Comics Artopsy #8

Foreign body detection - Part 2

Hi everyone,

Let’s start with a picture to give this post some nice ambiance.

Now here’s the follow-up to my previous Artopsy entry. I mentioned before how long it took for Fang to become a real book. I won’t go into the details of the many years spent on doing other things like Metabaron for Humanoids or a bunch of monthly books for Marvel. I also had the pleasure to illustrate some novel covers for a French science-fiction publisher.

From time to time I had discussions with various editors about publishing Fang in many different ways, sometimes in association with a writer. But nothing was really sparking my interest, or maybe I was just too busy taking care of other things. So the idea of this project slowly begin to drift out of my sight while life was keeping me busy with other things.

Here are a few pictures from my early version. The monkey protagonist had a sidekick. The sidekick idea was from a Belgian editor with whom I’d been discussing before. We didn’t do the project together but I kept his funny sidekick idea. I hesitated between many animals and finally settled for a pangolin named Tong Ku. I was proud of an idea I had with Tong Ku that he could roll in a ball, grab a piece of cloth and could be thrown around by Tsuya (the Monkey) like a ball and chain weapon. (see demonstration below)

Also, in the story, Tsuya had made friends with a strange millipede-like creature usually living underground that could be used as a mount. But that mount had a peculiar characteristic: his hidden face was so disgusting that anyone who saw it would immediately start to have nausea and throw up. Very useful trick on the battlefield. But the beast’s face was also its only weak point.

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Brian here, and this is usually when I interrupt with an annoying paywall, but this week, we here at Exploding Giraffe thought we’d make our bonus content available to everyone, so we hope you all enjoy Niko’s eighth “artistic autopsy” of the year.

Special thanks for the added insight from Joe Kelly, one of my favorite writers, and a creator whose kindness and support early in my career helped change my life, so please support his incredible collaboration with Niko and all of his awesome work. For now, back to you, Niko!

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And here are some more early version prelims.

Tsuya and Tong Ku originally specialized in peach farming before they were sent on a demon-hunting mission.

There were also some nasty giants in the original story.

So, one day at Humanoids (the publisher with whom I previously did a Metabaron 2 books series), someone found an old proposal for my Tsuya project and tried to bring it back to life. Therefore, we started talking seriously about it and began to discuss working with other writers. I even started to draw layouts based on a version of the story but nothing was really satisfying.

Here are a few pieces from that period.

And, then again, I started to think that maybe this should just remain a fun project that I enjoyed while preparing it but no more than that.

At the time, there was some staff movement at the Humanoids office in L.A. and newly arrived editor Rob Levin caught the flying ball and asked me to give it another last shot. He handed me a short list of writers he knew and thought would fit well with the project. I immediately picked Joe Kelly. I didn’t know him personally back then, but I loved his epic work on Deadpool, and was really impressed by I Kill Giants, the graphic novel he did with Ken Niimura. On paper, it was a great match. Luckily, Joe turned out to be a gentlemen and accepted the challenge.

I’ll let him speak here about how it happened from his perspective. Joe was kind enough to bring his insight to the table.

I was completely surprised when Humanoids approached me about the project that was then called "Tsuya." I had never worked with the French before in comics - but desperately wanted to. I didn't know Niko - but I'm a huge fan and have been since "Pride of Baghdad." And then there's this world... this lush gorgeous world that Niko cooked up - of course I was going to say yes! 

The folks at Humanoids were very transparent that they loved what Niko had presented, but all parties, including Niko himself, felt that the world needed a little more shape and the story warranted a different take. Niko had done a ton of work, and whenever a writer is asked to step into another creator's pool it's a daunting task. I never want to be the asshole who craps all over someone's baby or claims to have all the answers. The goal for me is always to best serve the team and work out a story that brings the best ideas to light. Luckily, Niko made that incredibly easy. He had no ego about the project (at least not to my face - maybe he thought I was that raging asshole but kept it to himself!) and was open to my take on his world.

Primarily, what I brought to the table was guilt.

At its heart, FANG is a story about overcoming the crushing power of guilt, whether it's deserved, imposed, or inherited. The cast are all wrangling guilt in one form of another - personal demons that need to be exorcised in the real world. Cracking this theme and then applying it to Niko's demon hunting girl and the world she inhabited brought the story to life for me. 

I also asked if he wouldn't mind changing his main character from a male monkey into a fox girl. In part, it was my own feeling that the "Monkey King" story was just too common and I wanted to try something else. Also, I am nearly always drawn to female protagonists, only my therapist knows why for sure. But as always, theme was the true guide. In a world of mostly mammals - what animal would other animals distrust? What species might carry some "guilt" of its own just for existing? Whatever animal that was, she should be our protagonist. Since the fox is often a "trickster" in many schools of folklore it seemed a solid fit. Built in prejudice against our main character. Also, to see a tiny hero battling massive demons and huge animals? That's just good comics.

Lastly, as much as I love Niko's humans, his anthropomorphized animals are a wonder to behold - so that ask was also a no-brainer.

So, there you go. Joe had the balls to basically tell me “Your project is great but let’s change everything OK?” Of course I’m exaggerating a little bit here but that’s pretty close to how I felt. In the end, Joe’s interpretation of my initial story was much richer and definitely added depth to the characters. He also made it a family drama story which is the root of a lot of great epic stories. So I was impressed and started working on it as soon as I had free time. The book came out last year in its French version. Stay tuned for more details about the English edition.

Here’s some material from the early days of Kelly-Henrichon Fang.

These are exclusive to this post but there are plenty more Fang illustrations and pages at my Instagram. Although I suspect many of you are already following me, those who are not, here’s your chance right here: Niko’s Instagram page

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend. Feel free to comment, I’ll be happy to discuss with you and answer questions, if you have any.