If we were knocking back some beer in a bar, how would you describe what you do?

I live a sad gluten-free life... so over a vodka-lime-soda, I would tell you that I draw pretty girls.

If forced to make small talk (ugh) I would tell you that my day-job is as a graphic designer, specifically in print design.

If I decided you were cool, I might tell you that in my downtime I draw my own comics and do freelance illustration. But now you know too much.

Your art has several recurring motifs (Playing cards, knives, the colours red and electron blue)? What draws you to these themes?

I would say that most of my personal work is a self-indulgent mix of things I love - pretty girls, knives, bad puns and jewel tones. It wasn’t until I browsed my own Instagram that I realised that I apparently only use like five colours. What can I say? I know what I like.

You have such a strong creative voice… a lot of young artists seems to struggle to be confident in their voice. Did you ever have times when you weren’t as sure about your artistic voice?

I can definitely say I wasn’t always so comfortable in my style and work.

For a long time I wasn’t comfortable calling myself an “artist”. That word has so many connotations I didn’t feel ready for. However, I realised that when you’re learning art, no one will ever come up to you with a seal of approval and declare that you are “ready”.

While I am my own most cutting critic... when it comes down to it, I back myself.

Eventually - after you’ve studied, failed, and triumphed enough - you get to a point where you can say “Hey, if someone else drew this I would say it’s pretty good”.

While I am my own most cutting critic... when it comes down to it, I back myself. I gave up a long time ago on giving those dramatically-humble-bordering-on-self-deprecating responses that a lot of people expect when they compliment art.

You like that piece of mine? Awesome, I worked hard on it.

How/where do you publish your work? What drew you to using that platform?

Most of my updates go to Instagram first then Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Instagram is designed as an image-sharing platform, and my originals do a little better there. For the other platforms, which rely on sharing, I like to push my rare fan art instead. Each platform has its benefits.

I’m looking to release my most recent comic digitally soon, and I will be restocking Junky Comics with print copies. I hope to open a full online store, so look out for that. I’m very excited.

Overall, I suggest making yourself available in a whole network of places, and try to establish at least a loose brand and getting a feel for how you like to interact with your audience.

Is it a bit like the chicken and the egg..? Creating art which appeals to your channels, and discovering what art works well for your channels?

You can’t know how something’s going to bounce off your audience until you throw it at them. You never know what the tides of the internet may do. My average Tumblr post, for example, gets 10 notes... but that one piece of throwaway Korra fan art I did for uni..? It was up to 8000 notes last time I checked.

If you keep putting stuff out there, eventually something will stick. Hopefully you’ll start to see a pattern which you can put to work for you.

Also! If you use Instagram, turn your account into a “business account”. You get all sorts of cool graphs and analytics to see who likes your stuff and which pieces are doing the best. It is both handy and fascinating.

Do you tend to follow a particular comics character, a writer, or artist when choosing new books to read?

While I have always loved comics and have come across some incredible stories... I’ll admit that I am something of a vain comic reader. For me, a comic is an art book first and a story second. When I have time to read a comic, I normally prioritise fun art styles and artists I love.

Your day-job involves making printing machines make nice things… What are some ways that you see people mess up their nice things when they send it to you to get printed?

I could go on for hours talking about the amazingly weird things people send to me to print.

No, I can’t print your logo at the size of a bullet point.

No, we can’t gold foil 20 business cards on metallic card by this afternoon.

No, you can’t pay for your pull-up banner in Bitcoin.

I wish these weren’t actual jobs I’ve been asked to do... but here we are.

No, you can’t pay for your pull-up banner in Bitcoin.

So please, allow me to give you my unsolicited Top 5 print tips:

1. Allow bleed! Please. At least 3mm of it will make sure that your print/comic/business card ends up looking shmick and exactly as you planned it.
2. PDFs are the ideal format to submit art to a printer.
3. Think about paper stocks. If you request that your print shop quotes you for a “thin glossy flyer stock” or a “thick uncoated card stock” we will know what you mean.
4. Allow enough time. If I have to produce your last-minute zine the day before a convention, I will be delaying other clients. Unfortunately, you will be charged for this. If you’re worried about how long something will take to be produced? Just ask - ahead of time. Quotes are free and we are always happy to give you an estimated turnaround.
5. There are more printers than you think. Vistaprint and Officeworks aren’t your only options. Working with a local printer means you can talk to them directly, and maybe even avoid shipping by picking up the printing from the store. Lots of small print shops are happy to negotiate student discounts or advise you of budget-friendly options for “starving artist types”.

RGB vs CMYK. If I’m making indie comics, what does it matter? What’s going to happen if I get it wrong?

RGB covers everything you see on a computer or phone screen. CMYK is for everything that can be produced by an average printer.

Why do RGBs and CMYKs matter..? Think of all the colours that you can see. Much smaller than that is the range of colours you can show on a screen. Even smallers is the number of colours you can print.

What does this mean for you? If you submit fluorescent-coloured RGB artwork in all its glowy glory, it’s going to come back as a moderately-coloured and possibly disappointing CMYK print.

Sending your file to a printer accidentally in RGB is usually not a big deal. Most printers will accept the file.
RGB also does some wacky and inexplicable things to transparencies. Your printer might notice them in time to warn you - but don’t rely on that.

I’m lazy and don’t want to colour my artwork twice. If I’m creating something for both print and digital, is it better to work in RGB or CMYK?

I think you could get away with either. Maybe start the work in CMYK, and you won’t feel ripped off when the magic print machine can’t print the dayglow orange you had your heart set on.

Shameless plug ahoy - your boss is pretty keen to attract more interesting, creative work. What can I get from a local print shop?

Funny you ask, Dan. I do indeed work at a printers and naturally we like the chance to print “cool” jobs.

If you’re an artist looking to get printing done, we can get you custom quotes for almost anything. The big things for comic and convention artists are saddle-stitched comics, art prints, stickers, business cards and promotional banners... we specialise in all of them!

If you’re looking to deal with somewhere a little more human than Officeworks or Vistaprint, we’re your friendly local print shop.

Photoshop vs Illustrator vs InDesign. They all do the same thing, right? Assuming I can afford the damned license in the first place, why would I use three different programs to create an indie comic book?

Ahh yes. As a designer, I know the burden of Adobe Creative Cloud.

However, until a new industry standard product rules supreme, it’s what we’re stuck with. Budget concerns aside, it’s a powerful software suite, and each app has its own purpose.

Photoshop is fairly self-explanatory. It’s for photos. This means it works with pixels. The more pixels you have, the bigger you can afford to make an image.

Illustrator is a little different. It works with vectors which are basically mathematical formulas. They’re not nearly as terrifying as they sound. Vectors are great because it allows the program to crisply redraw the lines no matter what the size. That means that your vector art will look just as clear on your business card as it would on a billboard.

InDesign is another thing entirely. Imagine if Microsoft Word actually made sense. That’s what InDesign is. While it takes a little while to learn InDesign, it will take what you make in Photoshop and Illustrator, and lay it out so it prints perfectly. For a comic artist, this is where your book will (ideally) end up before being sent off to the printer.

If you can’t afford to get official Adobe software, alternatives are available - some are freeware.
If you live in Brisbane, the State Library’s The Edge facility has an awesome computer lab with all the Adobe programs loaded on them for free!

While they can be a hassle to learn, just the basics can be super handy. Worst case scenario... if you are design- illiterate and would rather focus on making art, consider enlisting the help of a designer (for a reasonable reward of course). If you are looking to sell your art for serious, then you want to make sure your hard work comes across as well as possible.

It sounds like we might do something similar in our artistic workflows..? I’ll lay out a page and panel and dialogue in InDesign, create the artwork in Illustrator (actually Clip Studio Pro these days), and then do colours and effects in Photoshop.

Absolutely. My workflow is basically a mirror of that.

I start rough with layouts, which are all done in my painting software (Procreate these days).

After doing my version of the traditional pencils-inks-colours process, I move into Illustrator. This is where I put in my fancier typography and text bubbles.

Finally, InDesign is where I compile it all. If everything has gone to plan, which it usually does, this is where I finalise my panel placements and make sure that all the pages flow together.

Do you follow any webcomics?

My current obsession is a translated comic called Their Story or Tamen de Gushi. It follows two girls’ seemingly one-sided fumbling attempts at flirting, with general slice-of-life cuteness. The art style is beautiful and clean and the storyline is super cute. I love it so much that I bought a print copy I can’t even read... It’s actually a big inspiration that I’d like to fold into my next comic project.

I love it so much that I bought a print copy I can’t even read...

Grab your preferred music device and set it on random - what are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

1. Sing - My Chemical Romance (I will never leave my emo phase. Fight me.)
2. Flowers - The Neighbourhood
3. Six Billion - Nothing But Thieves
4. St Patrick - Pvris (Pronounced ‘Paris’ for some reason...?)
5. The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana

Thanks so much for your time and expertise, Zosephine - you’re the best!

Dear readers, you can find more from Zoe on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

"Product development" conjures images of focus groups, marketing teams, profit margins, metrics, clipboards, accountants... and a cleaning chemical-like effect on creativity.
"Indie comics" is all about DIY, inspiration, immediacy, and passion. Creativity is the lifeblood of indie comics.

Here's the thing... creating a comic like Kun-ghur takes time and effort and support. What about you, fellow creators? How long did you spend on your most recent book?

If you treat "time" and "energy" as a form of currency, how much did you invest in creating your book?

I am primarily an artist, and (somewhat stereotypically) I crave validation from an audience. Validation is the richest, juiciest return-on-investment possible. Yeah sex is great, but have you ever been overwhelmed by a flood of validation?

I am primarily an artist, and crave validation from an audience.

Before you start delving into script-writing and thumbnails and linework and colours... wouldn't it be wise to know that I'm creating a book that people get excited about?
Join me as I explore product development for indie comics creators!

Product development for indie comics

It's common advice that it takes about 10 years for a comics creator to "make it". That's 10 years of "time" and "effort"... our artistic currency.

Assuming you're earning the US minimum wage (~$15) for a full-time 40 hours per week (~$600) for 48-working weeks a year ($28,000)... taking 10 years to "make it" as a comics creator is a self-investment of more than a quarter-million dollars.

I dunno... all of a sudden, being intentional about the comics that I create seems like good adulting.

Here's some thoughts from BJ Mendelson, delivered as a talk at Florida Supercon:

"I’m going to give you two quick exercises to do at home. The first is something Amazon and the ad agency CP+ B does and it’s very simple. Before you do anything, write a press release promoting the thing you want to create.

"Writing a press release isn’t hard. You can grab a template online. The point of this exercise isn’t about how well you can format a press release. The point is to sell yourself and your friends on your comic. Because if you can’t do that, then nothing else I’m going to tell you is going to matter.
In fact, if you can’t write a press release that gets people excited about your stuff, drop everything you’re doing and focus on this until you do. Don’t move on to the next step.

"Here’s the other exercise, both of these, by the way, was suggested by the author Ryan Holiday: In the third person, write a sentence, a paragraph, and one page explaining what your comic is, who it’s for, and how people should feel after reading it. That last part sounds silly, but it’s important. If you can’t provoke an emotional response in your readers, they’re not going to care enough to tell others about it. ”Good” isn’t good enough."
Source

If you can’t write a press release that gets people excited about your stuff, drop everything you’re doing and focus on this until you do.

Real talk... I am so super incredibly proud of "Kun-ghur: Kuma's Hero". It's a great book. That said... I wonder... would it pass the press release test..? I'm not sure that it would. Anecdotal evidence from conversations and conventions suggests it's a tough sell. In hindsight, spending more time on crafting an attention-grabbing press release might have made conventions and Kickstarters an easier proposition.

An attention-grabbing hook means a better chance at a good return-on-investment. Not a guaranteed RoI... but definitely a better chance.

What does a solicitation look like?

As a starting point for indie comics product development, here is a selection of solicitations for September 2018. Solicitations are loosely press releases specific to comics retailers. It's worth remembering that retailers are actually the primary audience for comic book publishers. The paying customer picking up a handful of books from a spinner rack? They're the secondary audience for a publisher. Always understand exactly who you're marketing to.

Bully #1 | Credit: Image

Image Comics

BULLY WARS #1
"Rufus, the biggest bully in Rottenville since kindergarten, suddenly goes from bully to bullied on the first day of high school. He’s forced to make a shaky pact with his favorite geeks: Spencer and his twin sibling besties, Edith and Ernie. Together they’ll have to find a way to survive the Hunger Games-like contest known simply as the BULLY WARS—where the winner will rule the school!"

MAN-EATERS #1
"A mutation in Toxoplasmosis causes menstruating women to turn into ferocious killer wildcats—easily provoked and extremely dangerous. As panic spreads and paranoia takes root, the fate of the world rides on the shoulders of one twelve-year-old girl. Part Cat People, part The Handmaid’s Tale, MAN-EATERS will have everyone talking. From the creative team behind the Eisner-nominated series Mockingbird: writer CHELSEA CAIN, artist KATE NIEMCZYK, colorist RACHELLE ROSENBERG, letterer JOE CARAMAGNA, and joined by LIA MITERNIQUE, KATIE LANE,and STELLA GREENVOSS. This September… the cat wants in."

MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES OGN HC
"Teenage Ellie has always had romantic ideas about drug addicts. The tragic, artistic souls drawn to needles and pills have been an obsession since the death of her junkie mother ten years ago. But when Ellie lands in an upscale rehab clinic where nothing is what it appears to be, she’ll find another, more dangerous romance… and find out how easily drugs and murder go hand-in-hand. MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES is a seductive coming-of-age story, a pop and drug culture-fueled tale of a young girl seeking darkness—and what she finds there. "

Fantastic Four #2 | Credit: Marvel Comics

Marvel

FANTASTIC FOUR #2
"What have Reed, Sue and the kids been up to all this time? What adventures have they been on? What strange new friends have they found along the way? What deadly new enemies have they made? And what are Franklin and Valeria’s new codenames? All these questions will be answered... just in time for ENTIRE UNIVERSES TO DIE!"

BLACK PANTHER #4
"Rebellion among the rebels! When M’Baku rises to lead the Nameless, he’ll advocate for a new strategy in their war against the Empire — one that goes against everything T’Challa believes. But M’Baku’s plan could save lives. And without his mantle, what power does T’Challa have to fight for what he knows is right?"

DEATH OF INHUMANS #3 (of 5)
"Once, Black Bolt’s voice could shatter planets. Now, it cannot even break down the walls that hold him. The Midnight King is naught but a wounded prisoner — and his family but lambs to the slaughter. They will plea for help from a distant ally. It will not save them."

Wonder Woman Earth One Vol 2 HC | Credit: DC Comics

DC

WONDER WOMAN EARTH ONE VOL. 2 HC
"For years, Diana of Paradise Island yearned to leave the only home she knew behind for adventures that laid beyond its shores. Now, after a fateful meeting with Air Force pilot Steve Trevor, the Amazon Warrior finds herself in Man’s World. And she is ready for anything that it may throw at her. But is the world ready for Wonder Woman? An American government, fraught with dissension and conflicts foreign to Diana, has deemed her a danger to society. How will Wonder Woman carry out her mission of peace and love in a world that can’t get out of its own way? That is, unless there are more insidious forces at play..."

BORDER TOWN #1
"When a crack in the border between worlds releases an army of monsters from Mexican folklore, the residents of Devil’s Fork, AZ, blame the ensuing weirdness—the shared nightmares, the otherworldly radio transmissions, the mysterious goat mutilations—on “God-dang illegals.” With racial tensions supernaturally charged, it’s up to new kid in town Frank Dominguez and a motley crew of high school misfits to discover what’s really going on in this town torn between worlds."

THE DREAMING #1
"There is a place where stories are born. Today its walls lie slashed and bleeding. Dream has abandoned his realm, and until he is found, its residents must protect its broken borders alone. But the most senior storysmiths are tormented by invasive secrets, the warden Lucien is doubting his own mind—and beyond the gates something horrific waits with tooth and talon. Only Dora, the monstress, finds opportunity in madness, stealing dreams for the highest bidder. But she has no idea how deep the danger lies."

Five drafts of solicitation text

A plot for the next Kun-ghur book exists. It's good. I think it's got legs. But before I invest a truckload of time and effort into developing the plot into a story and a script, I'm going to write the solicitation text now. This means that if I change my mind, or heck, if the plot isn't an engaging prospect - then I can overhaul it. I want to develop my product as early as possible.

OPTION 1
A routine mission to a seafaring vessel becomes a living nightmare for heroic flying courier Skylark. Injured during a pirate attack, she loses her power of flight. As she recuperates among the pirate crew, Skylark questions her relationships with her friends, her family, and her people. Has she found her new home and identity as a pirate?
I like this option

OPTION 2
Skylark has never been at ease among her people. Their rules and restrictions leave the daredevil courier feeling trapped. When a devastating injury leaves her stranded on a pirate vessel, Skylark has a chance to find her feet with a new family. Led by the mysterious Fell Captain and her crew of misfits, the pirate life offers Skylark freedom from rules and restrictions. Now that's she's found the acceptance she's always craved, will Skylark leave her heroic life behind to become a seafaring criminal?
I like this option

OPTION 3
Skylark has the gift of unlimited flight - so long as she never touches the ground! All it takes is just one moment, just one mistake for Skylark's entire world to crumble. Injured and alone aboard the notorious Fell Captain's pirate vessel, the heroic Skylark can either surrender and be sold as a zoo exhibit - or thrive as she builds a new life among a band of criminal misfits...
Also in this issue: See what happens when Kun-ghur and Skylark go on a date together!
I like this option

OPTION 4
Designed for care and compassion in an ancient time, the robot nurse NTT ("Entity") wakes into a world torn apart by the evil warlord Purplex. Damaged, defeated, and directionless, all Entity wants to do is find people to care for. Instead, all Entity can find is a jungle full of mistrusting animals and a hovel of angry humans. Maybe it's time to shut down for good? Or maybe it's time to unite the jungle creatures, defend the family, and defeat Purplex's latest war machine...
I like this option

OPTION 5
Deep in the oceans, a raging volcanic fissure just released three burning demonic figures who are now walking along the seabeds toward Etorea City. What doom do they bring? Prince Uis, the commander of ocean's armies, races against time to decipher mysterious flaming symbols etched onto the walls of his underwater cities. Desperate to prevent panic among his people, Uis rallies Kun-ghur and Babastyx to his side. Will they be enough to stop the march of the terrifying Imbil?
I like this option

Okay!

Would you be so kind at to take a quick survey to let me know which solicitation text you like best?
Kun-ghur: Solicitation Options at SurveyMonkey

Take the survey now!

If we were knocking back some beers, how would you describe what you do?

I am a high school history teacher who is also responsible for staff development. Basically, it is my job to help every teacher keep improving and be a little more awesome next year than they were this year.

Which period of history most excites you, and why? (3 marks)

The collapse of the Roman Republic is one of the most interesting periods of history. The tensions between the political factions, the army, the generals, the masses, and the way in which dictatorship emerged, first in Julius Caesar and then in Augustus is fascinating.

In a recent interview, the topics of theme and plot popped up. It’s been a long time since I studied English - what’s the difference between plot and theme, and what that might mean when I’m writing a comic script?

In the rough sense the theme is the central idea or message. I think a theme should be able to be stated quickly and simply as it is the core of the writer’s intent. Themes are often quite universal and can serve to make writing accessible. If we used the end of the Roman Republic as an example, a key theme from that time period is the notion of power, particularly in the use/ abuse of power and ways in which people grasp after it.

A theme should be able to be stated quickly and simply as it is the core of the writer’s intent

In terms of literature which connects with our students, some of the most connected themes tend to be things like: being a teenager, transitions, love, journeying into the unknown, even the hero's journey.

Plot is the vehicle for the events, timings, sequences – it is all the stuff that takes the story from start to finish.

Republican Rome’s plotlines would centre on the rise and fall of key figures with their impacts clear at each stage e.g. The Gracchi brothers’ mobilisation of the mob, Marius’ ability to reshape the loyalty of the Roman army, Caesar’s unsuccessful dictatorship, Augustus’ clever manipulations to retain power.

If I was telling a story rooted in history, what’s the most important element(s) in recreating the past? Should I prioritise the costumes, socio-political attitudes, or the location… or something else altogether?

The vibe? New York feels different to Paris which feels different to Tokyo which feels different to Oslo. I’d be trying to capture something of the essence of the time period.

To continue the Roman theme maybe it would be the Subura’s crowded narrow alleys, slave markets, brothels, apartment blocks contrasted with the Palatine Hill to get a sense of the rich vs the poor.

The comics industry is waking up to the realisation that about half of its readership is female. What level of interest for comics do you see among your students?

Our school library stocks an impressive array of manga comics which certainly surprised me. Most of the readership seems to be 12-15 year olds but drops away when they hit about 16 which I think is due to the pressures of senior assessment and exams.

There’s definitely interest in comics amongst the girls and I suspect if there were more comics that were thematically connected then readership would be higher.

Is there much appetite in your school, or the wider English curriculum, for teaching comics as a literary format?

In the broadest ways I suspect not. There is generally a sense that only things like Romeo and Juliet or Pride and Prejudice are valid literary approaches.

However, I know Frankenstein is taught as both a novel and a graphic novel with Year 8 English students. I think the language of “graphic novel” gives more legitimacy to using it as a teaching resource.

I’ve used The Rabbits (John Marsden and Shaun Tan - photo at top of article) as a resource in teaching the Australian History Wars. There’s a fascinating elegance to the way message of that book is communicated. My students analyse the ability of children’s picture books to position their readers to accept certain versions of history.

There’s a fascinating elegance to the way message of that book is communicated

Which comics characters, writers, or artists do you tend to follow when choosing stuff to read in your own time?

For comics - Ed Brubaker.

In books, I have some favourites in several genres. In sci-fi, Ian Tregillis, Neal Stephenson, and Margaret Attwood. Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon cleverly toys with the notion of “sleeving” bodies and downloading the consciousness while exploring the potential impacts.

Sci-fi is at its most interesting when it pushes the boundaries of “what if?”. Provocative thinking around how humans and society would respond to changes and challenges tend to interest me more than space marines blasting aliens with big guns.

In fantasy books, Patrick Rothfuss, Terry Pratchett, and more recently Jim Butcher. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series deserves a special mention.

Grab your preferred music device and set it on random - what are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

• My Way – Calvin Harris
• Feel it Still – Portugal
• Chameleon – Pnau
• Shape of You – Ed Sheeran
• Dog Days Are Over – Florence + The Machine

Simon, thanks so much for sharing your insight into writing history and what high school students are reading! I’m sure creators who are looking to create work for younger audiences will find your thoughts helpful. You can sometimes spot Mister Corvan in the wild at Brisbane's Growl Theatre.

Image credits:

• The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan - Lothian Children's Books
• Fatale by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser - Image
• Stephen King's Dark Tower by Stephen King and Robin Furth, and Jae Lee and Richard Isanove

Photograph of Simon Corvan, supplied.

If we were knocking back some beers in a bar, how would you describe what you do?

I’m a high school teacher who tries in all ways possible to bring engaging, real-world experiences to my students. I went head-first into exploring my passions - including helping teachers to engage their students. I teach Film, Graphic Novels, and Creative Writing, so it’s important for me to take that blessing and do as much as possible with it. I tend to focus on visual literacy. In addition to teaching Film and Graphic Novels, I’m now turning to Gamification and Storytelling as motivational tools as well.

Has the popularity of “comic book movies”, helped your students appreciate comic books?

Overall, yes. The kids know about the films. Shows like The Walking Dead have helped as well. A ton of people don’t even know that The Walking Dead was a comic. It sounds silly to people like me, but it’s true.

How do you read and teach a comic in a classroom?

Teaching a comic or graphic novel is the same as teaching any other book, except now you have a whole new set of vocabulary to discuss. Also, it’s more relatable.

Students live in a world where they are bombarded by images constantly, so helping them explore what images mean is valuable. I do have to introduce some of my students to the medium, but most of them take to it like fish to water.

What makes some comics work better for the classroom than others?

That’s a tough one. I have a massive amount of graphic novels in my classroom that kids can - and do - read all the time. Many are silly, fun books, and then a good deal of them are heavy and academic. I think the answer to this question is different for each teacher or parent. I will say that to teach the medium, it’s ideal to start with books that have less words in order to more successfully analyse the images.

Licensed comics are great, but amazing original material is what creates the buzz.

Have you noticed whether students get more invested in licensed comics (say, the continuation of Avatar: the Legend of Korra books, or adaptations of Harry Potter), or original stories (such as Persepolis or Scott Pilgrim)?

When I show them comics based on shows like Bob’s Burgers or Rick & Morty, the ones who are into those shows get excited, and the ones that don’t care... won’t care. For the most part, original stories sells more to my kids because we all want new stories in our lives. Those licensed comics are great, but amazing original material is what creates the buzz and need for the licenses.

Do you have any advice for comics creators who’d like to get their work considered by schools? For example, what are some aspects of Raina Telgemeier’s work which makes it so successful in the classroom?

First, add page numbers!

Second, if your book has one-two panels of nudity, consider editing them for school use.

Regarding Raina’s success… she has done a wonderful job of telling stories to which people can relate. Sci-fi, fantasy, big-action books are all cool, but the class is most engaged when we have characters and stories that we can relate to. I see it in my own classroom as well. Make us think and relate, and you have something special.

Surprisingly, there is a difference between younger reader prose books and young reader graphic novels. Older readers are more likely to read a younger graphic novel, and I think that is because of our love for cartoons.

We still watch cartoons, and comics can give us a similar enjoyment. And the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” rings true as well. The vocabulary of a young reader’s prose book is limited, but images on a page are boundless in how we interpret them, making many younger-reader graphic novels more appealing to older audiences.

A Raina book is like looking through an old photo album, which would not happen if the book was written in prose

Books like Smile and Sisters have a way of “showing” us what our childhood was like. So for many readers, a Raina book is like looking through an old photo album, which would not happen if the book was written in prose.

Are there ways that a writer can make sure their writing suits a given reading age?

For writers preparing for their audiences… I’d tell them to read as much of the successful material in that grouping as possible and see what makes it tick. As I was writing my list of 365 Graphic Novel Reviews, I’d ask creators “What comics are you reading?” Most of them told me they are too busy to read. That’s a problem. If a writer has these concerns, they should be doing research to what’s out there.

It’s been a long time since I was a student in an English class… how would you draw a distinction between plot, theme, and story?

Plot is what happens, the meat and potatoes of the story, the “what” of the story.

Themes are the bigger ideas that come out of the work. Themes can expose themselves as simply as “man vs nature”, or they can show themselves as complex as “mankind’s quest to expose forbidden realities”. As an English teacher, I feel it’s important to state that theme is different than moral.

A moral is a lesson learned, while theme is an idea that runs throughout a tale. Theme is a difficult thing to get right. A lot of the time, if a story is well thought out and complex, its themes naturally comes to the surface. A great concept is accompanied by theme, almost always because genuine storytelling has something to say, and it’s not always just a simple moral.

And story, for me, is the combination of plot, character, and setting.

Do you find that physical or digital books are more/less useful as teaching aides?

For me, physical books are always a better tool. We can hold them, mark them up (if we are allowed), physically interact with the page. I read Josh Neufeld’s A.D. New Orleans After The Deluge, and being able to hold the physical and metaphorical weight of the book adds power to the message.

As humans, we want stories that make us feel good. We want to be assured that learning a lesson and being the good person is OK.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up reading and watching He-Man. And I always love the little morality message at the end of the cartoon. In your experience, how do modern kids tend to react to overt discussions of morality?

They enjoy it. We live in a world filled with cyberbullying, hate, and selfishness. Any bit of sunshine in a dark corner is welcome. As humans, for the most part, we want stories that make us feel good. We want to be inspired. We want to be assured that learning a lesson and being the good person is OK. That might sound a bit depressing, but we do need to be reminded that doing right is not uncommon.

Speaking of He-Man… the character designs for the new Netflix She-Ra series emerged recently, to a small amount of controversy among the fan community. Do you talk about good geek etiquette as part of your teaching?

I saw something in passing, but I haven’t clicked on it yet.

If you are talking about squashing negativity like the hate about the all-women Ghostbusters… I’ve never really had to get into that type of discussion in my classroom. I wouldn’t shy away from it, but we don’t dive too deep into geek culture. I do take kids to C2E2, and I do get some students on con panels, but it’s a small percentage of the kids that really want to get into that deep geek culture with me.

Could you tell us about some success stories you’ve had with your students over the years?

There are a bunch! I’d honestly have a hard time listing them, so what I’ll do is share a project that I’m working on that is, in my opinion, awesome.

In my Graphic Novel class, we read Jonny Sun’s everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too. We took the idea of little life lessons, made our own, and scripted - not drew - what they would look like if they were in the style of an aliebn book. Then we voted on the top six from my two classes, hired professional artists to draw the prints, and we are going to sell them to fund a class comic book.

My goal is to make more prints this coming semester, sell them all at a couple of cons, and get the ball rolling on an actual comic

My goal is to make more prints this coming semester, sell them all at a couple of cons, and get the ball rolling on an actual comic.

The kids are involved in every step: Creating the ideas, editing them, finding and talking to the artists. It’s very real-world, and it’s been exciting. Luckily, I’ve started to make friends with some cool artists that I was able to hire for the prints, and I’d like to get even more cool artists on board!

That sounds so cool! I’ve got goosebumps!

In your personal reading time, which characters, writers, or artists do you tend to follow?

I’m all over the place. My pull list stuff has piled up to the point that I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish it. I do read Marvel over DC, but I prefer Image, Dark Horse, and publishing houses like Lion Forge and Oni Press even more. I’m sort of getting tired of hero books, especially when there are so many great non-hero books out there, and the non-fiction stuff coming out has been amazing.

As far as artists and writers go, I will immediately pick up work by Jeff Lemire, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Joe Hill, and Fiona Staples.

Do you follow any webcomics?

Sadly, I do not. I need to. Kids recommend stuff to me all the time, but I’m reading paper comics. I am planning on starting my own webcomic sometime this year, so I better start doing some research!

Grab your preferred music device and set it on random - what are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

• He Got Game - Public Enemy
• Apartment - Young The Giant
• What’s Golden - Jurassic 5
• Come Clean - Jeru The Damaja
• Slam - Onyx

There’s a few musicians on this list I’m not familiar with… I’ll have to give them a listen!

Eric, thanks so much for your time and insight. I’m so curious to see what stories you and your students create! Eric Kallenborn can be found on Twitter, or at his website Mr Kallenborn: The Other Comic Book Teacher.

Credits
Main image: Brittany Sowacke, The Deseret News
Other images: Supplied.

If we were sharing a pot of green tea, how would you describe Eternal Life?

Eternal Life is like Lost in Translation in space: It’s about strangers meeting and forming a connection. It’s also about the impact of time on relationships and the way that relationships affect and change us.

25-year-old Bri is running from her past, pausing for a stopover on a space station in the backwaters of nowhere. 23-year-old Dan lives on that space station with his missionary family, but he longs to leave and see the universe. The nature of space travel, however, makes that difficult as travellers in stasis do not age, while everyone else around them does. When Bri finds herself stranded due to a terrorist attack, Dan and his family end up taking her in, and Dan and Bri end up affecting each other’s lives in ways neither could have predicted.

When I first met you back in 2006, you were batting around ideas for Eternal Life. Can you share some ways your ideas for the story evolved over time?

I first had the idea for the story back in 2000: I had been reading a lot of science fiction and had been feeling somewhat exasperated by all these stories where there were no religious people whatsoever, or if there were, the religious people were clearly crazy. (The exception was Orson Scott Card’s The Folk of the Fringe in which only the Mormons survive.) I felt like it was a bit arrogant for all these writers to erase a significant portion of the population, or imply that everyone was now more “enlightened” and that belief in gods was clearly so foolish, only the crazy people would ever believe.

Being an Australian evangelical Christian (which is not quite the same as an American evangelical Christian, by the way), I figured that if Jesus doesn’t return in the next 1000 years, Christians will continue doing what they’ve been doing for the past 2000 years - that is, sharing the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection with others, planting churches, reading and studying the Bible, encouraging one another, sending out missionaries, and seeking to lives that glorify the God of the Bible where possible. But that, of course, would mean that they would be perpetually out of step with the rest of society around them, no matter how much society changed.

I felt like it was a bit arrogant for all these writers to erase a significant portion of the population.

Looking back over my notes for Eternal Life, I had the story structure really early on: it was all mapped out, plot-wise. 13 years later when I finally finished the first draft of the whole graphic novel, some of the details changed, but none of those big things did.

That said, I feel like it’s only been in recent months after we put Part 6 to bed that I’ve finally understood what the story is, if that makes sense: I’ve said it’s about relationships and the impact of time on relationships, but it’s also about relationships in the life-giving sense. The title comes from the Gospel of John chapter 17 verse 3, where Jesus is gathered with his disciples (minus Judas) in the upper room for the Last Supper. He’s praying for them, and he says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

What struck me about that verse is that “eternal life” is not so much about life going on and on and on forever, day by day, month by month, year by year (and indeed some writers view that sort of forever existence as hellish; Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles spring to mind), but rather that eternal life is about relationship - relationship with the triune God. Relationship with the divine is life. But also in a more diminutive sense, human relationships are also life: in secular terms, good relationships make us happier and healthier, and cause us to live longer (or so claims the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has been running since the 1930s). The problem is, good relationships are often in short supply, because we do not invest in them.

Working with Paul is obviously a collaborative relationship. Do you have any tips or insights into how writers and artists can “relationship” better?

Tons of them. In fact, I run a whole workshop on this very topic! The key thing (as any relationship guru will tell you) is communication. But I don’t just mean letting your collaborator know where things are up to, when they can expect to see something or why you’ve missed your deadline; I also mean talking about the work and how you see it, making sure you’re on the same page about what you’re making together, and (most importantly) why you’ve done certain things this way.

For example, in Eternal Life, Bri had a very specific look: she has skin as white as snow and hair as red as blood. Partly that’s because I was trying to link the story to fairy tales (her name is also a clue), but it’s also because her parents genetically engineered her to look that way because they are the type of people who would do that (and were rich enough to do that).

If you can tell your collaborator the why behind it, it means that when things aren’t working and you disagree about what should be done about it, they can often come up with a creative solution that still preserves the why, but in a completely different and interesting way.

Compromise is not a bad thing; often it’s an opportunity to be more creative

Good communication is also about communicating well - being respectful, tactful and diplomatic when you don’t necessarily like something your collaborator has done; practising the rules of good banking when offering feedback (i.e. “deposit”/say something positive before you “withdraw”/say something critical, and make more deposits than withdrawals); not making personal attacks; and even offering up solutions when you feel like something isn’t working or could work better.

Finally, and related to my above point about being on the same page when it comes to the work, you have to be prepared to compromise - particularly if your collaboration is more of an equal partnership, as opposed to one person being the director who has the final say. Contrary to popular opinion, compromise is not a bad thing; often it’s an opportunity to be more creative, or to see the work in a slightly different way.

Were you ever tempted to draw Eternal Life for yourself?

No way! My art skills are only at the level of stick figures. (If you want to see for yourself, check out “Hungry” in the Monsters anthology.) Eternal Life really needed someone of Paul’s abilities.

Paul’s linework has a wonderful lyrical quality. Did his art help you clarify or change your thinking about your characters over time?

Paul is amazingly talented, and one of his strengths is the way he makes our characters act and move within the story. After seeing them on the page, I felt like I got more of a sense of what they’d be like if they were actually real people, existing in three-dimensional space. I also felt like I had a better sense of how our characters responded to each other in their facial expressions and body language.

The other thing that Paul’s art did is really set the tone and the mood for each scene - particularly with his colours. Eternal Life is science fiction, but it’s not science fiction action adventure or science fiction high concept; it’s more of a quiet indie drama about people who just happen to live hundreds of years in the future. Paul’s art really helped establish that, because he didn’t draw it like a mainstream “blockbuster” (for want of a better word). Instead, everything looks a bit grittier - a bit less polished and more realistic.

When you’re writing, how do you track structural concerns like pacing and conflicts, etc? Do you use tools like Story Grid or the Story Clock?

I’ve never heard of those, so no. I’m not very good at tracking stuff like that, though structure is very important to me and I tend to be more of a plotter than a pantser. (Are you familiar with those terms? Plotters plot out stories; pantsers fly by the seat of their pants and make it up as they go along.) I sort of feel for structure intuitively, if that makes sense. As I was writing Eternal Life, the story just seemed to break naturally into six chapters plus an epilogue, with each chapter beginning with a flashback.

Can you tell me more about “feeling for structure intuitively”?

So much of it is instinctive, gleaned from many years of reading and thinking about stories in books, films, fairy tales and so on. Usually when I come up with a story, I know the beginning, I know the end, and I know roughly how I’m going to get there and what needs to happen to reach that destination. More of the journey from A to B becomes clearer the longer I work on it, but some of the details change.

I think over time, I’ve become more aware of classical storytelling structures - three-act and five-act stories - as well as thinking about stuff like conflict, resolution, desire and character arcs. Thinking about character arcs in particular has been helpful in making sure I’ve dealt with all the plot threads.

But I still have trouble shoehorning things into those structures; to me, the story already has a particular shape and it wants to go the way it goes, whether I like it or not. It probably goes to show I have way more to learn about storytelling!

One thing that has been useful is a technique I borrowed from my friend and sometime collaborator Kathleen Jennings, which is to use the structure of an existing story to tell yours. Eternal Life does that, to a certain extent, with Sleeping Beauty, but I do admit the resemblance is faint.

Yeah, Kathleen shared that technique with me a couple of years back when I was wrapping my head around the idea of writing Kun-ghur. If you know your story’s archetype, then you know what elements you need to include to make a satisfying tale. It’s a bit like understanding that a recipe - let’s say a cake - isn’t just random ingredients; you need to know the recipe in order to make a satisfying cake. The next Kun-ghur story is one of the Brother Grimm tales, and the one after is basically Tarzan.

As someone who has edited two anthologies of five-page comics, and with your eye as an editor, what are some things you tend to notice among writers and artists of indie comics?

With short comics, there’s a tendency to try to do too much and cram too much into not enough space. The result is often manufactured emotion: as a reader, I sense that I’m supposed to feel something, but that emotion hasn’t been earned, because I haven’t identified with the characters and their struggle. So the payoff doesn’t quite work.

Let’s tease this out a bit: how do you know when you’re doing this in your own work? What do you do to un-cram a story?

I know I’m doing it when I run out of panels and pages! Things feel more rushed - like the work doesn’t have space to breathe. For example, if I’m trying to write a five-page comic, I can tell pretty much immediately if it’s not going to fit into those five pages - if it wants to be more. That comes back to structure and how I think about each comic page, though: often a new page - particularly in short five-page comics - signifies some sort of change or movement in the story, and if there are more movements than pages, it’s not going to work.

Often a new page signifies some sort of change or movement in the story.

With longer comics, often I discover I’ve mucked things up after getting feedback from beta readers. Eternal Life was workshopped in its entirety with a writing group, who very bravely waded through my long-winded script, having never read a comic script before. I found their comments on the story and its characters hugely helpful, and as a result, I tweaked a few things to make it work better. The bones of the story stayed the same, but the details were finessed a bit more.

Another thing that really helped was collaborating with Paul: I wrote Eternal Life full script, but when he came to thumbnail various parts, he would sometime conflate panels or expand a scene by adding panels. With the epilogue, we added two more pages, and I think it really improved the work.

What else do you tend to notice in indie comics?

There’s also a tendency to neglect the reader and not take the reader with them through the story, which also contributes to this problem. Sometimes that’s because of simple things - like not having an establishing shot to help the reader place where we are, or things in a panel not quite looking the way the artist intended.

Sometimes it’s just poor craft that can throw a reader out of a story - for example, bad lettering (which is a major distraction for me) or things being framed in such a way so that it’s not quite clear who’s speaking or who’s doing something.

Do you think it would make sense for comics collaborations to involve an editor more often to pick up on stuff like “not having an establishing shot”?

As an editor, of course I have to say “yes”! Any work can always be improved by having another set of eyes on it - though, of course, it helps if it’s the right set of eyes.

The great benefit of comic editors is that they see comics as a whole - words and pictures working together to tell stories. I found that when I showed my comics to writers, they would only critique the words, the story and the characters. When I showed my comics to artists, they would only critique the art and the visuals. But when I showed my work to Wolfgang Bylsma, editor-in-chief at Gestalt Comics, he critiqued the lot and gave me the most helpful feedback of anyone.

The great benefit of comic editors is that they see comics as a whole - words and pictures working together to tell stories.

I aspire to be a comics editor: that would seriously be one of my dream jobs! I’ve done a little bit for people - even professionally - but I’m also still learning and I’m painfully aware of how much there is to know.

In most indie comics collaborations, it seems very common for writers to take the lead on producing a story. Why is that, do you think? What would it take for you to feel comfortable writing from an artist’s ideas?

I’m not sure why that’s often the case. It could be because the writers are the ones who have come up with the project idea initially, and then they naturally become the primary driving force behind it. It’s also easier for writers to do more of the publishing/marketing/crowdfunding/sales side of things because they don’t do as much work as artists do on the comics.

I think if I were to write from an artist’s ideas, there would have to be something in particular that grabbed me. If an idea - or something in particular about an idea - doesn’t grab me off the bat, it can be hard for me to run with it all the way without losing enthusiasm. The artist and I would also have to be on the same page in terms of what the artist views as non-negotiable and what the artist would be happy to have me play around with. I mean more in terms of story and characters rather than visuals; I think artists bring way more to the table than I do when it comes to visual ideas, layouts, framing and so on.

Have you read anything interesting lately?

The Grot - Pat Grant and Fionn McCabe
Pat Grant is best known for Blue, a partly autobiographical/partly sci-fi tale of immigration, racism and misplaced nationalism, told through the eyes of a couple of kids who decide to ditch school to go look at a dead body. The Grot is his latest comic about an enterprising family heading to the frontier of a dystopian/post-apocalyptic landscape to make their fortunes in a place where no one can be trusted - least of all themselves. It’s filled with black humour and slippery characters. You can read the first 120 pages online.

It’s All for the Breast - Alexis Sugden
This is an autobiographical comic by Lex about when she had a breast reduction at the age of 18 and all the issues she had with her body around that time. It’s hilarious, poignant, and made me think a lot about the relationship between a person and their body. You can read the whole thing online or the more compact version for The Nib.

Mighty Jack and Mighty Jack and the Goblin King - Ben Hatke
This pair of all-ages comics (that I wish were a trilogy, but I’m not sure that Ben plans to write more) are a tremendously fun riff on the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale. It’s about a boy named Jack who ends up having to spend the summer looking after his special needs sister who becomes fixated on these special beans they end up purchasing at a local flea market from some shifty dude. The characters are really well rounded and interesting, and the sense of danger is very real; you’re never sure if they’re going to come out of it okay.

Nightlights - Lorena Alvarez
A young girl named Sandy loves to draw and daydream, but her work soon draws the attention of something not-so-nice. The artwork in this is absolutely stunning, and being a Nobrow book (they are one of my favourite publishers), the production is gorgeous. The story is also super creepy too - about Coraline-level creepiness, so I’d exercise caution before you read it with kids.

Grab your preferred music device and set it on random. What are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

• Pack Animal - Jesca Hoop
• Welcome Stranger - Washington
• Crazy (live cover) - The Twilight Singers
• Victim Lover - Broken Social Scene
• We Got This Together - My Little Pony Movie OST <-- Umm, this is because of my daughters!

That looks pretty representative: female singer songwriters, indie bands and a bit of pop!

[laughing] Well, I knew there’d have to be either The Twilight Singers or Chvrches…

Karen, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights into the comic-making process. I’m so very keen to see what your next project will be!

Karen Beilharz and her work can be found at Hivemindedness Media and on Twitter at @kbeilz.

If we were knocking back some beers in a bar, how would you describe the project you’re working on right now?

My current project takes a little explaining, and I haven’t perfected the “elevator pitch” yet, so bear with me.

I’m writing a horror/fantasy script for a comic. The protagonist, Josh, is thrust into a situation that pushes the boundaries of human imagination and fear.

Basically, the earth tilts on its axis and falls into a polar winter. Because the earth tilts, communication goes down, people start to fear for their future. Some people start to plan - some to keep the town going, some to raid other towns to support their own. Of course, they don’t know it’s only a short time until the sun rises.

It’s a journey into fear and the human mind, anxiety and the toll it takes on people in unknown situations. I’d love to put a tutorial on how to dry food for storing, or how to create a two month storage of food for a shit-hits-the-fan scenario at the back of the comic. Hmm, that might be a good idea.

Do you already know Josh’s journey - how he is transformed by the end of the story?

Josh is responsible for an invading town taking or destroying a large amount of his town’s supplies - think of Negan in The Walking Dead, taking what is “rightfully his” from Rick Grimes and his gang. But Josh is also responsible for planting caches of supplies throughout the hiking trails around the town, which allow the town to recover.

He’s still a work in progress, along with the story as a whole. The framework has been written, and his full character will develop as the story gets filled in.

You see, every scene is written with a goal in mind, then I go back to fill in the details and dialogue. At this point in time, I’m not fully dedicated to any single decision or action Josh will make in regards to challenges and questions that arise.

I’ve written a few stories before where the character takes a total and unexpected turn from my original plan - it’s what they tend to do. I hope Josh isn’t like that - he wants to do the best for everyone, but he finds the popular way is not what will work.

Where did its original idea come from? As you’ve been writing notes and drafts about the story, how has that idea evolved?

I actually got the idea from my son - we were driving along one night, and he asked me “What would happen if the moon didn’t give light?”

We know that the moon reflects the light of the sun, and I started thinking about what would happen if the sun just turned off - stopped giving light.

If the sun did go out, we’d all freeze to death in a week or so. So then, in the realm of fiction, what would happen if the earth tilted on its axis, and thrust us into a polar winter? Most communications would falter, but there would still be light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

I now carry a small A6 notebook and pen with me at all times in case inspiration strikes like it did in the car that night.

That reminds me of something in Warren Ellis’ Orbital Operations newsletter recently -

Writing a 22-page comic in a day. I've done it from scratch a couple of times. An early *TRANSMET* episode, "Another Cold Morning," was written in a single day, from a few lines of notes written earlier. It's not good for you, and it usually makes bad comics.

Due to the nightmares of conflicting deadline cascades and commercial demands, in order to get ahead of the game on a contracted project, I really needed to get an entire script done yesterday. Which I did, in about thirteen hours.

But I wasn't starting from scratch. And herein lies a lesson about this sort of writing work. Also, why I bang on about always carrying a notebook.

I feel like many indie comics writers kind of hope their first take on a story idea will be the only draft. Is that something that resonates with you?

I would love for it to be that easy! I wish the first take on this story idea could be the finished script for the comic so I could get started on it straight away. The simple fact is that the first take of this idea was shit. I’ve been working on this idea for over a year, and it’s still not at a place I’m totally happy with.

I’ve started it about five times. And with every single one of them, I wanted to start the art straight away. I wouldn’t be surprised that by the time I’ve finished the final draft, I’ll be up near the 15 mark.

(chuckling) I’m laughing because with my upcoming book, Kun-ghur: Kuma’s Hero, I certainly wanted to rush from the first draft of the story into drawing the art. And then once I’d finished a first pass of drawing up the book, then I realised I was missing a bunch of storytelling structure… whoops!

There is nothing worse that realising that there are things missing! We all want to get past the script writing and layout and get straight into the art. We all learn the hard way that it just doesn’t happen like that - much to our disgust! And if it does - teach me how!

Ha - my past few books certainly taught me to avoid gonzo comic-making. I’ve got too many ideas floating around to waste time doing unnecessary re-draws.

You know the other thing I found? If I write a script using words, then I can hand it to people for them to review and give feedback. If the script is just all thumbnail scribbles or thoughts in my head, I won’t get meaningful feedback.

That’s exactly right - being able to have a finished draft (even if it’s not the final draft) to offer someone to gain feedback is such a valuable way of seeing if you’re being successful in your storytelling.

I’ve seen you using Dan Harmon’s Story Clock to map out the plot for your project...

I was actually looking at the Story Clock the other day to see if it would match the story outline and plot points. Unfortunately, this method doesn’t work with this particular project. With the Story Circle, the protagonist starts out in a comfort zone, has a need or desire, and heads off to fulfill that need or desire.

With the idea of “starting from a comfort zone” - Josh is presumably living a normal (for him) life before the start of the story? Even if you do a cold open into the chaos of a catastrophic polar winter, he’s still starting from his comfort zone, even if the audience doesn’t see it..?

It’s not as simple as Josh deciding he needs to protect his town, and then goes off to do that. He needs to have obstacles and challenges to overcome in order for it to make sense why he is doing what he is doing. This is why I am using a three-act structure, where Josh can be thrust into the action and have to overcome obstacles.

Of course, I do have an idea in mind that will be great to use with the Story Clock once this project is finished.

Have you heard me rave about Robert McKee’s book Story? There’s some stuff in it which delves further into the structure of a story. So we hear plenty about the three-act structure… McKee delves further into that.

He talks about the ‘value changes’ which form the building-blocks of every single scene. For example, a character must change from “not knowing” a piece of information to "knowing"; from “trusting” to “not trusting”; from “lowest point” to “stands a chance against the antagonist”. That was a revolutionary way of thinking about scenes for me.

It sounds like an extremely valuable tool to have in my library. As the writer, we know the storyline of our projects, what the character starts out with, and what they will end up with, and it’s difficult to make that transition in the story believable and not forced. This book will be my next purchase!

One of the challenges I am facing with this story, that Robert McKee’s book would address, is that no one in this story realises what is going on, and I want to keep the audience in the dark as well. I don’t want to reveal that it is only a polar winter. I want to keep them guessing, just like the characters in the comic. Do you think that McKee’s book would help me overcome this challenge?

Actually, yeah there are passages where he talks about the genre rules, including existential-crisis horror, which often depends on hiding the truth of the situation from an audience. I’ll see what I can dig up for you.

You’re currently writing your next story - will you draw it too? What is the appeal for you (or not) of being a one-person creative team?

I’ve had plans from the first inklings of this story that I will want to draw it too. I have the scenery, backgrounds, places, faces all in my mind, so I know how I want it to look. I’m just not sure of the medium I wish to use. I’d love to use watercolour, but I think that might be a shade too gentle for this type of story.

The only thing I’m not looking forward to is formatting it ready for print. I am not a technological person, and I get frustrated when I’m on a deadline and I have to work with technology.

Guess who’s a process nerd - the page setups are my favourite bits of making a comic. (Facepalms at self)

I kinda like being a one-person creative team. I’m responsible for myself and if I don’t get the work done, it’s on me. I don’t have to chase people up, and I can work when I like... which is usually 10pm - 3am.

Some drawbacks on not having others like a penciller or a letterer is that it is a long process, and while my name will be the only one on the finished product, it will take a lot longer to release subsequent issues should they happen.

See, that’s really interesting. We hear all about artists being so full of doubt. I see working with others as a way of offloading the bits that I feel I’m not good at. Even then, I’m taking on the writing role on Kun-ghur until I feel I can get the characters and the world expressed clearly enough that I can hire a writer.

Being on a budget and not being able to afford a letterer or penciller is a great way to be a one-person creative team.

What is it about the comics format which appeals to you?

I love that there is so much work put into the art and story, but it only takes a second to read and flick to the next page. I enjoy it when my eyes linger on a panel a little too long and I realise the work that has gone into this panel is immense, and I am so thankful that someone has created this. Am I being too over dramatic?

Grab your preferred music device and set it on random - what are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

This is embarrassing...this is NOT my writing playlist...

• All Around Me - Savage Garden
• Ghostbusters - Ray Parker, Jr
• Jump in the Line - Harry Belafonte
• My Name Is - Eminem
• Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

What is it about Harry Belafonte this week? You’re the second person who’s been playing his music - and it’s been songs other than the Banana Boat Song!

Kay, thanks so much for your time and the insight into your process and practice. I hope Josh continues to behave himself as your writing develops!

Folks, you can find Kay’s work on Facebook and Instagram.

If we were knocking back some beers in a bar, how would you describe what you do with Multiversity Comics?

Let’s say it’s either fortified wine or schnapps. If those aren’t available, I’ll find an interesting gin cocktail.

As for what I actually do at Multiversity Comics, I ramble in reviews and annotations columns. Our reviews are more like post-game discussions than proper reviews, almost always written under the assumption the reader has already read the comic.

That’s one of the things I love about Multiversity - the post-game tone of the reviews, as opposed to other sites which race to give their hot-take. (laughing) I’ve got an image of the news-teams brawl in Anchorman right now…

I think the competitive impulse can be destructive. I know this’ll seem strange to some people, but I actively seek out news pieces on other websites and link to them. So if 13th Dimension or The Mary Sue is doing a cool Hellboy piece, my readers are going to hear about it - by actually linking to the original article.

The reality is our website is small, so when the big news hits, it’ll land on a big website, usually where comics aren’t their focus. They get the news out there to as many people as possible, and we just can’t compete with that. But after that article runs, the conversation on their website stops. So that’s where I come in. I’m focused on growing the community around these books.

The trick is to make it conversational rambling, not Wikipedia-speak rambling

The other part of what I do is what we call annotation columns, where I’ll pick a topic from a comic series and explore it. The big one is Hell Notes, which is all about the Hellboy Universe and involves a lot of rambling. The trick is to make it conversational rambling though, not Wikipedia-speak rambling.

What is the role of a comics reviewer? It’s more than just pointing out sloppy anatomy or reciting the plot, isn’t it?

Reciting the plot is not what it's about, that's for sure. Few things are as painful to read in a review.

I guess my situation is a little strange, because a big part of what I do for Multiversity Comics is review Mike Mignola's comics for Mignolaversity.

Usually comic reviewers are writing about different titles all the time, usually new titles, whereas Mignolaversity covers every single issue Mignola releases. So what do you say about the 150ᵗʰ issue of B.P.R.D. that you haven't said about the other 149? That's the real challenge.

First and foremost I want to be conscious of how the art is telling the story and try to deconstruct that. For me, one of the most fun reviews I got to write was when I went completely off the rails to talk about Tonci Zonjic's colours in Lobster Johnson: The Pirate's Ghost. When you're doing a series of long-term reviews, you've got to focus in on things sometimes. I did one review where I spent about half of it talking about hand acting. That’s not something you could do if you were only reviewing one issue in 10; it’s too much of an indulgence.

Mignolaversity reviews are almost always done in pairs as a conversation. We can cover each other's blind spots. We sometimes disagree, which usually leads to a better review because we're forced to explore why we like/dislike something. Our weakest reviews are when we both agree with each other. At the very least, if we're going to agree, I hope that we agree for different reasons.

The Mignolaversity team virtually never gives a book 10 out of 10. I’ve done it only once (for Hellboy in Hell #10). We see 8 as our “excellent” ranking, and anything above that means the book is extra special.

How would you describe the relationship between a critic and a creator?

Oh boy, it’s weird sometimes, because I’m not just doing reviews, I’m doing interviews and process pieces too, where you get to know the people behind the books a bit.

When I write a review, I have that nagging voice I have to deal with that says, “Are you being objective?”

Those interviews and process pieces unavoidably create bias, but at least I can try to be aware of my bias and challenge it. I work a lot with Cullen Bunn, doing interviews with him pretty regularly, but I’m lucky in that Dark Horse and Oni Press send me material well in advance. It means if I’m writing a review about a book, I can write it before I do the interview.

As for Mignola, yeah, he’s aware of my work. I was writing Hell Notes for about a year until I found out he occasionally uses them for his own references. Sometimes he emails me corrections or send a teasing, “Close, but not quite right... you’ll see.”

(Internal fanboy squealing)

Yeah, there was a bit of that. I’ve been told that what I’ve written has occasionally changed the way they’d tell a story, mainly to clarify a particular plot point or reference.

Dark Horse once sent me a hardcover copy of a convention-exclusive hardcover of Hellboy in Hell: The Death Card, which was really cool. When I got the book, I turned it over and on the back they had a quote from me on there. So, yeah, I’m on his radar.

So with that in mind, how do you review a book when it isn’t working for you? I’ve heard some reviewers say writing criticism is fun, but that’s not my experience - it’s hard work. I can’t be satisfied with simply saying “I didn’t like this”.

I have to unravel the reason why without devolving into the worst kind of pedant. Occasionally I’ve had an artist reach out to me to clarify a piece of criticism so that they can make themself a better artist. I think it speaks to the character of the artists that work on these books that they take criticism constructively.

Working as a comics reviewer would be different to most other forms of critics, because you most often review single issues of an ongoing series? Is it like reviewing every chapter of a novel..?

Yeah, and you’re reviewing each chapter without knowing how the book ends. Plus you’re writing a thousand words about a 22-page comic. Actually, it’s more like writing a review for a single act of an episode of TV, just a single section between ad breaks.

You’re writing a thousand words about a 22-page comic

Are there two or three things you see indie creators do with their work which just makes you roll your eyes?

Simply sticking to the elevator pitch. High concept stuff is great to distil into that marketing paragraph and it’ll probably get me to pick up the book... but it won’t stop me from putting it down. Ultimately, the elevator pitch is a hook and nothing more. Don’t assume I care about your characters and your world; assume that I don’t and make me care.

This tends to manifest as exposition-heavy stories more interested in world-building than the story unfolding. Another tell is characters than are only motivated by things that directly affect themselves. Unless the point of your story is to explore disconnected people, your characters need to draw from a bigger pool.

You need to have characters in your story that are invested in the world and other characters

If you want to get readers invested in your world and your characters, then you need to have characters in your story that are invested in the world and other characters. If your characters care, that’s the first step to making your reader care.

If you want to talk about a problem specific to comics, it’s when panels are more focused on looking cool than telling a story. You’ll see it in a comic where every panel is trying to be dynamic, almost terrified to use the same composition for two or more consecutive panels. This sort of approach stifles the reader’s ability to quickly read subtle body language, and in a visual medium like comics, that can seriously hurt the story.

The amount of marketing that Multiversity receives must be extraordinary… what are some things creators can do to make a positive impression if they’re asking for some attention?

Pitch your book to the right person. There’s a lot of people writing for Multiversity Comics, and they have their own interests. If I get something about the latest Marvel or DC superhero, I know the sender is pitching blind. I’m the last person they should email anything like that to.

The ones that come immediately to mind came from someone I already had a relationship with. They knew my work and interests, so it was usually something short and sweet, sometimes as little as a “check this out” email with a link to a tweet or an Instagram pic.

Comics are a visual medium. A few well-chosen panels can often say more than a wall of marketing text

Being active on social media seems to be the thing that catches my attention. It’s how I learned about the Kickstarter for Tee Franklin and Jenn St. Onge’s Bingo Love, and a snippet of art on Twitter led me to Lorena Alvarez’s Nightlights. I got so worked up about Nightlights that I simply had to review it. (It’s very gratifying to see Alvarez nominated for an Eisner this year.) Tucker Stone from Nobrow got back to me immediately with a preview PDF, and when the review went live I got a thoughtful email back from him about it.

Comics are a visual medium. A few well-chosen panels can often say more than a wall of marketing text.

From your perspective as a critic, are reviews a valuable marketing tool for small-time indie creators?

The thing is, it’s rare that a review is going make someone pick up a book, especially coming from a smaller website, especially when final order cut-off is three and a half weeks before an issue comes out.

From a marketing perspective, they’re useful to draw pull-quotes from when it comes time to put together a trade. For me, I try to make my reviews about conversation, not just the one I have with my co-reviewer, but with the one that happens in the comments below. I want to build a community around these books.

Can you still read comics for enjoyment? Do you tend to follow a particular character, a writer, or artist when picking up a new book?

I can and do read comics for enjoyment, but I do need a break from the books I write about. I can get burnt out otherwise.

I’m definitely more of a creator reader in my own time. I have writers and artists I like, but I tend to skip their company-owned work and focus on the work they control creatively. I’ll make exceptions, of course, like Faith Erin Hicks doing Avatar: The Last Airbender. That sounds like an unmissable book.

Now that I think of it, I tend to follow editors. I’ll find an editor whose taste aligns to my own and I know they’ll virtually always make something I like.

Daniel Chabon at Dark Horse seems to always work on books I like. Most recently it’s Blackwood from Evan Dorkin with Veronica and Andy Fish.

I also love the books First Second publishes, though I’m probably biased because they win me over by publishing a whole book instead of issues, and it’ll usually come out in hardcover and paperback at the same time, so there’s no wait for me to get the deluxe version I crave.

First Second’s Twitter account posts morning subway reads where they show off books from other publishers; they have great taste. Plus I see what comics creators are excited about. One of my favourites lately was The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang. The big surprise for me was Black Hammer, since I’m not really into superhero comics, but Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s twist on the genre is just what I needed for that world to spark to life.

Bingo Love by was great. Oh, and Isola (Brendan Fletcher, Karl Kerschl, MSassyK, and Aditya Bidikar) is so damn good. There’s so many things going on in that book I love, but the thing that stands out to me the most is the pacing. Generally American comics are too fast for my taste, but Isola brings back memories of reading Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

But yeah, if creators I like are talking about a book, that’s usually a good sign.

Do you prefer digital or paper comics these days?

I'm not just a paper comics reader, I'm an oversized hardcover kind of reader. I work on a computer, both for my day job and my Multiversity job, and I read review copies as PDFs, so reading comics digitally always puts me in the frame of mind of work. Plus I like to marvel at a well put-together book. I like the tactile experience, the smell of the ink... plus it's nice to have a few books which have personalised art from the creators inside. (Thank you, Brian Hurtt!)

That said, I need to learn to enjoy digital comics because my bookshelves are getting seriously out of control.

Grab your preferred music device and set it on random - what are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

Oh boy, this is gonna be interesting...

• String Quartet in B flat major, Hob.III:78, Op. 76, No. 4 "Sunrise" - 4. Finale (Allegro ma non troppo) - Haydn
• Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 "Sleepers, awake" - Johann Sebastian Bach
• The Carnival of the Animals: VII. Aquarium - Saint-Saëns
• The Living Sculptures of Pemberley - Dario Marianelli (from Pride & Prejudice)
• Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 - Samuel Barber

Huh. Okay, that's surprisingly accurate, though more classical music than usual.

Where can readers find your work?

I’ve got a column called The Harrow County Observer, which has been running for three years now. It’s coming to an end in June when Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook’s Harrow County #32 comes out. The series has been my favourite running comic for the duration of its run. I’m currently in the middle of a four-part interview with the creators, going behind the scenes. I’m a big special features geek, so I love doing these pieces, a kind of “director’s commentary” for comics.

Mark, thank you so much for your time - your insight into comics reviewing will be invaluable for myself and other indie comics creators. Folks, you can find Mark on Twitter at @MarkTweedale and @multiversitycom

Images:

• Hellboy in Hell by Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart - Dark Horse Books
• Bingo Love by Tee Franklin, Jenn St. Onge, Joy San, Genevieve FT - Image Comics
• Blackwood by Evan Dorkin, Veronica Fish - Dark Horse Books
• Isola by Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl - Image Comics
• Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez - Nobrow

If we were chatting over a coffee, how would you describe your most recent project(s)?

Well, it isn’t singular. The older I get, the more I seem to be taking on more than one project at a time!

Well - let’s go through them one at a time?

The first book is a biography of a bushranger (Bold Ben Hall). It’s a compilation of the Sunday newspaper adventure strip that ran in the Brisbane Sunday Sun (and other Australian newspapers) between 1977 and 1985. It was drawn by an artist from the Golden Age of Australian comics, Monty Wedd. It’s due to arrive from the printer any day.

Can I take us on a quick tangent? I wonder if Sunday strips read a bit like webcomics, compared to 32-page books. I wonder if there is some wisdom or insight which newspaper strips could still teach the newer format?

One of the things I like about webcomics, is that they are not beholden to any shape or format. Sunday comic strips (more so the syndicated American ones) had a specific format that they had to adhere to, so they could be cut and adjusted to fit within a two or a three (and even one) tier space. Calvin and Hobbes was the first to really break that formula, with the result being a freedom of artistic expression not seen in the medium since its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s when whole pages were devoted to single titles.

I suppose the week-in week-out discipline of working at ones’ creation to a deadline – for years on end – is the thing that the Sunday strips of old could teach the creators of the newer webcomics. I suppose that is why I am so enamoured by the older conventional Sunday comic strip. I can’t imagine anyone today being able to work on a single comic strip like Monty Wedd did in Bold Ben Hall, for instance, to tell one story week-in, week-out - for seven and a half years!

The other side of the coin is that there is less censorship in the newer comics, and that can lead to pleasing results unfettered by editorial interference.

Two of my favourite webcomics are by Australians: Sneaky Goblins by Rene Pfitzner from Melbourne, and Gorilla My Dreams by Tim Stiles, who lives in Canberra.

Folks, you should know that Nat showed me his proof copy of Bold Ben Hall - it’s enormous and gorgeous. While skimming the pages, I got a feeling like this book is a giant sprawling epic, in comics form, of something roughly like Bryce Courtney’s Power of One.

So that’s the first of your current projects... what else is going on?

The second book is Truth, Justice, and the American Dream: The Men Behind Superman. This brand-new graphic novel tells the tale of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster - two young friends who had a dream, the era they lived in (that is, the 1930s), the advent of the big comic book publishers, and how they created what became the most recognisable cultural icon of last century - Superman.

The book is written by Julian Voloj and is illustrated by Thomas Campi and is very much in the tradition of the bandes dessinee (graphic novels) of European comics. Although Julian lives in New York and Thomas in Sydney, they both have European backgrounds, so it is only natural that the form of their story follows those traditions.

It is Thomas’ first book in English, which was the reason I snapped up the rights to it. I was the first English-language publisher to pick up the rights to the work.

I’m curious - can you tell me more about ‘the form of their story’ following a European style? The story of Siegel and Shuster seems like a much more American tale, which would suggest a more bombastic American style..?

To have done it in the “bombastic American style” would have detracted from the serious message that the creators were trying to convey. Besides, the creators are from a European background, so they really were working to their own strengths and in a form that was familiar to them. It works better as a result.

Folks, Nat also showed me his proof copy of Truth, Justice, and the American Dream. Campi’s art is incredible. It’s so evocative of life in another era. One of my favourite novels is Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It’s a heavily-fictionalised interpretation of Siegel and Shuster - so I’m pumped to get a more factual take on Jerry and Joe.

You’ve got a third project on the go, too?

The other book right now is also non-fiction. It’s called From ‘Sunbeams’ to Sunset: The Rise and the Fall of the Australian Comic Book (1924 to 1965). It’s a history of the local (Australian) original comic book industry.

Of all the books I have published or ever will publish, this will be the one that will stand the test of time

Graeme Cliffe and I knew each other in the local comic scene in the early 1980s, when he was one of the forces behind a local publication called Spectrum. But it wasn’t until after he asked me if I was interested in helping him publish his 20 years of research, that I realised the enormity and scope of his work.

This will be the seminal work on the topic, even eclipsing Panel by Panel, the other book on the history of Australian comics and comic strips that was written by John Ryan in 1979. Graeme doesn’t see it like that - he sees it as complimenting John’s book. And to a degree that is true, Graeme’s book does not cover comic strips, but I do believe that there is nothing like this. I am really excited about this book!

Nat, I should ask - how would you describe the role of a publisher in the comics industry? What do you do, in contrast to roles like an editor or a distributor?

I can only speak for me. In a sense I work all three roles.

In an editorial sense, I try not to be too critical of material I carry, and rarely ask for changes. But if I do, a lot of the time it’s in the form of making suggestions to the creators or writers and pointing out where things might work better (from a reader’s perspective). Changes must be slanted to maximising the readers’ experience, because at the end of the day it is the readers that count.

For example, The Men Behind Superman carried a lot of American spelling (such as “Mom” and “color”). Something like that would be picked up by a local reader, and all of a sudden, the reader would feel they are reading an American work. If the work contained lettering that was unclear or inconsistent, then these get changed as well – with the permission of the copyright holder, of course.

When it comes to Australian comic strip or comic book art that has previously been published - like the works of Monty Wedd, John Dixon, or any of the older Australian creators - I simply won’t touch it. These are historical reprints that should not be edited and changed.

I am ruthless in what I will publish in books now

My publishing role is simple: What works out there deserve preservation for future Australian comic readers? A secondary consideration is the commercial aspect of the work. I am ruthless in what I will publish in books now. It must be Australian or have some aspect that is Australian. And it must be something that has a historical significance of some sort. A lot of the old newspaper strips (and some comic books from the 1940s and 1950s) have rarely been seen outside of their original vehicle.

As a publisher, how early do you come on board in a typical comics project? What twists and turns do you commonly encounter as a project evolves?

How early do I come on board? Probably very early. If I see a property I like, I tend to approach the owner of the work and express my interest in working with them.

I suppose the only problem with this approach, is that the owner can be frustrated at having to wait until I feel I am ready to work with them. This can be years later. But there are varying reasons for those delays. Sometimes it is due to my other work commitments, sometimes - and this seems to have been the case in the past three years - family or life dramas seem to take centre stage. I would like to think that this does not damage my relationship with the people I like working with, but I can understand some might feel frustrated and impatient with me as a result.

I don’t think there is any commonality to all projects; which is why there is a great deal of satisfaction when they finally become a physical entity.

Let’s say you’ve just spotted a property that you like - let’s assume it’s somewhere like a Supanova convention where the creative work is self-published - what would you tend to do?

My inclination when spotting people’s work is to comment on the aspect that attracted me to the work in the first place. I’ll just tell the artist that.

I’ll talk to them about certain aspects of what their future goals are, what motivates them to work on this character. I’ll really allow them to talk to me, rather than my directing the conversation, because I want to know them and what motivates them. But you will know I like your work if I stay longer and converse with you. (Eep! My secret’s out!)

Some people’s raw artwork (that is, pencils) are more powerful than the end product. They have a grand style, but are unable to translate that into storytelling, or they are too heavy on the inking, or something. Some people have a grand vision (or many), but don’t have the tenacity to finish it. That can be disappointing. There are a couple of artists that I have given an advance to, to allow them to work on projects, that remain unfinished for various reasons.

There is no one answer to your question, because each artist is different, and I tend to approach them all in different ways, depending on their responses to my questioning. Some artists are shy, for example, and work in a private space and are unsure about sharing their work. Some have confidence in their work, after working on their craft for many years. Most improve over time, if they keep practising their craft.

What guidance would you give you for an indie creator to level-up to being ready to approach publishers with their work? What are some of the hallmarks of a publisher-ready creator?

First of all, if you approach, be prepared to be rejected and don’t be too disappointed if that happens. Don’t take it personally. It doesn’t mean you are a bad person or your work is awful. There are many reasons why a publisher may not like your work. It might be that they have too many projects and cannot fit you into their scheduling.

A good publisher will discuss with you where your strengths are and what you need to improve. Be prepared to listen, but also be prepared to reject the advice. Be confident in bringing your best work forward, and if you are rejected, move on.

The hallmarks of a publisher-ready creator is difficult to quantify. For me, it’s someone with a clear vision of their project, who shows an individual style. I am not readily enamoured, for example, of someone whose art style is similar to the latest or most popular Marvel or DC books. It’s the artwork that initially captures my eye, but then it’s the process of being able to tell a story in an entertaining manner. I’ll also have half a mind on what I feel might be commercially viable.

Among indie creators, there can be this idea of being “ready” for Marvel or DC. What advice would you have someone coming from indie comics, and heading in that direction?

I would encourage anyone who thinks they are ready for the big time to talk to a seasoned professional who can be open and candid about the pressure of the industry.

It’s clear if an artist can tell a story in five pages by his sequential work

A five-page story from a creator with an emphasis on artistic storytelling is useful, because it’s clear if an artist can tell a story in five pages by his sequential work. That is, can you ‘read’ the story without the words?

Locally, Paul Mason is the master in this regard. I went to a comic book meet-up in Brisbane a couple of months ago, and he showed us his Kid Phantom work prior to the lettering being added. You could tell he was relating a story. Kirby could do it. Ditko, too.

It’s a little more difficult to assess a writer within the same page constraints. A writer has to bring characterisation to those in the story, or motivation as to why they may do something; and these are a little more difficult to assess within five pages. Stan Lee gets a lot of bad press, but I do feel he was able to do that well; and one of the reasons why the Marvel Age of comics took off. His written collaboration with his artistic staff (even if they were plotting the stories) was first-rate.

There are many creatives who start out thinking they’re so talented that they can make the “big time”. However, it’s not the glory of the Supernova comic festivals (or the like) that will sustain you. It’s a lot of hard work, leaning over one’s art for hours on end, day-in day-out, and maintaining a high output for a long period that will ensure you reach the “big time”.

You’ve seen two major platforms for comics retail evaporate over the years - namely, newsagents and now speciality comics retailers. As a publisher, how do you approach the changing retail landscape?

I learnt first-hand through Oi Oi OI! that, although people still want to read comics, the days of people discovering comics through the newsagents are dwindling. Speciality comic retailers are also going to be problematic in the future.

Events like Free Comic Book Day are a good idea - they enable people to go to the physical stores and see what is on offer. But these people must also come back during the year for the comic book stores to survive.

My approach has been to begin to focus on books, and having my comic-related products being placed in bookstores... But I don’t want to focus on retail book environments either. Where do people go these days? Libraries are an increasing source of traffic, for example. These are areas that I plan to explore with these books of mine that are soon to be released onto the market.

A couple of years back, Bob Layton was at Supanova. He thought the best thought a new creator could do was make five-page stories - yet he also thought the future of comics lay in bookstores selling book-sized comics. How would you respond to his ideas?

I wonder if the appeal of the floppy monthly comic – while still a staple in the American medium – is waning?

With bookstores and libraries being more willing to carry graphic novels, I tend to agree with Bob Layton that this could be one way forward for the medium; and it’s certainly one I am more willing to explore at this time as a publisher.

There will be newer avenues that will open up. Expressing entertaining stories in an affordable manner will always be at the heart of comics, just as punk rock’s DIY ethic propelled the music industry in the late 1970s. Whether this is going to be in zines, or in floppies, there will always those who want to push the medium’s boundaries. Even though I do not explore or seek out webcomics in any great way, I am excited about the prospects of the digital and interactive mediums.

How do you approach marketing in your decision-making processes? How early in a comics project would you be looking for marketing angles and opportunities?

I think my marketing is rather too ad hoc. I am so intent on getting the books produced, that I don’t really start marketing until the books are ready to be distributed or placed into the marketplace.

Comics are changing, there is no doubt. We need to find a way to engage the people who have lost contact or who have never been exposed to the medium. I believe that there is a growing subsection of our community who are discovering graphic novels or who are reading comics in book form, rather than the floppies of years gone by. I want to explore this format more. So my days of publishing comics are going to be limited, even though I want to see the medium continue.

I am not really keen on digital comics, although I can see their appeal. I like to feel, to smell a comic. (Is that weird?)

It’s an exciting time to be wanting to produce good comics and to be in control of your own destiny, if you are a creative talent

There are likely to be more interactive comics in the future, and if I had more time, I would like to explore this further. That is where I see comics going. People like Stu Campbell are doing some amazing things. Somehow, I feel comics will follow music’s trends, and the artist will connect directly with the audience, and there may be no need for intermediaries like publishers or comic book stores. This is for someone else to explore, as my time in the medium is going to be short (given my age).

Already there are other avenues opening up. Crowdfunding is a new platform that allows people to self-fund their own projects; and these are becoming more popular. Patreon sites, where an artist connects with a fan base is another means of raising capital to fund projects. It’s an exciting time to be wanting to produce good comics and to be in control of your own destiny, if you are a creative talent.

I really don’t think the medium will die: people will always want to read well-written and well-illustrated stories...

Grab your preferred music service and set it on random - what are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

Music is, for me, an interactive experience. I have to sit and listen to it. The last five albums I listened to were:

Sweet Old World - Lucinda WIlliams (Today it’s the 25th Anniversary version... although I prefer the earlier version)
Forty Licks - Rolling Stones
Henry’s Dream - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie
Raising Sand - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

Thanks so much for your time and energy, Nat. I can't wait to see your books - especially Truth, Justice, and the American Dream - hit the shelves in the coming months. Folks, you can keep in touch with Nat's projects over at Comicoz.

It was created in a coffee-fuelled blur as part of a 24 Hours Comics challenge held at the excellent Junky Comics in Brisbane's West End.

Read more about Shell and buy the digital edition.

If we were knocking back a whiskey or two, how would you describe running a comics shop?

Running a comics shop is a lot more work than people expect. While it’s fun to think you have a personally curated selection of books for your entertainment, it’s just like any other business. There’s still plenty of planning involved, and it’s important to be adaptable and responsive to your customers.

Your store was notable for your support of local indie creators… amid the noise of the major US distributors and publishers, what were good and bad ways indies could get your attention?

It comes back to treating comics and the comics industry with a degree of professionalism. At the end of the day, and to put it very bluntly, we’re in the business of selling comics. It’s all well and good if indie creators publish books because it means something to themselves, but I believe part of a retailer supporting local indie creators is helping them (the creators) make it marketable.

If an indie comics creator wanted to place their marketing in your store, what sort of stuff tended to work well?

A well-crafted pitch for the book that helps it to stand out among the thousand other books we have in stock.

laughing I suddenly realise that I never gave you a pitch for any of my books! Whoops!

What tends to be useful for a retailer in a pitch, assuming a 25-words-or-less limit?

Anything that helps distinguish your work from other stories that might be in the same genre. Knowing your target readership definitely helps too - if you’re not just writing it for yourself, who do you want to read it? That’s an important part in shaping answers for the rest of those questions.

What are some of the practicalities for a creator to consider when asking a retailer if they’ll display posters, postcards, or similar counter-top materials?

Flyers and postcards tend to pass through a lot of hands and people are more likely to notice and take them. Posters depend very much on their placement within the store.

Other than the physical constraints, I think the actual design of promotional materials is sometimes overlooked. A obvious call-to-action is very important to include on whatever you make. If you’re holding a book launch, put the time and place and maybe ask people to follow your social media to generate interest. If you’ve just released a book, include a short blurb so people know what it’s about from a glance. As a retailer, it’s helpful for us to know what we’re helping to promote, too.

What were your goals for Secret Identity Comics when you started out? What was the moment of “fuck it, I’m gonna do this thing”?

Tash (my co-founder) and I first had the idea of starting a comic book store when we were travelling around the US and Canada. We’d seen various stores that were trying to put a twist on a stale stereotype that comic stores were back alley, basement stores and we wanted to bring those concepts here.

There were several notable stores in San Francisco - particularly Isotope, which was like a cool, laid back lounge.

There was Meltdown in LA, although we didn’t try to emulate too much from them, because it was a fucking huge store. It was a cool and amazing place - so sad to hear they’re closing. And Happy Harbour in Edmonton was on-point with their events, which weren’t limited to just comics... they had events like whiskey-tasting (hashtag goals, amirite?). And All Star Comics in Melbourne was a huge inspiration for Secret ID.

We wanted to create a space to change the perception that comic books are more than just DC and Marvel superheroes for fanboys

We wanted to create a space to change the perception that comic books are more than just DC and Marvel superheroes for fanboys. The more we thought about it and the more we saw that there was a market for it, the more found ourselves actually planning it all out, eventually we realised we had a working strategy to start the business.

I imagine sifting through Diamond’s ordering systems would be a gargantuan task?

It put the mental in monumental Diamond’s system is very rigid. Ordering stock two months in advance isn’t especially easy when there’s always something new. Orders had to be placed monthly and while there are always the usual DC and Marvel titles, we tried to branch out as much as possible, and that’s where it got tricky. You can keep up to date with as many creators as possible, but there’s always a title or two that slips through the cracks.

Do you tend to follow a particular comics character, a writer, or artist when choosing new books to read? You’ve mentioned you felt a kind of burn-out regarding reading comics… have you been able to get back into reading stuff yet?

I tend to follow writers and artists. A character can vary drastically depending on who they’re written by... but when I pick up any book by a favourite author, I know I’m likely to enjoy it.

Working in a comic book store for three years has absolutely burnt me out and every panel just looked the same after a while. But I’m still keeping up with the intensely intricate Monstress, I’ve caught up on Motor Crush and the new series, Isola, is only two issues in but looks fantastically promising..

How do you discover new characters, writers, or artists for your own reading pleasure?

When I first got into comics, I definitely followed characters - superheroes are what comics are known for. But then I found myself enjoying particular books more than others, which is when I started looking into the authors and what other titles they write.

Now that I follow writers on Twitter and I know what I look for in writers, it’s easier to figure out which titles I’d be interested in and which ones to pass on.

So when can we expect you to go full video store clerk Tarantino, and announce the development of your comic series?

laughs nervously I’m barely past the point of drawing stick figures.

Grab your preferred music device and set it on random - what are the first five songs it plays? No cheating!

Bring Me The Horizon - Sleepwalking
Rivals - Moonlit
Tonight Alive - The Edge
La Dispute - Andria
Paris - No Mercy

Thanks so much for your time, Steen, and for your support of Sodaville Comics over the past three years. Can’t wait to see your fan-fic script which crosses Welcome to Nightvale with Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs!

Follow Steen on Twitter at @steenium, where they scream a lot about comics, art, food and their cat.