a couple of months with Jake West (Evil Aliens) directing.

Preview cover image

So,

I'll be taking a b/w preview of the short story I wrote for Ape's forthcoming UFO anthology. The art was from Jason Copland, with colors by Osmarco Valladao and letters by Josh Aitken (I lettered the b/w preview pages but am including a sample of a colored/lettered page for editors and publishers to check out). Here's the cover I created for the preview chapbook. Hope you enjoy.

chris

Lost FYC: Casanova

Though on hiatus, Casanova is one of the best series that has been published in recent memory. Exciting storytelling from Matt Fraction, gorgeous art by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, with deeper levels to the tale for those willing to dig through the jam-packed narrative. And, I would suggest, if you want the "entire package" you should seek out the original issues with Matt Fraction's essays in the back discussing the story, the art, and anything else tangentially connected to Casanova. Great stuff, and very heartfelt. Check it out if you get the chance, and pick it up when it eventually continues at Image.


For Your Consideration: Casanova By Chris Beckett

FRONT PAGE: Following in the footsteps of its sister publication, Warren Ellis’s and Ben Templesmith’s Fell, Matt Fraction and Brazilian twins Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon have created one of the best books of this new century, Casanova. A mash of everything that’s great about comics and anything that interests its authors, this is a book that revels in being a comic and should be on every fan’s shelf. Click on in and check this out!


The 411:
Casanova
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon
Lettered by Sean Konot
Album 1: Casanova: Luxuria
144 pp. 2-color $12.99
Individual issues 24pp. 2-color orig. $1.99
Image comics

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

In the 1980s, in a fanzine interview, Alan Moore discussed what was good about comics – that one could walk into a comic shop with pocket change and leave with “a real slab of culture.” Of course, prices have risen considerably during the intervening years, but Warren Ellis, one of Moore’s heirs apparent, took this thought and ran with it. The result is Fell, his slimline comic from Image with collaborator Ben Templesmith. With a smaller page count (24pp. vs. 32pp.), it offers readers sixteen pages of story with eight pages of back matter – notes, sketches, story inspirations, letters, etc. – for only $1.99. Each issue is self-contained as Ellis and Templesmith create a densely-packed story with beginning, middle, and end that can be enjoyed on its own. But read together, an over-arching story unfolds.

It was an experiment that had no assurances of success – a thinner book at a lower price point in a medium that can often seem chained to its past to the detriment of its future – and it sold. Well. So, with the success of Fell, one would expect a line of copycats waiting in the wings to be thrust upon the comic-buying public. But the only one, thus far, to have picked up the gauntlet and run with the idea is Casanova, born from the fevered brain of Matt Fraction and beautifully rendered by Brazilian twins Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.

Casanova Quinn is an agent of E.M.P.I.R.E. – Extra-Military Police, Intelligence, Rescue, and Espionage – the secret organization run by his father, Cornelius Quinn. But Quinn’s arch nemesis, Newman Xeno, leader of W.A.S.T.E. - ????? – has the Casanova Quinn from the book’s primary timeline, 919, killed while he abducts the Casanova of timeline 909 to replace him. Xeno wants nothing short of the total elimination of E.M.P.I.R.E. and by replacing its star agent (Cass 919) with one of moral ambiguity (Cass 909), he hopes to infiltrate the super-spy organization and eat away at it from the inside. During the space/time abduction, Xeno also has Cass’s sister, Zephyr, from another timeline killed, so that her father will believe her dead, as the 919 model continues secretly working to bring down her father in this timeline (she’s the bad sibling and Xeno’s girlfriend). Yeah, it’s #*%!ed up convoluted, but damn, it’s fun.

As Casanova is assigned missions by his father, Xeno gives the double-agent counter-missions, working not only to subvert the machinations of E.M.P.I.R.E. but also to prove the boy’s loyalty. In the course of the first seven issues (collected in the album, Casanova: Luxuria) Casanova Quinn discovers Cold Heart Island – an island cut off from humanity that, despite the arcane façade put forth when encroached upon by the “civilized” world, is actually advanced well beyond anything currently theorized – kidnaps David X an escape artist about to finish his twelve years of meditation and awaken as the supersammasambuddha and then replaces him with a robot double, and infiltrates the pop divas, Teen Age Music International (T.A.M.I.) as a fetish photographer in order to uncover a map hidden on their nude bodies that will lead E.M.P.I.R.E. to the final liquid assets of another rival, Sabine Seychelle. And this is only the tip of the iceberg for Casanova Quinn.

Through all the events in Luxuria, the new Casanova Quinn finds himself growing closer to the Casanova that once inhabited timeline 909. Discovering his mother, now unable to relate to the world and hidden away in Big Sur, he rescues her from this reality, asking the inhabitants of Cold Heart Island to watch over her. Cass also manages to end his sister Zephyr’s rampage with diplomacy rather than his fists. And ultimately, Casanova Quinn finds his redemption, double-crossing Newman Xeno in the end while painting a bull’s eye on his back in the process.

With the second album, Gula, it is a couple years later and readers find that Casanova Quinn has gone missing. The mantra for this album: “When is Casanova Quinn?” With Cass off the board, Fraction brings Zephyr Quinn front and center with her newly-christened relationship with Kubark Benday – son of Israel Benday, founder of M.O.T.T., and another enemy of E.M.P.I.R.E. – providing the impetus for the series. Meanwhile, a strange six-armed beauty from the future tries to help Cass’s allies fix the time anomalies that are bending the world around them.

Where the initial album revolved around the violence and brutality that lives around (and within) us all, this second album uses love and lust as the weapons of choice, with a requisite amount of bloodshed. It can be debated which is worse, but when this latest storyline careens to a halt, those taking the brunt of the punishment experience it in their souls. The twists and turns in this album are more riveting and affecting in that they involve characters that the audience has come to know and understand. Fraction blindsides readers with his plot-twists, and yet it all flows naturally from the mayhem he created in the first volume and has continued through this second narrative. (And I use mayhem in the most positive light here. Controlled chaos might be a better description. But I digress.) As involving and mesmeric as the initial album, Casanova: Gula is a great read deserving permanent status on any fan’s shelf.

Matt Fraction is more than ably assisted by the virtuoso duo of Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. In the first volume of the series, Ba expertly brings forth the entire Quinn family and the over-the-top world in which they and their nemeses live. His flowing linework and accomplished layouts add so much to the story of Casanova Quinn that it’s hard to conceive of this series working without his contribution. That is, until his twin brother joined with the second volume, as Ba drew The Umbrella Academy with writer/singer Gerard Way for Dark Horse Comics. Fabio Moon manages to bring his own take on the Quinns and the super-spy, multiquintessence worldview that permeates this whirlwind comic while keeping everything grounded within the reality that his brother produced in Luxuria. Ba and Moon are two of the most exciting artists to hit the comic scene in a number of years. Their characters erupt with energy and move gracefully across the page while their fully-realized backgrounds serve to give the story context and allow them to accentuate scenes by dropping those backgrounds off the panel in a way that less accomplished artists might not even consider. I enjoy going through the books and soaking up the art after I’ve read these issues, because it is just that good.

Casanova is a mash of everything that makes comics great – super-spies, parallel timelines, larger-than-life villains, kung fu, giant robots, sexy chicks, and catchy acronyms. And this book does something that many comics shy away from – it revels in being a comic book. This is evident not just in the nod to classic comics such as Steranko’s SHIELD series, but also in its use of former executive director and now Image publisher Eric Stephenson to provide pithy interjections from time to time and catch reader’s up with plot points that might have been forgotten from one issue to the next. This point is brought home when the final battle between Cass and his sister begins in issue seven and three captions boxes are crossed out, giving way to the ideal observation, “I love comic books!” A fitting mantra for such a book.

This book is also a dumping ground for Matt Fractions’ brain. Whatever information/entertainment he’s absorbed through the years seems to have made it into the book – or will eventually. The essays in the back of each issue, not available in the collected albums, delve deeper into the motivations and inspirations for a particular issue and for someone who likes to keep his emotional stuff wound tight, Fraction has certainly laid it all on the line with this book. And that’s why Casanova has been successful and why his audience is able to relate to it so well. I empathize with wanting to keep things bottled up and applaud Fraction for being so candid. Could I do that? I don’t know. But for fans of Casanova, they could not ask for more. This is one of the best books to come along in this new century, and anyone that loves comics needs to get these books now.












An Interview with Matt Fraction:

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

Fraction: The mixture of words and images. I always wanted to tell stories, and I always wanted to draw. When I was a kid I'd make my own comics and call them movies. I know, I don't know. I was weird. Anyway. Words and pictures and a desire to tell stories. And it's cheaper and less dependent on others than filmmaking, so there's that. I've spent an awful lot of time behind the camera making movies or animated shorts or whatever and I love it but, at the same time, I can't do that in my kitchen with my wife and kid, y'know?

Anyway. Words and pictures. I am addicted to words and pictures and the magical, wonderful, inexplicable thing that happens in the space between them.

Beckett: From reading the back matter of the individual issues of Casanova, it seems as if you were making it all up as you went along. And yet, there is a continuing narrative with multiple subplots wending its way through this first album. Did you have an over-arching story mapped out, and how did you kept it all straight?

Fraction: I wasn't making it up at all. I knew the big landmarks and, with one exception, they remained as in place in the published series as they did in my initial notes. I absolutely have an over-arching story mapped out. There's lots of room to improvise between those landmarks, and I think I can pull it off only because those landmarks are so fixed.

The one major beat I changed-- and without blowing the ending to Luxuria, I won't say it-- became a kind of moral imperative that I change, and I think it's more or less pretty seamless. Would that I could go back in time there would be a few microscopic changes I'd make to accommodate it some but I think I'm the only person in the world that notices.

You know how Stanislavsky said, about acting, that you do a shitload of research, and preparation, and study and analysis and homework and then you throw 90% of it away and just wing it? It's that. All the crap I ramble about at the end of the issues? None of it matters. None of it. I might as well talk about what I had for lunch, you know? It's all just homework.

Beckett: With Casanova, you walk a fine line between the action/adventure and the humor. How do you maintain that balance – does it require a lot of hard editing and revising – and did you have any worries that it might not be well-received?

Fraction: Instinct. I suspect I'm wrong more than right. Eh, the only way I'll get better is to just keep writing, so I dunno. My life is funny. My friends are funny. I spend a lot of time laughing. I don't understand people that somehow think a sense of humor is in opposition to... I dunno, "serious storytelling" or whatever. On the very worst days of my life, I've still laughed. That's life, you know? Highs, lows, ups, downs. I laugh a lot. My friends laugh a lot. Especially when one of us is hanging from the gallows. Which tends to be often.

I don't worry about how anything I write is received-- of course I hope it's well-received but you can't worry about that stuff. Shit, I dunno, maybe you can but I absolutely can not. If I worried about it I'd go totally crazy and turn into one of those douchebag writers on the internet that argues with readers anytime any one of them doesn't care for their work in any capacity and loses entire days to egosurfing themselves on Google for the slightest mention of their name trying to somehow bully a subjective opinion into submission.

I'm happy and amazed and delighted that anybody gives me their time and attention; I hope they don't resent it and they still have my gratitude even if and inevitably when they do.

Beckett: The slimline format. Warren Ellis has written about Fell scripts running longer than some scripts for his traditional 22-page books. How do you break down an individual issue’s script and do you similarly find it more work than a typical comic script as Ellis does?

Fraction: Oh, Casanova is the hardest thing I've ever written. Every issue, every time, no doubt. All that homework doesn't make it move any faster. It's no different than any other script, in terms of how it's written, but it requires like 10,000 times more thought, somehow. The process isn't necessarily any different, it's just more... ornate. I start with the broad story beats written out in paragraphs, then break that out into what happens on each page, and then refine the pages and write it out. Man, it sounds so simple when I write it like that. That's like a brain surgeon saying first you cut the skull cap, then you work on the brain, then you stitch it back up.

Well, I'm pretty proud with it at the end of the day, so it's worth it. But yeah, Christ! It's a lot of work.


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

Fraction: I write lots of comics for Marvel, and I love them and I'm very proud of them but it's Marvel and they have a robust ad presence and marketing presence and shelf presence in the direct market, so you'll have no problems finding out about that stuff on your own if it so interests you. I'd much rather talk about projects I have nothing to do with but love. Rick Remender's comics, namely Fear Agent, is fantastic. Jason Aaron's Scalped is maybe the best new book of the last year. Jon Hickman makes comics from Jupiter, I don't even know how to talk about his stuff but it's absolutely otherworldly and insane. My friends Harold Sipe and Hector Casanova have a book called Screamland coming out in a couple months and I wish my first comic was that good.

Yes! Yes. These are books I want to tell readers about. Read them! They are wonderful.