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What’s your definition of all-ages comics? Often these book are mistakenly synonymous with kids comics. Yet there is a big difference between a book filed with drawings to catch the minimal attention spans kids have left and a book young children can read while not having themes or ideas diluted just to pander. Recently, Space Goat […]

By Harper Harris

John Patrick Green is a Long Island-based comics creator, best known for his collaboration with Dave Roman, Teen Boat. In an announcement made yesterday by First Second, Green is striking out on his own with the younger audience based Hippopotamister: the story of a Hippopotamus and his friend, Red Panda, who leave their home at a run-down zoo and strike out into the real world to get jobs. One by one, thanks to Red Panda, they get fired from each new vocation. Our hero then decides to return to the zoo, and use his new-found skills to return the zoo to its former glory, but can he do it without his longtime companion?

Beyond being an exceptional draftsman, Green is also an all-around renaissance man in the comics industry, having served in editorial positions and as a publisher. In honor of the big announcement, we discussed his career in-depth and the origins of Hippopotamister and what readers can expect from this 2016 release.

Why comics? Have you been a fan your whole life? What kinds of comics did you read when you first started–superheroes, all-ages, etc.?

I have been a comics fan my whole life. I was always an artist, constantly drawing as a kid. I was a very sick child and spent a lot of time indoors.  Drawing was an activity I could do that wouldn’t cause an asthma attack or expose me to allergens. My gateway into comics were the funny pages, specifically Garfield. This was shortly before Calvin and Hobbes debuted, and that strip didn’t appear in my local paper for at least a couple years after it started. But the Garfield strips and TV specials were what got me into drawing comics, and using that 3-4 panel format to tells gags and stories. My brother, who is two years older than me, brought the first actual comic books into the house (my dad’s comic books having long been thrown out by his mom). I forget what comics he’d bring home, but I remember not being totally into them until I tagged along to the neighborhood Te-Amo store, which had a spinner rack. It wasn’t the first comic book I read, but I vividly remember the first one I bought with my own money being Marvel’s The Gargoyle #2 (in a Four-Issue Limited Series.) The cover and interior art by Bill Sienkiewicz was like no other comic I’d seen before. Soon my brother and I found an actual comic shop in our area, called The Incredible Pulp (now long-closed), and it was there that I’d get hooked on superhero comics (almost exclusively Marvel, aside from some more prominent DC fare like Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen) like X-Men and Daredevil and indie books like Nexus, Badge, Usagi Yojimbo, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And while I never really read Spider-Man much, one of my all-time favorites was the parody version, Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham.

When did your career in comics start? At what point did you decide that’s what you wanted to do?

My career as an artist began in, I think, 3rd or 4th grade. I had a knack for drawing on model, so I’d draw posters of cartoon characters and sell them to other students for 25 cents. My own mother accused me of tracing an image of Yogi Bear, but she apologized after holding my drawing over the reference up to the light and seeing that the sizes were different. But it was also then that she decided to tell me about copyright law and suggested I create my own comics — which I did. So by the time I was in junior high, I’d already had self-published 9 issues (plus 2 giant-sized annuals) of my own comic book called The Footsies (mostly a parody comic of other cartoons and properties, only starring these three kids who had big feet), which I’d photocopy on my grandparents’ photocopier and sell to other students. The Incredible Pulp also sold copies on commission. Even before I started selling my art, I just knew I wanted to be an artist. My grandfather first said I could work for Disney when I was probably 5. Though I did actually want to be an astronaut most of all, but my health put the kibosh on that.

How did your career begin? What path did you take? What was your number one goal when entering the comics field?

If we ignore the self-publishing as a kid, I’d say my career began in college. In high school I’d kind of given up on comics. They got too expensive (the cover price went over a dollar!) and artistically, I was focused on things like watercolor and oil paints. I went to School of Visual Arts, but I didn’t go for comics or illustration. The school’s biggest focus when I enrolled was design, and the department had a 99% hiring rate upon graduation. I felt like the real reason to go to college was to get an actual job out of it, so I majored in graphic design. But I still *liked* comics, so I’d go to the occasional local comic convention. It was at one on Long Island where I met eventual long-time collaborator Dave Roman. He and his friends were super into comics, and this was early in the days of Image. I actually had a friend who worked at Extreme Studios, so he and I hit it off and they got me back into wanting to make comics. Starting with my sophomore year I took all the comics courses I could as electives. I was a big fan of Klaus Janson’s work, so I took his class, and during the second semester the students have to illustrate a full 24-page comic. We had the choice to draw a Daredevil or Batman script, or write one ourselves. So I teamed up with Dave, and we created the series Quicken Forbidden, which I drew as my project.  When it was done we published it ourselves and distributed it through Diamond. So, just like when I was little, my path into comics was to Just Make Comics. Other than Just Making Comics, the goal was to get paid to do it. When graduation was approaching, Dave and I had already published two issues of Quicken Forbidden, so they were in my portfolio. SVA had a job fair for the design department, and as it turned out Penthouse Magazine had a rep there who said their comics-spin off was looking for an assistant art director. So I interviewed and before even graduating I had an actual paying job in comics, even if it was really just lettering porn.

Who are your biggest influences as an artist?

This is probably the hardest question for me to answer. It’s one that evolves over time. Things that influenced me when I was younger can have had a long-lasting effect, even if I don’t currently consider them to be an influence. So, to bring it back to Garfield, Jim Davis was a huge influence on me. When I was little I sent him some strips I drew and he wrote back personally, encouraging me to do more. And while I can list off all the comic artists, as well as fine artists and illustrators like Van Gogh, Renee Magritte, Norman Rockwell, who I admire, it’s really the fact that I grew up with very supportive and understanding parents and teachers who accepted that I knew, at a young age, that THIS was what I wanted to do, and they let me do it.

At what point did licensed comics become a reality for you, with Phineas and Ferb? How did that experience affect how you worked? Did it change your working style, or were there increased challenges working on a property that wasn’t your own?

Drawing Phineas and Ferb came about mostly because I’d had a long relationship with Disney. After Penthouse Comix, I became the comics assistant at Disney Adventures Magazine. Like Penthouse, it initially mostly involved lettering. The position evolved over time and eventually I was writing and coloring Disney and Pixar comics, but the only comic I drew was a gag strip called “The Last Laugh.” Fast-forward 9 years and Disney Adventures was cancelled. But Disney was still doing magazines and comics, and my former boss contacted me about drawing Phineas and Ferb. Apparently finding someone to draw in the style of the show was difficult. There are a lot of traditional animation techniques (eg, squash and stretch) that the show doesn’t really do, and translating the feel of the show into comics was proving difficult for the studio Disney normally had handle licensed comics. But it was right up my alley, and I was only doing behind the scenes freelance work for publishers here and there, so it was great to work on something that got a little bit more of the spotlight.

How did you go about developing such a variety of skills, having done font and book design? Did you aim to do those things, or did you find yourself in a surprising place with them?

I think they all sort of came about out of necessity. As a graphic design major, I’d do book designs as assignments, but that’s mostly covers and doesn’t really help when trying to lay out a comic that you have to send off to a printer. When I was at SVA everything was still done by hand, all paste-ups and mechanicals. It was at Penthouse that I learned how to color in Photoshop, letter in Illustrator, and lay out comics in Quark. During the year I was there, Dave and I continued to do Quicken Forbidden, but now instead of printing out lettering, gluing it to my art, and mailing that to Quebecor, I transitioned to all-digital. We were just using a free comic-style font for the first few issues, which was turning up in EVERY small-press/indie/self-published comic, so I just said “I’m going to figure out how to make a font based off my own lettering.” Word just got around that I knew how to lay out comic books, design fonts, and get them distributed, and I found myself helping other people who wanted to get into it.  Then when larger book publishers, who were mostly unfamiliar with comics, wanted to start their own line, I guess they heard about me.

When did editing become the direction your career took? Did Disney lead to Penthouse, or did Penthouse lead to Disney? How did those two gigs happen, and were they back to back?

Penthouse lead to Disney, and they were indeed back to back. I had known Heidi MacDonald (full disclosure, she runs The Beat) through Friends of Lulu, an organization that was devoted to encouraging more women in comics, both as readers and creators. Yeah, it was a little weird working at Penthouse Comix and being a member of this group, but you can make the biggest changes from the inside, right? Not that it mattered, because after a year there, Penthouse Comix was getting cancelled.  At the same time Heidi, who was the comics editor at Disney Adventures, was looking for a new assistant. I think maybe a month passed between when my Penthouse job ended and I started at Disney.

Did your experience working on Phineas and Ferb make the editing job on Disney Adventures Magazine easier?

While Phineas and Ferb debuted during the last year Disney Adventures was active, there actually was no overlap. But I was familiar with the property, and had worked with Steve Behling who was editing the Phineas and Ferb comics (and taken over for Heidi after she left Disney), so the whole process was easy to slip into.

How do all your past jobs (artist, font designer, etc.) inform your work as a publisher?

I do have an extremely critical eye, especially when it comes to production, lettering, and design issues. Probably to the point that it’s detrimental.

Do you find that readers often have a misunderstanding about the work that goes into the editorial role?

It’s certainly easier to point at a page and say “this person drew that” or “that person wrote this,” than it is to point out how an editor has affected the final comic you hold in your hands. But the process of making a comic is a mystery to a lot of people. I think most readers don’t understand just how collaborative creating a comic actually can be. An editor plays an important role in any book, but comics is a unique way of telling stories. So even if a person understands what an editor traditionally does, there’s an extra layer to understanding their contribution to a comic.

As a publisher, how do you go about looking for new and interesting talents for Cryptic Press? What are the works that you’ve published that you’re most proud of?

It’s been a while since Dave and I have published other creators’ works. We had grand plans of being this indy press startup, putting out this cool underground comics, like Slave Labor and other small publishers we admired. I miss those days a bit, it was a lot of fun being a ‘businessman’ in comics, not just a writer or artist. Aside from our own book, Quicken Forbidden, the most notable books we published were the first issue of Farel Dalrymple’s Pop Gun War and an issue of Aim by Miss Lasko Gross.

What are the origins of Hippopotamister? What made you want to jump into your first solo graphic novel?

I have a thing for puns and wordplay, and while I’m sure it’s an easy name to come up with, when “Hippopotamister” popped into my head I just knew there was a story there. I really enjoy collaborating on comics with another creator, but every so often I’ve got an idea in my head that takes shape on its own.  Bringing someone else in to work on it with me would just be a step backward. So like many other ideas, this one got filed under “do it myself.” Why this idea became my first solo graphic novel was really just a matter of opportunity.

What is the premise of Hippopotamister? Why a hippopotamus?

I had the title before I had the book concept, but not by much. It started with a kid at a zoo calling a hippopotamus “hippopotamister,” like the kid is mispronouncing the word. The hippo hears this, and thinks “hippopotamister” means that he’s a person, not a hippo, so he puts on a hat and leaves the zoo. And for some reason, whatever hat the hippo wears, like a fireman’s helmet, people think that’s his job. The story evolved, and it’s now very different from that original concept, but the hippo still leaves the zoo and wears lots of different job-related hats.

As a publisher yourself, what made you want to go to First Second with Hippopotamister?

I’ve known everyone at First Second since I think before there even was a First Second. My editor Calista Brill may even remember catching me using the office photocopier to make copies of Teen Boat minicomics when we were both at Disney. I’ve been a fan of their work since the beginning, and I’ve done behind the scenes work for them for years (book layout, ad designs), and I knew they were looking to do more graphic novels for younger readers. I like their approach to comics, and have wanted to do an actual book with them.  So when they responded well to my 10-second pitch for Hippopotamister, I knew it would be a good fit.

Is the intended audience for the book all-ages, younger readers, or do you hope it will entertain readers of all ages?

Hippopotamister is definitely for younger readers, but as a creator I generally want as many people as possible to find something enjoyable out of my work.

A sizable portion of your comics work has been in collaboration with fellow Comics Bakery creators like Dave Roman…was it at all scary to break out on your own, or were you more excited about the opportunity?

I can’t say it’s scary. It really doesn’t feel like I’m breaking out on my own. For all the books I’ve done with Dave, be it Quicken Forbidden or Teen Boat (or ones most people have never seen, like Melon Head or I Just Had My Lab Test), it was just him and me. We didn’t really have editors or publishers, at least not until they came along to publish collected versions. With Hippopotamister, while Dave’s not involved, I *am* working directly with an editor and publisher. Plus, there’s Gina Gagliano, who does First Second’s marketing and PR, something Dave and I didn’t really have resources for as Cryptic Press. And I’m working with an amazing colorist, Cat Caro, on Hippopotamister. So while it’s technically a solo book, I’m certainly not alone in making the book happen, and it’s probably less scary than other projects. It is still very exciting to have the chance to make this book, though, that’s for sure.

How long was the production process on this graphic novel?

You ask that as if I’m not still in the middle of it!  Hippopotamister should be in stores in 2016.

Were there any surprises or roadblocks along the way?

Not yet, knock on wood.

What’s the underlying message of Hippopotamister that you would like your readers to take away?

Don’t be afraid to try something new. You don’t have to be good at something to be able to enjoy it. And if you don’t like what you’re doing, try something else. You might even uncover some hidden talents along the way.

Is there another graphic novel in your future that fans can look forward to after reading Hippopotamister?

There is ALWAYS another graphic novel in my future!  The question is just which one do I do next.

You can find Hippopotamister at local retailers in the Spring of 2016 from First Second

I’ve been waiting all weekend to recommend this to you, but Jamie Smart’s all-ages digital comic Moose Kid Comics hit the internet last Friday. A 30-odd page anthology of kids comics, the book features all sorts of people like Jess Bradley, Sarah McIntyre, Neill Cameron and Smart himself – it’s a who’s who of UK comic-makerers. And it’s completely free!

Kicking off with the origins of Moose Kid himself, the online comic features a series of one-page stories, in quick succession – from farting cats to ill-researched Polar Bear facts, all kinds of madness quickly starts to appear. But then as the strips continue, Moose Kid gets drawn back inside the story for a comic within the comic, and all heck starts to break loose. There’s a particularly tragic story for Mr Plops, for one thing.

It’s manic, eclectic, very very funny indeed and ABSOLUTELY FREE I TELLS YOU. The UK seems to be on a non-stop mission to bring comics to all-ages right now, with books like Corpse Talk, Dungeon Fun, Teenytinysaurs, Mo-Bot High, Halcyon & Tenderfoot, and of course The Beano. There’s too many to count, which can only be a wonderful thing. In an piece with Forbidden Planet a short while back, Smart laid out his mission statement thus:

Moose Kid Comics came about as a reaction to dwindling sales of children’s comics here in the UK, specifically, original content comics. We still have publications like The Beano and The Phoenix providing brilliant characters and stories week in and week out, but their competition is largely licensed properties – Simpsons, Spongebob, Moshi, etc.

Competing as a print comic, at the moment, is a bit out of our league. We are coming at it from an idealistic point of view, not a business one, because I think perhaps some big, initial ideas from artists are more useful at the moment than being limited by the minefield of distribution. So, we’re focussing on creating an online issue zero of our comic, also available as a free download. To offer up an entertaining read filled with wonderful, brilliant artists all using the space to develop their own characters. There’s no pay, and no price on it. We’re not doing this for profit, we’re doing this to show what CAN be done.

When that is completed, we can start looking into Kickstarter style fundraisers to produce actual printed, future, issues, and pay artists wages. As well as that, we can use issue zero to take to publishers and investors, to show the talent who could be creating great kids comics, just given the chance.

There’s a definite aesthetic in mind for Moose Kid Comics, the wild hysteria of Ren And Stimpy, mashed with the brilliantly charming Adventure Time. If we can hit a mark that high, then this comic will be the surreal, insane children’s comic that I think we’ve been missing.

Which comes across as a four-paragraph reason for everybody to be in awe of Jamie Smart, if you ask me. Moose Kid Comics also features several big surprises – the most notable being a strip called ‘Young Tank Girl’ by Alan C. Martin and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell. Yes – that’s an all-ages prequel to Martin’s original Tank Girl stories, rendered by one of the best artists in the UK.

My personal favourite story is by a personal favourite artist – Tom Paterson, whose work on Calamity James at The Beano was the comic which got me invested in comics when I was a kid. But there’s all sorts here, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. Head over right now, and get a load of all these free comics, aye?

We round out the Kickstarter Power Hour with a look at the story of the world’s greatest pirate – who also happens to be a twelve year old girl.

Strangebeard is written and drawn by Kelly Tindall – and when I say that, I mean that it’s been COMPLETELY written and drawn, and is all ready to go. Tindall is looking for $4500 in total to fund the project, and is now under $100 away from the target.

The series tells the story of Jenny Brigham, a young girl who, on the night of her 12th birthday, is possessed by the spirit of notorious pirate Augustus Strangebeard. Gaining amazing pirate-powers in the process, she takes to the high seas for a series of ridiculous and wonderful adventures which see her taking on talking dogs, vampires, and wizards.

Collecting together the first year of stories from Tindall’s webseries, the Kickstarter is looking to bring Strangebeard’s adventures to print – and you can find out more here.

This May, IDW will continue to develop their range of all-ages titles with The Littlest Pet Shop, from the twin creative teams of Georgia Ball and Nico Pena; and Matt Anderson and Antonio Campo. Based on the Hasbro range-turned cartoon series, the series is about Blythe Baxter, a young girl who can talk and understand the various animals who live in the pet shop where she lives.

I’ve always got an interest in finding out more about all-ages comics, wherever they may appear, and Ball has written a number of really strong comics within that range. Reaching out to her, she spoke candidly about her approach to the series, writing for a younger audience – and her thoughts on the abundance of female writers currently working on all-ages comics. This looks like it’ll be a really entertaining book, and I’m grateful that she took the time out to answer some of my questions.

Steve: What exactly is the Littlest Pet Shop? What’s the core concept of the series, as you’re approaching it?

Georgia: Through mysterious means that may involve a dumbwaiter, heroine Blythe Baxter can understand the animals in the pet shop below her home. From there, Littlest Pet Shop alternates between stories about a young girl with a single dad trying to survive middle school and her group of quirky friends who spend every day together and need to find ways to entertain themselves without driving each other crazy.

The twist is those friends are also pets in a day camp.

Steve: The series centres around Blythe Baxter, who has the power to talk to animals. What’s she like as a character? What’s her personality like, what’re her motivations, and so on?

Georgia: Blythe is grounded, upbeat, helpful and a self-starter. She’s also prone to anxiety and self-doubt. A lot is made out of her interest in fashion, but at the core of that interest is her unstoppable creative energy. She needs to design and she will find a way to do it, something many girls who drew fanart in their notebooks while growing up can get behind. Although her huge wardrobe and love for all things sparkly identifies her as a “girly-girl,” Hasbro hasn’t objected to my giving her some additional geeky interests, like trading card games and the X-Men.

Steve: Who’ve been your favourite of the animals to write about? Are there any you’ve been surprised to find yourself really latching onto?

Georgia: Vinnie is an easy character to turn into a punchline. He’s not a deep thinker and that offers a lot of opportunities for one-off jokes. Zoe’s issue was fun to write because she can be so self-absorbed. I love writing for the Biskit twins too, I’ve had plenty of catty things said to me over the years and the twins give me an outlet to take that to another level.

Steve: Did you do much research into the series once you came on? Were you already aware of the TV show and the other media adaptations before you started writing?

Georgia: When I’m given the chance to pitch for a new property I spend weeks learning everything I can about it. If there’s a show I watch every episode, if there’s a video game I buy it and play. I knew Littlest Pet Shop was a cartoon show so I bought the first season on Amazon and spent my lunches catching up. I went to the Internet and got a sense of the size of the fandom and what they talk about. I avoided the previous television incarnation because it wasn’t relevant. It would be great to say I was already familiar with the concept and a huge fan of the series, but working in licensing often introduces me to properties I’m unfamiliar with because the creative process has to start so early, the property may not be very far along yet. When I was given the chance to pitch for The Croods I had to come up with stories about characters eight months before their movie was out.

Steve What’re your goals for the series? What do you hope people get out of it?

Georgia: Licensed properties like Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony end with a neatly-declared moral lesson and I did that for three years. Hasbro has given me the opportunity on this series to be much more ambiguous. The Seinfeld philosophy was “No hugging, no learning” because it’s funnier without sentiment. Above all else, I want this series to provide comedy and entertainment.

Steve: Have you found that as you’ve written more and more, you’ve started to refine the comics for a more general audience? Do you tailor the comics so younger readers find them easier to read?

Georgia: I was brand-new to licensed comics when I wrote for Strawberry Shortcake; I dumbed-down the language in the first two issues and I’ve regretted it ever since. I don’t want to talk down to the reader, I want to give younger readers the chance to age and grow with their comics, getting more and more out of them the longer they own them. That’s how it was for me reading Archie and my mother’s old copies of Sugar and Spike, and I think it’s the kind of approach that creates long-term fans.

 Ball has previously worked on a number of other IDW titles, including My Little Pony issue with Amy Mebberson

Steve: Looking back through your career thus far, I believe you’ve written entirely all-ages comics, from Scooby Doo to My Little Pony. Did you jump into comics with that specific goal in mind – that you’d try and focus on writing comics that everybody can read?

Georgia: That would imply that I had other choices. If you look at how few women are working in traditionally published comics, especially as writers, you’ll see many of them in the all-ages genre because it’s a newly invigorated market and that’s where the opportunities are.

I recently watched a podcast of a group of male writers telling their story about how they got in.  All of them thought they began writing comics in completely different ways, but their stories were all some variation of: “I was a fan and I hung around an editor until I convinced them that my love for superhero comics was strong enough to merit sending him a pitch.” None of them broke in because they were part of an under-represented group and the editor needed someone who could speak to that group.

I was brought in to write a comic for young girls because I was writing a funny webcomic with a woman in it. I jumped at any chance to prove I had more range than that and I’ve been fortunate to have established people in the industry recommend my work since then. I read a lot of horror and crime comics and would gladly pitch for those types of stories given the chance.

That said, I am a strong supporter of all-ages comics because I want to see the industry offer something for everyone and still be around thirty years from now.

Steve: You aren’t the only writer on the series – Matt Anderson will be writing back-up shorts for each issue. In fact, am I right in thinking it was Matt who suggested you for the project in the first place?  I know you’ve worked together in the past.

Georgia: Matt was my first editor in the industry. He invited me to work on Strawberry Shortcake and I took our project kick-off call from my maternity bed after giving birth to my daughter three years ago. But we eventually moved on to separate projects; our editor on Littlest Pet Shop, David Hedgecock, was in charge of the books we worked on for Ape Entertainment and he chose us individually.

David prefers to divide up all-ages comics into long and shorter stories to give more value for the purchase. David always liked that I was able to make him laugh while writing a comic as cautious as Strawberry Shortcake, and I’m very grateful to have someone like him in my corner.

Steve: Nico Pena and Antonio Campo will be drawing the series. How’ve you found working alongside them? What’s the collaborative process been like?

Georgia: I haven’t had much interaction with Antonio because he’s drawing for Matt’s stories, but I’ve had a high regard for his work since he did Scouts with my husband. This is my first project with Nico Pena and I’ve only seen final art for the first issue but I was blown away by it. Nico has added an element of modernism and geometry to the original show designs that makes the comic version look like something I really haven’t seen before.

Sometimes we’ve had language mix-ups with humorous results. His first email after he read issue #1 was titled “I have doubts,” which nearly gave me a heart attack. He meant “I have questions,” not realizing “doubts” has much more serious implications in English. When Nico isn’t sure about something, he emails and we work it out.

Art by Sara Richard

Steve: Are you hoping to be on the series for the long-term? How far ahead are you planning your story?

Georgia: We’ve been given direction to encapsulate the stories, but while I have one lead that begins and ends in every issue, I did plan out when I was going to have Blythe and the pets go through the plot together, when I was going to give them and A/B storyline, and when I was going to start giving individual pets a starring role. The characters don’t have amnesia about what they’ve done on the show or in previous comics.

Both Matt and I would love to see the series get extended but that will depend on the sales numbers. Given the success of My Little Pony, we hope retailers will take a chance on it and digital readers will subscribe.

Steve: What else are you working on at the moment? Where can people find you online?

Georgia: I have three issues of Scooby Doo, Where Are You? coming out this year and I’m pitching for other things like always.  I’m also giving a lot of time to putting a package together for the creator-owned series I’ve developed with husband Scott, Follipops, an all-ages adventure story about a con-artist and her living-sock-puppet assistant Dudu who want to fit in with a new town but end up working for the bad guy.

Scott was the artist on our webcomic Scooter and Ferret and we’re ready to do another project together. Our official website is here, but the best way to see concept art for Follipops and hear about other issues coming out is to follow me at my tumblr blog: askmaridee.tumblr.com.

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Many thanks to Georgia for her time. The Littlest Pet Shop starts this May. You can also find her, alongside the links above, over on Twitter!

A year or two ago I spoke to the creative team of The Only Living Boy about their project, a successful Kickstarter which led to a print comic coming out in two volumes subsequently. And now one half of that creative team – artist Steve Ellis, who works on the comic along with writer David Gallaher – comes to The Beat to talk about the newest move for their story. We don’t forget a project here at The Beat!

Launching today, The Only Living Boy will be published as a webcomic, with instalments coming out online for anyone to read. As the story progresses online, print editions of each issue will come out once enough story has been collected together. Considering Ellis is a veteran of digital comics by now – he’s worked at Zuda, had a successful Kickstarter campaign, and has just announced a comics-related film through Amazon Studios – I wanted to find out more about the story of The Only Living Boy, and what was behind the decision to put the comic online. Read on!

Steve Morris: What is the general premise of The Only Living Boy? How did the project come about?

Steve Ellis: It’s about a runaway who finds himself in a patchwork fantasy world, filled with all manner of crazy alien- and other-types of creatures. He has to find his way and learn to survive in a place that resembles his own fractured identity. How do you like THEM apples? I wanted a project that has the life and adventure of the stories that made me excited about reading as a young person, but also a project that provides the depth of storytelling that engages me as an adult.

SM: You’ve worked with writer David Gallaher for a long time now. Did he come to you with the concept of the series, or was this a story you came up with and worked on together?

Steve: David came to me with an idea of riffing off an old Simon & Garfunkel song! But he left it there, and I pushed it to go further. The initial concept was very different and involved zombies. But aren’t there too many zombies? It was too nihilistic at the beginning, and we wanted something more adventurous and fun. So we worked on developing it into a wider, more expansive story.

SM: How does the collaborative process between you work? How do you go back and forth about ideas, characters, or designs?

Steve: On my end, it involves a lot of talking on the phone and jumping up and down. We get really excited about our ideas. Usually David will come with loose story framework that we’ll brainstorm. I usually waste a lot of his time changing things, haha. But he has a strong influence on my drawings too, so it’s very collaborative.

SM: When you set about designing the world of this series, what kind of influences or inspirations were you keeping in mind?

Steve: Oh wow. John Carter of Mars, Thundarr the Barbarian, Saturday morning adventure cartoons from when I was a kid–I hate to admit it, but I can’t do anything that’s not influenced by Star Wars on some level. Honestly, in a weird way, certain anime series and animated films had a big influence on it, like Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds.

SM: When you take on a new project, to what extent do you consider various different line styles, sequencing ideas, inking and so on; to fit the tone of the series?

Steve: That’s a huge thing for me; for some people who follow my work, it might actually be confusing. I try to consider each project I work on to be a wholly different idea. Some projects I do with pencil and no ink and a painted color style, some I do with very rough inks (like High Moon). Only Living Boy has a cleaner color and ink style to emphasize the sense of adventure, where the mise en scéne of High Moon is dark, gritty horror.

Basically, each project is its own individual. Only Living Boy is obviously about youthful energy, and the design style is meant to resemble the clean, open aesthetic of animated films rather than traditional comic books.

SM: Does the fact that this is deliberately a young adult story have any effect on your approach to the art of the series? With a younger audience reading, do you change things up at all?

Steve: A lot of young adult books explore more “mature” themes and concepts. The Harry Potter series is an easy example, but both my eleven-year-old son and I enjoy that series on different levels, despite some of the more violent or frightening aspects. Only Living Boy won’t shy away from stronger themes as the character grows; young adults live in the same world as the rest of us, and face the same problems and fears. Erik’s answers might just be a bit more fantastic.

SM: How did you plan out the central design of your main character, Erik? What do you think motivates and drives him, what’s his personality?

Steve: What’s nice about Erik is that he’s kind of a cipher: he comes off as a fairly average kid, but there’s something darker underneath his skin. He’s running away from something at the start of the story, but he doesn’t remember what. Whatever it is, he’s haunted by it. So his design is going to grow and change as he grows and changes and assimilates his complex, shifting environment. He’s a classic hero in the midst of change! His design is very simple and becomes more complex, like a warrior collecting scars.

SM: The greater world itself is a mix of fighting pits, jungle – inhospitable domains. When building a world, how much world do you actually, well, build? Do you map things out, to give a sense of perspective, or plan aspects which never actually show up in the comic itself?

Steve: Ha! Actually, there’s a lot of backstory to all of my projects visually and narratively. For example, we have been developing an upcoming race to be revealed soon: the Myrmidonians. A great tragedy in their past has made them what they are. We don’t know the tragedy as an audience, but it permeates their personalities and society.

Their culture, hierarchy, and even architecture is very protectivist in nature to reflect their tragic history and their response–but it isn’t necessarily directly relevant to the story at hand. You get hints of it through their attitudes towards Erik and other creatures in the world of Chimerica, but, yeah, a lot of the work we do to develop these cultures goes unseen! David and I are both history buffs, and we put in a lot of forethought to give these things richness.

SM: You’re not a stranger to digital comics, having worked at Zuda and on several other digital projects. What was behind the decision to bring The Only Living Boy to webseries?

Steve: Underneath it all, we make art so it can be seen. Kickstarters are great, but you still have a limited audience! Maybe it’s naive of me, but I want to give this story to the world and feel the web is the best way to do that. Anyone can read it for free and easily pass it along to somebody else. How that works out for us, we have yet to see.

In a way, I think of being an artist as being a storyteller after the manner of an ancient tribe, and I want my tribe to be as big as possible. Sharing stories builds community, and having a webpresence for the book allows us to reach a broader, more diverse readership.

SM: How will the story now progress? Once the webcomic catches up to the print books, will you continue on, or release print first?

Steve: Right now, the plan is to release the story online and have print follow. But depending on how our relationship with different publishers and other media goes, the plan could change.

SM: What are your thoughts in general on the rise of webcomics and digital? You’ve seen this rise almost from the ground floor yourself – how do you think digital has changed comics?

Steve: I think it’s created a whole new audience for comics that’s very large, international, and transcendent of the traditional, direct marketplace idea of what a “sellable book” is. There are a lot of projects that wouldn’t get traction in a tradition direct market but that get traction beautifully on the web. From a creative standpoint, not being restricted by page count enables us to tell different types of stories. Print isn’t an obstruction to the creative processes.

I also think it’s an excellent way to develop an audience for print. While I generally consider digital media as a completely unique and enjoy the new types of comics found there, print still has a certain amount of prestige. The print object becomes a prestige format for the devoted fan, but you can only get devoted fans from having a large readership. If you have an immediate print price point, you’re already alienating an audience that doesn’t have the money to pay for anything outside of what they usually read.

If I knew I could read Superman online for free, I would probably read more Superman. If I read Superman online for free and loved it? I would probably buy a good-looking prestige collection. You see how they work together?

SM: What else do you have coming up? Where can people find you online?

Steve: We’ve got new things coming for High Moon, and I’m currently waiting on a reprint of The Silencers, which is a book I created with author Fred Van Lente. But if someone was hunting for updates, I’m on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr as hypersteve!

But for something more direct, I’ll be doing an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, March 28, so people should definitely come say hello! You can see stuff from David Gallaher and I at Bottled Lightning, on The Only Living Boy site, and my personal stuff at http://steveellisart.com.

I also blog at http://hyperactiveart.blogspot.com, and I put a lot of sketches and instructional stuff there.

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Every Friday, Stately Beat Mansion invites round a comic creator or two for a cup of tea, complementary Kit Kat, and a chat about their work in The Phoenix. The Phoenix is a UK series which features a range of the best all-ages comics available, from all kinds of wonderful creators – all compiled into a single issue each week! The Phoenix have very kindly commissioned a wolf with a saddle just for this feature, which journeys across the wilderness over to The Mansion every week with new creators mounted.

This week sees Tom Fickling race on over to tell us about Simon Swift a story appearing in today’s newest issue. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the other half of the creative team – artist Zak Simmons-Hurn spoke about the series a short while back. If you want to find out more, then try an issue of The Phoenix for yourself!

Steve: What is Simon Swift about?

Tom: The comic is about a boy who has a strange voice he can talk to in his head. The voice belongs to a mysterious being that gives him special powers. But of course, also puts him in great danger! Simon Swift is the star but he has a group of friends who travel with him.

Steve: What inspired the series?

Tom: I love fantasy and Dungeon’s & Dragons and wanted to write a story that had those archetypes in it: Ranger, Mage, Thief, Warrior etc. And I’m also a bit obsessed with the idea of souls and demons and the like. The idea for the voice in Simon’s head probably came from David Gemmell though.

Steve: How is your process with the writing of the story? How do you take your ideas and develop them into awesome comics? 

Tom: Zak (the artist) is the one who makes it into an awesome comic. I’m not an experienced comic writer as my background is in screenwriting, so I really rely on him a lot! This is my first comic strip and already I can see a million and one things I have done wrong. Hopefully getting better though!

Steve: What’s your favourite part of this week’s story?

Tom: Zak’s art!

Steve: Where else can we find you? What else do you have coming up?

Tom: Hopefully Zak and I will do more stuff together. I think he is brilliant and a real star of the future (if not today). And who knows, maybe I’ll get a movie made one day. I’m not holding my breath though!

Many thanks to Tom for his time! You can find Simon Swift in this week’s issue of The Phoenix – issue #88! And many thanks to Liz Payton for taming the wild wolf!

Steve Morris

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I was sent the first issue of this miniseries from Art Heroes a few months ago, where it seemed like a fun, all-ages series about a superhero duo. But then the story suddenly went off in a radically unexpected direction, and proved itself to be a thorough and startling deconstruction of superhero comics as a whole. There’s a really sharp edge of satire to this book, woven so tightly into the narrative that it never feels forced or blatant. It quietly gets a point across about the state of mainstream superheroes, before offering a pair of contemporary, likeable, NICE superheroes to rejuvenate the genre. And it does it within an all-ages setting, creating a comic for anybody. It’s a reconstruction job for the superhero genre, and a welcome reminder of just why the characters proved so popular to begin with.

Now, I’ll settle this quickly before I move on – since getting sent the first issue a few months ago, I’ve now met writer Daniel Clifford and artist Lee Robinson. So I do know the creative team now, as a result of following them up from that first email. I’m going to give an objective review, but I like to be upfront about reviewing comics from people I’m friendly with. TRANSPARENCY, guys!

The final issue of the miniseries came out yesterday, completing a storyline which genuinely caught me off-guard. Halcyon & Tenderfoot are a father-and-son superhero team who are just setting out together for the first time. Halcyon is set up like a Superman-style hero (or like Mr Incredible from The Incredibles, actually), who quit the superhero business after realising that most of the heroes he inspired have now turned into villains themselves. There’s no moral code anymore, and the heroes have resorted to murder and violence just as much as the villains have. Already, you’re probably seeing a little bit of the subtext rise through in the story. Halcyon is eventually persuaded to return to heroism, and decides to start a new era of heroic heroes – starting by bringing his son, Tenderfoot, into the business.

And the series essentially just moves along from that point, exploring the mindset of these two heroes whilst also creating a bigger world as well. The other heroes feel shamed – but don’t change their minds about this whole ‘darker and edgier’ business, whilst the villains decide to poke at the heroes, to see if they can’t be made to deviate from their moral code. It’s a story working out if heroes can still be heroes, in a world where heroism has become diluted and harder to pick out, and Clifford does a great job in establishing and working on that idea. The narrative is held in place tight, allowing the characters space to have fun without slowing the momentum of the story.

Some of the characters are tighter than others, however. While the central pairing both have narrative arcs which play out carefully and smartly, the villain of the story is a little more difficult to place. The character seems to have wild mood swings from one moment to the next, apologising for his crimes whilst gleefully committing them – he doesn’t really get established as being so variable in mood, and so his sections in the comic come off rather strangely. He appears to be following one narrative path, before veering off into another, before changing his mind again. His final moments put him on the better of the two narratives, but it’s hard to keep track of him at times.

Similarly, a young hero called Jenny Wren shows up, and brings a rather daring storyline into play for the series. Although things with her are wrapped up a little too neatly, it’s interesting to see just how much friction and tension the creative team can put into an all-ages comic, without resorting to conspiracies or violence or adult material. In a sense, this reads a lot like a Pixar film on paper, in that the storyline can become dark without alienating a young audience. There’s no shying away from more adult storylines, but they’re presented in a way which seems realistic and difficult, rather than simplified for the readers. The tone of the book is brilliantly conceived.

It’s a black and white series, which perhaps doesn’t show off Lee Robinson’s bright, bouncy character designs and layouts as strongly as possible. His characters look different and stand apart from one another, even as the cast grows. Colours would possibly help to better establish a few of the twists towards the end, but the design and tone still stand out on the page, and give this a cartoony style. The storytelling gets better as the series goes along, with issue #1 having a few difficult sequences, but issue #4 nailing both conversational and action scenes. Robinson’s art manages to be very expressive, allowing Clifford to try a few different stylistic twists as the story goes along. I would say that some of the lettering at the start is a bit hard to read, but this also seems to be resolved by the time the book reaches the end.

All in all, Halcyon & Tenderfoot was a massive surprise for me. I thought it was going to be a fun, throwaway superhero comic with not much to it, but it suddenly shifts remarkably into a rather powerful, moving piece of work. The art is fantastically conceived and designed really nicely, whilst the characters and dialogue feel fresh and realistic. It’s a story which tries to set the superhero genre back on track – and accomplishes it. I hope more people try it, because it’s a genuine breath of fresh air. You can get it in print, or buy it at a discounted digital price over at the Art Heroes website. And I really, really recommend that you do!