The Cartoon History of the Modern World Vol. 2

For the past 30 or so years, Larry Gonick has been engaged in what has to easily be one of the most ambitious comics projects ever: The Cartoon History of the Universe. In four volumes (including Vol. 1 of The Cartoon History of the Modern World), Gonick has relentlessly relayed the history of planet Earth as we know it, from the big bang up to the the 1700s. That he's done so in such a consistently entertaining and downright funny fashion, is nothing short of remarkable, especially considering the plethora of dull, insipid nonfiction comics that have come out in the past few years.

Now, with the publication of the second volume of Cartoon History of the Modern World he's finally finished his magmum opus. I used the occasion as an opportunity to talk with Gonick over email about his new book -- which runs from the French Revolution to 9/11 -- and how it feels to finally be finished something that took up such a large chunk of his working life. Here's what he had to say:

How long exactly have you been working on this History of the Universe project? I know the first book was published around 1990, but you were serializing it as comic books long before that, correct?

On and off, since 1978. That's when the first Rip Off Press edition of #1 came out. But not full-time. I fitted quite a few science books in there too. Rip Off (best known as publishers of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers) did nine 48-page comics, which ran through the first installment about ancient China. Even though I stopped doing the individual comics, I kept the 48-page volume structure, both as a discipline for myself (it helps structure the narrative), and I suppose because it still holds out the possibility of bringing them out as individual comics again.

Now that you've finally completed this lengthy project, how do you feel? Are you happy to be finally done or a little sorry that it's now over?

Proud and exhausted. It's a weird feeling, knowing that a "lifetime project" is done. Like, what's supposed to happen to the rest of the lifetime?

It seems as though one of the major themes of this final book is colonialism and imperialism and its effect on the modern world. Was that a conscious thread you deliberately brought to the fore or did it just claim dominance naturally as you worked on the book?

You are correct, it's a major theme, consciously chosen. It would be hard to imagine a history of the modern world without it. After all, before 1500 Europe was just one small end of one big continent. By 1750, Europe dominated the Americas and India. By 1850, China. By 1880, Africa. At the same time, European ideas, both political and economic, spread around the world. If that's not the story, what is? Then came decolonization, beginning with the American Revolution, and slowly making its way to all the protectorates and subject territories everywhere, with a final acceleration after World War II. Despite the loss of overt political power, though, western nations maintained economic sway over the Third World, and now, today, I think we're seeing even that eroded.

Can you talk a little about the research for this book and how it compared to past books in the History series? I would imagine, for example, that you had considerably more visual reference to go on than previously.

More visual references and more textual references — and on the Worldwide Web!!! It's so much easier to do research now than it used to be. I love Wikipedia so much, I want it to have my baby. Of course, the presence of this great mass of stuff just means I have to throw away more. People who are used to seeing book-long treatments of World War II may be disappointed that I whizzed through it in "only" 6 pages. But I was trying to keep something like the pace and level of detail of previous volumes. Just because something is recent doesn't mean it's bigger. It only looks that way because, well, because it's closer.

Apart from the issues of imperialism and colonialism, were there other themes that you wanted to explore in this final volume?

Well.... it's funny. When I organize the material, I'm not thinking so much about themes, at least not in any organized way. Mostly, I'm looking at narrative coherence and storytelling. However, I must have been thinking about something, because I gave so much space, for example, to slavery and its abolition. I think we can tease a couple of themes out of that topic.

One is the idea—and reality—of progress. Abolitionists, while they were often motivated by moral considerations, lived in a time when the society at large was receptive to their message. Somehow, the advance of science and technology, the wealth that came from factory production and overseas trade, and the development of enlightenment ideas about human nature—essentially sociable and good, not the victims of Original Sin—produced a government that saw abolition as good policy. I tried so show how these threads were woven together by describing the origins and progress of the abolition movement itself, along with an account of how Britain was able to afford to do it: by banning the trade to all nations, Britain was displaying its power on the open seas, and when slavery itself was outlawed in the British Empire, the profits from the opium trade with China were enough to buy off nearly every slave owner in the West Indies.

Progressive ideas also include what I called the "sciencey" ideas like Marxism, Freudian psychology, fascism, and free-trade classical liberalism.

Another theme would be the movements that appeared atavistic to people who considered themselves modern: "reversions" to ethnic nationalism and religious politics. Progressives never cease being surprised by that stuff, even though it never really went away.

What, if any, themes, other than the thread of human history, do you feel draw all these books together. Is there any overarching idea or issue that ties them all up in a neat bow?

Oh-boy. Something like what I just said: that ideas and material and social conditions are all balled up together. That nobility and self-interest are often fused. And above all, that those historical figures you read about in boring old history books were living, breathing, fools like the rest of us. I want to dispel what you might call the Historical Fallacy, which is to view past actors as if they knew what was coming next.

What was the toughest era or event to portray? I imagine there were plenty of times where, when faced with a particular event you thought "How am I going to draw that?"

No, drawing events is rarely hard. Comics is designed for drawing events. You have characters, setting, and action. It's making drawings to illustrate abstract ideas that's hard. My one-page account of Das Kapital, for example. I have to confess that though I think it goes some way towards doing the job, it could be better. Anyway, it was a challenge.

I know in my high school history classes as we got closer to modern times the faster and more generalized the lessons would become, usually because we were nearing the end of the semester. Were you at all concerned about covering too much ground too quickly, and if so, how did you attempt to compensate for that?

I wasn't so concerned about it (tho I probably could have used about 35-50 more pages), but I expected some complaints. That's because people are used to reading big fat books about recent events that loom large simply because they're close to us. (It's like perspective, isn't it?) I wanted to maintain something like the same pace that I'd used throughout the series: give ample space to selected topics, like the abolition of slavery—because it was just about historically unprecedented—and whiz by others with a summary. So I did World War II in six pages, which is actually a lot for a war in the Cartoon History, but it probably looks paltry to a modern reader.

In doing your research for this book, was there anything you came across that surprised you or challenged your preconceptions? Was there anything you weren't initially planning on putting in the book, but, upon discovering it said "Oh, that has to be included."

What preconceptions?

Either I'm so old that my world view is fossilized, in which case challenges bounce off like ping-pong balls, or else it's become so plastic and squishy that they sink in like a fly into a blob of tree sap. No, nothing major.

One thing that had always baffled me was why World War I should have started in the Balkans. No offense, Serbia, but who cares about Serbia? As usual, this mystery is cleared up once you include the Turks in your history (as traditional history rarely does enough). The Balkans were the Austrian/German link to Asia, and in particular I had no idea what a furor was raised by the prospect of a German-built railroad from Constantinople to Baghdad. In the end, of course, the railroad was built, and after World War I it became the famous Orient Express, but not in German hands!

Conversely, was there anything you wanted to get in the book but weren't able to due to space constraints?

Too many things to name.

Do you have a particular favorite character or period in this book? It's natural for cartoonists to be skeptical but I was wondering if there was anyone you felt was worth their reputation?

I enjoyed dusting off my Nixon. It had been a while. But he doesn't get much play here. Of the truly great, I'd have to put Gandhi at the top. The anti-slavery activist Granville Sharp was pretty amazing too. But I also like drawing characters with mixed motivations. Here Napoleon comes to mind. It was never hard drawing a panel with Napoleon in it! And Bolívar.

Now that you've finished this immense project, what are you doing for an encore? More history books?

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to spend the rest of my life, and working on The Cartoon Guide to Calculus during the breaks.

Does history present different sorts of challenges as opposed to doing a book on calculus or science? Are there different sorts of things you have to keep in mind depending upon what sort of nonfiction subject you're tackling?

Sure, there are differences. History comes naturally, because it's mostly stories. In science, the material has to made "storylike." In mathematics, as I'm discovering now, it's especially challenging because there's not much you can make into a character. At least in chemistry there are atoms and molecules! In math, there are mostly formulas and diagrams.

On the other hand, there are similarities too. I'm always trying to make everything as clear as possible.

What kind of reaction has your History series gotten outside of the comics world? Have librarians or teachers noticed it at all? What about historians? Or the general, noncomics reading public?

Very positive. As a matter of fact, there's a new school of history called Big History or New World History, some of whose practitioners hark back to the Cartoon History of the Universe as inspiration. As one history professor wrote (by email, today, in fact!), "you understood early that world history needs to start with the Big Bang." On my web site, you can find a partial list of academic institutions that have used my books. As for reactions from the public, it's hard to say whether any given fan reads other comics or not. I do know that some readers weren't comics fans originally, like, um, Jackie O, my editor at Doubleday.

When you started out doing this, no one was tackling nonfiction, let alone history, in comics. Now it seems like every publisher under the sun is coming out with a graphic novel biography or "how to" guide of some sort. What do you make of this surge of interest in these types of comics? Do you see your influence in any of them?

When Doubleday was considering whether to publish the first Cartoon History of the Universe collection back in about 1988, the sales department was extremely skeptical. Since then, I guess the industry has decided the medium has some potential! I don't know if my precise style is influencing many other cartoonists, but nonfiction comics do seem to be shouldering their way onto the shelf.

As an addendum to that, do you still get people who find your work a novelty ("gawsh, a comic that isn't about superheroes") or do you think we're finally past the whole "Comics as legitimate tool? Who'd have thought" phase?

Yes, there are still people like that. The reaction that always galls me is "These are great! why haven't I ever heard of you?!" Of course, it's a thrill to be admired, but I can't help feeling that there's something about my particular approach that bypasses those Serious Commentators who want their Literature Serious, even Morbidly Serious. Let's be frank. Why isn't somebody at, say, the New York Times saying, "This is one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of comics"? Because (he said modestly) isn't it?

Every month since late 2007, Zuda Comics hosts a competition between webcomics, with the winner becoming a regular strip on the site. In Zudist Colony, I interview the contestants via email, asking each of them the same five questions, which hopefully gives you a little more insight into the strips and the creators themselves.

So here we go ...

*****

In Maps & Legends

Niki Smith and Michael Jasper, In Maps & Legends

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Niki: My name is Niki Smith, and I’m the artist for In Maps & Legends. I’m a freelance artist right now, just graduated last spring. I’ve had comics published in anthologies both in the US/UK and in Germany, and am currently working on developing some graphic novels of my own. One is out with editors and the other is still in script form, waiting to hear back from my agent. I also just had a coloring book published with Faber Castell.

Mike: And I'm Michael Jasper, the writer for the comic. I've published a couple novels and a pile of short stories in places like Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Writers of the Future and Paper Cities. This is my first comic script, and Niki handled my non-standard scriptwriting skills quite nicely. I'm finishing up a historical baseball novel set during World War I and plotting out a series of young-adult novels, the first of which is currently out on submission to various editors (this series would make a GREAT comic, too, I think). For the day job, I'm a technical writer for a software company.

JK: What's your strip about?

Niki: An artist who finds her map-making skills in surprisingly high demand…

Mike: What she said.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Niki: Zuda has a great sense of community that can be hard to build when webcomics are otherwise scattered across individual websites. The support behind the imprint is something I’ve admired since the launch.

Mike: I also liked the democratic feel of the site, with readers choosing the comic that gets to continue on. While the competition is a bit stress-inducing right now, it's been fun getting in touch with readers and following the reader feedback in the comments section.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Niki: We have a few places we plan on looking into, but if things don’t work out, we both have other projects that we can happily move on to. In Maps & Legends was originally one of Mike’s trunked novels and now it’s a full color comic! So you never know when there’s the potential for a drastic rebirth.

Mike: Agreed. I'm really itching to show people where we take Kait and her crew next, so the sooner the better!

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Niki: That’s tough. I’m an art girl at heart, so that definitely sways me. I love the line work in Brother of the Bronze Hammer and the painterly quality of the art in Little Earth People … I’d probably go with Bronze Hammer in the end.

Mike: I'm actually surprised Little Earth People isn't higher in the ratings, because the story's pretty original and unique, and the art knocked me out. And I do have a lot of love for Slam McCracken's hard-boiled style.

*****

Peabody & D'Gorath

Mark Penman, Peabody & D'Gorath

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Mark: Hi my name is Mark Penman, I'm a freelance illustrator and comic artist based in Manchester, England.
I've done bits and pieces of comic work, some self published stuff as well as some anthology stuff such as Pulpo done by the fine folks at entervoid.com.

When I'm not making comics, I like to go out and solve mysteries.

JK: What's your strip about?

Mark: My strip is about two antique hunters, Remington Peabody ( a reanimated skeleton) and Clancy D'Gorath (deamon bound by obligation to the British monarchy). They go around trying to proclaim esoteric artifacts to determine whether they are a threat to the nation or if they can be used as weapons.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Mark: It's 8/10ths liking and respecting what Zuda do ( I like that there's a nice mixed bag of comics and lots of fresh ideas they're willing to have on board) and 2/10ths being pretty computer illiterate so doubtless any webcomic site I did make would be atrocious.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Mark: I've been asked this by a few people and to be honest, I'm not totally sure. I have other ideas for comics that I'd like to try out, but I can't see me abandoning the characters, I always grow attached to the comics I create so Peabody & D'Gorath would still be kicking around in some form.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Mark: Hmm, probably In Maps and Legends. The arts solid and the story seems like it could go places

*****

Children of the Sewer

Benito Gallego, Children of the Sewer

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Benito: My name is Benito Gallego. I was born and live in Spain. Among other things I have been a long time collaborator artist for Sword, a Spanish fanzine turned into pro-magazine that includes articles, comics and pin-ups based upon Conan, the Hyborean age, and REH's characters and concepts. I have made pencils, inks and a cover illustration for Anthem and Captain Thunder & Blue Bolt, both series created by writer Roy Thomas and published by Heroic Publishing. I have also made a collaboration with new independant publisher A First Salvo and have contributed with a story (pencils and colors) to be published in Danger's Dozen #6. I have also made a collaboration with writer Brian Azzarello in order to produce the cover and a eight-page comic (pencils+inks+color) called "The Cowl" to serve as promotion for best-seller author Joseph Finder's new book: Vanished.

And when I don't do comics I'm a graphic designer at an advertisement company.

JK: What's your strip about?

Benito: Children of the Sewer is an epic odyssey through the mind of a serial killer in search of the light. Paradoxically, the way he will achieve this is by entering the dark closed sewers of the city and meeting an unknown race of human beings who are born, live, love, kill and die in the sewer. Among those weird people Edmond Ratt will find his place in a human society but truly not without finding his way awash with blood.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Benito: Mainly because Zuda is exposed to many people and I wanted to test the reaction and know what people think about my comic.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Benito: I have already written more than 50 pages of the strip, and I would love to continue developing it.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Benito: Probably Little Earth People is the story that I like the most next to mine.

*****

Slam McCracken

Greg Woronchak, Slam McCracken

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Greg: I'm Greg Woronchak from a small 'burb in Quebec, Canada. I started off in traditional animation (I've worked on Sagwa The Chinese Siamese Cat for PBS, and Tripping the Rift for SyFy, amoung others), eventually deciding to focus on freelance storyboarding. Animation work in town abruptly dried up, so I'm currently a freelance illustrator (www.comicspace.com/gwor) and independent comic artist (I've done work for Argo Comics, Modern Myth Press and 11 issues of Negafighters). I have a drawer filled with scraps of paper, sketches of ideas that just pop into my head; I finally decided recently to develop some of the stronger ones into webcomics (I'm a big fan of the format) and submitted Slam to Zuda. When not at my drawing board, I try to keep my two daughters amused and help out my lovely wife around the house.

JK: What's your strip about?

Greg: Slam is a hard boiled detective, literally . He's an egg who takes cases in a film noir inspired city, populated by common household items (his client in my Zuda submission is a toothbrush searching for her missing tube of paste husband). This weird idea came to me years ago when I doodled a quick cartoon of a detective egg standing over a chalk outlined popsicle stick on the ground (I was into The Far Side back then ). I figured the idea of a noir private eye could be a lot of fun, with potential for cute sight gags; I decided to use heavy cross-hatching to replace color, which creates a visually interesting look and mood. My goal was to create something quirky that all-ages could enjoy.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Greg: I would've needed al ot of help setting up my own site; I'm alot more comfortable with the creative side than technical or promotion. I felt that if Zuda would choose my strip to compete, it would provide nice exposure for my work, and I could network with folk who might like my particular style. As I've already said, I think the webcomic format has alot of potential for creativity and unique ideas, and Zuda is an extremely high-profile place to showcase one's work. I'm quite proud to have been chosen to compete this month.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Greg: I have a long story plotted out, so I'd love to continue it. The response has been great so far, and I think I could develop a fan base that may support a self-published version.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Greg: I find Brother of Bronze Hammer visually electrifying. The artwork compliments the story well, and I enjoy the overall look.

*****

Model Student

Joe Bowen, Model Student

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Joe: My name is Joe Bowen, and I'm currently a third year student at the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphic Art in beautiful Dover, New Jersey. I totally love comics, and when I'm not drawing them, I'm reading them or reading about them or listening to podcasts about them or trying to get my girlfriend to listen to me talk about them. I also watch a lot of TV. If there's a show about teenagers, I'm probably into it. And finally, I like watching funny videos of pugs on YouTube.

JK: What's your strip about?

Joe: Model Student is about Kevin Burke, a tough-as-nails high school student at the prestigious Vendrell Academy, who is recruited by the headmaster to infiltrate the school's seedy underbelly. I tell people that Model Student is The OC meets The Shield. Essentially, Kevin is living the high school life I always wanted to live, with tons of drama and fighting.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Joe: I entered Model Student in the Zuda competition because I think the concept works well serialized in single pages. The high school drama combined with the undercover student aspect provides a lot of room for regular twists and surprises.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Joe: If Model Student doesn't make it through Zuda alive, I'll most likely adjust the format and submit it elsewhere, perhaps as a graphic novel. I have too many ideas for Kevin Burke to let them all go to waste.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Joe: The entry I keep going back to is Brother of Bronze Hammer. That artwork is just damn sexy.

*****

Molly and the Amazing Door Tree

Mark Murphy, Molly and the Amazing Door Tree

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Mark: I am a Dallas, Texas-based graphic designer. Over the last 15 years i have done comic book work for Caliber Press, NBM (the house of java series) and Slave Labor Graphics (last year's Tiki Joe Mysteries). When I'm not drawing comics I'm maintaining a full-time job as a in-house graphic designer for a medical company as well has spending time with my family. There's a lot of reading and guitar playing going on when i can fit it in as well.

JK: What's your strip about?

Mark: Molly and the Amazing Door Tree is about a seven year-old girl that finds a magical door into another world. Molly quickly finds that her destiny and the destiny of this magical realm are interwoven. Before she realizes it, Molly is embroiled in a quest to both save world of the door tree and make her way back home. This story is a departure for me stylistically. My previous work has dealt more with adult oriented issues such as coming-of-age stories and crime fiction. With Molly I made a deliberate effort to create a kids story that my two daughters would relate to.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Mark: I've been wanting to enter a story into Zuda ever since the competitions started. After working for years on Tiki Joe, the challenge of presenting a story within Zuda's 8 page format really appealed to me. I also new that Molly had to be in color and the best chance of making that happen was to take it on line. From the get-go, Molly was planned as a Zuda entry.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Mark: Not sure yet, but i would like to. It depends on the level of interest (from the voters as well as my own kids) and the time constraints i have to work with.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Mark: There is so much good art competing this month. I think my vote would have to go for either Children of The Sewer or Little Earth People.

*****

Big Ups

Christina Boyce and Justin King, Big Ups: A Space Adventure

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Christina: Hello, my name is Christina Boyce. Right now I live in Southern California, where I have been most of my life. I'm a media arts/animation student at the Art Institute of California, but I originally started school in Arizona. My list of comics isn't terribly big, mostly short ones that can be found here and there online. I do have a short one printed in an anthology, and hoping to have another one in the second installment! I would like to finish something a little bigger, and perhaps have my own little book printed in the near future, and perhaps a webcomic of my own.

Justin: I self-published a comic in 2008 called Physicist Roundtable. I also had my first real pro job earlier this year when I made a comic for a software company. They seem to have dropped off the face of the earth after they paid me, though, so I think I caused them to go bankrupt.

When I am not making comics, I am trying to publish other peoples comics. I started a small web and print publishing company called DAPshow, for which I have published one anthology (The Eternal Sad, which had comics from 30 artists around the world, including me and Christina), and I'm currently putting together the second volume of it which should be published in early 2010 along with a few other comics.

JK: What's your strip about?

Christina: The strip focuses on the continuing adventures of an alien explorer, and his companion/sidekick. Upsie, the main character, is an official explorer in the name of his home planet. His job is to find new things in space, and report back with his findings. He is very proud of his job, but he is rather new at it. Along the way he runs into another alien, a Nematoid named Neemu. They become pals, and Neemu joins Upsie on his travels. There may be some reoccurring things throughout, but for the most part it is a more episodic sort of thing. Different stories for different adventures they go on.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Christina: I personally know some dudes who have entered the competition, and have either done well, or have won. I thought it would be a cool thing to try, and I wanted to see if I could produce something that would get in. I'm pretty happy that I got in, as I was doubting myself for while.

Justin: I have thought about entering the Zuda competition a lot, but always had a hard time thinking of a story that would work in only eight pages and show the potential that it could go on for a lot more. So, when Christina approached me about coloring her comic, I thought it would be a great opportunity to be a part of Zuda and get some much needed experience in it's format. It has turned out to be all of that and more.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Christina: I think I may, actually! I've grown attached to my silly aliens, I have to say. I already have some adventures for them sitting around in my head.

Justin: If Christina ever wanted to continue working on it, I would be down for coloring it if she wanted.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Christina: Prolly Peabody & D'Gorath. Mark is a cool guy, and I've talked to him a couple times prior to the competition. I was actually pretty intimidated when I heard that he was gonna be competing against me, and I was right- his comic is pretty great!

Justin: I would vote for Mark's Peabody & D'Gorath. I might be a little biased because he is my friend and the cover artist of an anthology I am publishing soon, but his comic is very entertaining and has a lot of potential. I also really enjoy its atmosphere.

*****

Little Earth People character concepts

Joe Pekar and Chris Lewis, Little Earth People

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Joe: I'm Joe Pekar, from Orlando, Florida. I've done a few covers here and there, a couple Grimm Fairy Tales for Zenescope and some for BOOM! Studios Hexed. I also have my own book 'Brandi Bare' that may be coming out in some form one of these days (there are some preview pages of that book on my website: www.joepekar.com ). When I'm not making comics I'm usually drawing other stuff or dealing with my kids, trying to figure out who started the fighting or who broke what. you know, usual parenting stuff

Chris: I'm Chris Lewis, an Oregonian in Germany (the title of my next work?) working as a translator in an advertising agency. Little Earth People is actually the first story I ever wrote, but I'm hoping to get my next projects to the masses soon. Other interests include baby-raising, book-reading, wife-loving, and love, um...spreading.

JK: What's your strip about?

Joe: Well Chris will probably answer that better than me, in fact he's the writer, so he should do it anyway . To me, it was the story of trying to draw a boy that always needed to be looking at a tv screen on his wrist, and the trials and tribulations of laying out panels that way. but that's probably not what you were asking about...

Chris: It's about people watching people and the effects that this has on watcher and watched alike. For research I was watching as much reality TV as I could stomach and just wondering what could possibly possess these people (or their parents in the case of certain 16 year old birthday divas) to subject themselves to such public embarrassment. Then I got to wondering what effect it had on me, while at the same time asking myself if I really wanted to be a writer, reading a lot of Philip K. Dick and Oliver Sacks, and realizing my passion for meerkats.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Joe: Actually, I saw a posting on a web forum about someone looking for an artist for a Zuda submission. At the time I was really looking for something to work on that was different than my usual drawing work ... pinup girls and stuff like that .  So I just decided to give it a shot. I sent Chris an email with some of my Brandi Bare pages, showing some sequential stuff. He seemed to like it enough and we were off. After hearing about his story, it seemed the total opposite end of the spectrum of what I usually draw so that got me hooked.

Chris: Because it's Zuda, man (insert a$$ kissing noises here)! Actually, I had a couple years between finishing Little Earth People and doing anything with it, and after completing two more stories, I realized that nothing is going to happen unless I get some great artists to draw these things. Apparently, dusty scripts in drawers don't attract big publishers...who knew? I thought online might be the way to go for a first attempt like this, and Zuda just seemed to be the place to be. There's an active community, intriguing talents, and a big pile of money for the winner. Zuda is my "'enry 'iggins, the somewhat-stern-taskmaster-but-he-really-likes-her-anyway-kind-of-thing guy," who has taught me how to write better.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Joe: Probably not. I mean it was fun to do, but it was a lot of work to get the pages done. I just wouldn't have the time to do it for fun.

Chris: Joe said it. I was going to ask him to finish the entire 4 issue story for fun (ie. free), but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Like I said, the story is all there and ready to go, but I'll have to think about what to do with it if my dramatic "please vote so we can all see Joe draw more of Marsha's fabulous 'rackatoni' (user comment)" prayer isn't heard in time.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Joe: Wait, we're allowed to vote for ourselves?! Actually, I really enjoyed the art style on Brother of the Bronze Hammer the most this month. so if i had to vote for someone else, it would be that one.

Chris: Joe stole my joke with this one. But I'm torn about how to use my vote. Should I vote for our story, loving the art and knowing where the craziness leads? Should I vote for the amazing art style on BOTBH? Or should I go vigilante and specifically use my pea-sized vote against one of the two dark-reigning titans? I'm conflicted.

Forty-Five

If you found out your kid was possibly going to be born with super powers, you'd probably want to do a little research into what exactly that meant. For fictional journalist James Stanley, that means conducting 45 different interviews about super powers and how they've changed the lives of the people who have them.

This December Com.X is publishing an illustrated book that collects those 45 interviews called, naturally Forty-Five. Written by Andi Ewington, each interview includes an accompanying page of art illustrated by a different artist, with no "predetermined brief" given -- just the written page as guidance. Artists for the project include Jock, Fiona Staples, Liam Sharp, Dan Brereton and many more.

My thanks to Andi, who was kind enough to share some additional details on the book.

JK: Could you provide a little bit of information on your background -- previous comics works, etc.?

by Calum Alexander Watt

Andi: I don't have any formal writing training nor a traditional writer's background, if there is such a thing. I'm a graphic designer by trade and have been very 'creative' from an early age. My father was a photographer, so he gave me a great understanding of framing and composition. And I was raised loving comedy shows like Blackadder, Fawlty Towers and The Young Ones that were filled with witty dialogue and cutting sarcasm. I spent a lot of time when growing up playing role-playing games, like Dungeons and Dragons, which helped nurture an active imagination and, as a DM, helped me to structure stories and scenes. I moved on from the old dice and pencil games to the computer kind. It was after clocking up around 120 hours on one particular game that I came to the conclusion that I could have probably written a book in that time. So, I did! I wrote, in my opinion, a fantastic and funny novel called Limpit Muskin & Company with my best friend Dennis Johnson. Unfortunately, we never managed to get it published, but we did have some encouraging feedback from agents and publishers alike. That sparked something in me and I guess that Forty-Five is the fulfillment of a passion that had been burning in me for a long time.

by Dan Brereton

JK: What inspired you to write the book as a series of interviews, vs. a straight-up comic?

Andi: The main influence for the 'transcript' style came after reading World War Z by Max Brooks. I really loved the way you could dip in and out of the story, choosing which interviews you wanted to read in any order. I also love writing dialogue so it made sense to approach Forty-Five in a similar way.

JK: I imagine finding 45 different artists to work with, what with varying schedules, etc. was pretty difficult. What were some of the challenges you encountered along the way?

Andi: The main challenge was, in some cases, simply getting an artist to commit to the page! Varying schedules meant I would have to wait until the artist in question became available, that could be anything up to a six month wait. Very nerve wracking when you take into consideration I had another 44 artists potentially in similar positions. Also some artists, understandably, don't focus their lives around their emails, so I might not hear back for a couple of weeks, though usually it would be a couple of days. I think I've become the king of patience!

by Fiona Staples

JK: I won't ask you to pick a favorite from the work that came back from the various artists, but did any of them surprise you?

Andi: Nearly all of them did in one way or another. I had something in mind whenever I briefed in a particular interview, though I didn't mention what I pictured to the artists. I left it open for them to interpret and I'd say nearly 99 percent of the time the result wasn't what I envisaged -- which is a fantastic thing, it meant every piece was a delight to receive.

JK: Of the interviews you wrote, though, I bet you have a favorite. Which one would that be?

Andi: Now you're asking, there's so many and I love each of them for different reasons. I do have a favourite but I'm keeping that to myself for the time being!

by Dom Reardon

JK: Did you have any ideas for characters that didn't make it into the book?

Andi: Certainly -- I wanted to do a religious superhero, someone that saw his superpowers as a gift or sign from God to a greater calling. It would have been interesting to make him overly zealous, but you have to walk a fine line when it comes to religion, so in the end I decided against it; still there's always book two, right?

JK: So we learn a lot about the heroes in this world you've created through the interviews, but there's also a 46th character, if I'm not mistaken ... James, the interviewer. Do we learn anything about him through his interviews?

by Admira Wijay

Andi: Ah, well logically you would think that. However, I've been a little 'creative' with the last interview. It's not strictly an interview at all. I don't want to say too much about it. However, I will say that James finds that the whole interview journey comes full circle and very personal.

JK: What happens after Forty-Five -- do you have plans for a sequel or continuation of the stories you introduce here?

by Boo Cook

Andi: Forty-Six? I jest. I'd love to return to the world and do a follow-on in a similar vein. Maybe set it a year or two later. As for a continuation of the stories, it's certainly there as my next project - in fact I can reveal I've signed a contract with Com.x for a second book. I can't say too much, but it is set in the Forty-Five universe and it will feature an already established character from it. It'll be a 40-page one shot in a traditional comic format - and the artist is the same one that's created the page that accompanies the interview. I'm also starting to formulate plans for books three and four. I think the world of 'Forty-Five' has huge scope and plenty of exciting subplots to explore.

JK: Other than Forty-Five, do you have any other projects in the pipeline?

Andi: I'm so busy on Forty-Five right now I can't see too far beyond that, however I have managed to write a couple of scripts that I'm hoping to show to the right people one day.

Sometime soon (hopefully next week) Diamond will be releasing Eddie Campbell's Alec: The Years Have Pants to a comic book store near you. In a year chock full of great, original work and important re-releases and rediscoveries, this has to be one of the most important books of 2009. I know that statement might come off to some as shallow hyperbole, but it's a risk worth taking.

For the the unfamiliar, Pants collects all of Campbell's autobiographical Alec stories (except for The Fate of the Artist, which was published by First Second) in one big (hardcover or softcover) volume. Since the early 1980s, the artist and writer has been chronicling his life's adventures through his barely disguised alter ego, starting as a feckless young man in the King Canute Crowd to the successful cartoonist and family man in After the Snooter. It's saying something to call these stories his most significant and stellar work, considering he also collaborated with Alan Moore on From Hell and created the elegant Bacchus series. One hopes this new collection (and the new material found therein) provides the opportunity for a re-examination and analysis of this impressive body of work.

I had the opportunity to talk with Campbell late last August over email about the book. This was my second time talking to him and he proved to be as gracious and thoughtful over the computer as the phone, if not more so.

From 'The King Canute Crowd'

Q: When you first started work on The King Canute Crowd, there weren't very many people doing autobiography, just Harvey Pekar, Aline Crumb (and sometimes Robert) and Justin Green. Now you can't walk three steps without tripping over a memoir or two. What's your reaction to this outpouring of autobiography? Do you feel vindicated by it at all? More importantly, can you see your own influence in any of these books?

A: Spiegelman was there too, as seen in a number of pieces in his recently reprinted Breakdowns book. The underground movement made the personal part of the fun, and it is an integral part of the modern era of comics, which is good thing. I don't think I had any influence on that development, much as I would like to see my part reflected in it.

Q: I know you've answered this question before, but what initially attracted you to doing autobiographical stories (however cleverly disguised)? What was the impetus?

A: I wanted to do comic strip stories about the subtle exchanges in the human experience. The melodramatic and superheroic and anthropomorphic were everywhere. The nearest we had to regular everyday life were the 'soap opera' strips, or 'human interest' as they have been more accurately described. I actually always liked a lot of that stuff, like the Apartment 3G and On Stage newspaper strips. The soaps were still about the emotional life. Later they would be all about wealth as in the TV shows Dallas and Dynasty. The times demanded something more ordinary, a stripping away of all the baloney.

Once that urge was felt, the best source of ordinariness was my own life. I had in fact done a few stories about ordinary stuff before i figured I needed to get it from somewhere instead of making it up. But once I started narrating with my own voice I found it difficult to go back and do it any other way. All kinds of small but memorable situations seemed to demand to be recorded.

Q: And does that same attraction still hold true today? In other words, has your relationship towards the work (i.e. telling your life story) and your reasons for doing it changed at all over time? And if so, how?

A: I don't feel that I'm telling my 'life story' as though I have done something interesting that everybody ought to hear about. I'm using that material because it fits the things I want to say, the view of the world that I want to communicate. But yes it does hold the same attraction. I find it difficult now to invent fictional narrators to serve the same purpose. They sound too hollow and false to my inner ear. I tried it in The Fate of the Artist with the prose segments, supposedly narrated by a detective. I tried to write straightforward honest prose and found that I could only do it if there was a sense of it being a spoof from the start. In other words, the reader knows the thing is a hoax from page one. In fact, I find now that almost all fiction has this false ring. Right from the first sentence it always sounds false to me. The business about how a novel has to grab your attention with that opening line. It always fails with me. I stopped reading fiction because I never feel that it's the real thing. I don't mean it has to be a story that happened or has the appearance of having happened. I mean the words are not real prose. They are pretending to be real.

From 'The King Canute Crowd'

Q: You've worked in just about every genre known to comics, but you've always returned to the Alec stories. Why? What does autobiography give you as an artist that other genres, or fiction in general, doesn't?

A: Going back and reading my other work I usually end up laughing at my refusal to take it seriously, though we should leave From Hell out of this, which of course I didn't write myself. I'll start reading some things, having a vague recollection that I played it straight and then this fountain of wicked self mockery will spring up out of the middle of it and I'll feel that I'm back in safe hands, my own.

Q: Of all the Alec stories you've done, have there been any that have been a struggle to do because they hit too close to home, either in your own case or in that of a family member or friend? How did you solve that problem?

A: Not in any big way, though I did manage to catch a few problems before putting the big book to bed. If I were to elucidate individual problems in public here I'd have done as well to leave them in the book. But I should also say that I do think of it all as fiction. It obeys the same laws. It's autobiographical fiction. Also on the whole I tend to be agreeable embracing rather than mean-spirited.

From 'Graffiti Kitchen'

Q: In your interview with Dirk Deppey, you talked about the "thematic connections" (at least I think that was the term) between the various Alec stories. Can you delve a little deeper into that? How are these stories connected, apart from them all being about you of course? What do you see as some of the larger themes of the Alec saga? Are there any themes that you didn't see initially but cropped up when putting this Omnibus together?

A: A major theme is something you find in your work that you didn't know was there. You can't seed it. Well, you can but it would probably come across as bogus, or as a message that the author set out to force upon his reader. I did indeed find a major theme that I hadn't really noticed before, one of the great themes of the ages, and that is the idea of the memento mori, which is a moral tradition in art of reminding everybody that they're going to die. It's represented by the funeral parlor in The Fate of the Artist, which surprised me, because I didn't put it there consciously as it was a part of the short O.Henry short story I had wickedly decided to embed in the book. Then there is my earlier book, the Dance of Lifey Death. The Danse Macabre is one the medieval expressions of the memento mori. So the title of the new book, 'The Years Have Pants' is taken from the first line of a comical poem which just happens to function as the reminder of our mortality.

'...who remembers not the pie,
that each and every evening went,
into a mouth that now lies bent.' (William Ernest Moenkhouse 1902-1931)

Q: You talked about how you think of these stories as fiction. Can you talk a little bit about how you "polish" the stories as you go so they end up moving from real life to fiction? What do you change, add or take away? Is it a conscious or intuitive process?

A: The simple process of arranging them is what makes them fiction, and that involves the whole range of decision making between conscious and default. By fiction I mean the art of writing stories. True and honest biography follows different rules altogether. Thus it's fiction as opposed to non-fiction, and not fiction as opposed to fact. It always annoys me when people split hairs over Spiegelman's work, arguing about whether it can be a "novel" because it's an account of things that actually happened. He drew himself as a mouse for heaven's sake. That puts it entirely in the realm of fiction. Similarly, I feel at liberty to show my nightmares physically turning up at the dinner table, as in After The Snooter.

From 'How to Be An Artist'

Q: Getting back to the first question, do you really not see your influence in any of the contemporary autobiographical cartoonists? Because I do think it's there to some degree, as in James Kochalka's diary comics for example.

A: You think so? That would be nice to think that. You know, I could just as easily have used James' 'elf' persona in the example above, and he has other anthropomorphic characters in there too. I remember Pekar was once criticizing Spiegelman for not being completely realistic, that the mice and cats were a cop-out, but it can be said on the other hand that Harvey sticks too rigidly to the literal path in his neorealist intentions. I thought for that reason that the American Splendor movie was Harvey's finest moment because of the layers of meta-fiction it laid over the stories. it took it a few notches beyond the literal, freed the whole thing up.

Q: How did the Omnibus come together, both conceptually and physically? Whose idea was it to collect the stories?

A: Chris Staros had been talking about it for ages, while the omnibus idea was happening with other cartoonists, like Eisner, and the Hernandez brothers. The art has evolved to the stage where those of us who have been doing it for that long can compile a half dozen books together in one big package.

From 'How to Avoid Sex'

Q: How did you go about selecting and arranging the material? I found it interesting, for instance, that you decided to place the stories in chronological order rather than in the order they were published. It makes obvious sense, but I could see going the other direction as well.

A: They weren't organized that way at first. I originally had a long 86-page section at the back which rounded up short pieces and fragmentary, unfinished works. But I was sweeping through the whole thing once (around the end of 2007... its' been on the boil for longer than that) and It occurred to me that there was the possibility of arranging it in an epic sweep, and letting the characters age naturally instead of jumping back and forth. I mentioned this to Chris as though I had just discovered the key to safely cloning humans, and he said "Huh? What do you mean? I thought that was what you were doing all along!" Then it was only at that point that I decided to add the whole new 35 page book at the end, bringing things up to date and giving a lot of my favorite characters a curtain call. It wraps the whole book up very nicely.

Q: Since there weren't a lot of people trying autobiography in comics when you started, who were your initial influences? Who influences you now?

A: There were artists like Crumb and Spiegelman who had done occasional two pagers and the like, but my intention was different. It was to do a whole big story. A novel I guess, but 'graphic novel', which should have been very useful moniker, has entered an era of difficulty in which the original intention of the term has been largely redefined by people who are not very bright. It has come to mean a format even though a prose novel is not a format. The original intention was to reflect the fact that novels are the work and property of an author, rather than a company, and are found on a bookshelf rather than a spinner rack or inside a newspaper. Those two principles are the drivers in our period of comics.

The novelists I was reading at the time included Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller. I found their work liberating, but for influence on the page I'd be more inclined to direct your eye to Milton Caniff and Gary Trudeau, his early more simplistic style with all the repeated images and speech balloons coming from the White house. I always loved the way people like RC Harvey would get mad at him because he didn't see it as a proper use of the comics form, though he later went back and changed his mind. RC, Pekar... there always used to be some interesting bun fight going on the comics over some mere technical preference. Hasn't been a good one in ages.

From 'The Dance of Lifey Death'

Q: One of the possible themes that came to me while rereading the stories was that of the Inner Life and how it spills out into our daily "real" lives. That's certainly true of Graffiti Kitchen, and I think How to Be An Artist deals with the notion of how to make your dreams (becoming an artist) a reality. And of course, in Fate of the Artist we see the inner life having a negative effect or at least rubbing up against our daily lives in an abrasive fashion. Even the issues of death come from interior fears -- your "nightmares showing up at the dinner table" as it were.

Of course, I suppose you could make the claim that's true of most autobiography, but I think most comic memoirs either tend to be all about the exterior life (this is something that happened to me) or the interior (I'd argue most of Pekar's stuff is about his interior world and thoughts).

Does any of that make any sense? I realize it's not really a question (and I'm kind of fumbling about trying to describe it), but it occurred to me while doing research for this interview and I thought I'd put it out there.

A: It makes perfect sense. In "Pants" I've included a large piece of an abandoned project I drew in 2002 titled The History of Humour. There were thirty pages altogether published in the two issues of my Egomania magazine, (and another fifteen page chapter carefully lettered with one panel penciled when I abandoned it.) I've reduced the 30 to 18 for this outing. My idea was that the entire book would take place in the interior world of the mind. First I would set up some ideas with reference to their historical context and then I would start shifting things around, the way things do in the unbounded spaces of the mind. My feeling at the time was that it was veering too close to being an actual academic book rather than a creative work going under the guise of one, so I backed off and started again and this time the result was The Fate of the Artist. When You think about it, it's difficult to pinpoint anything that actually happens in real world terms in Fate. There's a chapter in Fate that would have been in History exactly as it is, without any changes. That's the adaptation of the O. Henry story, Confessions of a Humorist in which Campbell 'acts' the part of the protagonist. Fate of the Artist doesn't appear in Pants because it's still in print from First Second, but in the History Of Humour you get to see fragments of an alternative version of it. I think my work has tended more in this direction as I've got older, and also my technique has become more flexible. I can hop from the real to the imaginary more easily.

From 'The Crow'

Q: I wanted to ask you about the editing process you went through in putting the Omnibus, starting with what you decided to add to the book and why. Can you talk a little bit about it? I can see why "How to Avoid Sex" was included, but was less sure about "The Crow," other than the father figure is referred to as Mr. Campbell.

A: The Crow was useful, because taking the balance of the whole volume into account, I found it useful to start giving my father that daunting personality earlier in the proceedings. Later when you read 'My father never hugged me,' which I hasten to add is ironic and not something I would ever say, you've got a better sense of his personality. I threw out some irrelevant pages from Little Italy to make room for it, such as a two pager titled 'The Video Generation,' which appeared dated to me now, and isn't really an Alec page, in fact it was the editor of my French edition who first removed it, so i was following his lead. And a couple of other things like that which I had drawn just to raise a laugh and a buck the first time around. The Crow satisfied a structural urgency in the bigger picture. Along the same lines, there are several places where very minor players were unnamed, but because they popped up in another book which can now be seen close-by in the collection, I've gone in and removed their anonymity and lettered the names. This adds little morsels of meaning that wouldn't have been accessible the first time around, and also more of those fine threads that weave from book to book, helping to bind the whole opus together, making it more of a continuous interconnected universe, which comics readers always love.

Q: What's the latest with the TV show? Is that still in development?

A: Still in development. Things slowed down because of the world financial crisis. Tv networks have been loathe to take any chances over the last year. But we shall see. I'm meeting with the producers in three days, so it's definitely still on the table.

Q: Refresh me on what parts of Alec the show is specifically adapting. Are they picking and choosing stories, or are they focusing mainly on a particular book/time period?

A: It's actually much more than an adaptation. We're using the assorted books that I've done, though predominantly the Snooter and after, as the springboard to make a series of half-hour comedy episodes. This involves coming up with a lot of extra material to expand anecdotes, and also bridges between anecdotes. We're giving the project a different kind of structure from the books. There are whole episodes that don't have any material lifted from the books. I see it as a logical extension of my work, and I'm hoping something will come of it.

From 'Little Italy'

Q: Let me awkwardly segue back to the Omnibus. Tell me a little about the new "Pants" stories at the end. What prompted their inclusion?

A: I'm always looking for an excuse to add to my oeuvre of real life work, and in the past I've always used the publication of a new book as an opportunity to add pages. There were twenty five new pages when I collected How to be an Artist in 2002, and I think five or seven when I rounded up the Snooter material the first time. It's a life's work that is always growing. There is always something new to add. If publication of 'Pants' were to be delayed for some reason, I'd want to add another sixteen pages. At least.

Q: You mentioned before about the theme of death or "memento mori" running through your stories. Where do you think that preoccupation comes from? Is it just growing older? Or is it settling down and having a family? I know once I became a dad I found myself worrying a lot more about death and illness than I ever had before.

A: It's not about death really. The memento mori essentially is a reminder that life is short; do not waste it. As for there being an increase in an awareness of mortality after becoming a parent, yes I think that does make us tap into the bigger picture of life, it's shape and it's temporal boundary. You used to be at the bottom of the pile, but now you're in the middle. The people at the top are starting to cash in their chips and new ones are appearing at the bottom. You have to radically reassess what it's all about.

Q: On that note, one of the things that struck me going through the Omnibus is how much of a family snapshot it is as well and how you start off single and childless and by the end your oldest has left home and your others are fully grown. I was taken aback, for example, by how old Callum had become at the end. There's also that great moment in Snooter where you note how Hayley was a child when you started From Hell and now you were escorting her to the movie premiere as a young woman. To what extent do you use the books to mull over the passage of time and do you have a conscious point you're trying to make in those instances?

A: There's also a phase in After the Snooter where I cast my mind back to my own childhood. Every phase of life is depicted somewhere in the book. As I say in my intro, I was always quite captivated by the passage of time in Gasoline Alley. The idea that comic strip characters can age. This is actually more unusual even now than it was back then, because we now have characters in comic books who have lived over completely implausible spans of time without changing much, except that they are now ten-heads-to-one ratio instead of the natural seven and an half, or whatever it should be. And also the fact that death does not exist in the comic books. Nobody ever dies and stays dead. I think that's a scam. It allows the modern viewer to vicariously enjoy the most outrageous violence because it has no effect. There is no price to pay.

From 'After the Snooter'

Q: I liked how the stories in the "Pants" section reflected on the earlier material, like the part with you realizing you wouldn't be caught dead in a sleeping bag in someone else's house these days or where you're confiscating your daughter's alcohol. Was that reflection deliberate on your part? Did you want to end with a comment on how things have changed for you or did it just come naturally?

A: I felt that it was the task of the last book to create a sense of unity in the collection. So it makes connections and hearkens back to moments and characters who appeared in the earlier works. In one place it even quotes page numbers for convenient backtracking. And there at the end there's a reflection back to the beginning. I want the reader to come away thinking the whole collection adds up to more than a sum of the parts.

Q: Is there a particular story that stands out for you above the others? And if so why? Are there stories that you find difficult to reread because of the emotions or people involved?

A: Not so much the emotions that are evoked as in my naive interpretation of them at the time. But you can't go back and tinker with stuff like that. And i wouldn't want to ruin the earlier reading experience by casting a cynical shadow over it. The reader will get the sense that the parts were written by the author at different ages. And if they are themselves young, I am sure that all in all they will prefer the younger Alec. And if they pick it up four years later they may find themselves identifying with the next one along, and so on. I want that to be an important feature of it all. My personal favorite moments or chapters are probably in the middle of How to be an artist. There are pages in there that are teeming with all of life. Chapter eight sticks out in a quick flip though the dummy of the book that sits on the floor beside me. Situations are laid out thoroughly and precisely and the narrative whisks along without wallowing in any of them. It covers a lot of ground very quickly.

Q: Do you have any plans to do any more Alec/Eddie stories for the foreseeable future? Or are you too preoccupied with other projects? What are you working on these days anyway?

A: I'm taking things easy right now, but the next book out has been finished for a few months. That's the Playwright, which is about the sex-life of a celibate middle aged man. It's very funny. These things are taking so long to get published that I may have mentioned it to you when we spoke last year. But I'm starting to think it's time to start a new autobiographical book. There are a few things that I need to get out of my system. There are bees in my bonnet.

From 'The Years Have Pants'

LaMorte Sisters

This month Johnny Zito and Tony Trov, creators of the Black Cherry Bombshells, added a second Zuda strip to their writing duties -- LaMorte Sisters, drawn by Christine Larsen. The story follows Maddie, a new student at the LaMorte Home for Lost Girls. The orphanage is run by a strict order of Catholic nuns who offer sanctuary and salvation to young women afflicted with vampirism.

Zito and Trov stopped by earlier this week and shared a list of vampires they'd like to have drinks with, and with today being the second anniversary of when Zuda officially launched, plus it being the day before Halloween, it kind of made sense to see what they had to say about their new vampire tale.

JK: One of the things that really struck me about the first pages of your new strip is how different it looks than Black Cherry Bombshells. How did you guys meet Christine Larsen?

Johnny: Christine is a fellow Philadelphian. She lives on the other end of the city in Fishtown.

Tony: We have many, many mutual friends in the art and film community. Johnny and I were both fans of her work on Teddy Scares.

LaMorte Sisters

JK: What's the new strip about?

Tony: The story follows Maddie, a new student at LaMorte Home for Lost Girls. The orphanage is run by a strict order of Catholic Nuns. They offer sanctuary and salvation to young women afflicted with vampirism.

Johnny: La Morte Sisters is a much more personal story for us. It's about South Philly, frienemies and growing up fast.

Tony: This is especially true for me, being Zito's public frienemy No. 1.

LaMorte Sisters

JK: I like the "twist," that these vampires are living in a Catholic School. Where did that idea come from? And did either of you attend Catholic School?

Tony: We both did some hard time in Catholic school. Although we attended different schools, I did eight years and JZ did 12.

Johnny: There were always creepy urban legends about statues coming to life, dead janitors and saints that walk the halls at night.

LaMorte Sisters

JK: I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that since you guys teamed up with Zuda again on this one that you probably like it there. What's the appeal of having your second strip there, versus going somewhere else or out on your own?

Johnny: Aside from the creative support Zuda provides, I champion any product or business that starts with a "Z." Say ... pass the Zima.

Tony: The staff is great. Ron Perazza (@perazza) would let me use his toothbrush if I asked. All of our fellow creators are full of fantastic advice, too.

Johnny: Yeah, follow the hash tag #makingcomics. Lots of great advice from Zuda staff, creators and even readers.

JK: What was the process like to become an instant winner?

Johnny: Start with a clove of garlic, a statue of Saint Joseph and eight screens of amazing art. Wait for the summer solstice, or it won't work.

Tony: Then head over to ZudaComics.com and submit your brilliant ideas. Every comic on Zuda goes through the same submission process, but it doesn't hurt to say your prayers.

JK: What are you guys doing for Halloween? Any plans to dress up?

Johnny: Raphael. Cool but crude.

Tony: Shredder. Tonight I dine on turtle soup.

Johnny: Frienemy indeed.

Famous Players

Rick Geary has been regarded as an “underrated” cartoonist for so long now that it’s almost a cliché at this point to label him as such. But in the many years he’s been making comics, he’s produced an impressive body of work that seems to escape a lot of folks notice. His stellar Victorian Murder series, now bumped up a few decades to encompass the 20th century, alone show such a high and consistent degree of quality that most cartoonists would give their eye teeth to have on their resume.

Having made his name with true crime, he’s recently attempted to tackle the biography genre, producing two books for Hill and Wang’s graphic line, one on J. Edgar Hoover, and most recently, one on Leon Trotsky.

I talked to him recently from his home in Kansas City, Missouri, about his new Trotsky bio as well as the latest book for NBM in his Murder series, Famous Players, about the mysterious and currently unsolved slaying of silent movie director William Desmond Taylor. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: I wanted to start by asking you what originally prompted you to do the Murder series. I get the sense that true crime is a subject of great interest for you.

A: Yeah. I got interested in true crime cases years and years ago. I think it dates back to when I was living in Wichita, Kansas, back in the late ‘70s. I had a friend who was an ex-journalist and ex-policeman. He gave me this collection of mug shots he had accumulated over the years. I get into things through the visual end most of the time, and those pictures kind of got me going. I did research on local unsolved murders and that was about the time that the BTK killer was around in Wichita. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that case.

Q: I don’t think so.

A: He was a serial killer who operated in Wichita back in the early ‘70s. He was only just recently captured and put in prison a couple of years ago. That kind of started me out. When I started doing I just naturally turned to those kinds of subjects.

Q: Why initially Victorian murder?

A: The publisher, Terry Nantier at NBM, suggested the idea to me. I had done a couple of stories for different publications, shorter pieces that dealt with cases of the Victorian era. He suggested doing a whole book of Victorian cases. That kind of mustered from there into the series.

Q: What prompted you to move into the 20th century? Did you feel like you had covered the 19th century pretty well?

A: There are still more cases in the 19th century, but I felt like I kind of, as you say, had done that era and I wanted to move on to more recent times, especially the early 20th century. There are a lot of juicy stories. More than I could ever do.

Q: Focusing on the new book, Famous Players, what drew you to this case?

A: That’s another case I’ve been interested in for years and years. I’ve always been a movie lover and been interested in the early history of Hollywood. And since that’s the very first unsolved murder in the Hollywood community, it’s one I was fascinated with.

In fact, back in the early 80s, I had actually stared to do a graphic novel about the case, although they weren’t called graphic novels back then. It was just going to be a long story that I was going to see if I could publish myself and do as a mini-book, but that never came to fruition. There’s been a lot more information uncovered about the story since then so I’m glad I waited. I just found it was a natural for me.

Q: What sort of new information?

A: At the time, back when I was first researching the case, it was [believed] that Taylor was this extreme womanizer and there were all these rumors going on about the affairs he had and the stuff that was found in his apartment, which was mentioned in newspaper accounts at the time. More recent researchers have found that to be totally false. Things like the women’s negligees and lingerie that were supposedly hidden away in a drawer. Each one of them had a name and a date attached, chronicling his conquests. More recent research has uncovered that he was bisexual and wasn’t nearly the womanizer that people thought he was.

Q: Is there something that defines 19th century murder versus 20th century murder?

A: Not that I can think of. People’s motives for murder remain constant through history, either for personal gain or out of some kind of psychopathic undercurrent to their personality. I’m not sure that the actual motives are that different from era to era. It’s the details and the trappings that change.

Q: It does seem that when you say Victorian people have a certain image in the mind of foggy nights and back alleyways versus modern times.

A: Serial killers aren’t really a modern phenomenon. Jack the Ripper was in the 1880s and H.H. Holmes in the 1890s. I’m not sure what would typify a modern case because the elements remain the same.

Q: I guess the thing is that people want to typify.

A: That’s a good way to put it.

As an illustrator I really enjoy drawing the details of the Victorian era, the interiors and the costumes and hairstyles. Horses and the harnesses and carriages and wagons and stuff like that. Now I get to draw early-day automobiles, which is a whole different route to go. I find it different in that regard. Otherwise I don’t look at it that way. I don’t see it as a different era as far as the content is concerned.

Q: Was there anything about this particular story that seemed different from the others you’ve done? There seems to be a greater mystery, even compared to the Lindbergh case, in that so much seems to be unknown about Taylor’s death.

A: I know. I’m really drawn to the stories that are unsolved and have a lot of unknown elements. Those are my favorites. I like getting all the details straight and laying out the mystery in as clear a way as possible. I try not to push any theory of my own. I just want to lay it out so the reader can make up his or her own mind if possible. Or else just leave it as a mystery. I think questions are more interesting than answers most of the time.

Trotsky: A Graphic Biography

Q: Is there a trick to doing that in comics? I would imagine there is a temptation to push a theory one way or the other.

A: Well, in the Lindbergh story for instance I have my own idea about the case, but I tried not to push it or lean on it. I took pains to illustrate all the different theories that are out there, no matter how unusual or silly they may sound. There are a lot of them. I don’t know if there’s a trick to it but it is something you have to really be careful about. I don’t know if I’ve really mastered any trick.

Q: What’s your next entry in the Murder series?

A: I’m finishing up and inking the next book, which is about the Ax Man of New Orleans, who is a pretty obscure serial killer. I don’t think he’s widely known because he was never captured or identified or anything.

Q: I don’t think I ever heard of him.

A: He operated in New Orleans in the 1918-19 period and used an ax to break into people’s houses and chopped them up. It put the city into a panic for a while. And then he just vanished. There aren’t any major theories about who it was or what happened to him. It’s a real foggy mystery, but there are a lot of juicy details. I had to use newspaper archives to ferret out the details, because no one’s done a book about this particular killer.

At the moment I’m doing research for the book after that which will be the Sacco and Venzetti case.

Q: Now that case I’ve heard of.

A: That’s another one where I have to keep an even tone and not play sides.

Q: It strikes me in a lot of these cases like the New Orleans one and the Beast of Chicago that you really try to avoid getting too gory, even though a lot of these cases are rather gruesome. You hang back a little.

A: I do. It’s not me being squeamish. I just think it’s effective to leave things to the viewer’s imagination. I am kind of reticent about portraying extreme gore and gruesomeness. But I have to say with this Ax Man story it’s pretty gruesome. There’s a higher blood quotient than most of the stuff I’ve done before.

Q: But even in something like Bloody Benders, I noticed at the time how careful you were to avoid the gore. And it made for a much more intense read I think.

A: I hope so. That’s my own predilection.

Q: Who do you look for as an influence in that manner? Is there anyone in comics who’s good at that sort of thing or do you look more towards movies or other mediums?

A: As I said I’ve been a film buff for years and I tend to look toward certain directors from a long time ago rather than other comic artists for my inspiration. Hitchcock of course. And a lot of the filmmakers from the film noir period of the 40s or the Val Lewton films of the 1940s. They get across horror without being gory or direct. It’s less in-your-face than the movies of today, that’s for sure.

Q: I also wanted to ask you about the Trotsky biography. I was curious why Trotsky instead of, say, Lenin, Marx or Stalin?

A: Actually, I was assigned Trotsky. I wouldn’t have chosen him. My first choice would have been Rasputin. I suggested him to the publisher, but he said, “Let’s do Trotsky instead.” I’m fine with that. I didn’t know much about his life at all when I started it. And it was a learning experience for me all the way around.

J. Edgar Hoover

Q: I thought it was especially interesting since your previous biography was about J. Edgar Hoover.

A: Talk about opposites! That’s one thing I liked about it. I get to take on this large swath of history and take someone’s life from a totally different angle.

Q: Did Hill and Wang come to you initially with this idea of doing biographies?

A: Yeah, they contacted me. The editor, who was working on the series got in touch with me and said. “We’re doing these graphic biographies,” and asked me to do one.

Q: Are you going to do any more for them in the foreseeable future?

A: Well, I’m told the market has gone soft so I don’t know. They’re holding off. We shall see.

Q: What are the challenges in trying to summarize someone’s life like Hoover’s or Trotsky’s? You’re working with a larger span of time and have a lot more detail to cram in than something like Bloody Benders.

A: That’s true. It’s certainly a more daunting project than the Murder books, especially with someone like Trotsky who is a very contradictory character. He was heroic to some people and a real negative character to others. It was kind of a balancing act. I tried to be as even handed as possible. Same with Hoover.

Q: I did notice with Hoover you didn’t come down one-way or the other.

A: Yeah, when there was some kind of scandalous accusation I put it in terms like “Some people say.” There wasn’t anything scandalous in Trotsky’s life except his affair with Frida Kahlo in his final years.

Q: Is it difficult to edit down, once you have all the information on a person, to pick and choose which events or what to put in or leave out?

A: There’s always too much information. It’s a matter of winnowing down. With Trotsky I tried to find the most dramatic aspects of his life because most of his biography is pretty un-visual. It’s these internal disputes within the Bolshevik party or the different questions of setting up a new country. The more dramatic episodes of his life like escaping from exile, where he was on this reindeer sleigh, and later on when he was the military leader during the civil war, those are the incidents I wanted to give more play to because they were more visual and more melodrama.

Q: Tell me a little bit about the research you do for both the murder books and these biographies. I would imagine in both cases it’s difficult to find the right book or biography but visual research as well.

A: That’s true. When I decide on a subject I read as much as I can on it; as many books as I can read and keep on the deadline. I use a lot of online sources as well. I can usually find pictures of just about anything I want – anything that’s out there anyway. For the Ax Man of New Orleans book the only visual references I found were in this old newspaper file that had photos of the murder scenes and the victims and overhead views of the house. That was really all I had for this book. Other cases like Lindbergh there’s more visual reference than I could possibly use. It’s the same thing with books on that case. Some cases have a library of stuff written about them.

Q: What do you do when it’s like the New Orleans case, when you don’t have a lot to go on?

A: I never have anything less than I need to do an eighty page book. This and the Bloody Benders, there wasn’t much info about them. If I need to I can fan it out by having a double-page spread or having an illustration fill up a whole page. There are ways to finesse it visually. But sometimes you can tell when there’s less information out there.

Q: Whether you’re doing Trotsky or Famous Players, what’s your work method? Once you have all the information you need, how do you go from research to book?

A: Once I’ve done all the reading and taken all the notes, I write a pretty detailed script. The script for these murder books I don’t include visuals I just write bits of information that eventually form into the captions under each panel. My publisher at NBM has gotten used to this. The visuals are either self-explanatory from the captions or else I don’t know what they’re going to be until I actually sit down to draw the page. Hill and Wang demanded a little more detailed script and description of what the visuals were going to be in each panel. So I make it up if I can’t think of something off the top of my head. That’s usually how it turns out in the final comic. Or it’s something completely different.

When I have the script done I start penciling each page one at a time. When I’ve got the whole book completed in pencil then I go to the inks. If all goes well.

Q: You have a really neat visual style. It’s slightly photorealistic but also slightly cartoonish and you have this spare line you use for your shading that I admire. How conscious were you in developing this style?

A: I don’t know. I feel that a style develops in a semi-conscious way. I just know I go for a certain feel or texture in the line work. I really don’t know much more to say about it than that. It just comes out of working. It just emerges.

Q: More intuitive than anything?

A: That’s how I think of it. This is stuff I’m not used to ruminating on. But it emerges the more work you do. I know my stuff falls in this crack between straight illustration and the more exaggerated kind of cartooning. There’s a humorous edge to these things.

Scott McCloud comments on the potential for such a device to change comics: "Most of today’s comics publishers are likely to jump into the pool with their clothes on—print-style pages intact. But if Apple’s gadget is anything like what’s being described, we could see a shift over time from point-and-click fragmented delivery, like what we have on the Web today, to more continuous spatial metaphors of the sort a lot of us turn-of-the-century mad scientists were playing with. Should be interesting."

Digital comics | You can read some of Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener's excellent Atomic Robo comics, including the Free Comic Book Day stories from the past few years, at the Nuklear Power website.

Motion Comics | Eagle One Media has released Street Fighter and Voltron motion comics on iTunes.

Webcomics | Fleen interviews Schlock Mercenary creator Howard Tayler about his recent appearance at a Success in Comics seminar in Las Vegas.

Alan Moore

After being initially informed by Neil’s lawyer, I had to think about it for a couple of days. I decided that while I’m very happy for this book to get published—because that means money will finally go to Marvelman’s creator, Mick Anglo, and to his wife. Mick is very, very old, and his wife, I believe, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. The actual Marvelman story is such a grim and ugly one that I would probably rather that the work was published without my name on it, and that all of the money went to Mick. The decision about my name was largely based upon my history with Marvel—my desire to really have nothing to do with them, and my increasing desire to have nothing to do with the American comics industry. I mean, they’re probably are enough books out there with my name on them to keep the comics industry afloat for a little bit longer. I left a message to that effect with Neil. I’ve since heard back from the lawyer upon another issue, and he said that he was certain that would be the case—that Marvel would accede to my request. That looks like the way it will be emerging. And, Neil will be able to finish his Marvelman story because he has a completely different relationship with Marvel than I have with them—or rather, don’t have. The main thing is that I will feel happy to know that Mick Anglo is finally getting the recompense he so richly deserves. And, I will have distanced myself from a lot of the deceit and ugliness that surrounded the relaunching of Marvelman as a character.

Moore also has a few nasty words for former Warrior editor Dez Skinn and Eclipse Comics, and goes into great detail about how he came up with his own unique take on the character. Go read the whole thing.