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For a webcomics platform to reach the ripe age of seven years in the daily-changing world of the internet is a remarkable accomplishment, and for it to keep producing  original, fresh, and engaging work even more of a triumph that accounts for its survival. Founded by Emmy award-winning artist and comics creator Dean Haspiel in 2006, ACTIVATEcomix, formerly known as ACT-I-VATE, is a comics collective devised to showcase original work and provide a platform for direct interaction between creators and readers. Many of its featured creators, and the works that have appeared on ACTIVATE, are award-winning, illustrating the benefits of creator-owned collective platforms, and the collective also generated a print volume, THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER, in 2009. Upon reaching its sixth anniversary, ACTIVATE released a sixth “new wave” of material and member Simon Fraser took on the job of directing its future course.  Several current ACTIVATE members joined me for an interview to ring in its seventh anniversary, including Simon Fraser, long-time member Jim Dougan, and sixth-wave newbies Neil Dvorak, Gideon Kendall, and Cristian Ortiz. Fresh from a celebratory DARE2DRAW event featuring ACTIVATE’s seventh birthday, here’s what these ACTIVATErs have to say about their experiences working with a collective webcomics platform, what they see as the site’s biggest accomplishments, and what the future holds for this one-time experiment, now exemplar, in web publication of creator-owned comics.

Hannah Means-Shannon: What motivated you to publish your work on ACTIVATEcomix?

Simon Fraser: Primarily exposure, but a certain kind of exposure. I think that my work looks better in context with the variety and quality of the other work on ACTIVATEcomix. I like the eclectic world-view of the collective. Part of my initial desire to be a part of ACTIVATEcomix was a desire to avoid being pigeonholed. Frankly I like hanging out with these people, I love their work and I feel that being in a group like this ups my game and keeps me from getting complacent.

[Simon Fraser, photo by Seth Kushner]

Jim Dougan:  It’s always great to find a larger audience and to me ACTIVATE was always the cool place to post webcomics. Not only because there was a lot of really excellent work posted there from creators I liked and respected, but there was also a culture of mutual support and collective spirit.  When I got the invitation from Dean Haspiel and Dan Goldman, I jumped at the chance. They liked the short-form stuff I was doing at The (now defunct) Chemistry Set and challenged me to tackle something longer-form. Luckily I had something in mind, and wanted to work with Hyeondo Park more, and he was ready to do it, too.  “It” was SAM & LILAH, and here we are nearly five years later.

[Jim Dougan]

Neil Dvorak: I met Simon Fraser at MoCCAFest 2012.  He just happened to be sitting next to me doing critiques at the Dare2Draw table.  Finally at the end of his incredible hours-long stint he took a look at my work and invited me to his studio in the coming weeks.  In the meantime I researched ACTIVATEcomix and was immediately drawn in by the breadth and depth of work.

[Neil Dvorak]

Gideon Kendall: I’d seen so much good work on there over the years by artists (too many to mention them all, but special shout-outs to Mike Cavallaro and David Klein who I knew in non-comics professional capacities beforehand: Mike and I worked together as animation designers on Codename: Kids Next Door and David and I are both illustrators and we used to live in the same building) that I respect that when I had the idea for WHATZIT, ACTIVATE was the first place I thought of to present it. I also thought that the community and the format would help keep my on track towards completion of the project.

[Self Portrait by Gideon Kendall]

Cristian Ortiz: I had the chance to meet Simon at the Thought Bubble Festival in England last year and he was kind enough to invite me to join ACTIVATE. The idea of having my work among all the experienced and talented ACTIVATE creators is motivation enough to publish my work on the site.

[Cristian Ortiz]

HM-S:  How has creating for ACTIVATEcomix influenced your production style and methods?

SF: Doing the one page a week format has forced me to learn to write episodically, rather like an old movie serial or a newspaper strip. It’s a great discipline and forces you to be really rigorous and unsentimental with your storytelling.

JD:  You’d have to ask Hyeondo Park how it affects him (on SAM & LILAH), but when it comes to writing, it means that I try to have each update of two or three pages be a meaningful story beat or narrative chunk.  So I’m not just writing for the overall scene or story arc, but for something that makes a least a little bit of sense to read in installments, but that hopefully won’t seem weird when read in a collected form.

[SAM&LILAH by Jim Dougan and Hyeondo Park]

ND: Deadlines.  Style and methods?  Who cares…I’m so happy to get comics DONE.

GK: As a first-timer in comics, the whole thing has been a learning process. I have nothing to compare it to, but as far as illustration it’s a refreshing change from the world of print (see my other answers!)

CO: Having to publish pages every week gives me a structure to follow where I have to calculate how many pages I need to create every month to be able to keep a buffer between publishing and production.

[THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN by Cristian Ortiz]

HM-S: What do you think the benefits are of creating on a web platform? Do you find it intersects more with social media than print format?

SF: I think people are more likely to casually stumble across the work, which is part of my plan. I want to build an audience that’s a little wider than the 2000AD readers, who (despite being collectively a very discerning and attractive bunch of people) are a very niche, localized market.

[FlyGirl art by Simon Fraser]

JD: The benefits are the immediate feedback and the ability to have multiple opportunities to interact and communicate on a regular basis.  That might also be the case with creators who are on monthly books, but that’s not usually the case for indie creators, so this is what we’ve got.

ND: The benefits for me are entirely logistical.  I.E. moving panels or characters, the undo button, and some subtle computer fx (ie motion blur or glow) make the work flow in a different way than on paper.  Not better, just different.  Yes, creating on the web makes for a smoother transition to social media.  There are less formatting steps to deal with.

[EASY PIECES by Neil Dvorak]

GK: Again, this is my first real foray into comics so I don’t have much to compare it to, but the social media aspect has been very helpful as far as spreading the word and getting feedback. Being able to click on a link and see the work is much more immediate than having to remember the title when you’re in a comics shop. The downside obviously is that no one is paying you for your work, but hey what else is new?

[WHATZIT by Gideon Kendall]

CO: The benefits of online comics to me is that are easily accessible to many sorts of readers all over the web that print format can’t reach, also making it easier to share and spread, making the amount of exposure increase to a different level.

HM-S: What impact does it have on you as a creator to be part of a collective?

SF: It helps me immensely, both in getting the work done and in keeping me honest. I know I’ll get called on anything I post that is sub-par. Also knowing that people are expecting me to do the work is a huge motivator.  I have the advantage that I do tend to interact with everyone on the collective as I am kind of in the middle of it. I’d like to make more situations where we can all get to hang out together more often. It’s difficult when we all have such busy lives and are so geographically dispersed.

JD:  I enjoy the shared sense of purpose and camaraderie that comes from being a part of ACTIVATE. Even if I don’t have much in common with other ACTIVATErs, we have ACTIVATE in common.  That support really helps considering comics is something that’s done in isolation.

ND: It’s nice to have some pressure to keep the work up to snuff and get it done on time.  There are so many amazing creators on that site who are turning out world-class comics every week.

[EASY PIECES by Neil Dvorak]

GK: It gives me a sense of pride. As a newcomer to comics it’s amazing to instantly feel like a “real” comic artist. It also is great motivation to keep getting the work done. If I was on my own, it would be a lot easier to lose the focus and the ambition that it takes to see a story through. Plus, there’s not wanting to be embarrassed in the company of such accomplished pros.

CO: It gives you a sense of belonging and makes you feel like you are part of a big family who are passionate about making comics. I want to keep on improving my craft and the quality of my work to do my part for the collective.

[THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN by Cristian Ortiz and Daniel Martin]

HM-S:  Does it make a difference to you to know that readers can access your comics so soon after production? Have readers played any part in shaping the direction of your work?

SF: Absolutely. I’ve made the analogy to live Jazz many times. You can feel the response to the storyline and working with that expectation, or against it, can be very exciting.

JD:  It absolutely makes a difference, and I always look forward to reading comments from our readers.  We have a couple of SAM & LILAH readers in particular who pay attention so closely that they keep me on my toes as to what’s going on and being communicated, and they like to speculate as to what will happen next, so I’m mindful of that going forward. I’m not sure they’ve influenced the direction of the story specifically, but certainly knowing someone out there is following it so closely makes you want to do your best to be very clear in your intent. Or be very -unclear- if that’s your intent.

ND: My stuff has always been web-based first.  So that immediacy isn’t novel for me.  The fact that a couple people have come out of the woodwork to email me to tell me my work helped them through a tough time really threw me for a loop.  It’s an interesting thing to continue creating when you know your work might be therapeutic for someone out there; it always is for me, but you don’t expect that.  Now that seed is in my head as I create, and it makes me want to be as honest a creator as I can be.

GK: As someone who primarily does illustration for print, where it can be months or even a year before the work is published, its really exciting to get it out there and get feedback right away. The encouraging comments definitely help me find the energy to keep going and I also had at least one instance where a critical comment led me to refine and improve a certain aspect of the story.

CO: It’s great when you publish pages and you can get instant feedback from readers making you feel inspired to carry on working on more pages and volumes. There are parts of my work that have developed and adapted to improve issues in narrative mentioned by readers and fellow creators alike.

HM-S: What projects have you produced on ACTIVATEcomix and what projects are you currently working on?

SF: My main body of work has been LILLY MACKENZIE & THE MINES OF CHARYBDIS and there are a couple of shorter pieces too. Right now I’m gearing up to start working on the sequel to LILLY, though I keep hitting problems. That can be a benefit though as I’ve had a long time to work and rework the storyline and I think it has improved immeasurably. I should be back onto this very soon (as I’ve been saying for several months now).

Otherwise I’m doing several pitches for some very diverse projects. Some very much in line with what I’ve done before (one with my NIKOLAI DANTE collaborator Robbie Morrison) and some that are radically different. Also I’ve got a sci-fi tale that’s been written by Alex DeCampi and will be published through Dark Horse that I really need to get back to.

[LILLY MACKENZIE by Simon Fraser]

JD:  SAM & LILAH has been, is, and will be my project at ACTIVATE for the foreseeable future.  I’ve posted comics created elsewhere on the site, but the only comic I’ve done specifically for ACTIVATE is S&L, and it’s likely to remain that way for a while.

ND: EASY PIECES.  EASY PIECES.

GK: As of right now (and for the foreseeable future, because it’s so freaking’ huge) my only ACTIVATE project is WHATZIT. I do a lot of illustration work and animation design, so one epic, unwieldy, and self-indulgent graphic novel is all my sanity can maintain.

CO: I’m currently publishing GOLDEN CAMPAIGN Volume 1. I’m also working on Volume 2 at the same time to be able to publish it right after. I want to publish some small stories at some point but I think my main priority at the moment is GOLDEN CAMPAIGN.

[THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN by Cristian Ortiz and Daniel Martin]

HM-S: So, Simon and Jim, how does ACTIVATEcomix handle submissions? Can creators approach ACTIVATEcomix about joining the collective?

SF: They can send their proposal to me ( [email protected] ). If I like it then you’re in. We used to have a very democratic procedure for admissions, but it caused some problems so for the moment we’re a benevolent dictatorship. That could change, but nobody has gotten angry with me … yet.

JD:  Basically, people reach out to Simon. (Sorry Si!) Unless it’s a no-brainer (like an Igor Kordey or David Klein or Ellen Lindner) he’ll send around the submission to a few of us to discuss and vote “yea” or “nay”.  We are always looking for unique and compelling points of view and the comix stories that arise from them.

[SAM&LILAH by Jim Dougan and Hyeondo Park]

HM-S:  What do you think ACTIVATEcomix’s biggest accomplishments are?

SF: I think we’re one of the longest lived webcomics collectives, certainly one of the biggest in terms of membership (over 50 this year) and quantity of work (nearly 100 strips). We’ve managed to maintain a really high level of quality too, not just as a webcomics group, but I think we can stand tall even among serious publishing houses.

We have published a book too, The ACT-I-VATE Primer is a beautiful thing. I’ve got a lot of books in print through 2000AD and others things, but I think I’m most proud of that one.

JD:  First of all, surviving at all.  While many other webcomics have been around as long if not longer than we have, not many webcomic –collectives- have been.  I know this from experience, considering that The Chemistry Set (of which I was a co-founder) doesn’t exist anymore, not even as an online archive.  But more importantly – and part and parcel of the survival – is providing an ongoing platform for personal work.  If you look at the archive on the site (http://activatecomix.com/comix), there is a –staggering- amount of great comics there, from some very prestigious folks.  Some of it has led to greater exposure or work or publishing deals for the creator(s), but even when it hasn’t that extensive, unorthodox, diverse, and ambitious body of work is under the ACTIVATE umbrella something to be proud of.

HM-S: What’s up and coming for ACTIVATEcomix at 7 years?

SF: Well the most pressing concern is the branding discussions we’ve been having for the past 8 months or so. That is leading on to a website rebuild, in the nearer future. We’re determined to take the time we need to get it right. I’d very much like to put ACTIVATEcomix in a position where it can expand and thrive for another 7 years.

JD:  More great comics!  For free! Simon is probably better positioned to discuss what’s in the pipeline, but the fact that we’ve got new LILY MACKENZIE coming is something to look forward to from my point of view, not to mention the return of Pedro Camargo, David Klein, and Ryan Roman to the ACTIVATE fold.  Add to that Ellen Lindner coming aboard with her new book THE BLACK FEATHER FALLS, and newcomers like Cristian Ortiz’s THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN and Neil Dvorak’s EASY PIECES…there is literally more good stuff happening than I can keep up with.  And that doesn’t even include Igor Kordey and Darko Macan’s THE TEXAS KID, MY BRO, which is like my favorite comic right now.  There is as much – if not more – good stuff happening, more good comics being posted on a regular basis right now than there has been at any time in ACTIVATE’s seven-year history.  And that’s a very exciting thing! So give us a look – there’ something for everyone.

HM-S: Hearing from these ACTIVATE members has reminded me again of the working paradox that seems to exist at the heart of this collective project, a paradox between the depth of personal experiences that creators bring to the platform which renders their works so distinctive, and the respect for the medium that creates a single entity out of so many perspectives. Looking back at seven years of ACTIVATE, it’s a vast and varied panorama, and we certainly hope that as ACTIVATE grows and changes, it continues to be a touch-stone for what collective comics projects can accomplish. Thanks very much to Simon, Joe, Neil, Gideon, and Cristian, for sharing their thoughts with The Beat!

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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RED LIGHT PROPERTIES, now available in its first five issues through Monkeybrain Comics on Comixology, is a genre mixer with a gritty dose of realism that, for Eisner-nominated writer and artist Dan Goldman, hits close to home. Growing up in Miami, and aware of its hectic combination of cultures, crime, and mystery, Goldman ingested plenty of fodder for comics creation. A lifelong interest in the paranormal and occult has taken him down some unusual roads in storytelling, and his unlikely but all too human hero Jude Tobin couldn’t have a stranger profession: exorcist for haunted properties in Miami during the current economic slump. His methods “green light” properties that are bedeviled by hangovers from their violent pasts with a practical result of money in the pocket for our occult explorer as well as downtrodden home owners. It’s just a day in the life of a guy who ingests psychedelic substances to boost his own natural sensitivity to the spirit world in order to sell houses.

Goldman’s approach to comics storytelling establishes belief in a number of intriguing ways. Not only does Goldman emphasize the personal relationships in Jude’s life, dealing with a live-in ex wife who still has feelings for him, a step-son who is starting to display his own occult abilities, and wrestling with his own personal demons including his dead father’s ghost, but he also explores a relationship crux in the stories of many of the haunted properties. Many of the darkest emotions that haunt “red light” real estate spring from love and loss, and owners themselves benefit from Jude’s exorcisms by making peace with traumas in their past. Add to that the artistic methods that Goldman pursues, including use of photography and digital imaging, as well as increasingly experimental page layouts, and RLP delivers a hefty sense of realism alongside its phantasmagorical subject matter.

RLP has been a long-term project for Goldman as an indie creator, and he’s particularly enthused that the comic has now found a home at Monkeybrain. It’s the kind of comic that naturally makes you want to fire questions at the creator. It’s the equivalent of seeing a circus performer pull off a remarkable high-wire act while juggling weighty and disparate materials to create a unique spectacle. You want to ask, “How on earth did you do that?”. But I tried to ask him a few intelligent questions rather than just gawking at his handiwork.

HM-S: How did you come up with the unusual concept for RED LIGHT PROPERTIES?

Dan Goldman: It comes from the collision of a few things kicking around my head for many years: waking up at night and feeling someone watching you from the empty hallway, listening to my mom rattle off war stories of Miami real estate drama for twenty-odd years, my own experiences growing older in this body while trying to figure life out. I was working RLP for nine years before I drew the first page, trying to develop my visual style because the characters were already walking around in my head and I needed the chops to do them justice.

Red Light Properties’ owner/shaman Jude Tobin serves a dark mirror for me,  person I’ve looked deep into and decided I don’t want to be. He comes off as an asshole but he’s really just misunderstood with bad communication skills. He and his family are utterly real to me, and that makes RED LIGHT PROPERTIES a great platform stand on and poke all these ideas about life and death and love and consciousness and failure, all using the language of comics.

HM-S: I notice that the setting is not only Miami, but multi-ethnic. What does this bring to the comic for you?

DG: The whole world is multi-ethnic now, I’m just reflecting it. The world grows richer and more interesting in places where cultures bump up against each other. I grew up in Miami, where the series takes place, before I ever traded it for New York City (or more recently São Paulo). All three of these cities are massive destinations for immigrants. It’s how I’ve always seen the world, so it’s only natural that it’s a part of this one too.

HM-S: Has researching the occult and haunted property taken you into some strange places mentally or physically, or is the background for the work purely imaginative?

DG: I’ve been researching the occult/paranormal since I was a boy. My grandfather died right after my fifth birthday and I used to see him around the house for years. After he passed, my mother shared with me something she’d read about Peter Seller’s death experiences during a heart attack and it just sunk down into my consciousness, emerging again around the time I got a library card. I think it was the same summer GHOSTBUSTERS came out. I was a weird little nerdling then; I used to ride my bike to the library during the summer (they had cold A/C) and I stayed mostly in the back aisle of the library, poring over musty old spirit photography books.

So whether it’s perception or just my overactive imagination, I’ve been plenty of places that made me feel things and theorize about them: my brother lived in an apartment that made my skin crawl the moment I set foot there. It turned out that the landlady’s sister committed suicide and she kept her ashes in a box in top of the closet (while he lived there). There are always touches everywhere I went and sensitivities to energies that I’ve been aware of… and whenever I dug deeper, usually found a cool story in answer to my questions.

That desire for the underlying pattern that explains how life/death works is where Jude Tobin comes from.

HM-S: Jude is a pretty extreme character who appears to struggle with a reason to live, “whacked out on drugs and living with ghosts”. What is it about Jude’s character that appeals to you and how do you think he appeals to readers?

DG: Jude’s tragedy is that he needs to take hallucinogenic drugs to fully access the spirit world and accomplish exorcisms, which is rough on the body and the mind. Cecilia asks this of him on a daily basis, knowing that it keeps him straddled between the living and spirit worlds… but without his work, they’re just another real estate agency in a depressed market. It’s Jude’s talent that drives the office, and she’s determined to be successful, even though she knows it comes at a huge price for her family.

He appeals to me because as any cartoonist knows, when you sit down to draw pages, you’re separated from everyone else’s world, coming up for air to eat with your loved ones and get a little rest. To Jude, his shamanism is a kind of art, so I relate to him artist-to-artist. I think that’s clear to readers too.

HM-S: Jude seems to have a sensitivity to the supernatural without the use of drugs, but he uses them to boost his consciousness, often further than he expects. Do you find it difficult to depict these kinds of altered states in comics form?

DG: Yes, as a baseline, Jude was born with a sensitivity to spirits. He knows when they’re around and can sometimes see them, but he needs a heavy entheogenic agent from his toolkit to amplify his abilities enough to project himself into the spirit realm and interact with them directly. There’s a whole logic to the way ghosts function in relation to the life/death membrane that I get into the book and how Jude’s drug-mixes relate to that.

Is it difficult to depict? Yeah. But it’s also the most fun part of drawing RLP. I love weird brain-melty comic page designs and surreal storytelling dropped in the middle of mostly-realistic stuff, so Jude’s work-trips are a perfect excuse for me to let any story off the leash and maul the reader’s eyeballs for a while.

HM-S: What about this comic makes you want to write and draw it?

DG: The initial germ started off as metaphysical questions but now all these characters are ALIVE IN MY HEAD AND THEY HAVE TO GET OUT. Getting the first chunk of the story done was literally a release of a decade’s worth of pressure in my skull — trepanning by comics — but the more I tickle them to understand their life stories, the more the whole story starts growing. I think I’m gonna be at this a while…

HM-S: What’s it like both drawing and writing the comic? Are there pros and cons to being your own creative team?

DG: The drawing for me is a lot hard harder than the writing, which just kinda flows out of me when I sit down. The art — especially getting it just the way I want it — is a brutal process, like squeezing juice out of oranges until there’s just nothing left. I’m always destroyed at the end of a story. It also takes longer; I think I’d be much more prolific if I worked with artists and just worried about the script… but I don’t know anyone who can do RLP the way I do it.

HM-S: I notice the use of photographs blended with artwork. Is that a form you think is particularly suited to comics?

DG: It’s just a style that I’m playing in; RED LIGHT PROPERTIES actually combines photography and rendered 3D models and digital artwork together into its comic pages. I’m comfortable using whatever tools are at my fingertips to give the stories the most impact I can.

Comics are a fluid and evolving medium anyhow, stories made using words and pictures. I have zero patience with anyone who insists otherwise; I just smile and nod as they tell me about which Windsor & Newton brush they like best.

HM-S: While there’s the overarching theme of the occult and supernatural, relationships seem to be a major focus of the series, from Jude and his ex-wife Cecilia, to the stories behind the properties. What role do you think relationships play in the comic?

DG: The relationships are everything in RLP because that’s what makes characters worth caring about. I purposefully make their little tensions and joys as dramatic than the supernatural events, things that would be horrifying to us but they’re totally desensitized to after years in the business. That’s interesting to me as a creator and reader: I want to know what this kind of work, and what trying find meaning in the living world while surrounded by spirits of the dead feels like.

Where the casework, the haunted properties, come in is to ground every ghost stories in something human. Having a poltergeist throwing dishes around is neat  visually but it’s got no emotional meat to it. When you find out the tragic reasons and complicated metaphysical structures behind those flying dishes and how to “treat” the house, suddenly the scenario demands more of your attention than just a Hollywood BOO!-type scare.

HM-S: A lot of the more seemingly fantastic elements of the comic, from occult rituals to bizarre murder cases, are actually pretty firmly grounded in reality, aren’t they? What do you think is the value of talking about subjects like pedophilia, murder, and the afterlife?

DG: Placing RLP in the “real world” demands that, doesn’t it? Miami is a violent and vapid city where crazy things happen every day, and these good and bad things are all part of human experience. When you’re delving into the reasons why spirits linger in a structure, that’s historically been the explanation for hauntings (though I’ve got a doozey coming up that gets into the inverse of that).

What draws me to telling ghost stories (versus, say, zombies) is that they’re not just the shells that remain of who we were but echoes of the dreams and experiences that aren’t ready to let go, for whatever reason. And the spectrum of reasons behind that is rich material to tell all kinds of stories with.

HM-S: I notice that “A Series of Tubes”, issue #5, really branches out in terms of panel design. In creating and designing the artwork for the comic, have you had any surprises or discoveries?

DG: I’m so happy you brought that up. I’m very proud of A SERIES OF TUBES… I’m not sure what started happening there, maybe I just really let myself go with those layouts and got all free-jazz with them. The end result is a direction I’m continuing to push in with the new stories I’ve been working on.

The biggest discovery that came from that was how little of it was conscious. I’m a heavy full-scripter and a very loose sketcher, and when I finished the story and read it, I was transported, like I was reading someone else’s work. That’s a good sign to me.

[Photo by Seth Kushner]

HM-S: So what’s the history of RED LIGHT PROPERTIES in terms of production? How did it end up at Monkeybrain?

DG: In the three years I’ve been creating this series digitally, I’ve stayed free enough approach the series from different directions without being locked down to a single format or system. RLP started off as a free publisher-sponsored webcomic serial, it became DRM-free digital issue downloads on its own site, and now it lives at Monkeybrain Comics as an exclusive part of Comixology.

It was always the intention to tell these characters’ stories in an ongoing series like this, though at launch I saw it as a series of graphic novels because the digital marketplace hadn’t really happened yet. This whole time, I’ve been watching my creator friends having a blast in a floppy-to-trade world, and I’ve developed a really intense case of “ongoing series envy.” Until now, all my books have been for the book trade; the only time a comics publisher has ever published my work was a 4-pager I had in Image’s POPGUN anthology. But comics are born from serializing, designed for series. In the book trade, it’s something they’ve learned from us and had great success with. So when it came time to make a new change, doing an ongoing series of digital issues seemed like the cleverest route. No shipping delays, shortages, returns, or waiting on the publisher.

And in the digital-first series world, becoming part of Monkeybrain Comics was an obvious choice. They speak fluent internet. They’re the tiny mammals eating dinosaur eggs, poised to inherit the landscape. That’s something was already a part of, but we are stronger together. Being able to publish easily and quickly to Comixology in multiple languages on all major platforms (except videogame consoles, right boys?) means I’m maintaining almost as much control as I had rolling solo, but now I’ve got distribution and discovery on my side as well. It’s a huge flaming sword to cut through the noise with.

[Photo by Seth Kushner]

HM-S: What’s coming up for RED LIGHT PROPERTIES? What are you most excited about?

DG: Word of mouth around Miami is going to bring the Tobins a lot more success and attention than they’re prepared to handle, which is going to cause all kinds of problems for them, professional and personal. There’s a long road ahead for Jude and Cecilia, and I’ve got many stories in the can, just waiting to get out.

Presently, I’m finishing up the remastering work on the existing part of the series, making the early pages and script the best I can before releasing them as digital issues through Monkeybrain. There are print collections coming too but it’s not the time to announce anything just yet.

I’m probably most excited about finally seeing these characters in print; for three years, I’ve been watching them jump screens with nothing new for comic shops or book stores or my table at conventions. That’s all going to change soon, and it’s gonna be glorious.

HM-S: Thanks for the in-depth insights, Dan! You do realize that you’re going to make all your readers think twice before buying a new house, don’t you? Well, we know who to call, at least.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

As promised, I'm catching up on reviewing some of the many comics I seem to have been reading lately. This will be Handsell style: just a quick description/pitch.

A note on linking: I'm trying something new. I'm using my own images and linking them directly to the IndieBound book info page, rather than using the affiliate links, which require an extra several clicks before you get to the book. It takes a bit longer for me, but seems more likely to be click-through-friendly for you. Let me know what you think.

Miss Don't Touch Me
by Hubert & Kerascoet
(NBM/ComicsLit)
This graphic novel is a study in contradictions: it combines a somewhat lighthearted tone - "prudish girl finds herself working in a high-end whorehouse, bring on the sex comedy!" - with some rather grisly plot points, including some pretty dark perversions and more than one bloody murder. The very French drawing style -- quick and flowing, almost sketchy, a la Joann Sfar of The Rabbi's Cat -- contributes to this strangeness. It's a grippingly suspenseful plot and the characters and images are very well-done and sometimes even sexy, but I'd suggest it only to readers with strong stomachs and a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance.


Luke on the Loose
by Harry Bliss
(Toon Books)
This is my favorite of the latest season's offerings from Toon Books, the comics-as-early-readers line created by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly. The plot and dialogue are intended for early primary kids: Luke, while on a walk with his dad, gets interested in chasing some pigeons and rampages across New York City like a hurricane -- but grownups will enjoy reading along for the fun of recognizing both many NYC landmarks and scenes and the unstoppable energy of a small boy. Harry Bliss, a Brooklyn native, brings this episodic tale to life with kinetic drawings perfect for the target age group, who will likely see themselves in Luke's exuberant flight.


08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail
by Michael Crowley and Dan Goldman
(Three Rivers Press)
Admit it: you kind of miss the never-ending drama of campaign season. This unique work manages to recapture the suspense and comedy and nobility and absurdity of it all, even though we know how it all comes out. Goldman, co-author of the Iraq/media/blogging satire Shooting War, is no stranger to capturing political realities and metaphors. Through the personae of two reporters who have seen it all, he and Crowley let you relive the political year moment by moment, and use the graphic novel format to get across the non-verbal subtleties as well as the rhetoric (every line of dialogue spoken by a candidate or other figure in the book is from their actual recorded words). Highly recommended for political junkies and those interested in what this medium can do with recent history.


Frankenstein: Prodigal Son 1
by Dean Koontz, Chuck Dixon, and Brett Booth
(Del Rey)
This book for me is that rare challenge: a negative handsell. I found the dialogue unintentionally laughable and the art cliched -- in fact, what amused me most about the book is that while the plot involves a still-alive Frankenstein creating an army of creepily perfect artificial people, it was impossible to tell his creations from anyone else in the story, as EVERYONE is creepily perfect, in a boring superhero comic kind of way. However, the plot kept me reading (against my better judgement) through the end of this installment, and the newly imagined Frankenstein's monster is kinda sexy. I suspect I'm just not the target audience for this sort of thing -- at ComicCon the folks behind this book touted it as a way to bring Koontz's work to teen readers, and it might work for teens. I'd sell it to those who were interested in Buffy or Twilight-style melodrama, with the caveat that there's much better work out there.


Scott Pilgrim #5: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe!
by Bryan Lee O'Malley
(Oni Press)
This is it! The big book of ComicCon 2009! So popular that you can't find it in stores! The penultimate book in O'Malley's manga/kung fu/video game/slacker culture/coming-of-age masterpiece! Could it possibly live up to the hype? Well, yes actually. Scott Pilgrim, still working through his quest to defeat the seven evil ex-boyfriends of the mysterious Ramona Flowers, is becoming a character of more depth and maturity, and the story is beginning to focus more on the limitations of a battle fighting, rock and roll playing, partygoing approach to solving the real problems of love, friendship, identity, and one's place in the world. Because it's the second to last, this one ends on an Empire Strikes Back-level cliffhanger, which means I will be in agony for the next two years or whatever it takes O'Malley to bring out number 6. But I can always go back and read 1 to 5 in the meantime, reveling in the layers of humor and visual motifs and hints about the outcome that the work provides in spades. I'd recommend you do the same, if you are the kind of person who likes fun, especially when it gets serious. Seriously, please just buy (or reserve) #1 at your local indie bookstore or comic shop as soon as possible and begin the Scott Pilgrim adventure.


Nocturnal Conspiracies
by David B.
(NBM/ComicsLit)
David B. is one of the stars of the very sophisticated French comics scene; his memoir Epileptic was a bestseller and highly acclaimed here in the States. I'm still reading my way slowly through this rich, eerie, atmospheric and thoroughly enjoyable book, a compendium of some of the author's own dreams over a period of decades. It's a kind of counterpoint to another recent favorite, The Night Of Your Life by Jesse Reklaw; while Reklaw compresses other people's dreams into four surreally humorous panels, David B traces his own dreams at length through their irresistible desires, pressing demands, and French Resistance-influenced atmospherics and drama. I found each meandering episode both deja vu familiar and utterly other, as other people's dreams often are. The combination of words and pictures seems like the perfect -- maybe only -- way to convey both the visual nature of dreams and the fact that our understanding of a dream situation goes beyond what we can see (the "it was you, but it didn't look like you" phenomenon). Another example of the best of what's going on in the genre -- some nudity and dream violence make it unsuitable for the youngest readers, but for all others it's definitely recommended.