Ghostly Sketches From The Past

Something haunting happened to me last fall at the Fan Expo event here in Toronto. I’m still thinking about it, and wondering what happened, exactly.

            The Fan Expo is an enormous event, a multi-geek-fandom affair featuring horror, anime, gaming, sci-fi and, of course, their poor country cousin, comics. Thanks to my old buddy James Armstrong, I always have a table in artist’s alley.

The Toronto Fan Expo

Home away from home for
the Geek hordes.

Over the years it isn’t uncommon to have a friend or acquaintance from the dim dark past recognize my name and stop by my table to say howdy. It happened a few years ago with a gent named Joe Arena, who was actually the first man to publish my comics, way back when I was a cocky, seventeen year old wanna-be with a very long way to go. I also had the eldest son of my old shop teacher, Ross Andrews, come up with greetings from the old fellow himself. Mr. Andrews (as I still think of him) was the first person to encourage my drawing when I was just a goofy, long-haired thirteen year old, trying to construct a box from tin sheets in his grade seven shop class.

            Usually meeting an old friend is a rather pleasant experience, catching up with people, (or the sons of people) who played some role in my past life is nice now and then. However, last year a chance meeting with a former buddy of mine went rather a different way.

            I only knew Fletch for a few years.

In my hometown of Tillsonburg there weren’t too many comics freaks. This was the seventies, and the exploding collectors market was still more than a decade into the future. The grand master of comic collecting in our town was a guy named Mason Armstrong. He was older, in his mid twenties, and he possessed an impressive collection. (His Fantastic Four collection started with issue #9!) Mason was a tall, sandy haired, soft-spoken guy, with thick glasses, who worked in his parent’s drug store. He’d stake out the comic spinner in the store and make contact with the town’s other budding comics addicts, like myself. There were only four or five of us. A few desperate, continuity starved, square pegs who made the rounds of all the drug stores and convenience stores in town, vainly seeking to satisfy our personal four color addictions from the titles available from the spotty local distribution.

It was Mason who first introduced me to Fletch. Fletch was about my age, but taller and more athletic, and much more conscious of his appearance and looking ‘cool’. He was pure 70’s, while I was clinging to the fading hippie aesthetic. (A look I still haven’t abandoned!) We were both into comics and rock music and drawing. At that time, Fletch was probably a better artist than I was. He seemed to have a keener grasp of anatomy and proportion, whereas I was a little better at storytelling and continuity. (I wish I still had some of his drawings to post.)

We did what most fifteen year-old boys in Tillsonburg did. We fought valiantly against the crushing boredom! We hung out, listened to The Stones, Alice Cooper, and Aerosmith, swilled down crap like potato chips, Oh Henry bars and Coke, and schemed to meet, and theoretically date, girls.

Teenager food.

            And we drew piles of superhero pictures.

Batman, Superman, Conan, the Incredible Hulk, and the amazing Len Wein Dave Cockrum re-launch of the X-Men were our bibles. We copied poses, and fearlessly attempted our own pin-ups and pages. We debated the relative merits of our favorite characters and companies. He was a DC man, and I was a Marvel fan, he liked Batman, and I liked Conan. I remember that the great Jim Aparo was Fletch’s favorite artist, while I preferred the comics stylings of John Buscema. (In retrospect we had both chosen great role models, though I admit the fact that Aparo penciled, inked and lettered his own work was unique at the time.) 
It was a productive rivalry. We had great fun, pushed each other to do better, and dreamed of drawing comics for a living.

Similar poses from two comics giants.
(Click for larger image)

We were thick as Zamorian thieves for a few brief months.

I never got a clear picture of what was happening, but Fletch began to have a lot of trouble getting along with his parents. We started to meet exclusively at my house as tensions rose between he and his folks. They were one of the wealthier families in town, and perhaps Fletch’s career aspirations, or lack of them, were a sticking point. I honestly don’t know. We got together less and less frequently, and then I heard nothing from Fletch at all. It was Mason who told me, some weeks later, that he was no longer living at home. I don’t know if he left, or his parents threw him out. I later heard a vague rumor that Fletch had some sort of unpleasant brush with the law, but I can’t confirm the truth of this.

I tiptoed gingerly around my parents for a few months after that.

About two years later I saw Fletch for the last time. I was about to head off to college and this was my last summer of freedom. Mason and I were about to make a final trip into nearby London Ontario, to visit some great comic shops and used bookstores there. Mason mentioned that we were also going to pay a visit to Fletch.

Naively, I brought along a stack of my drawings. I still hadn’t fully grasped the fact that Fletch was out on his own, and had more pressing concerns than doodling Batman poses. I foolishly assumed he had been drawing the whole time.

Aparo was the king of
drawing spooky mists.

We met Fletch at his apartment, which he shared with a few other guys, and was a bit of a mess. He seemed really excited to see us and we yakked about nonsense for a while. He mentioned he was working at some sort of manual labor job, construction, or public works, I can’t recall what, exactly. Finally, Fletch pointed to my portfolio and asked to see my drawings.

Due to the exceptional art classes I’d been taking at College Avenue Secondary School in Woodstock, I’d made a lot of progress. I proudly yanked out my artwork. Not just comics pages, but life drawing, portraits and caricatures, as well.

Fletch looked it all over in silence, and then looked back at me and said: “Wow, you’re like, really good now.”

He handed back the stack of drawings and I put them in the portfolio. I asked if he had any new drawings.

“No, man, I been too busy working.”

I was aware enough to realize that the mood in the room had changed, but not quite sensitive enough to understand why. Fletch put up a good front, but after a few minutes he cut things short, claiming he had to get to work.

Then, last year, over thirty years later, he showed up at my table at the Expo.

I was working on one of the many commission sketches I drew that afternoon, when I noticed a rather imposing looking dude stopped a few yards away from my table. He gave me an intense look. The guy was tall, very muscular and beefy, wearing a body hugging T-shirt, and jeans. He looked at me, and then up at the big name tag behind me a few times, and finally approached me.

“Dude, you’re from Tillsonburg!”

I laughed and admitted I was.

“It’s me, Fletch!”

Suddenly, I could see the face of my teenaged friend through the wrinkles and graying hair. I was thrilled to see him. He was very excited at first, and we did the catching up thing.

“Dude, I knew that was you,” he said, “I can’t believe you still got all that hair!”

“I would never give up my hair, man! You got some real muscles there, Bro, you must do a lot of weight training.”

“Nope, just from working,” he answered.

It was nice for a couple minutes.

Then he started looking at my drawings. He seemed to become more pensive.

“This stuff is great, man. You’re working in comics now?”

“A little. I worked in animation for a long time. Now I mostly do storyboards for movies and TV, but I do a bit of writing and drawing for the comics when I can.”

He got this very distressed look on his face.

“I’m getting a bit freaked out here,” he said. “I feel like I’m gonna cry… I gotta go.”

“Come back later,” I called after him, as he moved off into the crowd.

“Yeah, man,” he called back.

But, he didn’t.

I don’t know for sure why Fletch got so emotional.

It could be because I had industriously traveled a road he’d once considered for himself. Or, perhaps he wondered what his life might have been like if his parents were a bit more supportive of his interests. Hell, maybe he just missed drawing.

As the afternoon wore on, and it became clear he wasn’t going to come back, I began to feel very sad about it.

If he had come back, I’d have told him some important things.

First, I never realized any of my most prized goals. I wanted to draw for Marvel and DC and I never did. I wanted to animate for Disney, and I never did. I wanted to write and perform television comedy, and, so far, that hasn’t happened either. I’m glad I attempted all these things, and I try never to regret my life choices, but man, I can tell you, failing hurts like a sumbitch.

Second, I made choices in my life too. A few were good choices, but many were extraordinarily bad. Yes, I stuck to my path, and I worked hard and I had a few successes here and there. I’ve had some flush financial booms, and a few creatively rewarding experiences. But, I’ve also many periods of hardship, including right now.

Fletch, you lived your life. You made your choices, for better or worse, and you’re still here. You survived. For a human being, that’s plenty.

            I really hope you come back to the Expo again this year.

I miss you buddy.

One of my Batman sketches, in honor of
Fletch, Danny, Albert and all the other lost
comics buddies from my past.
(Click for larger image)

Zombie Clowns and Stranger Things

This week the subject of our Web-comic interview is Allan Turner, half of the clown duo Miller and Mullet, with Ed Miller and half of the web-comic creative team with Kameron Gates. He tells us tales of intense clown training, creative collaboration, and zombie clowns. View the strip at: http://www.millerandmullet.com/comic

The Miller and Mullet web comic is based on two traditional clown characters created by you and Ed Miller. How did you guys meet and how were the characters born?

We met in Clown College. Okay maybe not college but there’s this course called Baby Clown. Very intense. 3 hours per night, 3 nights per week for 3 months. Or the alternative is something like all day everyday for two weeks up in the backwoods. It’s an introduction to a style of clown that was developed by the late Richard Pochinko. He drew on several different clown traditions and mixed it up. There are few people who continue to teach the Pochinko method and there’s a big clown community here in Canada. Anyway, that’s where we met.

During the course, Ed and I rarely worked together—we weren’t trying to avoid each other or anything like that, we just didn’t find ourselves in the same part of the room all that often. Baby Clown’s pretty effed up and we were battling our own demons. But after finishing the course, we began writing together. Mostly comedy sketches. At the same time we were starting to independently develop our own characters. Ed had this idea for an immoral lecher full of machismo, a real and not necessarily lovable loser. I should mention here that the real Ed Miller isn’t anything like that. Meanwhile I was on a mission to create the dumbest character I could. It’s something I’d started experimenting with back in my Theatresports days. I really wanted to breathe life into this guy who was barely alive. I don’t remember why I had the idea to create a zombie clown, but I’m guessing that’s it—after all, what’s dumber than a zombie? The original Mullet wasn’t much different than the zombies in Romero’s first Dead trilogy and Day of the Dead’s Bub was a huge influence. Ed and I debuted our new characters independently at a now long defunct clown show. It was after that show we had the idea to put them together. Despite their differences—a hobo and a zombie—they were a perfect Joey and Auguste pairing… er, that’s clown jargon—means basically conniving leader and innocent follower.

The first thing we did was get a busker’s license. We took to the streets every Tuesday night at 8:13 for a couple hours or so. We figured that was the cheapest way to get regular audiences and honest feedback. Man, were we right. If people aren’t interested in what you’re doing, they don’t stop, they don’t even look at you. So we developed the characters over the course of a summer. Mullet learned to talk. Then we wrote and shot a no-budget feature-length movie. That’s the next logical step, right?

Click to enlarge image.

You've made a bit of a grapefruit business out of appearances as the duo, including a few on television, how's that going?

Very well! Though there was a big shake up last year. After 10 years of Miller & Mullet™, Miller made the choice to hang up the bowler and retire from performing. He’s chosen to focus on his writing. It was an amicable split, we’re still pals, and he graciously gave me the character to do what I want with in comic book form. So Ed Miller lives on in 2D!

What that means is Mullet’s gone solo. I’m in the process of re-branding—new logo, new website: www.meMullet.com. Mullet’s been doing a ton of live gigs, including one a couple weeks back at Second City, which was loads of fun. There was an appearance on Ed the Sock’s most recent show, This Movie Sucks, and a cameo in a music video for the Victoria-based band Hank & Lily. Coming up, Mullet will be hosting Lunacy Cabaret on April 2 and on April 16 he’s producing his own variety show with lots of guests. The details are all on www.meMullet.com (1 paragraph, 2 plugs—I’m shameless). There’s also a Naked News appearance in the works and I’m editing a new short for YouTube. So lots of live, some TV, and some other stuff I can’t talk about yet.

I didn't know Miller was no longer in the picture, but I'm glad it was a friendly split. (You never want to see your friends go all Martin and Lewis on each other.) However, it seems to me that Miller was a perfect foil for Mullet. From a creative standpoint, has it been difficult to adapt to solo work?

Miller was a perfect foil for sure. It was always pretty much guaranteed the audience would side with the sweet-natured zombie and rally against the callous hobo. Not having a Miller to play off has meant Mullet has had to become more confident. Granted, that wasn’t too difficult or even much of a change—Mullet’s always been a bit of Prima Donna. Even when we were still a duo, Mullet did a number of solo gigs and often wandered off on his own at comic cons. What is new is the type of material he’s doing now—standup and musical numbers. That never happened before. So far it’s going great.

Who works on the Miller and Mullet strip?

Right now there are two of us. I’m the writer and Kameron Gates is the artist. I’ve known Kam pretty much his whole life. Both our families had cottages up north and we grew up together. Now he’s a full time animator. He’s worked on Star Wars, King Kong, Hellboy, Sky Captain… a lot of movies, commercials, and video games. He’s based in Portland so we do all our comic work via phone calls, email, and the magical internet.

Here’s our usual process:

·     I write a script.

·     Kam sends notes.

·     I revise.

·     Kam draws up a rough layout.

·     I send notes.

·     Kam revises.

·     Kam draws final art.

·     I letter, prep for web, post the final strip, and blitz Facebook and Twitter.

Sometimes there’s more back and forth, sometimes less. Often we talk plot, especially lately now that we’re getting away from gags and into bigger story stuff. Oops, spoiler alert. Anyway that’s how it’s worked so far but we are about to bring someone new into the mix to take over the flatting and shading.

While preparing for this interview, I re-read the whole run of the strips, and I definitely noticed you guys were developing something more narrative based in the most recent entries. There is even a bit of a change in tone to more emotional content, and a more sophisticated style. Was this just a reaction to working on the strip for a long time and getting sick of the gag format, or was there always a plan to broaden it's scope at some point?

That was planned right from the start. I like establishing a pattern then breaking it! And I knew I wanted gag, gag, gag, surprise now you’re scared, now you’re crying. We’ll be going back to gaggy strips over the next couple months, then things are going to get epic. I like comedy and I like horror, but what I really love is good storytelling. So sometimes this strip will be funny, sometimes scary, sometimes sad. The most important part of my job is to make sure it’s going somewhere, taking the right route, and always engaging.

You guys seem very committed to your web comic. How long have you been working on it, and how often do you update (or try to update) the strip?

We’re very committed. Kam and I both think of this as a professional venture. We did some test strips in 2009, then started the regular run in March 2010. It updates every Wednesday.

For those who aren't familiar with the strip, give us the basic rundown on what it's all about.

Miller & Mullet™ are two clowns—one an immoral hobo, one an innocent zombie. They’re desperate to make it big in showbiz but they’re each other’s worst enemy and not very talented to boot. There’s also some weirdness going on and Mullet has an evil temper.

The past year has been about introducing characters and throwing out the threads of a larger story. This next year will be tying all those loose ends up into one helluva monkey’s fist.

Are you guys comics fans too, or was the cartoon more a promotional device for the live gigs?

Comic fans for sure! Kam and I both want to do other projects as well. But I have to say, it’s been great for promotion. Appearing as Miller & Mullet™ at comic cons really helped draw attention to the comic. And having a comic really helped push the live act. That’s how we met Ed the Sock and ended up being regular guests on his show.

You've published a few floppy comics as well, are they different from the web comic, or are you just repackaging the material?

We self-published one 22-pager: Miller & Mullet™ in Space. That was back in 2006. We have another one, a follow up, in the can, but I’m holding off on printing. It’s part of a pitch for a 4 issue mini-series and it’s totally separate from the webcomic. It’s still Miller & Mullet™ and they’re still losers trying to break into show business, but it’s in SPACE. See, totally different.

Miller and Mullet in Space

Have you managed to monetize the site at all, and if so, how successfully?

Short answer is no. But I haven’t really tried so far. Now that there’s a year’s worth of strips up, it’s something to start thinking about. My plan is to first finish the re-branding I talked about before, so it’ll become “Mullet presents the Miller & Mullet™ Webcomic” then I’ll do a PR blitz in earnest and buy some ads.

How long do you plan to continue with the strip?

Kam and I are in the middle of telling a big story—Miller & Mullet’s secret origins. This is something the real Ed Miller and I started developing 10 years ago to help us get into character. Since then, I’ve expanded on it a lot and I’m really excited to finally be able to tell it. For one reason, I think it’s a great story, though I recognize that sounds like me tooting my own horn. It’s also something I get asked about a lot—who is Mullet? What’s wrong with Mullet? Well this’ll answer that. And the webcomic is the perfect medium for it.

This particular story is finite with a beginning, middle, and end. But after it ends, it keeps going. I could keep doing this indefinitely. Cue the Limahl.

Do you think the future of the comics medium lies on the web?

I’m probably not the right guy to answer that. I mean, I still buy CDs. Hell, I still buy records! But webcomics are great. I follow several. Will I stop buying printed books? I doubt it, I sure love my Hellboy hardcovers!

Give us the top three web comics you like, and where we can find them.

Just three? Okay, but Kam’s going to pick three too.

           Allan’s picks:

·     The Abominable Charles Christopher

·     Girls With Slingshots

·     Dinosaur Comics

Kam’s picks:

·     Axe Cop

·     Hark, a vagrant

·     The Adventures of Superhero Girl

We have links to plenty more great comics on our site. Plus, you know, our comic’s there too. Did I mention it updates EVERY Wednesday? Come say hello.

Thanks, Allan, best of luck with the strip and the clown career. 

That's it for interviews for a while. Next week, I reminisce about a long lost creative friend.

Salgood Vibrations

Our interview victim this week is Salgood Sam, aka Max Douglas. Max is an extremely talented artist and writer, and a local torch carrier for indie comics, and Canadian comics in general, as the publisher of Sequential. While working as a freelance illustrator, he is also producing a unique web comic entitled Dream Life. Sam opens up about his career, his goals and motivations, and the state of comics, both traditional and web-based.

Dream Life

Sam Agro: You made a brief foray into mainstream comics earlier in your career. Can you give us a short run down on which companies you worked for, and the properties you worked on?

Salgood Sam: Oh do I have to? Okay, seems like I've told this story so many times. Yeah, my first paying published gig was with Marvel. I was doing some paid test pages for Karen Burger at the time, that was a missed opportunity. Got a call from an Editor, Marc McLaurin, about filling in on a issue of Night Breed that had been abandoned by the regular artist half done. Did that in record time [for me] which made a good impression and got me a second full issue, #23. And then I was brought in to do the penciling and inking on Saint Sinner, a new book created for Marvel by Clive Barker. It was part of the short lived Razor line. Over the next three years I worked mostly at Marvel - Did a showcase story at DC for Neal Pozner - but mostly I banged around in Marvel’s Sci Fi and Horror titles. Had work on Doctor Strange, Morbius the living vampire, and some of the 2099 tittles - Ravage, Spider Man, Ghostrider.

An early mainstream image.

SA: What led you to leave mainstream stuff for more independent work?

SS: It was a few things. It’s probably fair to say it was a little too soon for me. I found the work load on monthlies crushing, and I was still finding my own pace and voice so I didn’t come to the table with a clear idea what I wanted.

Marvel in particular, is a real boys club. If you don’t know what you want you’ll get pushed into what they want out of you. Now if I were to work for them, I'd at least know what I wanted and how to ask for it. And I’d know when to walk away. Stayed too long the first time.

That first time I was constantly being rubbed wrong by the stories, the editorial style, and the general culture there. Found a lot of the stuff I was asked to do kind of disgustingly low brow. Horror and Sci Fi need not be pandering junk, and at times it’s was down right offensive, when it was not just being stupid. One of my last gigs I ended up rejecting before washing my hands of them for four or five years was a Morbius script where I found the subtext kind of racist, and just overtly dumb [Looked it up, this was Morbius The Living Vampire #31]. I could not bring myself to draw a Vampire Doctor claiming he could render someone safely unconscious by poking them in the corner of the eye, thus stopping the heart. So many things wrong with that, and this was the funny stuff. I had just choked back my own bile too long.

Really it took me a year of thinking on it before I even got back to drawing comics a lot, and started doing my own stuff again. When I left the mainstream the first time, going indie was not even on the radar. I was just burnt out for a bit. I spend a good chunk of the late 90s in animation doing mindless design work to pay the bills instead.

The book that broke
the camel's back.

SA: Your most successful independent book was probably "Therefore Repent" with Jim Munroe. How did you and Jim get together, and how did the book come about?

SS: Almost didn’t, I turned him down at first. Jim and I have known each other via the zine world a long time, I was a big fan of his early work, and had bugged him for some time about doing something together. When I did get back into doing comics one of the first things I worked out is that I needed to work with writers who’s work I liked. “Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask”  is one of my all time favorites, and the first novella of Jim’s I read made a big impression.

Eventually he came to me about doing a short prologue story to use in a grant pitch, but the timing was wrong for me, I had to pass. He had Michel Lacombe draw it. Later he got the grant, but Michel backed out so he asked me again. I was writing Dream Life, not ready to draw it yet, and the deal was pretty good - he paid me an upfront rate on it. So off we went. Was pretty fast going by design, I had a clear window of opportunity of about eight months, took me eleven in the end. I’m really happy I did it, one of the best things I've had my name on. Only down side was not living in the same city as Jim. Think he would have liked to have been more involved as I was going along. But for my part it was nice to have as much control over it as I did.

Therefore Repent

SA: I know the reviews for the "Therefore Repent" were mostly very positive. How were the sales?

SS: Good. We got dinged at a key stage just as things might have taken off maybe, by the recession - book stores suddenly started returning floating stock - had a lot of people tell me they could not find it in shops for a little while there. But initial orders were great, we got enough sales in Canada to register on Byran’s BookManager driven best sellers list for a couple of weeks. A few nice little checks have come in for the IDW edition and I get a check every year now for library lendings that suggests it’s popular there too. Last numbers I saw it’s picking up a little again now with the economy recovering. I’m pretty happy with it and Jim told me it’s been one of his best selling books to date. Not making us rich but hopefully it will prove to be the kind of long term, steady earner you want in your back catalogue.

SA: Tell us about Transmission X. Were you one of the founders, or did they approach you to do a strip?

SS: Oh not a founder. I’ve known the guys since about 2004? Something like that. Before that I had run into some of them in passing before, here and there. But I didn’t join the site ‘till this past year. I had talked to them about it a few times over a couple years running up to it, was looking at them or act-i-vate as homes for Dream Life. Both were open to it. Wanted to have the advantage of a collective site in terms of not being solely responsible for drawing traffic/readers. Went with the home team in the end. :)

SA: For the record, who are the guys that created Transmission X?

SS: Um, well I don't know the intimate details of the founding, who first started it, or whatever. It was seeded out of the Royal Academy of Illustration & Design studio in Toronto. I recall the first line up was Ramón Pérez, Cameron Stewart, Karl Kerschl, Michael Cho, Scott Hepburn, Brian McLachlan, and Andy Belanger. I think that was it. The guys made a great series of clips to promote it when they launched, they talk about their motivations there.

http://www.youtube.com/user/transmissionxcomics#g/u

(The video series is pretty interesting, worth cheching out, along with the comics site itself at: http://www.txcomics.com/ )

SA: How long have you been working on "Dream Life", and how often do you update the strip?

SS: The story started years ago as a collaboration with a good friend, right around the time I was working at Marvel. I was never someone who thought I'd just work in the mainstream business. That was a way to pay the bills and I knew the stuff I most wanted to do was seldom the kind of work the big two publish. I had a whole lot of uncompleted, partly developed ideas kicking around even before I started at Marvel.

Dream Life was called Nuts at the time. (I give part of it’s origin story on the site in the about section so I won’t repeat myself here.) There was an initial spasm of writing with my buddy Jonathan at the time, then it got shelved for years. Much later around the late 90s I pulled it out again, and started working on it a little here and there. It was on and off like that till about 2002, when I took what I had, shuffled it around and merged a whole bunch of characters cutting the cast in half, and started in on the version that is being done now. I’ve been a late comer to writing and for a long time there was pretty tentative about it. I’m mildly dyslexic and that got in the way of my being confident about it.

It would be pretty hard to nail down any kind of specific time frame for how long I worked on it, safe to simply say a long time.

I try to keep to a weekly posting schedule. Doing full colour pages whilst I have paying gigs and other commitments that seems to be the easiest pace. When I can I’ve backed up a few months worth and then gone to twice a week, which I think for the pace of the story is probably better. But it’s not something I can maintain when I’m up against the deadline.

Dream Life

SA: When you say you are up against deadlines, what sort of work are we talking about?

SS: These days? I'm a hired gun, so just about anything. I get pretty regular inquiries about drawing other peoples graphic novels. That’s almost the one thing I'll say no to, because it's such a huge commitment and I have my own I’m trying to do. If it was something mind blowing maybe but most of the time I get letters that go "I'm a writer, I know I'm good, if could just get my ideas published..." - Pass. But I love fast illustration jobs, covers, advertising and editorial. Also have worked in TV and the music business a lot. I just did some historical art of 1933 Germany for a Cable TV short, a Bravo Factor grant project. Some mock fashion drawings for a PR campaign by Jones New York, and a CD packaging design for a swing album. Generally, that stuff all pays better than comics. Do comics for the love kids, do something else for a living!

SA: I'm amazed you cut the number of Dream Life characters in half! It's still a pretty big cast. Was the decision to cut and merge characters motivated by commercial concerns, or simply to whittle the concept down to a more manageable size?

SS: Um, neither, though it impacted on both positively. It's got five main characters now, and one major antagonist. It had five more players before, and I folded them into the surviving cast. It’s just better writing that way, I hope....

Working on it in fits like I had, it was a proving ground for a lot of ideas, there was lots of good raw material but it lacked focus. It had grown and grown like Japanese tentacle porn. It has a lot of elements of my own life in it, and at one point there were characters that were cartoons of me and some of my friends in it as funny villains. That was messy and I realized much of what they did, the main cast could be doing, the rest was superfluous. There were a lot of other things that changed at that stage, I cut huge chunks of stuff, changed the fates of a few of the cast radically - like from dead to alive or how they die. It was all story-driven. Now it has a clear subtext, and while it's a long wind up, the story goes somewhere clear, I think, with a solid payoff at the end. And, it has a few interesting loose splinters, to keep it not too overly tightly wrapped and pat.

Dream Life

SA: What are you trying to accomplish with "Dream Life"? Do you have a specific creative goal, or are you just playing it by ear?

SS: Bit of both. It’s really liberating to have no one else to answer to, so yes, I totally make changes as I go, and play things out by how they feel on the page. But I have a full manuscript for the story, a mix of plot, scene descriptions and in some cases full dialogue. So there is a blueprint I follow. All malleable, but it’s a complex narrative that takes its time playing out, so it needs at least that much of a guideline.

More generally speaking my creative goals are kind of intuitive, but yes, I am trying to hit a particular, note. It’s a feeling I have, or one I want the story to have. Something I found missing in a lot of that early ‘work for hire’ stuff, and in a lot of comics in general.

Generically I’d call it a depth, but that sounds derogatory and a bit pretentious. But, I find a lot of comics do not take the time to crawl under their character’s skins the way books do sometimes. I don’t think it’s a thing comics are incapable of, but there are conventions about pacing that get in the way a lot of the time.

SA: You seem to be taking a deliberately measured approach to the story. It takes a while to get all the characters introduced and for anything you'd call dramatic to happen. Is this just how the story feels right to you, or is this consciously in opposition to what a reader would find in a mainstream superhero comic?

SS: Yes, exactly. Obviously you can’t do everything in slow motion. There’s been an idea going around, often called decompression. Superficially, it’s reaction to the condensed, manic pace of action comics. But while I feel some scenes do need to move along faster, plot and character development needs more variability and room than it’s often given. And at times, yes, to slow down.

In Dream Life so far, we had one very drawn out introduction sequence with the main character, Charlie. First in a dream and then his morning rituals followed by a day at work. The rest of the first act introduces the remaining protagonist cast, and right now at the start of the second act we’re meeting our antagonist, establishing him for the first time. Some of those scenes were really clipped, some more lingering. The dream and day at work with Charlie was exceptionally lingering because it was really important to establish his mental state, and I wanted to show it rather than tell through prose. For this story I'm not using written inner dialogue in general, I want people to visually absorb his environment and state of mind.

Part of that comes from, I guess, the way I tend to experience the world. One aspect of being dyslexic is I don’t think in words as much as I do, in my case, with nonverbal feelings, and conceptual, semi-visual thoughts. Writing was something that was, at first, harder to do because organizing my thoughts into text takes a conscious and often unnatural feeling of strange translation. I’ve learned to take some care with it but it always feels like a lot is lost in the conversion. I’ve come to really like words mind you, but with this story there are other narrative strengths native to the comics form I want to lean on more. I risk losing impatient readers, but it’s worth it to me to try. I just try to make it visually engaging enough to keep them coming back to it.

SA: Tell us a bit about your technique. It's a mix of traditional and digital techniques, isn't it?

SS: Yep. I tend to work initially on paper, thumbnails plotting out pacing and page breaks from the script. From there I jump back and forth, often as the mood strikes. I like the tactile nature of working on paper. And, I like the edibility and ease of revision and composition working digitally, even more so since I got a Tablet PC. So, from thumbnails to final pencils I go back and forth depending on what I'm doing more. If the page is coming to me easy, and it’s just drawing, then paper is best. If it’s taking more working and revision, then I spend a good amount of time with a stylus on a screen. To transition I use the printing on Bristol in light blue trick mostly. Though sometimes I like to use light orange, or green. Just ‘cus you can.

Once I have my pencils down, I print them a last time, (for Dream Life on 11”X14” sheets) and ink them with pens and brushes, and do wash work and pencil shading for tones and texture.

That’s scanned, and I typically have at least three layers over the B&W art. The first is set to ‘color’ and used to tint the tones. The second is set to multiply and I do colour fills on that.

The next one or more are used to do additional shadows, lighting and other effects. There can be several of those on the page sometimes.

I get into more exotic stuff sometimes but that’s the basic approach.

A working progression
of Sam's approach, from Dream Life.

SA: Do you see any financial remuneration from the Transmission X site?

SS: Nope, it’s a pure labour of love. I have sold books of the work off site, and there’s a donation button if someone feels generous, and we have a store on the site I've yet to make use of - I could be selling some prints or the books there, maybe original art. Just have not gotten around to it.

But, in a desire to keep the look of the place clean and on topic, we have a no banner ad rule at TX. Just a bit of space for our own self promotions.

SA: Do you think the future of comics lies in digital media?

SS: I don’t think it’s the whole future, but I do think it’s a big part of it. The internet proper is a great entry point for new talent to stretch their legs, get feed back, and learn if they care to. And for more experienced creators it’s a good place to prove something publishers are normally wary of taking a risk on, like unconventional and maybe demanding approaches to pacing and plot. And building an initial interest in a project.

Also, I've solely promoted my work online as a comic artist and illustrator, since 1998 or so. And I'd say about 80% of my income has come from inquiries via that.

Then with the new incoming ‘App’ market we have something that may well offer a viable alternative to periodicals, and the problems of overhead and distribution the direct market is struggling with. It’s got a built in monetary stream so that solves that issue, and the new tablets, e-readers and net-books offer an increasingly comfortable reading form factor. Too early to say anything definitive about it but it’s looking pretty viable. Any problems with it I see are more questions of execution and problem solving, than innate obstacles.

I think there will always be room for Books and an appetite for their tactile allure, and there will increasingly be a segment of the market who will be happy not owning the physical book, but a data version of it.

That all works for me. So long as a decent chunk of people are buying something from me I'm good.

 To read Dream Life follow this link: http://www.dl.txcomics.com/ and to visit Salgood Sam's web site, go here:  http://www.salgoodsam.com/ You can also read some of Max's other comics at his compilation site Revolver, right here:  http://www.revolver.salgoodsam.com/

I Am The LAW!

Marvin Law is a talented Toronto artist and writer, whose outgoing personality and bombastic drawing style have made him a fan favorite in artist’s alley on the convention circuit. Marvin tells us about his Webcomic, SLAM, and offers his views on the future of comics.

You've been very committed to SLAM, Marvin. How long have you been working on it, and how often do you update (or try to update) the strip?

I try my best to update it once a week, usually on a Tuesday, so it will be available for readers on a Wednesday. 

I'd say I was working SLAM on and off for about 2 years.  Some would say, that's a long time to be working on a project, but for me SLAM was a labour of love that I couldn't resist, since I'm a big fan of professional wrestling, and action filled comic books.  So, I got the chance to write and draw a story that I created, and that was really satisfying.

How long do you expect to continue creating new pages for SLAM?

For this arc, there is a definite ending to the current SLAM storyline, once issue#3 wraps itself up by page 26.  However, with that said, I do have 2 very different ideas for possible sequels to SLAM, if reader demand is there, but we'll see how it goes. 

I've got lots of projects on my plate at the moment, that I want readers to be able to enjoy, which are quite different and unique from the concept of SLAM.

Have you tracked the traffic on the SLAM site? How are you doing?

I do keep track of the traffic coming to the SLAM Webcomic, and last week after the update, we had about 50 unique visitors come to the page and we had about 300+ page views. 

For those who aren't familiar with SLAM, give us the basic rundown on what it's all about.

SLAM takes place in a world, where professional wrestling is as real a sport, as MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is to us.  The story opens up with an incident at the NFW Arena, where one of the wrestlers is injured critically during a match, however the wrestler is later on found to be perfectly fine.  This sets off the chain of events to find out what's been happening to the wrestlers.

Obviously, you're a wrestling fan. I find the choice of genre interesting though, because it has a lot in common with superhero comics. Was that just a by-product of wanting to do a wrestling strip, or did you make the choice more deliberately?

It's actually, a little bit of column A and a bit of column B.  Like you said, I'm a big wrestling fan, and here was a chance to combine the wrestling moves and clichés with over the top fight scenes from superhero comics. 

Plus, for some odd reason, a lot of comic book fans have a tendency to look down their nose at wrestling and think it's beneath them, and I don't understand that. The story is basically the same, good vs. evil and in terms of special moves, a Stone Cold Stunner is no different from an optic blast in my mind, but that's just me.

I love the running commentary you have at the bottom of each page. You really prod the reader with questions and foreshadowing. Was that always part of the plan, or did that just happen when you started posting the strip?

To be honest, it just happened after I set up the webcomic, due to the fact that I felt the bottom of the page was empty and I wanted to keep the fans thinking about the next installment, of the SLAM Webcomic. 

As for the foreshadowing part, I'd usually offer up one phony possible outcome, as an attempt to swerve the readers, so when the real event actually happened, it would be so shocking to them, based on the statement I made previously.

It’s an effective technique, almost like an announcer on a wrestling show trying to drum up interest. I really enjoy reading them. Tell us about the other people who work on the strip. I see that Kristopher Feric has an "editor" credit, what does he do by way of editing the strip?

Kristopher Feric's role as an editor corresponds with his lettering credit.  When he's lettering the SLAM Webcomic, he has the authority to alter/change the dialogue from my script, if he feels he can make it read smoother and express my ideas, in a simpler fashion, so that the captions and word balloons don't cover up the artwork and he helps to help smooth over my grammar and spelling.

Click for larger image!

Tell us a bit about the colorist, David McConnehey.

Awwww, where to start on David McConnehey.  He's a nice young man that I discovered on DeviantArt, when I put an open call out for a colourist for SLAM.  And, sadly for David, he sent his work in, and I thoroughly enjoyed his beautiful work and determination.  So, since that time, poor David has been stuck listening to my crazy instructions for the last 2 years, and getting pages coloured up beautifully, in spite of my instructions.

Have you managed to monetize the site at all, and how successfully?

To be honest, I haven't monetized the SLAM Webcomic, at this point.  It's been mainly used as a marketing tool, to help build a fan/readership base, in case I ever wanted to turn the SLAM Webcomic, into a hard copy form, whether it be through actual individual floppy issues or as a collected graphic novel. 

Other than that, I've been able to use the website, as a means of communicating and expressing my own personal views on professional wrestling.

Do you think the future of the comics medium lies on the web?

Personally, as a comic book traditionalist/purist, I like to think that there can be a balance, between comic books on the web, and in the printed format.  However, with the advent of the digital readers and tablets, I'm sure it will allow more readers to discover and enjoy comics in a whole new digital form. 

But for me, to this very day, there's nothing like holding a hardcopy of a comic book or a graphic novel, turning the page physically and being able to look over the art, as closely as possible. 

I understand you are about to publish a graphic novel collection of the strip. When will that be available, and where?

If all things go according to plan, I'm expecting the SLAM Graphic Novel to be available for August, in time for the FanExpo show in Toronto.  I'll be selling the SLAM Graphic Novel at my table, and for any retailers, you should be able to order the SLAM Graphic Novel from the ComicsMonkey Distribution system/catalogue.

I see you're using Kickstarter to raise money for the GN. Tell us a bit about that, and the Kickstarter site. Also, are you relying just on that for funding, or is there a plan "B"?

Guess the first place to start off, is to explain what Kickstarter is.  Kickstarter is an all or nothing project funding by the community, whereby project creators offer up unique and special rewards to potential backers.  They pitch a variety of projects ranging from comics, films, games, music and many more.

As for the SLAM Graphic Novel being on Kickstarter, which you can see here:  http://kck.st/evOU2z 

It was an attempt on my part to offset the cost of printing up a 100 page full-colour graphic novel, and to offer fans the opportunity to pre-order their own copy of the SLAM Graphic Novel.  There are some very cool rewards available, (if you don't want a copy of the SLAM Graphic Novel), in the form of original artwork that you can purchase, as well.

It would nice to get full funding for the SLAM Graphic Novel from Kickstarter, but there is a plan B, in place in case we're not able to gather our funding.  The printer that I have in mind has their own independent distribution system and offers up print on demand for potential publishers.

Good luck with everything, Marvin, and thanks for the interview.

You can check out all the bone-crushing wrestling mayhem of SLAM right here:

http://slamcomic.squarespace.com/