That’s all for this week. See you next Tuesday.
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Archive for ‘Comic’
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Quick note: No new page this Thursday due to the holiday, but back to normal next week.
Happy Thanksgiving all! I’m looking forward to hearty amounts of turkey, stuffing, apple pie, potatoes, beer, and whiskey…wait, those last two make me sound like the Kilcullen Brothers!
Thanks again to Kevin Colden for the interview on the last page and “HELLO” to all of the people that came over to GO HOME PADDY for the first time to read that interview. Also, thanks to Robot6 for linking to the interview.
Once again, you can follow me and PADDY on Twitter and Facebook.
See you all next Tuesday.
Also, GO HOME, PADDY is now represented by Scott Gould of RLR Associates.
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INTERVIEW WITH KEVIN COLDEN of FISHTOWN FAME
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Thanks to Kevin for such an in-depth interview regarding his EXCELLENT graphic novel FISHTOWN. He spent a good amount of time answering my questions and I hope that you all enjoy the Q&A.
1. Where did the idea to create FISHTOWN originally come from? What made you want to tackle such a heavy story?
I’ve always thought that the medium of comics is great for tackling heavy emotional stories, and in the last decade or two there have a been a number of particularly affecting memoirs and dramatic stories that have come out of our corner of the storytelling landscape. But in my mind, we’ve never really ventured all that far from the template that Art Spiegelman set up with Maus two dozen years ago – the marriage of heavy themes and cartoony drawings.
I had come across the actual story of the Fishtown murder during research for another project, and was fascinated and saddened by the brutality of it. It stuck in my head and I had the idea that if I told this story, I could flip the standard of graphic novel memoir storytelling on its head. The intent was to create some kind of Capote-esque hybrid non-fiction graphic novel to try and humanize a life experience that (thankfully) few of us can imagine experiencing, and do it in a way that would make it emotionally real. I attempted to achieve that by using completely subjective storytelling.
So I guess I saw it as a chance to poke a hole in our culture’s current desensitized view of real-life violence through art.
2. Did you work with an Editor at all to shape the story? Or were you left completely to your own devices?
I mostly did it on my own. There was feedback from the online community at ACT-I-VATE, but the story was laid out years before it was ever published there, so the site feedback didn’t affect the core story directly. However, the fact that it was going to be read by a large audience informed a few changes, like the last-minute decision to change the character names, and the initial removal of some of the nudity that I later put back in.
My wife (cartoonist Miss Lasko-Gross) did help me edit the dialogue, and worked as a sounding board which she always does. We both sort of act as in-house editors for each other, which is a pretty valuable tool. It makes my actual editors jobs easier. There was no official editor on the content, but for the print edition the IDW editors aided in the overall design and production of the book.
3. Why the use of spot-colors instead of full color? Especially since FISHTOWN was published on the web first?
Initially, the book was going to be full-color, and the color saturation levels were going vary as an indicator of time. I did a batch of pages in full color, but due to the way the printing process works the variation of saturation wasn’t clear, so it defeated the purpose. That, coupled with time issues and my lack of coloring skills at that point made me rethink my approach, and it seems I made the right decision. It’s often pointed out that the queasy color scheme sets the tone of the book.
4. Why did you publish the story on the web first, instead of in print?
A few reasons. I remember the situation being that the book had been rejected by nearly every publisher twice, though I may have missed one or two in my rounds. I had noticed a movement towards long serialized stories on the web, had cofounded an online comics collective called The Chemistry Set and had had some success with that. So by the time Fishtown came out, I had experience in the online realm. Since no one else wanted it, it seemed like a no-brainer.
In the meantime I had sent off a submission to the Xeric Foundation for a grant to print the first issue, expecting a rejection. To my surprise, I won. I wanted to both print it and serialize online due to my experience and having a cultivated a small fanbase there. But due to the way the rules were set up at the time, I couldn’t do both, and I declined the money award. In retrospect, it may have looked like a solidarity play for webcomics, but it was really just that I knew how to promote an online comic better than I knew how to promote a print comic.
5. Has the web first, print second method worked well for you? Are there positives and negatives to working that way?
That’s a a tough question to answer. I spent so much effort promoting the serialized version of the book, that by the time it hit print, I think it was old news and had worn out its welcome. Also, the book was released at the end of 2008, and the economy had just shit the bed. In my decidedly biased opinion, as a book with as much buzz as it had, that won the Xeric and later went on to garner an Eisner Award nomination (Best Reality-Based Work), it had all the makings of a massive hit. There may have been a lot of people reading it online, or borrowing copies, or reading library copies; I don’t actually know! That might be the big negative.
6. In regards to your process, do you work from a full, detailed script or from a synopsis? Was the entire work completed before you began serializing FISHTOWN on line? Did you rework aspects of the story or art for the print edition?
I always work from a screenplay-type script broken down by page. This makes it easier to play around with storytelling from a visual angle. I think I had about 30 pages or so done when we started serializing, though the script had been finished almost two years prior to that (I wrote it in under a week). The last 70 pages were completed very quickly in a period of about three months – I was still working full-time, which is why I consider that timeframe quick – before the end of 2007, largely so I could secure the print contract.
I reworked a lot of dialogue, and tightened up at least one panel on each page of the book. The differences are subtle, but in a book with a lot of subtleties, it make a difference.
7. Who are some of you influences? And did ANY work in ANY medium have an influence on FISHTOWN directly?
In comics, my primary influence is Bernie Krigstein, and I think his work shows up all over in my own. Especially in Fishtown. Also in regards to this book, Dave McKean’s Cages informed the storytelling pace and the use of distinct panel grids, line weight choices, and the two-tone color scheme.
Two filmmakers were a big influence on the book, one of whom is Stanley Kubrick (everyone lists Stanley Kubrick as an influence, I know…) largely for his deliberate use of dialogue and elegantly composed shots, and Gaspar Noe’s film Irreversible, which had opened my eyes to the way shocking images become even more shocking when devoid of stylization.
But most of all, the time I spent in theater influenced the storytelling choices in the book. Conventional wisdom says that comics and cartoons, by their nature, are simple deconstructions of nature and the tendency is to tell stories in the comics medium in a melodramatic way. It’s effective. What I was trying to do was let my characters act. The interview sequences – a good third of the book – break two standard conventions of comic storytelling. The first is that repetition is boring, the second is that second-person storytelling doesn’t work well in comics. However, those are two standard conventions of theatrical drama, and by writing the script as if it were going to be performed on stage, and then letting the emotions do the visual work, I was able to break one or two taboos – I think, anyway – effectively.
8. What are you currently working on? Where can people find more of your work?
Right now, I’m finishing up the last pages of my next full-length book I Rule the Night, which was part of the Zuda Comics website and is now available digitally through DC Comics on Comixology.com or Comixology’s iPad/iPhone app. It’s frustratingly tricky to find, unfortunately, as its not actually available directly through DC’s app due to age restriction issues (https://comics.comixology.com/#/series/4988). It’s still serializing, but new issues will become available there for the foreseeable future.
I also collaborated with Joe R. Lansdale and John L. Lansdale on an adaptation of Robert Bloch’s Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, which is available as trade paperback in store right now, and I created an illustrated edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales that will be coming from IDW in late November.
Aaaaaaaaaand we’re back! GO HOME, PADDY Chapter Three starts right here.
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Also, GO HOME, PADDY is now represented by Scott Gould of RLR Associates!
Hopefully more good news to come.
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And don’t forget, you can follow me and PADDY on Twitter and Facebook.
And so Chapter Two comes to an end. Thanks to all of you for following along — GO HOME PADDY has gathered quite a number of new readers these past few months! Chapter Three should launch in NOVEMBER and I encourage all of you that haven’t singed up for the newsletter to do so. The sign up form is up there on the right hand side of the page and you’ll receive an email when Chapter Three begins to be posted.
Also, thanks to everyone that has connected with GO HOME PADDY on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn; especially all of you on Twitter that have re-tweeted when I’ve posted new pages. And a BIG thanks to SailorTwain, Matt Bors, Robot6, PaperlessComics, The Boston Bibliophile and Fleen for interviews and posting links.
There’s a lot to look forward to in Chapter Three: Paddy discovers the beauty and refinement of American women, he and Dan struggle to find work and acceptance, and Boston continues to swell with Irish immigrants…and the Natives don’t like that one bit.
See you then!
Hello to all the new readers that have come aboard since this week’s interview with Mark Siegel of SailorTwain fame. I appreciate your signing up for the newsletter and adding Go Home Paddy to your Google reader accounts— Glad to have you all as readers!
And thanks to both Fleen and Robot6 for posting links to the interview as well!
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Some of you may remember that I linked to an article in The Boston Globe a week or so ago related to an archeological dig concerning Irish workers in the Greater Boston Area in the early 1800′s. Well, I came across an article/podcast on the local NPR station WBUR covering the same topic. You can read the article (or listen to the original radio broadcast) HERE.
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Several readers have emailed me asking about the type of music I listen to while working on GO HOME PADDY. I’m assuming they’re asking to find out if I’m pumping traditional Irish music non-stop? Well, I’m not!
This week’s listening has been alot of Joy Division, Morphine, Masters of Reality, M.O.P., Trentemøller, as well as This American Life, Fresh Air, and KCRW’s To The Point podcasts.
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Okay, see you all next Tuesday for the conclusion of Chapter Two.
INTERVIEW WITH MARK SIEGEL of
SAILORTWAIN & FIRST SECOND BOOKS
I’m VERY pleased to be posting this Q&A with Mark Siegel! For those that don’t know, Mark is the creator behind the beautiful and mysterious web-comic/graphic novel SailorTwain or the Mermaid in the Hudson that updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Mark is also the Editorial Director of the excellent Graphic Novel publisher First Second Books.
1. What’s the genesis of Sailor Twain? Was the story gestating for a long time?
Sailor Twain began like an oyster starts a pearl from a grain of sand, from an irritant it can’t get rid of. Before I thought of sharing it with anyone, I needed to do something, and this is the form it took. The project’s inception goes back almost seven years. I didn’t realize it had been cooking that long till I found some early sketches and journal entries about it from 2003.
2. Why now? And why as a web-comic?
Sailor Twain began like an oyster starts a pearl from a grain of sand, from an irritant it can’t get rid of. Before I thought of sharing it with anyone, I needed to do something, and this is the form it took. The project’s inception goes back almost seven years. I didn’t realize it had been cooking that long till I found some early sketches and journal entries about it from 2003.
2. Why now? And why as a web-comic?
At a certain point, it was ready. The characters found their voices, the story had an organic life of its own, in other words, it escaped me. I’ve never worked this long on a single project, but this one keeps getting more interesting for me. And the idea of serializing it as a web-comic came later in the process. Reading a few web-comics myself, some of them long-form stories, some of them short strips (like Kate Beaton, my continuing favorite) it struck me that this was the 19th century serial-novel tradition, in its freshest incarnation. You know how people lined up on the docks to get the latest chapter of Great Expectations? Now I guess we have RSS feeds.
3. How are you enjoying the experience of working in web-comics? Have you felt a sense of community through the process?
3. How are you enjoying the experience of working in web-comics? Have you felt a sense of community through the process?
I love it. Sailor Twain draws together some delightful, inspired, funny, articulate people from all kinds of backgrounds. There are also many more of the quiet ones, some of whom surface every so often in the discussions. It’s already been a wonder for me, meeting readers and contributors to the project’s research, with Hudson River history, poetry, boating details. There’s also a very unique feeling that comes from being received, page by page. That is priceless, and wouldn’t happen from only putting out the finished book in print. Plus, some of them are really careful readers, picking up on nuances and subtle story and character shifts, which is most rewarding. As for a sense of community, yes, it turns out that is the biggest discovery of all for me. At first the “companion blog” was an afterthought, with little tidbits to go alongside the story. But then it has grown into a part of the Sailor Twain experience, and the discussions sometimes take off in marvelous ways, with people I’m genuinely excited to meet.
4. Because the story is unfolding online, do you find that you’re changing parts of the story or art as you go along?
The story is framed and scripted, but then as the saying goes “plan your work, and work your plan…” As I work on finished pages, Sailor Twain is constantly being
kneaded like pizza dough, adjusted, a scene performed differently, dialog trimmed or cut, and so forth. The interactive aspect probably influences that to some degree, but I’m careful to keep a good head-start on what’s appearing online, maybe to keep away the wrong pressures from my telling of the story.
5. How did the artistic style of the project develop? (As in why charcoal as opposed to pen & ink?)
In the last few years, I made several early versions—entire chapters in ink, then in watercolor washes—but I always had a frustrating sense it wasn’t the right mood, or the right look for characters who were deepening and layering themselves. Then came a piece of charcoal, and suddenly I could feel the industrial revolution, steel and smoke, coal and steam, rain and fog. . . It just came together, and nothing else would do. I love charcoal. It’s forgiving, it can be soft and hard, it can suggest things in the mist, just beyond our sight.
6. Are you drawing inspiration from the creators that you work with at First Second?
Yes, absolutely. First Second showcases some of the most inspiring comics authors working today, and I get to work with them, witness their process. Lots of inspiration there. But then with a project like Twain, I also had to close myself to outside influences at a certain point. I try not to bring my inner fanboy to the studio.
7. Are you working with an Editor on Sailor Twain? If so, has that been odd for you?
Tanya McKinnon is an agent, editor, and author. She has been an invaluable editorial partner on Sailor Twain, since before First Second began. From the start she was relentless with tough questions, questions and more questions. Having a mind like hers team up inside one’s vision is a rare blessing. Tanya not only pushed me to a depth I wouldn’t even have set my sights on, on my own—she also gave me renewed respect for what an editor can be. It’s always been easy to bash editors (and several comics authors do it regularly) but I believe in good editors, not meddlesome, or authoritarian editors… A true editor may or not work under that title. Some talented authors have their kibbitzers, coaches, trusted friends… But unless you can spare ten years to give yourself the necessary distance from your own work, an editor can provide some of that, much sooner. I think that’s invaluable, and many good works might have been great with a bit more of it.
8. How hard is it balancing writing & illustrating Sailor Twain with your duties as “Head Honcho” at First Second?
Since before First Second started I’ve been working on my own projects. My routine involves a couple hours in the studio before heading to work in Manhattan. At first that was a discipline, but now it’s part of my daily well-being. So its always been there—only now, it’s out in the open.
Go. Read. SailorTwain. Now.
And a HUGE thanks to Mark for taking time out of what must be a incredibly hectic schedule to participate in my Q&A series. In fact, I think he answered my questions while on vacation!