Talking with Tim

Timothy Callahan was just one of the many folks I met at Baltimore Comic-Con back in September. Coming out of that meeting we decided to do an email interview regarding his two books and criticism in general. Callahan is a savvy critic who clearly knows pop culture and the comic book genre better than many (as shown frequently at his blog, GeniusboyFiremelon) and is firm in his convictions. Before launching into the interview, here’s the core info on the man himself: “Callahan is an educator, husband, father of two, writer of Grant Morrison: The Early Years, and editor of the recently-released Teenagers from the Future. He writes for Back Issue magazine and Comic Book Resources, and he’s much busier than he used to be.”

Tim O’Shea: Zack Smith recently did a series of interviews with Morrison in which he thanked you for your help. How did you assist him?

Timothy Callahan: Zack had e-mailed me over the summer about the “Superman 2000″ pitch that I’d blogged about — the one where Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, and Tom Peyer proposed to revamp the Superman franchise for the new millennium — and he actually did an interview with me for Newsarama shortly after that. So we’d been in contact, and when he was sending his big ‘ole batch of questions to Morrison for the All-Star interview, he asked me to take a look at his proposed questions and to add a few of my own, which I did. I would say I added about three questions total, but Zack was probably influenced by a lot of the stuff I’d been writing about on my blog over the past year, so he very courteously thanked me in each of the installments that ended up running. Zack’s interview is shockingly comprehensive, and I’m glad to have been even a tiny part of it.

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When I first heard about David Tischman and Glenn Fabry’s Greatest Hits, a six-issue Vertigo miniseries that offers a mixture of pop culture and superheroes, I was intrigued by the concept: “Meet the Mates! They’re the greatest super team of all time, straight out of England and into our hearts: Crusader, The Solicitor, Vizier and Zipper. But who are the heroes behind the mania? How did they meet? And what’s next for The Mates?” After reading the first two issues, I was hooked and more than pleased when Vertigo’s Pamela Mullin arranged an email interview with Tischman about the project. I caught up with the writer of the series a few weeks ago. This week marks the release of the miniseries’ third issue in which: “Private lives and public expectations are tearing the Mates apart. Crusader reveals a hip, ’70s-style island HQ in hopes of keeping the heroes together. But it’s a call from space that rallies the team. Back in the present day, Nick and Ethel discover a 35-year-old secret hidden among the lunch boxes and action figures of the world’s biggest collection of Mates memorabilia.” My thanks to Mullin for her assistance and Tischman for his time.

Tim O’Shea: While the Beatles serve as an inspiration, did you fear using the most popular band ever as a springboard for the larger tale?

David Tischman: The Mates aren’t the Beatles. The Mates are the world’s greatest and best-loved super-team of all time. The Mates do occupy the same space in our pop-culture Hall of Fame that the Beatles have, but there was never any concern the two groups would be compared.

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Alex Robinson is one of those creators that I should have interviewed years ago. I’ve enjoyed his work since Box Office Poison (2001). When I scored a copy of his latest book for Top Shelf, Too Cool to Be Forgotten, I contacted Robinson for an email interview. Anytime I find a fellow XTC fan, I’m even more pleased to be doing the interview. So imagine how much fun I had with this interview. Here’s some background on the book, straight from the publisher, Top Shelf:

“Andy Wicks is a forty-something father of two who’s tried everything to quit smoking — from going cold turkey, to the latest patches and nicotine chewing gums — so he figures he’ll give this hypnosis thing a try. What’s the worst that could happen? Unfortunately, Andy gets dealt a fate worse than death — high school! Transported back to 1985, Andy returns to his formative years as a gangly, awkward teenager. Is he doomed to relive the mistakes of his past, or has he been given a second chance to get things right? One thing’s for sure … this time he’s going to ask out that girl from math class… Presented as a gorgeously formatted hardcover graphic novel. — 128-page, hardcover graphic novel, 5 1/2″ x 7 1/2″

Tim O’Shea: Much has been made (in a positive sense) for the ambitious way you conveyed the hypnosis transition (words in the shape of Andy’s head) on page 12. How did you first come up with that element and how much revision or aborted attempts did it take before you were happy with it? It’s an amazing piece of art and writing at the same time, honestly, and no easy task (though you made it look smooth and easy).

Alex Robinson: Why, thanks. I don’t remember how I came up with the idea or if I swiped it from someone else, but I just wanted some unique visual to convey the experience, something dreamlike. It was actually pretty simple to do once I figured out what I was going to do. It’s funny because many times people assume a page or sequence was especially challenging when it was actually easy and vice versa. I think the pages that usually take the most work are ones people don’t really notice or pay attention to.

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Enrico Casarosa and his new book, Venice Chronicles (”A love story/travelogue/graphic novel”), was just one of the great books I found out about at the Baltimore Comic-Con in September. Casarosa was not at the con, but AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer was telling folks about the book in advance of its release (given that AdHouse is serving as the book’s distributor). I have trusted Pitzer’s instincts on books for years, so while I was still at the con, I emailed Casarosa to line up an email interview.

Before jumping into the interview, here’s the official bio on the storyteller:

“Enrico Casarosa has been in the animation industry for more than ten years, drawing storyboards that fit into large animated feature films. Currently a story artist at Pixar Animation Studios Enrico continues his quest to create more hours in the day by drawing alternate realities. Sooner or later his experiments will break through and we’ll all have to buy new watches. Meantime he just published an art book “3 trees make a forest” with partners in crime Ronnie del Carmen and Tadahiro Uesugi. Other times he pursues his muse by traveling with his watercolors and sketchbooks. Enrico is the founder of ‘SketchCrawl’, a worldwide drawing marathon event that gathers artists from all around the globe.”

Once you finish reading the interview, be sure to go here to buy the book directly from Casarosa.

Tim O’Shea: In addition to this new book, the Venice Chronicles, you work at Pixar. I was struck by something you recently wrote in your blog: “It’s become tradition for us selfpublishing friends here at Pixar to take photos of the opening of the first box of books.” How many selfpublishing friends are at Pixar and can you name some of them (and their projects)?

Enrico Casarosa: Oh yes there’s quite a few of us. I’ve had the luck of sharing tables at more than a couple of conventions (and co-publish a book) with uber talented friend Ronnie del Carmen. Another long time friend here at Pixar is Bill Presing, artist of “Rex Steele Nazismasher”. We met a long time ago back in NewYork and both did stories for the anthology Monkeysuit. And the list of talented pixarian friends/co-workers goes on: Scott Morse (Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!, Magic Pickle), Ted Mathot (Rose and Isabel, Cora), Derek Thompson , Dice Tsutsumi (Out of Picture) and many more. There’s also been a couple of anthologies called Afterworks that gather comics for some of the folks here and they even a new volume in the making.

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Frank Santoro is a Pittsburgh-based artist who first became known in 1995 for Storeyville, a “perfect match of form and content” that was re-released in 2007 by Picturebox. More recently he has collaborated with Ben Jones on Cold Heat where the two storytellers are “applying Jones’s surreal, biting prose to Santoro’s elegant yet dynamic renderings”. Many folks will also recognize Santoro for his rather passionate opinions about comics and storytelling in general as shared at the group blog, Comics Comics. Through such efforts as Cage Match at the blog, as Santoro recently noted: “It was—and remains—our hope that people care enough about comics to take a stand, one way or the other. To get involved, to build a dialogue that will help create an emotional as well as intellectual foundation for the comics of the future.” This email interview took place soon after the initial David Heatley Cage Match, but before Heatley responded to critics (and the ensuing comments section from hell).

Tim O’Shea: If you had the chance to tell Heatley in person what you thought of this work, would you be this passionate? In asking this I’m not implying you would not have the guts per se to say these things in person, but rather the written word allows nuances and complexities lost in standard conversation. You were excited about his potential five years ago, but now feel far differently. Do you think Heatley squandered his talent and failed his potential–or that you were mistaken in seeing potential in his efforts in the first place?

Frank Santoro: I might not be so “passionate” but I plan on being honest. I’ve known him for years. He’s a nice guy. I don’t think he’s squandered his talent but I do wonder, openly and in a public forum, what the big deal is about his work. Why does it get so much attention? I think it has more to do with David’s “provocative” themes and his careerist approach to the new “graphic novel” landscape within the publishing industry than it does with how sound his comics are.

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A few weeks back, I got my hands on an advanced copy of The Nightmare Factory: Volume 2 (Fox Atomic/HarperCollins). As described by the publisher: “The mind-bending universe of horror master Thomas Ligotti awaits in another graphic adaptation of his haunting work … Four more of Ligotti’s arresting tales are adapted into fine graphic literature by famed creators Stuart Moore, Joe Harris, Vasilis Lolos (The Last Call), Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra: Assassin), Toby Cypress (Killing Girl), and Nick Stakal (Criminal Macabre: My Demon Baby), featuring all-new introductions to each story by Thomas Ligotti.”

With the help of HarperCollins’ Greg Kubie, I was able to get in contact with both Moore and Harris for email interviews to discuss the book. First off, we’ll begin with Moore. Here’s his official bio (via his must-read blog, Pensive Mischief): “Moore has been a writer, a book editor, and an award-winning comics editor. His recent writing includes Iron Man (Marvel Comics), The 99 (Teshkeel), Firestorm (DC Comics), the original science-fiction series Earthlight (Tokyopop) and PARA (Penny-Farthing Press), and the prose novels American Meat and Reality Bites (Games Workshop). He was a founding editor of DC’s Vertigo imprint, and has also edited the Marvel Knights and Virgin Comics/SciFi Channel comics lines. Stuart lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, author Liz Sonneborn, and three of the most spoiled cats on the planet.”

Tim O’Shea: In adapting someone else’s prose for graphic novel, how hard is it to find your own voice while maintaining the spirit of Ligotti’s work?

Stuart Moore: I don’t do a lot of comics adaptations, but I always find them interesting. You exercise different writing muscles, and it makes you think differently about the way you construct your own comics.

With the Ligotti books, I don’t really worry so much about finding my own voice. These are really beautifully crafted stories, and I always try to keep as much of the original prose as I can. The trick is to figure out how to make each individual piece work in comics form. It’s a challenge, because in their original form, these stories rely much more on interior narrative and moody prose than on dialogue.

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Jeff Parker is a damn fine storyteller in my book. Well not my book, because I don’t have a book. But with Halloween fast approaching, Parker and company have put together Giant-Size X-Men: First Class #1 (set to hit your store this Wednesday) with a Halloween theme. As detailed by Marvel: ” Just in time for Halloween, The Beast starts conducting investigations into his own “X” files around the world! Are there aliens among us- or things even weirder? Featuring special guest-star artists and classic material too! And emboldened by the safety net of Nowlan inks, Parker even drew the cover!” As noted by Parker at his fun-lovin’ site, Parkerspace, Comic Book Resources has a preview of the book here. I was able to snag Jeff for a brief email interview recently, which is always fun for me. This blog would not exist were it not for Jeff’s encouragement and support, so I’m always happy to throw back some support his way.

Tim O’Shea: How did the Giant-Size X-Men: First Class with Halloween theme first get developed?

Jeff Parker: Me. I love Halloween specials, as might be obvious from the Monster-Size Hulk with the Frankenstein monster that came out this month. And my cool editors were fine with doing another special.

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This Wednesday will see the release of Dynamite’s Army of Darkness #14. To find out what’s going with the series, I caught up with series writer Mike Raicht and artist Scott Cohn. I had the pleasure of meeting the creators at the recent Baltimore Comic-Con and from that meeting we were able to conduct this email interview.

Tim O’Shea: Am I correct in thinking that starting with issue 14, the focus will be a little less humor and little more horror? Or is humor too crucial an ingredient in any AoD story?

Mike Raicht: Starting with issue #14 we will be going a bit “darker”. However, Ash will still be Ash. His humor and outlook on being a Chosen One is crucial to the book and that will always remain. At least I hope. But the situations the book unleashes on Ash will be more horror oriented. The Book of the Dead has basically ruled Ash’s life for a long time now. So much so that Ash has kind of accepted his fate. He is the Chosen One and his job is to protect humanity from the horrors unleashed by the Necronomicon.

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When I set out to interview Mike Cavallaro, I knew a little bit about him. But I’ll be the first to admit I was surprised at how much I did not know about him and his career to date. Some folks may recognize the name from various projects he has worked on, but once we got into the email interview questions, it pleasantly surprised me just how deep his industry experience goes. When I contacted him for the interview in the first place, he quickly brought me up to speed on his current projects: He recently put the finishing touches on the Parade (with Fireworks) 72-page trade paperback, due out in November from Shadowline/Image Comics. As noted by Cavallaro: “PARADE originally debuted on ACT-I-VATE, our webcomics site, and was serialized there weekly in 2007. Shadowline picked up on it pretty early in the run, and released it as a two-issue limited series that was later nominated for a 2008 Eisner Award for ‘Best Limited Series’ (Gerard Way’s UMBRELLA ACADEMY won).”

He is currently working on Foiled, a 160-page graphic novel, with author Jane Yolen for First Second Books–a project that he’s penciling, lettering, inking and coloring. “I’m also penciling and inking a co-created six-issue limited series written by J.M. DeMatteis for IDW titled, ‘The Life And Times Of Savior 28′,” said Cavallaro. “My work on LOVIATHAN also continues for ACT-I-VATE. LOV is my superhero-sci-fi-fantasy-romance homage to the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby comics that I love, and is serialized weekly online.” And if that’s not enough for ya, he also has been doing some coloring work at Marvel. And with that substantial ground covered, on with the interview.

Tim O’Shea: Back in February 2008, you wrote at the First Second blog about working in the Deep Six Studio: “I’ve worked off and on at my own desk or at various studios here in NYC for almost 15 years, but this past spring I took a slightly different step. I rented a separate workspace with five other artists and moved my old art table in, along with a pile of the usual art-making stuff.” You touch upon it in the post, but I’m curious how much has your work–and to a larger extent–has your career been boosted by the experience?

Mike Cavallaro: I’m not sure I would currently have a career in comics if not for Deep Six and ACT-I-VATE, the two things being difficult to separate for me.

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Paul Sizer can always rely on me to be a major supporter of his work. One of his trade collections for Little White Mouse features a foreword by me. I was a beta tester on his latest book, BPM. The only thing I like more than reading Sizer’s work is when I get to interview him. Before jumping into the interview, though, let’s get the basic info on BPM.

“BPM is a full color 96-page graphic novel written and drawn by Paul Sizer (LITTLE WHITE MOUSE, MOPED ARMY graphic novels). The graphic novel will contain the main story, plus a comprehensive sketchbook section and detailed playlists and notes. Plus, the book will also be linked with iMixes from the Apple iTunes website that provide a ’soundtrack’ to accompany the book, as well as playlists for each of the main DJ characters, showing each person’s musical tastes.

“‘B.P.M.’ is Paul Sizer’s love letter to the music he loves. In combining the story of a young DJ with the power of computer enhanced artwork, Paul’s goal is to merge his love of comics and his love of music into a moving, dynamic story of passion, motivation and hard choices over following one’s creative dreams. Paul has challenged himself as a writer and artist, using new techniques to tell this story. Combining his art with hundreds of photos he’s taken in New York, Paul has worked to make “B.P.M.” a unique visual experience as well as a thoughtful and engaging story that transmits the raw power and inspiration that music can generate.

“‘Roxy spins records in dark clubs and small bars, hoping to make a name for herself as a DJ in the complex and demanding club culture of New York City. She stumbles across Robie, a burned-out former superstar DJ, who shows her how to rise to the next level of her art. As Robie’s mentoring begins to elevate Roxy’s career, she must choose whether to follow her heart or the beat of the music she loves. Looking for the ‘perfect beat’ is a long and demanding journey. Which path will Roxy choose, and what will she have to leave behind?’”

Once you read the interview, be sure to visit Sizer’s site which takes the concept of multimedia to its fullest extent. He taps into every form of media except reel to reel and HD, I think. The book is listed in October’s Previews (OCT084169) and will be available in stores by November. You can also buy the book via myriad links at Sizer’s site.

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