How to use this Page

Image Expo is kicking off with a stirring speech by Eric Stephenson. We’ll social media it along for you   Image Expo is 10 minutes from starting, and the venue certainly has some swagger to it. #imageexpo pic.twitter.com/ML7zoPbNWd — Christopher Butcher (@Comics212) April 6, 2016 "Whatever you imagine, it can happen." Starting the keynote at […]

Yep, it’s our annual survey of the comics landscape, from the mainstream to the indies and everything in between. Each year we send out surveys to as wide a swath of comics pros around the world as we can muster…among the answers you’ll find lots of news of 2015 projects, predictions of the year ahead…and right off the bat some startling news from Jeff Trexler about a possible legal bombshell in 2015…and the return of Casey from James Sturm’s epochal comic strip “The Sponsor.” Hold on to your hats and let’s get going.

Jeff Trexler, lawyer

I write for The Beat and TCJ.com. My personal sites are in hibernation, but one day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back.

2015 Projects: I have an active law practice, so …

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Catching up on all the articles I planned to write based on my notes from the San Diego and New York Comic Cons. There’s some fun stuff, not all of it legal.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? The biggest legal story would have to be the Kirby settlement. That case was on its way to the same fate as previous attempts to flip work-for-hire judgments under the 1909 Copyright Act, but the denouement was straight out of a Mister Miracle comic.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? This might not be the biggest legal story, but one thing that many people don’t realize is that the Siegel and Shuster Superman lawsuits are still alive, with more decisions likely in 2015 and even 2016.

How can this be, you ask, when one of 2014’s other big stories was that the Supreme Court had dinged both of these cases?

The Siegel case situation is somewhat bizarre. You might recall that after the Supreme Court let stand the 9th Circuit’s ruling that the 2001 term sheet between DC & the Siegels was actually a final settlement, Toberoff tried to keep the case alive with a few new arguments . They weren’t particularly novel – rather basic, actually – but they were the sort of thing a lawyer typically would have tossed in the mix from the beginning. As I pointed out on The Beat, by failing to raise these arguments earlier he had actually waived them, thus illustrating one of the dangers of getting so swept up in what you might win that you lose sight of the details that can help you get there.

The court followed the same line of reasoning – arguments waived; case over. But then, at Toberoff’s request, two months later the court amended its judgment to throw in a declaratory judgment that the Siegels’ termination filing in 1999 was valid in regard to Action #1, Action #4, Superman #1 (page 36), and the first two weeks of the Superman newspaper strip. In other words, the material was officially not work for hire.

This ruling was rather unusual, given the 9th Circuit’s determination that the 2001 settlement agreement made everything afterward moot. Perhaps the judge thought that this was a harmless sop to history given the other legal hits to the Siegel, but it was at base a trap. Toberoff didn’t ask for this to make the Siegels feel good; he was setting up yet another appeal. His argument: the lower court should have exercised its discretion and considered the waived anyway. Were Toberoff to luck out and get a more sympathetic panel, it just might flip the lower court’s ruling re the Siegels claim that they voided the agreement but uphold the ruling that the termination was valid.

DC responded to this as one might expect. Since the 9th Circuit had declared everything after 2001 to be moot, the court had authority to issue a declaratory judgment that the termination filing was valid.  What’s more, DC doubled down on the problems with Toberoff’s waived arguments and returned to one of its own earlier arguments that the Siegels’ 2004 lawsuit was invalid, since it was filed a year after the statute of limitations had expired.

Will the Siegels win? Well, the case will go before a new panel so there’s always a possibility. Should they win? I’ll leave the moral and ethical questions to each of you, but legally, let’s just say that there are some judges who would find Toberoff’s appeal here to be so disrespectful of the 9th Circuit’s previous ruling and the fundamentals of procedure as to be offensive. Again, there are others that might welcome the opportunity to flip the case back to the Siegels, so we’ll just have to watch what happens.

As for the Shuster heirs/Mark Peary case, the appellant here is in fact DC Comics. On December 9th, 2014, filed notice with the 9th Circuit that it is appealing the lower court’s denial of its state law claims that Toberoff unlawfully interfered with the 1992 Shuster settlement agreement and 2001 Siegel settlement agreements. The issue, in short, is not Superman but Toberoff.

The Siegel appeal is well underway – the briefs were filed as of September, and now we wait for oral argument (if any) and the court’s ruling. The briefs in Shuster/Peary case are scheduled to be filed by July 2015.

Sarah Gaydos, editor IDW

2015 Projects: Editing: Edward Scissorhands, Star Trek, Powerpuff Girls: Super Smash Up, Disney, Infinite Loop (US release)…and more!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? I can whittle it down to three: the rise of the creator, Amazon purchasing Comixology, and the continuing rise of women as creative forces and readers.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? I *hope* it is more and more innovation on how to get more comics in the hands of new readers. I’ll certainly do my part.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Any and all Li’l Bub videos.

Eleri Mai Harris, cartoonist/editor

2015 Projects: I just finished working on an epic about bear hunting that drove me nuts

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Clearly Simon Hanselmann’s wedding to Comics at SPX in September was the society highlight of 2014? For The Nib, our story of the year was a comic by an anonymous artist about her rape

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? I’m hoping that the biggest story will be a clear shift from more traditional news media outlets to creating dedicated comics sections, as Fusion did with Jen Sorensen in 2014.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Reading the entire Tony Edward’s Captain Goodvibes collection on the beach in Australia in January.

Alison Sampson, artist

2015 Projects: I’m drawing a creator-owned book with Steve Niles- Winnebago Graveyard is a classic scary story. Our Think of a City project will run through all of 2015 and into 2016. Right at this minute, I’m working on a cover, and I’m hoping to be doing more design work and illustration including more unorthodox comic pages, next year

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Rights ownership leading to big financial wins for some- Image creators, Boom! Studios, Marvel films, and the rise of the comics-to films and tv interface.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Fallout from the rise of creator-owned work and the increased confidence around it: previously silent voices being heard, and the rise of more genuinely diverse work from companies known for their superheroes.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Drawing to expand the form of comics, and I’d like to visit the US again. The guilty pleasure would be eating seafood every day when we do get to the US.

Jim Zub, writer

2015 Projects: Wayward and Skullkickers for Image, Samurai Jack and Dungeons & Dragons for IDW, Conan-Red Sonja for Dark Horse.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Diversity in comics, both in the fictional characters we read and the creators who weave their stories. The discussion of people of color, gender roles, LGBT, sexism, and our expanding social consciousness reflected itself in mainstream news and filtered down to the way the comic industry sees itself. It’s slowly changing the business in a good way and I hope the trend continues.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Reboots of reboots. Both DC and Marvel are trying to find the magic mix of new #1’s/new directions while clinging to their legacies with old + new universe crashing crossover events. It looks like they’re both going to reach critical mass in 2015 and seeing if they succeed or fail will be fascinating stuff that people will analyze and discuss for years to come.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Chip Zdarsky’s Howard the Duck series. I’m curious if Chip’s no holds barred humor will flourish in the Marvel Universe or if they’ll have to sand off the edges.

Michael Davis, artist/publisher

2015 Projects: Milestones2: African Americans In Comics, Pop Culture and Beyond:curator Dec 2015  -the immediate squeal to the wildly successful galley show Milestones:African Americans in Comics, blah, blah, blah.

The show opened Dec. 2014 for a 4 month run and was immediately extended. Making it one of, if not the most successful shows at The Geppi Entertainment Museum.

The Hidden Beach Project Winter 2015: a co venture with Hidden Beach Records. A never seen before merging of music & comics

The Underground 2015? Really? A story of the Underground Railroad—over 10 year odyssey written and illustrated by Michael Davis Dark Horse Comics

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014?  Spiderwoman’s ass
What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? The Static Shock Live Action show
What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? The reaction of Variant Comics when they get called on the carpet legally. They continue to leave up untrue information and have been asked repeatedly to correct the issue.

Casey Gilly, journalist

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? First ever Bay Area Comic Arts Festival

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Treatment of women in the comics industry.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? More pictures of Justin Jordan’s cat, Tom Waits.

Ivan Brandon, writer
2015 Projects: DRIFTER

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014?  WOMEN. The fictional women inside the comics, the real-life women crafting their stories, the readers that made all of that possible. Women dominated the sales charts on original content and corporate properties and dragged the industry kicking and screaming into the present.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? I’m gonna go with women again. I haven’t seen this kind of fire in the audience in my whole career.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015?  Can I say Howard the Duck? I’m not really feeling guilty about it, but I’m pretty sure Chip will figure something out.

Calista Brill, Senior Editor at First Second
2015 Projects: Jay Hosler’s amazing LAST OF THE SANDWALKERS! It’s like Watership Down with insect scientists!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Ms Marvel! And by extension the continuing (if grudging) trend of mainstream comics inviting a wider variety of readers into the club.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Scott McCloud’s THE SCULPTOR.
What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Finally catching up on SLEEPY HOLLOW!

Joe Keatinge, writer
2015 Projects: Writer of Shutter and Tech Jacket, for Image Comics

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? It’s a tie between The Walking Dead show having more viewers than NFL football and Raina Telgemeier changing the definition of what a “mainstream” comic is in the 21st century by consistently dominating the New York Times bestsellers list with multiple perennial titles.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? The Walking Dead show and Raina Telgemeier announcing a joint Presidential run for 2016.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? I don’t like the idea of “guilty pleasure” as people should just like what they like, but in terms of just things I’m looking forward to in 2015 — I am excited Master Keaton’s getting released so I can resume having a new (to me) serialized Urasawa book every other month.

James Sturm, cartoonist, educator

2015 Projects: I’m working on a kamishibai project in collaboration with a performer and a kid’s book. I just wrapped up a nine-page comic for the D&Q 25th anniversary book—The Sponsor comic was the first two pages.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? The story I am most fascinated by for 2014 and 2015 is seeing how comics are spreading into the world-at-large as an indispensible tool for communication and education. Graphics medicine, comics journalism, and graphic facilitation are just three examples of ways that the language of comics is being applied in various fields.

The other thing that is very exciting: how much truly fantastic work is being produced right now. It’s hard to keep up.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Guilty pleasure and masochistic pleasure: following the Knicks and the Mets as they go from awful to awesome (in my heart I am an optimist).

Giulie Speziani, writer

2015 Projects: A few titles coming out in the new year that I can’t mention yet.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? The Milo Manara Spider-Woman variant cover. It was an extremely divisive topic–everyone had a strong opinion about it. People got in heated debates about the pose, the artist’s history, what it means for women in comics etc. My twitter feed was very entertaining that week.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Something Star Wars related.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Mad Max: Fury Road. Judging from the trailer it looks over-the-top amazing so I don’t feel that guilty about it.

Ian Harker, cartoonist/publisher
2015 Projects: GHOULANOIDS – Derek Ballard

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Breakdown Press

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Emily Carroll

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Potential BLADES & LAZERS Special Edition

Jeffrey Brown, cartoonist (Photo by Jill Liebhaber)
2015 Projects: Darth Vader and Friends will be out in April, while Jedi Academy 3 comes out in the fall. Currently working on a middle grade series about Neanderthals.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? I don’t even know, because the past few years all of the biggest stories in comics are overshadowed by film and TV stories related to comics adaptations. So the biggest comics stories are actually really, really tiny.  So I’m just going to say Mike Dawson’s essay about what it means to ‘make it’ in comics.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Instead of big budget film adaptations of comics, independent producers will begin adapting single comic pages into youtube videos.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Episode VII

Van Jensen, writer

2015 Projects: I’m working on The Flash and Green Lantern Corps for DC, and I’ll have a new creator-owned series coming out from Dark Horse, plus the occasional bit of journalism.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Honestly, I have no clue. The deeper I am in the comics world, the less I feel like I have a grasp on it. It felt like a very fractured year, with lots of really excellent books and also a lot of noise. It did seem like maybe we crossed some kind of tipping point with new audiences finding and consuming comics in really large numbers, and that influence starting to spread across even mainstream books. But I think it’ll be some time before we can really process that.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Other than the DC move to Burbank?

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? I’m really looking forward to our son starting daycare so I can have more writing time, but I feel incredibly guilty over that. So it goes.

While we were enjoying Comic Arts Brooklyn this year, my partner Marguerite Van Cook and I took a break from the excitement of promoting our new Fantagraphics Book The Late Child and Other Animals to go across the street to a little coffee bar and have a snack. The young counterperson noted the influx of odd personages hauling portfolios and piles of comics and asked, “is that a convention?”
I replied, “Well, a convention is more like one of those huge things with wrestlers, porn stars and superhero comics, all mixed together with a lot of cosplayers. This is more of a gathering of especially individualistic birds in the alt/lit comics scene. I guess you could call it a ‘murder’ of cartoonists.”
She laughed and asked about the origin of that phrase, which usually describes a flock of crows. But not to further elaborate that conversation, what follows is a review sampling of comics, many of them with poetical aspects, that I got at CAB and other recent releases. Note that I don’t actually try to kill my subjects, but rather to remark on their positive aspects, wherever possible.

____________________________________________________________

Jungle Book by Harvey Kurtzman (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse, $24.99)

A rare solo effort by the auteuristic creator of E.C.’s two excellent war comics titles Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, working in the satiric mode he initiated for Mad. Now, I do very much like Kurtzman’s solo work; see Fantagraphics’ recent collection of most of his solo E.C. stories, Corpse on the Imjin (which also contains a smattering of his odd, briefer collaborations, like those with Alex Toth and Joe Kubert). His own drawings have a powerful thrust and direct emotionality that can be lost or greatly altered when filtered through the sensibilities of the artists charged to re-illustrate his layouts. In Jungle Book, which was originally released by Ballantine Books in 1959 as a dingy, downscale paperback, Kurtzman’s targets include a jazz/noir mashup, a TV western and most impressively, in “The Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite”, a cutting sendup of the fierce sexism that polluted the offices of his former employer, ex-Marvel Comics owner Martin Goodman. This brilliant strip is nonetheless disparaged as “weak” by famed misogynist and Kurtzman discovery R. Crumb, in the afterthought conversation between the underground artist and Peter Poplaski that cabooses this otherwise beautifully-produced hardcover reprint volume.

____________________________________________________________

Andre the Giant: Life and Legend by Box Brown (First Second, $7.99)

Brown’s biography of wrestling star Andre Roussimoff joins a small group of comics masterpieces that deal with this most theatrical of sports, from Jaime Hernandez’s Whoa Nellie from 2000 to a series of tongue-in-cheek horror collaborations by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben in more recent years, including their 2011 graphic novella House of the Living Dead. Brown’s is a remarkably consistent effort with effective graphic sequences such as the one pictured above and I also admire his restrained handling of the heavily staged fight scenes, as well as his unusual architectural establishing shots. Brown’s stark, spare and precise cartooning create a unique mood, as they contextualize Andre’s success with a tragic acknowledgement of the unrelenting sense of otherness and diminished opportunities for social interaction that he experiences due to his exceedingly unusual scale; as well as his size’s harsh repercussions on his health.

__________________________________________________________

Fear My Dear: A Billy Dogma Experience by Dean Haspiel (Z2 Comics, $19.95)

The pair of poetic graphic stories in Fear, My Dear reflect Dino’s unfettered physicality and passionate persona. Since winning an Emmy award for his TV collaboration with Jonathan Ames, Bored to Death and The Alcoholic, their graphic novel from Vertigo, Haspiel has if anything become bolder and more exuberant. For this nicely produced hardcover from Josh Frankel’s new Z squared imprint, the artist uses a four-panels-per-page grid format and a monochromatic color scheme (red in the first piece, yellow and orange in the second, both with an elegant use of white for emphasis) to further define the relationship between his creator-owned characters Billy Dogma and Jane Legit. Their romance haunts post-apocalyptic urban rubble and breaks through to a star-crossed dreamscape, only to end up where they knew they must: together.

____________________________________________________________

How to Pool and Other Comics by Andrea Tsurumi (self-published, not priced)

Marguerite and I used to bask our way through the East Village dog days at the Pit Street Pool, and more recently as guests of the Miami Book Fair, we whiled away every spare moment by the steamy roof pool at our hotel. So, I can totally relate to the lead piece in Tsurumi’s new minicomic, wherein the artist collects a variety of witty graphic vignettes about group soakings in fluoridated waters, among other delicately drawn ironies and anthropomorphisms.

____________________________________________________________

Inkbrick #1 by Rothman, Sullivan, Kearney, Tunis, et al (Inkbrick, not priced)

This pocket-sized anthology of comics that incorporate, or are adapted from, poetry is made up of remarkable short stories done in a variety of mediums that range from full color to black & white. Immediate standouts for me are Paul K. Tunis’s watery montages for “Avenge Me, Eavesdropper,” Gary Sullivan’s oblique ink rendering of horrific Asian mythologies, “Black Magic”; Simone Kearney’s whimsically etched “Mobilization”; and editor Alexander Rothman’s “Keeping Time” (pictured above), a piece apparently finished in colored pencils that inventively expresses non-visual sensory impressions such as sound, smell and touch.

____________________________________________________________

The Graveyard Book, Volumes 1 and 2 by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell et al (Harper Collins, $19.99 each)

Although The Graveyard Book continues Neil Gaiman’s anti-collaborative self-hype at the expense of his artist partners, I do appreciate P. Craig Russell’s adaptations of Gaiman’s stories into comics form. Russell’s elegant cartooning and storytelling are paced far better than if Gaiman had scripted; it worked beautifully for Murder Mysteries, Coraline and The Dream Hunters. Now, for Gaiman’s morbidly charming tale of a live boy shielded from a cabal of serial killers by the shades of the deceased occupants of a cemetery and raised by them to young adulthood, Russell acts artistically in a way similar to Kurtzman’s E.C. methodology: he adapts the text and does layouts; the finishing artists serve as illustrators. This makes for a surprisingly smooth and consistent read. I particularly admire the polished renderings of Kevin Nowlan (seen above), Scott Hampton, Jill Thompson and the Russell-miming Galen Showman; and although a somewhat discordant note is sounded by the grotesqueries of Tony Harris, the whole is unified by colorist Lovern Kindzierski and illuminator Rick Parker, who hand-lettered the text, for me a visual treat in these days of page-deadening digital fonts.

____________________________________________________________

Lazarus #1-9 by Greg Rucka, Michael Lark and Santi Arcas (Image Comics, $2.99 each)

I drew one of Greg Rucka’s first comics stories (“Guts” in DC/Vertigo’s Flinch #8, 2000), but it seems to me that the writer doesn’t take as much advantage as he might of the properties that are unique to comics—almost everything he does might work just as well if not better as TV shows. In his 2012 collaboration with Matthew Southworth, Stumptown, it is Southworth’s expressive drawing that provides most of the interest and its most effective use of the medium is that the artist rendered Vol 2, #4 with a Toth-esque sideways, widescreen layout. For Lazarus, a story of a female assassin in a dystopian, nearly medieval America run by a select group of powerful families that is absorbing enough and has had some striking moments, but still often has a feeling of deja vu about it, a lot of the heavy lifting is provided by artist Michael Lark’s cinematic near-photorealism, accomplished in collaboration with Santi Arcas’ hi-tech color graphics.

____________________________________________________________

Thought Bubble #4 by Kot & Sampson, Lim & Rios, Starkings & Sale et al (Image Comics, $3.99)

This color tabloid is a showcase for the participants in the UK’s Leeds Comic Art Festival. My favorite piece is a sort of gentle advisory poem that in its course expresses a goal that many sensitive artists hold dear: that of “making things that help other people feel less alone.” It is the work of the writer of Image’s fascinating rotating-artist series Zero, Ales Kot, expressively drawn with upended, widescreen and oblique imagery by Alison Sampson, who just won a British Comic Award for emerging talent; and nicely colored by Jason Wordie. Also notable: a beautiful page by Hwei Lin and Emma Rios; and an Elephantmen strip written by Richard Starkings and elegantly rendered in ink washes by Tim Sale.

____________________________________________________________

Nightworld #s 1-4 by Adam McGovern, Paolo Leandri & Dominic Regan (Image Comics $3.99 each)

A tale of questing, embattled superhero-ish spirits, Nightworld manages to not only convey an approximation of the look of a Jack Kirby comic book, but it also comes closer than anything else I have seen to capturing something of the spirit of that master’s fierce and restless creativity. Artist Leandri hits a spot somewhere between majoring in Kirby, minoring in Steranko and echoing the early work of Barry Smith, back in the day when he was emulating Jack. Leandri’s spreads can look remarkably as if they were actually drawn by Kirby and his character designs and action passages likewise (see example above), without ever feeling as appropriated, or as forced, as those by some other artists who attempt to adhere as closely to the same model. These comics are colored by Regan with an oddly chosen palette that, again, is reminiscent of Kirby’s psychedelic experiments with Dr. Martin’s dyes. Moreover and significantly, writer McGovern’s poetic voice uniquely grasps a sort of post-traumatized and humane melancholy of narrative, the most tragic scenes of which are appropriately followed and leavened in a Shakespearean mode by bursts of frenetic humor, that can be seen in Kirby’s best writing.

____________________________________________________________

Out this April comes a one-shot from Image Comics by the creative team of Nathan Edmondson, Alison Sampson and Jason Wordie. Called Genesis, this is a story is all about imagination and creation, and restriction, and limits. When given unfettered ability to shape and create the world in your own imagination, how far would you go and what would you do? And what if it all goes wrong?

Genesis spins wheels within wheels, and forms a tricky, unexpected and startling story as a result. Ahead of the release of the issue this April, I took the chance to talk to Sampson and Edmondson about, well, the genesis of their project. How did they plan the story together, and what can readers expect from the issue? Read on to get a look into their creative process, as well as at Sampson’s art from the issue.

This interview starts and ends with the pair together, but spins off so we first talk to Edmondson, and then to Sampson. I think it makes for a more interesting read than if everybody answers the same questions each time.

Steve: What is the general premise of Genesis? What is the story about?

Nathan: A preacher who wants to make a difference in the world finds himself with the ability to change everything about the world, but his will, he tragically learns, is not strong enough to protect the world from himself.

Alison: Genesis is the story of a man who finds he can create anything, and what happens next.

Steve: A lot of the story hinges on your main character’s imagination, and his ability to think and build and create – was it difficult to find an artist whom you trusted to visualise the imagery of the issue?

Nathan: I looked around a bit and talked to a few illustrators but the fire wasn’t really lit until I saw Alison’s work and realized what she could bring to the story with her background in architecture.  The story is different and radical and trippy and I wanted someone who could bring something equally as mind-bending to the illustration.

Steve: What about Alison’s work led you to pitch this project to her? What made her the right fit for Genesis, in your opinion?

Nathan: Much of the book deals with building the world and then twisting it–sometimes very literally.  Alison, as an architect, understands how the pieces of the world fit together and thus how they can be warped and torn apart — I thought that approach would add a level of believability and even horror to the story that would help anchor the reader through the LSD trip that follows after the opening pages.

Steve: How did you build up the story together? What was the collaborative process like?

Nathan: As is typically the case with my collaborators, I’m happy to have the artist just run with the script and play jazz and make something of it true to their own vision; Alison especially had in mind a specific layout and design approach on the pages which I could never have described in a script.

Steve: The narrative is essentially a stream of consciousness, I would say – it feels like, rather than having a strict start and end, you set up a premise and then followed it across whichever twists and turns came up. Was that the intention?

Nathan: In a sense; there is a three act structure here, but I’m happy in this story to leave certain questions asked but not directly answered, so that in a way the story beats will echo after the end of the book and the reader will be left to consider them.

Steve: You’ve written elements of fantasy before, but this feels like a different style of storytelling from you, from anything we’ve seen in your comics before. Do you think this might be the stepping stone for more experimental-styled work as you continue on in comics?

Nathan: My interests are diverse; there are lots of different sorts of stories to tell and while I’ve centered in a way around my spy-fi and military worlds recently, building and expanding that fan-base, it’s a thrill (and a welcome change of pace and headspace) to explore wild and new story universes.  I’ve got a lot of things coming, in many different genres.   I just hope my readers are as adventurous as I am.

Steve: Was there ever a temptation to stretch out the story and tell this as a miniseries rather than a one-shot? What was it about the one-and-done format which most appealed to you?

Nathan: At some point I had outlined it that way, yes.  Eventually the story revealed itself at this length, and that was the right way to go with it.

Steve: Alison, what attracted you to the project?

Alison: Nathan asked me to be part of this project, at the point where my architecture contract was just coming to an end. I’d done that for a long time, so to take on a new challenge seemed like a good idea. At the time, I’d just drawn one comic and had just started to write and draw another. I really missed designing by drawing.

It seemed like a good idea for someone of my level of comics experience to work with a writer, so my art would be challenged. I wouldn’t only draw what I could draw – I might have to draw anything, which turned out to be exactly the case. The ideas themselves seemed highly attractive – the kind of thing you’d find in Ovid’s Metamorphoses – and fun.

Steve: Do you have a particular approach to storytelling, do you think? As well as making comics, you’re also an architect – which I think is reflected in the comic, both in the central story and in your artistic style. 

Alison: I don’t know. What I draw comes from responding to the script and my trying to make something comprehensible, with enough space, on the page. I take an engineering approach. “it is what it needs to be”. It needs to look nice, of course. That’s the unwritten secret of architecture. And just because I respond to the script, doesn’t mean it is lengthy- this one, as far as I know, was quite concise. I try and work off the dialogue and make an interesting looking, telling page.

Steve: Who are your influences as an artist? In an interview with Jason Sacks, you brought up Emma Rios – which was the comparison I would have made myself.

Alison: My architecture work is what influences my work as an artist, and the work of painters like Robert Rauschenberg and narrative photographers, like Jeff Wall, and many others. I’ve come late to comics as a reader and I was drawing before that, so it’s probably fair to say it has not come from comics. I judge the art on the page like I’d judge anything else aesthetically, and if it doesn’t look OK, I alter it.

There is a lot of art I like, including Emma, and Nate Powell, Brandon Graham and Jock; but I’m not going to say it is an influence. Catalyst might be a better word. As influencing goes, I look to certain comic artists and writers for how they handle themselves and a sense of principles. Drawing isn’t the only part of making comics.

Steve: The central character, Adam, is by design a fairly ordinary man, somebody you wouldn’t expect to have something like this happen to him. How did you approach designing him? 

Alison: I wanted him to have a simple graphic look that would be strong in black and white, and before we started the comic, I drew some sketches: white hair and a decent black suit, but a good looking man. Slightly offbeam, like this was a special person, but living in the world- and it would lead to a solid page structuring graphic. Then, when he comes out of hospital, in the script, he was in a blue shirt and not the suit- it was the only piece of colour or clothing description in the whole script, and he never put the jacket on again. So that was that.

The book is very much about what is inside him (with his external appearance being a foil for that), so this is fair enough. What is inside him isn’t ordinary, or maybe it is. You choose.

Steve: What’s your storyboarding process like? How do you decide when to use a more, I suppose, formal structure, and when to start changing the shape and composition of the panels?

Alison: I look at the script and break it down by drawing a small thumbnail, and that’s it. The script doesn’t tell me to do this, it’s just what I think gets things on the page in the right way. I couldn’t apply an over-riding concept without risk, even if I had wanted to- I did not have the whole script for more than a year. I don’t think any reader would be second guessing where Nathan would take the story, and it was the same for me.

Steve: Do you ink your own work? What do you look to emphasise when inking over your pages?

Alison: Yes. I try and bring the page to life as much as I can. Sometimes that is a much about taking ink off as putting it on.

Steve: How did the collaborative process roll out for the story?

Alison: Nathan told me about his idea and asked me to do some sketches. The story was in San Francisco, it was about this man. He could distort the world, and make things- anything. I did some sketches, and it is pretty difficult when you subject is anything. So I had to do research and sketches for my sketches. How do you ground this power, and give it meaning? I also sent some visual references, like this.

When I’d drawn the fourth drawing (they weren’t really sketches), then Nathan let me have the eighteen pages of script and we never talked about the art again until it came to fixing that it was Jason coming on board to colour. Nathan trusted me to get on with it and I took on an unfolding story. I was given space to do what I do, and I trusted in Nathan’s skills to provide a viable script- that is collaboration.

Steve: Do you consciously try to find motifs of your own – unmentioned in the script – to add to the story? 

Alison: Yes, all the time. That’s part, or maybe most, of my job. There is a long way between a brief script and a fully executed comic.

Steve: Later in the story, things get more abstract and wild. Which sections of the story did you work on first? Did you create the mad, surreal landscapes of the latter half of the comic first, and then contrast it to this relatively more formal and intimate opening; or the other way round?

Alison: I worked on the pages consecutively, largely, as that was how I had the script, but `I tried to have an overview on the geography of the whole thing, if that makes sense.

Steve: Thank you both for your time! What else do you both have coming up? Where can people find you online?

Alison: I have more comics coming up. I curate and manage Think of a City. A week after Genesis comes out, there is a story I drew for In the Dark, Rachel Deering and IDW’s massive horror anthology. Shadows, written by Matthew Dow Smith. Mainly, though, I have a specific project that should be announced soon.

The best place to find me is on my portfolio tumblr or on Twitter here.

Nathan: I can be found on twitter here - and also here. Upcoming, beside wrapping THE ACTIVITY and WHERE IS JAKE ELLIS?, continuing BLACK WIDOW and THE PUNISHER, I have a few creator owned works — but all of that in good time…