SPECTATORS - Part 85
Plus, BKV interviews the author of graphic novel GAYTHEIST!
No time for preamble!
Brian here, and we’ve got a jam-packed edition of Exploding Giraffe for you this Monday evening, so let’s skip my usual windbaggery and get straight to some beautiful new NSFW pages of Spectators from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks, as the future haunted by specters Val and Sam continues to devolve into violent madness (unlike our delightful present).
To be continued… the sad refrain of every mass shooting.
Thanks very much for continuing to support stories like Spectators that contain “objectionable” content (which I realize almost always means sex, not violence, at least here in the States).
Recently, I was pointed to an article from Little Village, “Iowa’s most widely read independent, alternative news and culture magazine,” which describes which books (so far) the Iowa City Community School District has removed to comply with a new state law:
Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF 496 into law in May, after it was pushed through the Iowa Legislature with only Republican votes. Among the bill’s provisions is a requirement that school districts remove all books with “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act” except for approved science or health class texts. It also prohibits “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion or instruction” referencing sexual identity or gender orientation in primary schools.
It was obvious in discussions of SF 496 during this year’s legislative session that the bill was aimed at banning LGBTQ books, but it was crafted in a broader way to avoid legal challenges. Although Republicans settled on a very large scope for their ban, they did include an exemption to make sure the Bible and other religious texts would not be removed from schools for any references to sex.
I’m honored/horrified that both Y the Last Man (co-created with Pia Guerra) and Saga (co-created with Fiona Staples) made the list, along with other forbidden texts like The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
So it goes.
Last week, I shared an old short play of mine with you beloved members of The Tower, though I couldn’t remember any details of the one-act’s original live performance from nearly a quarter of a century ago.
Thankfully, my old college pal/fellow comic creator Clay Adams hasn’t completely destroyed his brain with fermented juniper berries (or whatever gin is), and reminded me of this cool detail:
Brian! I’ve been looking for my copy of this script for a loooong time, so thank you for this gift. Looking forward to the stroll down memory lane. Fun fact, for whatever it’s worth: the director of “Drop” was Anthony King, who not only has had a long career in television (Afterparty, Wet Hot American Summer) but was co-writer of Lauren Boebert’s favorite musical, Beetlejuice. And his Gutenberg! The Musical is currently on Broadway with Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells.
Unreal! I’ve been irrationally lucky when it comes to being paired with great directors throughout my Forrest Gump-esque “career.” Thanks to Clay for that info, and be sure to check out his latest excellence on Kickstarter.
And while you’re there, take a look at this very cool new project from artist Lee Ferguson, who I was lucky to work with a million years ago on our Chamber miniseries for Marvel. Malicent Black was created with Lee’s son Drew Ferguson, and it looks awesome.
And speaking of my insanely talented early collaborators, congratulations to gifted writer/tolerable roommate Jeff Yorkes on the SIX huge nominations for The Muppets Mayhem at this year’s Children’s & Family Emmy Awards.
If you haven’t yet watched this incredible show Jeff helped create, please pop it on with your kids and/or bandmates tonight.
In the back of one of the earliest issues of Saga, I recommended a terrific “graphic travelogue” that I’d stumbled upon called Thoughts from Iceland by a young independent comic creator named Lonnie Mann.
A few months ago, Lonnie reached out to me to let me know he’d completed a new nonfiction graphic novel, Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood, which has already received a starred Kirkus review!
The book won’t be at your favorite comic shop, library, or independent bookstore until February (you can also preorder a copy right here), but behold this first look…
What an opening, huh?
Anyway, you longtime readers of Exploding Giraffe know what happens whenever creators I respect send me new work, so without further ado…
BKV SABOTAGES LONNIE MANN WITH TEN AWKWARD QUESTIONS
1) One of the many ways I connected with your extraordinary new graphic novel is our shared childhood love of the restaurant Friendly’s (where you secretly enjoyed a non-kosher topping). Just wondering, did you ever try a Fribble?
I really did love Friendly’s! It’s truly one of my dreams to be able to return to the northeast US and go to a Friendly’s as a free adult, able to order whatever I want. Perhaps one day!
Although I have no specific memories of having a Fribble (unlike my memories of the old-fashioned metal sundae cups and long metal spoons), I want to say I almost certainly did at some point? I love trying new foods/drinks, and I love milkshakes, so how could I not have? That said, I can easily imagine my parents arbitrarily deciding Fribbles were untrustworthy and “could contain anything”, potentially making them high-risk for not being kosher. But I don’t specifically remember either of those two happening. Alas! Sorry I couldn’t answer for sure.
2) I first discovered your work through your wonderful comic travelogue Thoughts From Iceland. Are you still doing a lot of traveling?
Well, yes and no. My partner and I (and our pet rabbit) moved to Tokyo from Seattle in September 2022, so that’s kind of a big trip! But living here means it’s not a vacation, of course, as I work full-time. We’ve done a few fun day trips here, but we have yet to find someone who could watch our rabbit for us if we wanted to actually go away overnight. Still on the to-do list! I lived here for a little over a year teaching English after graduating college back in 2007-8, and I’ve wanted to come back ever since. We were actually originally planning on moving “after the Olympics” in Fall 2020, but of course that got very cancelled, so our plans got delayed by a couple years.
But starting back in December 2012 with my original Iceland trip, I ended up going there a total of 4 times over the next few years, and took Icelandic classes for about a year along the way. Since then, I visited and ended up moving to Seattle from New York in late 2014. I did a bit of travel now and again, e.g. to table at comic conventions in NY and Toronto (TCAF is my favorite con, followed by MoCCA Fest), and I took a few weekend trips in the Pacific Northwest, like to Portland, OR, and Vancouver, BC.
At the end of Feb 2020, just before the pandemic started, I took a trip with an old friend to London, which was really great. I wouldn’t mind living there at some point, but I still haven’t been to mainland Europe, so there really are a ton of places I’d still like to try going that I haven’t been to yet. But after the pandemic began, I basically stopped traveling outside my neighborhood for a couple years. In 2022, some friends and I took some weekend trips to a couple sleepy, middle of nowhere spots in the PNW, which were really nice. And I finally got to visit Rainier National Park for the first time since moving to Seattle, which was beautiful. My partner and I never owned a car in Seattle, so it was basically impossible for us to travel around the area without friends who had cars.
3) Your book deals with not one, but TWO extremely sensitive topics. First of all, with the number of LGBTQ+ titles that have recently been targeted for censorship here in the States, are you worried your book (which I will have zero problem sharing with my youngest) might potentially be banned in places?
Thanks! I’m glad you feel comfortable sharing it. The current book banning in the US is of course horrendous, but I don’t think I have anything new to say on the topic that hasn’t been said by a ton of other people already. As for my book in particular, I’m personally not that worried about it, because if it’s gained enough attention to be called-out for a ban, that probably means a lot of people are aware of it, which seems like some good news to me! Plus, calling out books to ban often backfires by making more people want to seek them out on purpose. So, while I certainly hope this current wave of book banning is dealt with and conquered, I’m not that worried about how it may affect me personally. I mean, queer graphic memoirs is already such a niche topic, I don’t imagine it would affect much in terms of the people who would already be looking for books like mine being able to find it. But hey, if anyone else wants to spread the word about it as well, I’m always appreciative!
4) And secondly, your Orthodox Jewish upbringing. This is an endlessly complex subject, but I’m a simpleton, so I’ll just ask: How are you doing these days?
Well, as for whether I practice / my relationship with Judaism, I’m atheist (hence the name of the book), and I do not participate in any cultural or religious Jewish activities. Like I mention in my short 14-page comic Orthodox Judaism is a Cult (originally published in the comic anthology American Cult, and also up on itch.io by itself for free/pay-what-you-want), I know there are plenty of sects of Judaism which aren’t as cult-like or high-demand as Orthodox / Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, and tend to be much more progressive, queer-friendly, etc. But for me personally, I no longer have any interest in any of it.
Without spoiling anything, although my new book ends before I finish high school, if I get to make a follow-up/sequel, I hope to cover more of my journey from belief in Orthodox Judaism, through various forms of agnosticism, all the way to atheism, and my eventual independence from my family. So, fingers crossed for that! But of course, this upcoming book needs to come out first!
5) I see that you worked with your spouse (congrats!) Ryan Gatts on this project. What was that collaboration like?
Quite the process! Trying to keep it brief, and simplifying a lot of things: I wrote the script, and made tiny panel layout thumbnails for each page as I went. I then laid out the panels (just the box sizes/locations) and text for all the pages, and drew very, very rough sketches of approximately what/who was where in each panel, and what sort of camera shot I was imagining. Then, Ryan would draw really tied-down “pencils” (sketches, but this is all digital) for all the panels on each page. They mostly could have been final lineart, but because I was going with a different “inking” style, I went over their drawings to make my finished inks. Then I also flatted, and colored each page.
Ryan’s a much better draftsperson than me overall, so I was relying on them for their skills when it came to perspective/proportions/backgrounds, stuff like that. So I got to mostly trace their drawings, make sure each character had the right face details, and do the colors, while they got to just come in for the stuff they like to do, which worked out pretty well. They’re also very good with lighting/colors (their main job is visual effects in video games), so pages with more complex lighting (like night scenes, or the underwater panels in the prologue) would usually get a 2nd color pass over what I did from Ryan, to correct and enhance it.
They would also sometimes suggest panel/layout changes, combining or removing panels, and stuff like that, which sometimes led to me changing things.
I should also mention - before this version of the book, I had very different version I pitched to about 20 publishers, with an agent (everyone said no thanks), and then I spent 3 years rewriting the script, lost my agent (she just no longer had time for the project), and then Ryan and I tried seeing what it might look like if we tried collaborating on the art. I think it looks a million times better than it did when I was trying to draw it by myself! And eventually, I was referred by someone to Street Noise Books, who decided they’d like to publish it!
6) Do you remember the first comic book you ever read?
Wow, the first comic? Gosh. It was almost certainly either Garfield or Spider-Man. It was probably Spider-Man - I remember I had this old children’s Spider-Man board book, in which he battles Tarantula, that I was obsessed with for a while. I’d also sneak into my oldest brother’s room to read the Marvel comics he kept in plastic, in long boxes, in his closet. But besides that, I was definitely very into things like The Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes, to name just a couple.
7) You’ve done some amazing autobiographical comics, but do you have any interest in working on other folks’ characters? I see you were a big Power Rangers fan; time for a gritty reboot, maybe?
Thank you! I’m actually pretty curious about current Power Rangers comics, because as I understand, they’re still being published, right? I think I’ve heard they may even be good! I actually did really enjoy the gritty movie reboot that came out a couple years ago, haha.. But no, I don’t think I’m actually interested in drawing other people’s characters. Drawing is a LOT of work, and it takes me a really long time. So, I think I’m really only invested enough to draw my own stories. At least for now - who knows, that may change in the future.
8) Feel free to ignore this question if it’s too personal, but has your family read Gaytheist yet?
I don’t know for sure, because I cut contact with my parents in late 2016 (that’s another story), and haven’t spoken to my brothers for years either (another, other story). But I think my parents were at least keeping tabs on me online enough to have read parts of the previous version I was posting online. I think people I went to high school with are generally aware of it, and if they haven’t read what I posted online already, I’d bet at least some people are going to read it out of morbid curiosity. Actually, I’ve gotten a couple surprise DMs from folks from my past, like one from my 9th grade rabbi who appears in the book! That was a big surprise.
9) Any advice for young people who are thinking about creating their own graphic novel?
Hoo boy. None of this is pleasant to hear, but you asked for it! In no particular order:
Completely cliche and completely true: you just need to start working on it, and just thinking about it doesn’t count. Whether that’s outlining a story, drawing concept art for characters, diving into writing a script, or even drawing actual pages (that’s all up to whatever process works for you), you need to stop thinking about it and start creating.
It’s a lot of work. It’s A LOT of work. It’s not a sprint - you will not see big results immediately. It will take time, so you need to be in it for the long haul, or you’ll just end up with a lot of unfinished ideas.
If you've never drawn a comic (or haven’t drawn much comics before), start small. Try making some 1-page comics, or even 3-panel strips. Get some practice, work your way up. Do not start with a GN-length 100’s of pages-long project. I think I once heard advice that you shouldn’t take on a project that’s longer than the total number of comic pages you’ve drawn up to then. I don’t think that’s a hard rule, but I think it captures a good sense of things.
You will need to be disciplined. You will need to work on it very regularly, and it will mean giving up time you used to spend on hobbies (like tv/video games) and/or socializing with friends.
Don’t quit your day job. Unless you’re 1 in a billion (most likely, you’re not), you will not make a significant amount of money from comics. Exception: if you’re independently wealthy or supported by a partner with a high enough salary to support both of you, and you can just work on it like your day job. But even then, you should be working on it regularly.
It may sound like it conflicts with the previous bit, but you need to take breaks. Like, no drawing on the weekend or something like that. Or else at some point, you’re going to burn out and drop the project for years if not forever.
If you want to pitch a project to agents or publishers, you’ll probably want an outline, a short (1-paragraph) story summary, a finished script, and a 10-15 page sample of finished pages (a slice of what the final book will look like).
Finally, if you’re a writer or an artist searching for the other half of the equation, do not expect anyone to be as passionate about your project as you are. You should hire a professional and pay them fair wages. Do not expect anyone to work for free or for the promise that your project is gonna be the next big thing - ideas are a dime a dozen. On the other hand, if you’re already a writer/artist team, and both feel passionately about the project, go for it! But also there should be clear boundaries about who has final say on what, and everyone needs to be at peace with that going in, or things will get messy.
10) I’m old and terrible at video games that are more complicated than Contra. Do you have a suggestion for a game I might like?
My partner recommended Return of the Obra Dinn, and I agree, you’d probably love it! It’s available on PC via Steam, or on any of the current consoles. It’s kind of hard to describe, so I’m just going to let Wikipedia handle this for me. It sounds complicated, but I think opening it up will make it all make sense.
Thanks for this interview, the questions were a lot of fun!
Thank YOU, Lonnie, and congrats to you and Ryan on this thought-provoking, deeply emotional graphic novel.
Though it might be highly controversial, inspired by my interview with Lonnie, here’s today’s Question of the Week (and this subject is sensitive and open to many different interpretations, so I just ask that everyone please be respectful in the comments):
What is the single greatest ice cream topping?
Get ready for fireworks.
Our weekly chat thread is open to all you generous paid subscribers in The Tower, and this week, our intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe will randomly select one lucky commenter to win a signed copy of this out-of-print (and banned in parts of Iowa) Vertigo-era hardcover of Y the Last Man:
Peace,
BKV
I, uh, don’t like toppings on ice cream. The ice cream should speak for itself.
A hot, fresh donut (either on top of the ice cream, or at the base of the ice cream, the result is fantastic).