Ask the Author: Mike Cavallaro
Answered Questions (6)
Mike Cavallaro
I just recently made a Facebook post on this subject. I'll paste it below...
A few years ago, I was working a couple days a week at Bergen Street Comics, an amazing Brooklyn shop with a great selection and fantastic book events. NYC was teeming with cartoonists, and of course comics creators from other parts of the world visited the city regularly. On any day, one of my cartooning heroes from around the corner or around the world might wander in randomly, or maybe we were hosting their book release party that night.
This is probably why, when I had the opportunity to create a 4-page story for the U.K.'s PHOENIX WEEKLY COMICS MAGAZINE (thanks, Nick Abadzis!) the idea of a kid who worked in a store where Heroes and Gods came to shop popped into my head.
Most fantasy I read growing up seemed to have a sort of British setting. I'm a first generation Italian-American, and I had already published a memoir set in my parent's hometown, so I decided to center my story in an undisclosed Mediterranean locale, and to make the owner of that shop Vulcan, the Roman maker-god.
That one 4-pager turned into a few years worth of 4-pagers chronicling the misadventures of Vulcan's sole employee, NICO BRAVO. ["Nico" was the name of my landlord/upstairs neighbor's cat!] Over the years, the Celestial Supply Shop staff grew to include Lula the sphinx and Buck the unicorn.
Perhaps it's my Italian DNA, but I love stories involving intricate, absurd, neurotic, familial chaos with a tangle of characters: Amarchord, Radio Days, etc. Hard to do in 4 pages. But Mark Siegel at First Second Books gave NICO BRAVO a home where stories of that length could be told, starting with last year's NICO BRAVO AND THE HOUND OF HADES.
That story continues with NICO BRAVO AND THE CELLAR DWELLERS, book 2 in the series.
A few years ago, I was working a couple days a week at Bergen Street Comics, an amazing Brooklyn shop with a great selection and fantastic book events. NYC was teeming with cartoonists, and of course comics creators from other parts of the world visited the city regularly. On any day, one of my cartooning heroes from around the corner or around the world might wander in randomly, or maybe we were hosting their book release party that night.
This is probably why, when I had the opportunity to create a 4-page story for the U.K.'s PHOENIX WEEKLY COMICS MAGAZINE (thanks, Nick Abadzis!) the idea of a kid who worked in a store where Heroes and Gods came to shop popped into my head.
Most fantasy I read growing up seemed to have a sort of British setting. I'm a first generation Italian-American, and I had already published a memoir set in my parent's hometown, so I decided to center my story in an undisclosed Mediterranean locale, and to make the owner of that shop Vulcan, the Roman maker-god.
That one 4-pager turned into a few years worth of 4-pagers chronicling the misadventures of Vulcan's sole employee, NICO BRAVO. ["Nico" was the name of my landlord/upstairs neighbor's cat!] Over the years, the Celestial Supply Shop staff grew to include Lula the sphinx and Buck the unicorn.
Perhaps it's my Italian DNA, but I love stories involving intricate, absurd, neurotic, familial chaos with a tangle of characters: Amarchord, Radio Days, etc. Hard to do in 4 pages. But Mark Siegel at First Second Books gave NICO BRAVO a home where stories of that length could be told, starting with last year's NICO BRAVO AND THE HOUND OF HADES.
That story continues with NICO BRAVO AND THE CELLAR DWELLERS, book 2 in the series.
Mike Cavallaro
Hm, hard to answer. Telling stories is what I do, sort of a combination of work and play. So it's not like a chore, or something I need to be inspired to do. Stories are always brewing in the back of my mind, and I write every day. Sometimes it ends up in the garbage, sometimes not. It's not always great or even good, but it's someone I always do.
Mike Cavallaro
Nico Bravo book 3!
Mike Cavallaro
If you've ever had an argument with someone, and then walked away from it, but the argument continues in your head, with you and the other person continuing from where you left off in real life, THAT'S WRITING. It's when your imaginary characters truly have a life of their own. The writer doesn't feel like they're steering the ship. It's more like they're trying to keep up. That's the place to be.
Get your characters talking to each other and allow that interaction to tell your story. Allow your outline to evolve with it. If the characters do or say something you didn't expect, let it happen. Don't force your characters to do something just because your outline says so. Let them live and breathe. Character is story.
Get your characters talking to each other and allow that interaction to tell your story. Allow your outline to evolve with it. If the characters do or say something you didn't expect, let it happen. Don't force your characters to do something just because your outline says so. Let them live and breathe. Character is story.
Mike Cavallaro
Being able to spend day after day in the company of characters I love, working on something that's as surprising and entertaining to me as it is for any reader.
Mike Cavallaro
Stories turn out the best when you feel like the ideas are coming so fast you can barely keep up. When a story stops speaking to me, I take it as a sign that I made a wrong turn somewhere. I back up to when ideas were flowing freely, and choose another direction from there. That usually gets things going again.
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