Eren Cain's Blog
January 11, 2018
dies laboris interruptus
December 29, 2017
2018: I become
"My first taste of time travel transforms me. I’m carried to a deeper, more fundamental level of life where everything on Earth is fascinating and fresh. Now I have direction and motion. I am rushing and bubbling joy, and flow wherever I want. But each moment brings a bend in my river and leaves its imprint on me. Every instant in time gently molds and guides me. The shape and course of my river is gradually set. Each touch laid on for the unique purpose of… what? "
May 28, 2013
DOUBLE FEATURE: A Big-Hearted Beast of a Book
May 18, 2013
An Interview with COMMUNITY’s Jim Rash: Actor, Writer, & Director
May 7, 2013
An Interview with Susan Kaye Quinn: Bestselling YA Indie Author, World Builder, and all around lovely person.
April 25, 2013
Why Zach Braff did NOT ruin Kickstarter – A Rebuttal
February 9, 2013
The Larry Hama Interview
October 31, 2012
Happy Halloween! An Interview with a great writer and relentless storyteller, Laura Lippman.
This interview happened because of social media, which is really amazing. But that is it’s own post, and hopefully you came to read about Laura Lippman, so let’s get on with it.
After connecting with (as well as interviewing and being seminally inspired by) Hugh Howey - http://www.hughhowey.com - on Facebook, I decided to take a long shot, and write a note to Laura Lippman. Truth be told, I could tell, just like Hugh Howey, that it was Laura manning her Facebook page, and that was even cooler to me. In this age of author being able to reach their reader like neverbefore, one of my favorite storytellers was doing it too. Anyway, I told Ms. Lippman I was writing a novel that was The Shining meets the Yellow Wallpaper (which is true), and she wrote back to me saying that anyone writing something like that is someone I’d like to talk about writing with. The other thing is, hopefully, this will be my last interview about a first novel, but since you only do this once, I wanted to ask a very successful author, many books down the journey, what writing their first novel was like. Happy Halloween, keeping reading relentlessly, best, EC Stories
THE LAURA LIPPMAN INTERVIEW - August 3nd, 2012
There is a full moon tonight, shining bony light through the venetian blinds of my apartment window in Los Angeles by the desk where I write. It is a good night to write about Laura Lippman.
I’ve been re-reading her work all week, and now I’m watching her on YouTube being witty and tough and real on Craig Ferguson. On this particular episode of Ferguson, as he thumbs blithely through the book, she tells him that in her newest novel,The Most Dangerous Thing, you actually don’t know what it’s about until the very end. Even in person, Laura Lippman demands you turn the pages.
I’ve just finished reading her essay in Michael Connelly’s In The Shadow of the Master (A Poe collection interspersed with essays). Her essay, entitled In a Strange City, Baltimore and the Poe Toaster, displays the same perverse cunning her fiction exudes.
She writes about seeing the Poe Toaster. A masked and cloaked individual who visits Poe’s grave at the rear of an old cemetery in downtown Baltimore, on January 19 between midnight and 6:00 AM, every year. She has laid eyes upon the toaster, yet, she will not tell us about him (or her), both because of a pledge, and because she wants us to go on. She wants us to read to the end, where we hope she satisfies us, but in fact, she denies us everything, and we love it. You will turn her pages. I know, I have.
What’s interesting, is that it was Poe who made me fall in love with reading and writing (The Tell-Tale Heart). But what’s more interesting (at least to me), is the whole reason I started reading Laura Lippman, is the reason I’m a writer at all. Stephen King. Every time I read an interview, he touted her. Then, I saw a picture of him reading her inbetween innings at a Red Sox game. Finally, I read WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, and I’m so glad I did.
This interview, is about writing first novels. I’m almost done writing mine, so I asked Laura, (on Facebook) whose work I truly admire (as well as her respect for the craft and job of writing) if I might interview her about what it was like writing her first novel. She was kind enough to say yes, and this is the interview, as I dreamt it (or wrote it).
I just finished re-reading your first novel, BALTIMORE BLUES, which introduced readers to Tess Monaghan, a fallen journalist who stumbles into being a P.I., and launched a series. It’s a great book. I love its serpentine plot, and crisp prose, but really, it’s Tess I love. She’s vulnerable, irascible, sexy and funny. And she’s sincere, with pragmatic passion for the things she loves: work, routines, friends and lovers, and family.
How long did you have Tess in your head for? Or was it, once you decided to write crime fiction, there was this character sitting in the waiting room of your mind?
Tess came to me on a sleet-y night in November 1989. I made a flippant comment about a friend’s boss, how someone was going to murder the man one day and there would be too many suspects to solve it. My friend saw the story as being about the male character, someone who was wrongly accused of murder and had a female friend helping him. I thought the story was about the female friend – and I was the writer, after all. I didn’t make a real attempt to write the book until 1991, when I got stuck on a six-hour delay on a flight to San Francisco. The first effort didn’t fly. I put it down until Labor Day 1993 when I persuaded my then-husband that I would finish a novel within a year if we purchased a computer.
I love the opening with her list, it’s such fantastic characterization. And the fact that she has lost this thing that defines her – being a journalist – works so perfectly. Where did that list come from? Is that something you did or do?
I make to-do lists like this, often with the same level of futility. And as a journalist in the middle of a recession, with newspapers closing and friends losing their jobs, the idea of vocation as identity was very much on my mind.
You worked for many years as a journalist, did you cover crime like Michael Connelly, or were you more of a city reporter? It feels to me like you observe Baltimore in a very political/socio-economic way, but without being heavy handed. To me, it’s more like, this is the reality. Does that come from journalism? And since you’ve said you always wanted to be a novelist, did journalism help you discover the kind of stories and characters you wanted to explore in a novel? Or were you always drawn to the worlds of crime and injustice, or violence and evil, intruding upon people’s lives?
That’s incredibly insightful because I didn’t do a lot of time on the crime beat – weekend and night cops early in my career, occasional fill-ins. I was what we called the social services reporter when I started writing about Tess, covering poverty and homelessness and welfare. I also got thrown into politics a lot.
Journalism was the only writing gig I knew that came with a regular paycheck, so I signed up. It was like a golden ticket into every nook and cranny of Baltimore. I crossed thresholds I never would have crossed otherwise, in the poorest and richest precincts of the city.
What was the novel you may have read (or remember reading) that helped you say, okay, I can do this…I have a character that fits into this genre? Or, that a-ha moment, where you realized the possibilities of crime fiction. It was three books for me: James Lee Burke’s Rain Gods, Michael Connelly’s The Black Echo, and Nesbo’s Snowman.
There were three: Sara Paretsky’s Indemnity Only, Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress and Carl Hiaasen’s Tourist Season. They’re all first novels. Blue Dress is about a first case, in a sense. Tourist Season was funnier than the most traditional PI novels. And, sad but true, it took Paretsky to show me that the protagonist could be a woman.
Did you always read crime fiction? And what were you reading in those years leading up to Baltimore Blues?
All the writers above and Robert Parker. Parker was a big influence. Also, James M. Cain.
Your mother was a librarian, and your father was a journalist. Did your mom and dad recommend books to you, or just let you run wild?
There were implicit recommendations in what was on our shelves and I read all the Newbery award books alongside my mother, when she was in graduate school, but, yes, running wild is pretty apt.
I’m a nerd for craft. I love talking about stories and writing. Not just how we do it, but why we do it, and of course where those stories come from, and how we tell them. I listen to ON WRITING every year, read by Stephen King. I love Neil Gaiman’s essays on storytelling. I love stories because I think they define us. I was a voracious reader from a very young age: Poe, King, Koontz, Straub. But I was the son of a doctor living in a tiny Midwestern town, and never had any exposure to professional writers. But I read, pretty much everything, studied English and poetry in college, always knowing I would be a writer (hopefully a novelist), but not knowing how.
You’ve said you always wanted to be a novelist, but didn’t know how to do it. When you were working as a journalist, when did you begin to see what you needed to do?
I figured out that we intuit a lot about writing by reading. That’s why I go nuts when I meet people who want to write and they don’t really read. I just saw Spike Lee on Charlie Rose last night and he was complaining about how the young people he teaches at NYU don’t want to put the work in. But it’s not an age thing. We really live in a time of instant gratification. People need to decide what’s important to them, writing or publishing. Granted, writers should want to publish. But they shouldn’t want to publish anything that’s not first-rate, their best possible work.
I came to writing my first novel late, after working in Hollywood, as the assistant to the Showrunner of a sitcom, SCRUBS. That’s where I really learned the nuts of bolts of writing from people who did it for a living. I got to write an episode (and direct one), but what that job really taught me, was how to be a professional writer: to write every day, to never be precious, and to re-write ruthlessly. But ultimately, after writing some more TV scripts and screenplays for other people, I wanted to be my own boss.
You compare being a journalist to being a novelist, by saying, in journalism, “the writer is sort of devalued, but in novels, I’m the boss of the book.” Did the autonomy of novels help drive you to the point of beginning to write that first draft of BALTIMORE BLUES?
The dream was to support myself as a novelist and I was very clear-sighted about that. I knew a commercial genre provided a slightly better chance (only slightly) and that I needed to write several books, preferably at a book-a-year pace, before I could have a shot.
How long did it take you write the first draft ?
About four months. I finished on my 35 th birthday.
Back then, did you write straight through, or go back, and comb through it? In my very first draft, I tried writing straight through, with a detailed outline, and ended up writing 100,000 words and being at the halfway point. Of course, I think that’s because Stephen King’s IT was the first novel I ever aspired to emulate (at the age of ten). Now, I generally write a chapter, then go back over it until I feel I can move on.
I try to go straight through. I did go straight through in the beginning, then do a series of drafts. Now it’s somewhere between the two.
When did you write Baltimore Blues – morning, night, or all the time and inbetween?
I was a little all over the board with that first book because I matched up my writing time to my then-husband’s work schedule, which was really crazy. Eventually, I settled into a groove of writing in the mornings.
I love how you talk about having a child in the middle of The Most Dangerous Thing, and how it changed the novel. Did anything like that happen with Baltimore Blues?
No, the big changes wouldn’t come for seven years.
This is also something i’d like to tangent about. Stephen King talks about how our lives influence our writing, and our ability to really evoke that sense of place and being and character because we’re living it. That’s not to say we’re fighting bulls, but we might have children, or lose someone, or observe a tragedy, and we pour that in.
I cannot help but draw comparisons between you and Tess – although I’m sure Tess is Tess, and Laura is Laura – but the thing I found so interesting about Tess, is that her inner struggle to let go of being a journalist and embrace this path of a P.I. to me, felt very much like how I felt when i decided to become a novelist. While I was on SCRUBS, I really wanted to be a writer/director. And when I struck out to try and do that, it was so frustrating, that it helped me finally work up the courage to say, this isn’t for me, and I began working toward becoming a novelist. So when Tess’s Uncle says, “Don’t let losing your first love, keep you from finding a second one,” that really resonated. The focus of Tess, the routine, the mistakes she makes, and then she finally hits her stride at the end of the book. And sure, it could just be someone coming into their own that rang true, but for me, I saw echoes between your coming out as a novelist and the character emerging. Feel free to call bullshit if I’m overreaching.
There are a lot of parallels between Tess and me. I got lucky and my first love came through for me, in a very deep and profound way. I’ve been writing fiction for two decades now and supporting myself for a decade.
But those words were prescient, for an entire industry. A lot of my friends have had to leave journalism because of the changes in newspapers.
When you finished (the first draft), were there things you instantly felt you’d learned as a writer? Things you instantly wanted to change or expand, or knew you had to?
I don’t think I had learned anything except that I had the energy and doggedness to get to the end, to finish. I had so much to learn about pacing and plotting, and I knew that. I think we end up working very hard at the things we don’t do well. I was confident about characterization and dialogue. Perhaps overly so!
After you finished, who did you give that first draft to? How has your reader circle changed? Or has it stayed the same?
No one read the first draft. A good friend read what was probably the third. Then another friend, who had some contacts in publishing, read it, judged it publishable and began the process of helping me find an agent. Even with her help, that took almost a year.
How many drafts did you do of BB before you thought it was ready to share with an agent? I know you’ve said you do many drafts, was it the same with BB?
I think it was the third draft that went out to agents.
I know you said you’ve used outlines, but no more. I learned writing on a TV Show, and in TV, the outline is king. But as I get to the end of this first novel, I don’t think i’ll ever really outline again. What I’ve gravitated toward are sign posts (Twain’s phrase). I come to a scene with an idea of what I have to do, but the freedom to find it. How did you outline on that first novel? Did you stick to it, or did Tess and the story have other plans?
I don’t think I had an outline per se, just an end point. The final scene and the key to the mystery were very clear in my mind and I wrote toward that moment.
Something I’ve been learning some hard lessons with, is length and word count. As I said before, my first draft was pretty bloated. I basically stopped midway, went back and did sign posts for chapters and scenes/characters and story, and told myself, just tell the story, nothing more. And then this happens, and then this happens.
Baltimore Blues is a pretty lean novel, did it arrive that way, or was it 100 miles of bad road for you (like it was for me?)
It’s not as lean I was would like, but, yes, revision helps. Hard not to be a harsh judge of one’s early work, but the novel I’m publishing in August makes BB look a little bloated.
Also, with word count, do you have any real process in terms of how you really cut length/words? For instance, I find it’s much easier for me, to simply take the four or five pages that I know are too long, look at them for a bit, then just go back and rewrite it as one or two pages. How did you edit/cut back then, and how do you do it now?
I’m a pretty ruthless editor. I think journalism helps with that. When you’ve had others hack your work to bits, it makes you pretty tough.
When you finished BB, had you already been talking to agents or no? How did you find your first agent?
I sort of answered that above. I had this friend, who knew the industry really well. She sent me to four agents. It was kind of like a fairy tale. The first agent passed, politely. The second agent was a NIGHTMARE. Took the book, sat on it, wouldn’t read it. Then she stopped taking my phone calls. Then her assistant stopped taking my phone calls, I was reduced to faxing a note to her and asking for the manuscript back. Because, sad to say, it was my only copy and my printer was an old daisy-wheel. I didn’t want to spend four days printing out another copy.
So then my friend, who had been trying to be very strategic about the agents, said: “I am sending you to Vicky Bijur because she has lovely manners.” And she does. She’s also been my agent ever since. I could not be more devoted to her.
One thing I’m finding as I get to the end of my 3rd draft, and a place where I know it’s ready to share, is that I’m getting very anxious to write my second novel. Regardless of what the idea is, I feel like I can do it so much better ? Did you feel the same way?
My savvy friend told me I had to write a second novel asap, so I did. I had heard second novels were harder, but I wrote mine while hoping desperately to sell my first – it was almost finished by the time I did sell my first – so my primary memory is that I was just filled with yearning.
Now I’m going to come all the way back around to what you said were “the appropriate set of questions,” when you spoke to students at Northeastern about interviewing Fran Liebowitz. But in this instance, i’m going to really ask the one-
Where do you your ideas come from? I know you’ve spoken about both brainstorming, and accreting an idea or a character from which the story grows. A ball and string book, as well as the lightning bolt striking you and suddenly you’ve got this fully formed novel in your mind that you know you can write. To take this question one step further, because i’ve found this in the short stories I started writing as I got more serious, and certainly with writing this first book. Even when the idea strikes, do you find that there has to be this way in, and without it, it’s just a what if, or a character without any real life or direction? When has it been easy, and when has it been hard?
Let’s just say, my mind is always open. It’s one big tickler file. I have written stories based on subject topics. I have written novels based on the news, but also ones just on ideas that interest me. I’m writing a novel suggested by my husband. Idea generation comes with the territory.
It often starts with a character. Sometimes, it’s a character and a situation. But sometimes, it’s just a scene. The current book was inspired by my vision of a scene ina synagogue. And yet that scene ended up coming much later in the book.
I actually didn’t start with BB. It was What The Dead Know, and I’d Know You Anywhere, (which my Mom loved), and those books just rocked me. They’re not just filled with wonderful characters, but these really haunting ideas. I’m currently reading The Most Dangerous Thing, which I’m loving, but what I’ve observed in your stand alones (and heard you speak about) is they allow you to explore some deeper, darker things about both people and ideas like – memory, guilt, victimization, death, mistakes we make, and the truths we hide in our own hearts - but what’s so fascinating in comparing BB to The Most Dangerous Thing in terms of first novel to most recent, is that I can really see you pushing your own style and storytelling. Particularly with the first person plural, which is so right, and reminds me of novels like Peyton Place, Salem’s Lot, and Needful Things, where this sweeping, and complex perspective helps tell the story. Its interconnectedness is a living thing.
Is part of the standalone’s challenge for you, taking these normally complex ideas and emotions, and multiple viewpoints, and weaving them into popular fiction?
The great advantage to writing stand-alones is that one gets to exhaust the characters, use them up. I happened to interview Tana French this week and part of the reason her books are so popular – I think – is because they offer stand-alones in a series setting. Sure, lots of people did it first (Ed McBain, for example), but she is willing to destroy her characters, take them down to the nub.
At the reception before the French interview, a local bookseller mentioned a good review I had gotten for the new book and said: “Everyone says you get better.” That sounds a little rude – and it also implies that that bookseller, who works at a local store, isn’t reading me, but so it goes – but, hey, what are the options? Getting worse? Staying the same? So I push and I push and I push and I push. Each book has a different craft agenda. And in every book, I’m trying to be a better writer. My voice doesn’t have a lot of natural beauty, it just doesn’t. So what does one do? You can put lipstick on a pig and try to fake the gorgeous language that seems to come so naturally to others, or you can find your own innate style. Mine is very simple. Not hardboiled simple. Just plain and strong. I hope.
Lastly, perhaps most importantly in your work, is this idea of memory. Journalism is this kind of contemporary archaeology where you are reconstructing a person’s narrative in reverse, trying to make it truthful (and entertaining) and in that crack in the mirror of reality. Things become distorted, sometimes for the worse or better. Sometimes both. Does you think your fascination with memory comes out of your journalistic experience, or did it always fascinate you?
This last barrage of questions will probably going to come off as random, but I wanted to try and ask you things that people might not have asked you before, so hopefully just one of these is that, and I’m having too much fun doing this.
What’s the most unexpected novel that influenced you and your writing (besides Lolita)?
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I learned the same lesson as the main character: Don’t use fiction to write fantasies about what one wishes to be.
My current novel is a ghost story, about both divorce and insanity, and the kind of selfish, hateful evil that festers in a person’s heart if they don’t face it. Would you ever do a story about someone stuck in the maelstrom of mental illness? Like The Snake Pit by Mary Jane Ward, or of course, the Yellow Wallpaper?
You know what? That idea scares me. It’s been hard enough to write from the POV of deeply disturbed people. To be inside a head of dissonance – it’s a great idea, but it makes me nervous.
If you were going to write a horror novel, what might it be about? One of my favorite novels of all time is Anne Rivers Siddons The House Next Door, which is a truly contemporary, if not post-modern gothic horror story. I could really see you doing something like that brilliantly, do you think you might ever write something in that genre?
I would want to write something as frightening as Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, but that’s a high bar. I love that book. It would definitely center on a haunting.
Would you ever write a graphic novel?
Probably not. I’ve read a few and wildly envy my peers who are writing them, but unless they bring back “Millie the Model,” I don’t really have the chops.
What’s the last crime novel/thriller you read that knocked your socks off, and why?
I wish I could say something original here, but it was Gone Girl. At least i can feel slightly smug that I read it in manuscript, that my responses occurred in a vacuum and not in the wake of the rave reviews and runaway success.
I call this the gun to your head questionnaire. The answers should come from your creative gut, that is to say, the first thing that pops into your mind.
A Novel: Lolita
A Film: Citizen Kane
A Song: Whenever You’re On My Mind (Marshall Crenshaw)
Your Last Meal Pizza
A caffeinated beverage, or drink of choice? White wine
A Crime Novel: The Last Good Kiss
A Place on earth: Home
A Writer: Husband
An idea or character that interests you (which you’ve yet to explore): Happiness
Thank you, because this was so much fun for me.
Best, EC Stories
A Beautiful, Bloody Stump…
Happy Halloween! This is an interview with the Writer/Creator of one of the best Horror Comics i’ve read in quite some time. Scott Tuft’s SEVERED. Apologies for it being a bit dated, but after Scott was kind enough to do the interview, it took an ungodly amount of time for the website to be done. But now it is, and I want to share this on the day dedicated to those who like to scare, be scared, and will always be afraid of the dark (because you should be!).
If you haven’t checked out SEVERED, please do. It’s a fun, frightening read with a truly scary villain, and the art is amazing. Now, enjoy. Lastly, I apologize for a few wonky formatting things at the beginning of the interview, but I’m learning, and it will get better.
The Scott Tuft Interview
First of all, I’m a comic nerd. From the first time I went to a comic book fair at about the age of ten or so – I discovered a Dark Horse comic called FAUST (i’m not even sure whatever happened to it, but it was an insane comic) and I fell right in. From there, I discovered Frank Miller, whose DARK KNIGHT changed my perception of the visual comic world with its characters and their square jaws and shoulders. The cover of THE KILLING JOKE stayed with me forever. Alan Moore’s SWAMP THING, incredible. And finally, there is one comic that took my mind, heart, and soul: ARKHAM ASYLUM. Back then I was obsessed with Joseph Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS – shows up in some of my most favorite works – APOCALYPSE NOW comes to mind, but for those of you who don’t know – Arkham is the criminal asylum in Gotham, where Batman has put all of his worst enemies, including the Joker, who leads an uprising, taking over the asylum and its employees hostage. He has but one request, send in the Bat. And so Batman (and Bruce Wayne) take a journey into their darkest heart. It blew me away not simply with its script, but mostly, honestly – and it’s why i love comics – the imagery. Written by Grant Morrison and beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean, it was like abstract Batman for me. It was scary, and real – that opening imagery of young Amadeus Arkham bringing breakfast to his mummy, whose sitting up in bed, “But I’ve eaten…” Mrs. Arkham says through bugs tumbling out of her mouth. I have never forgotten how that comic made me feel as a reader, and as an aspiring storyteller.
SEVERED made me feel the same way. I came to SEVERED by way of the blood-soaked backroad called AMERICAN VAMPIRE. I read that Stephen King collaborated on this tale – conceived and written by Scott Snyder (who is a fantastic writer of both comics and fiction). So I followed Scott Snyder’s name around Amazon, and discovered SEVERED, and Scott Tuft. Once again, it was the imagery, and the story. The art of this comic, might be my favorite since Bernie Wrightson’s Tales from the Crypt / EC Comics stuff – and of course his Frankenstein, Cycle of the Werewolf magic! And it comes from the pen of Atilla “the killa” Futaki. I love Norman Rockwell, and Bernie Wrightson, and with Atilla, it’s as if their art conspired to dream of an artist.
So now, I bring you the second interview on my blog with the Creator and Writer of SEVERED, Scott Tuft. I’ve just finished reading the hardcover…so this interview is kind of my stream of consciousness as I re-read SEVERED…enjoy.
EC: First of all, I love all the covers, mostly because of that evil tearing through that thin veil of reality that we believe keeps us safe, even though it doesn’t. Where did that come from?ST: Thanks so much Eren. That’s quite an introduction. Arkham Asylum is a great book and I’m a huge fan of both Morrison and McKean. THE FILTH is actually one of the first books to turn me on to the breadth of possibilities within the comics medium and McKean’s work is both beautiful and frightening… MR. PUNCH is a book that still haunts me.As for the covers, it was a bit of an undertaking coming up with the idea. We wanted something that would be subtle and classy but also scary and something that would jump off the shelf at you. At first we were toying around with a mosaic idea… having each issue be a different part of the salesman’s face and a different aspect of his personality. But after pulling out most of our hair we came to the obvious conclusion that 7 rectangles is a tricky way to divide a face. So we were fielding other ideas and Attila sent us a picture of him staring out from behind a tear in his drafting paper. He said that he had this dream of being stuck inside his paper and cause this was pretty early in the game, we both worried that our new artist may actually be insane. But we started thinking about it and it just clicked. What if the paper was like a postcard of an elegiac American period piece landscape and the guy behind the tear was our salesman? The idea of juxtaposing the picture-perfect safety of the past with a real and imminent threat that has no respect for that safety really stuck with us.
EC: I love the inside cover art, not only the negative color scheme, and those rising trees almost induce vertigo – really great.
ST: Thanks. We were very lucky to work with the designer Steven Finch and he suggested the abstractish print on the endpages and within. Attila’s Inks are also truly fantastic and we wanted to use them as much as possible throughout the book. We’re actually thinking of releasing a black and white version of SEVERED that is just the inks and letters. I think it would make for a totally different experience.
The foreward by Jeff Lemire is fantastic – did you meet him, and if so what did you guys talk about?
ST: Thanks. Jeff has been great. He actually first introduced us to Attila and I think his own work is very similar thematically to SEVERED so I really wanted him to write an intro to the book. I have met him a couple times at conventions but I can’t honestly recall what we talked about. I probably just showered him with fanboy complements about Essex County and Sweet Tooth. The real connection with him though is through Snyder. The two of them have become very close through their work at DC.EC: I know you say that you and Scott had been working on this idea since you were teenagers, but talk about some of the stories and films that influenced you along the way.
ST: Well first off… just to clarify, the idea of SEVERED is not that old though our love for story, horror, the road and Americana is all definitely rooted in our teenage years.
Horror wise, the films that influenced us were the usual suspects (the term, not the movie)… Shining, Silence of the Lambs, most things Polanski. Scott and I pretty much devoured horror films in high school and so did Attila. So slasher films like Texas Chainsaw were also big. More obscure things that inspired me (personally) are Bertolucci films. I find the Conformist so much scarier than any horror movie. And I actually put a 1900 reference in the book. I was also very inspired by early silent comedies. The landscapes and faces really capture a time but also the spirit of those films is something I wanted to have in SEVERED.
EC: I have to say, for me, it invokes THE TALISMAN. I love that Jack is 12, which is to say, horror and evil often come before we’re ready for it. There is a tendency nowadays to “age-up” young boys or girls in this setting – make them 16 or 18 – and I loved that you made Jack that age. What’s your thinking behind that?
ST: For me, 12 is a whole lot scarier than 16 or 18 and it’s a different kind of horror. It was also a time when 12 year olds were on the verge of adulthood. Back then kids grew up much faster. It wasn’t uncommon for kids even younger than Jack to be working long shifts in factories. To have Jack be 16 or 18 would make the whole story seem a little fake to me. I understand why they do it in movies – older kids can work longer hours so the shoots are less expensive – the studios think that the kids who drive the box office want to see kids their age or older as the protagonists (would an 18 year old want to watch a movie about a 12 year old?) – And while these practical considerations are valid, I think that they can be to the detriment of the story. The great thing about indie comics is you can do whatever you think is good for the story and when people respond to the story beyond the demographics, you can prove the actuaries wrong.
EC: Is there really a Matteson, IL – I’m from the Midwest, which is also one of the reasons I love the world you created. The sense of place is so fucking right on – you obviously had that in mind – but did I also love how the comic doesn’t have a kind of color veil over it that keeps it monochromatic – for instance, the sequence in the first issue where Jack catches the train is like something out of a John Ford film – or even Butch Cassidy – it’s bright and green and hopeful – and then you go to that amazing first image in issue two of Frederick hung and eaten in the basement – but it’s done in those murky shadows – but you can see it all if you look closely, which of course you do! Talk about that look and how it might have evolved – was that something you set out to do, or more of an evolution as you got into it?
ST: Thanks. I think there is a Matteson but I’ve never been there. I found it on an old map of the area and it seemed to be the right size town in the right part of Illinois. As for the color palette, Attila and I definitely talked a lot about it. The book alternates between bright and dark… hope and despair. I think that the extremes obviously help the horror. For my tastes, too often horrors go dark and never turn back. Your eyes adjust and you just cling to your seat until it’s over. I
EC: I loved the historic homages as well – for instance, Sam and Jack on the skyscraper girter with that sunset is brilliant – did you just have moments in mind and tried to work them in as you went.
ST: Yeah. Scott and I both have a deep love for Americana and American History and one time that’s always fascinated us was the early part of the 20th century. It seemed to be a time when America was coming of age and we thought that this time of open road and optimism would be the perfect time to put our story. So with things like the skyscraper construction… it just worked – historically as well as imagistacly. The two kids perched on the edge of a construction site. Almost floating above the activity of the city; both romantic and dangerous… and Attila really nailed it.
EC: Storywise, I really loved Jack’s arc – because he goes in search of this dream, which in and of itself is a selfish thing, and he pays for it along the way. He loses Sam, and of course, he loses something else…I won’t spoil that for those who haven’t read the comic yet.
When you and Scott finally got to writing/executing this idea, how far along was the script, and how did you guys ultimately approach it? Do you just write the story script, and then work the panels out after the scene is locked ? or does one lead the other as you kick it around ?
ST: We had worked out the story completely together and then I took the lead with the actual writing. I’d write the scripts and Scott would give me notes. As it was my first comic, there were a bunch of freshman mistakes along the way and it was great to have Scott (a natural pro but also an experienced comic writer) by my side.
EC: What was Scott most helpful in doing with you besides I’m sure being a bitching writing partner?
ST: SEVERED is my first comic so it was a bit of a learning curve with the medium and among other things, Scott was instrumental in pointing out comic conventions that I was missing. I think we complement each other well. And he pushes me to be less subtle which I really need.
EC: Then of course, there is the Salesman, where does he come from in your head? He’s really relentless is the thing, and it reminds a little of Randall Flagg, in that he’s always kind of one step ahead of you…and he is really more ruthless than you can imagine. Like the scalping sequence, which reminds me (and this is weird) of the scene in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES when Brad Pitt is beating Casey Affleck in the scene. And it’s so shockingly mean and cruel and savage, and that scene was like that for me. You know the Grey Man is bad, but it’s such a finely nuanced nasty that it makes him far more terrifying than a typical bogeyman.
ST: The Salesman was a lot of fun to write. We were inspired by couple real historical serial killers and sociopaths like Albert Fish. We wanted him to be super charming and the kind of guy who could sell a side of beef to a vegan. But also vicious and unrelenting. He’s the kind of guy who you want on your side when navigating a dark and dangerous world but not someone you should ever get comfortable around.
EC: To the art of that scene - I love how Attilla cast that whole film is such deep dark, edging the characters in strange moonglow. I mean he really lit that scene with just moonlight and cigarette and cigar light. Did you direct that lighting, or is it something where you and Attila really talk about what will really suit the scene?
ST: Ha. Yeah. There was a lot of talk about the lighting in that scene. Attila and Greg (who did the colors) were real sports with my obsessive notes on lighting. This scene was redone at least once. With this book, I put a lot in the script about the lighting cause I think that’s a really effective way to convey tone to an artist.
EC: The image of the pimp’s whore smoking in the darkness behind Jack is pure pain. And I will also say – i was scared shitless by the welcome home carved in the walls. It’s a brilliant reveal, where as a reader, you lean in and say, “what’s that on the wall,” and then you see that it’s truly EVERYWHERE…and my mind actually went two places: 1) oh fuck, the villain’s there, but I also thought of the Salesman’s runed chest. That is when the sphincter clenches and the balls rise, and you don’t let up on the gas at all!
ST: Thanks. I kinda feel like the writing has always been on the wall with Jack through the whole journey so it was a fun way to reveal.
EC: I love Katherine showing up at the end so much, because she didn’t cast him off – she loves him, and that is so wonderful. What were your inspirations for her character and that turn in the story – did you always have that in mind or did that emerge as you went along? It’s also perfect suspense that reminds of when Clarice Starling shows up at Buffalo Bill’s front doorstep, and he lets her in…
ST: Yeah.. it was probably inspired a bit by the silence of the lambs. While Katherine isn’t on the page too much, we wanted her present throughout and in some ways Sam is a proxy for her. We always wanted her to be there at the end… she is the reality of his life and Jack’s dad is the fantasy.
EC: And I have to ask…what is the Salesman? – is a type B Vampire of sorts – or a demon ? someone who did a deal with the devil ? You may either lie to me as Faulkner often did to book club ladies in his day while sipping bourbon, “Light in August, is about when the cows give birth in the summertime…” or you may just say, i can’t give away the secrets…but i’d love to see his backstory, almost like Pinhead – i always loved how those cenobites were people once, which sometimes, in my mind, those are the best monsters.
ST: We have talked about doing a series of follow up minis of SEVERED and in these, his nature will be slowly revealed so maybe you should wait for that? But… that having been said, he will never be fully explained. I think once a monster is explained, you start identifying with it and everything shifts away from horror.
EC: That’s another thing, because I love monsters, and I’m sure you do too – because the Salesman is a really nastily original creation and I love him – and he’s such a bastard in real life as well – he reminds me of the Tall Man from Phantasm, and the Cook from the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1970).
What is your favorite monster? or the one you love the most and why? And talk about the monster genre, what you like and what you don’t – i think it’s become a little bit of a backwater these days, and i think it’s a shame, but that just means we need to reinvent it.
ST: If they are done well, most monsters can be great. I’m trying to think of some recent monster stories and the last thing I remember is THE HOST, which I liked. The Koreans know how to do horror.
Again, how did the covers come about ? what was your process with Attila – and Attila – what is your favorite cover?
ST: Attila and I worked very closely on this book. We were constantly on the computer discussing the script, the art, horror in general and anything else.
AF: I like all the covers but my favorite is probably the 6th one – with the cotton field.
EC: Attila, where are you from, and how do you think it shapes your style?
AF: I’m from Budapest in Hungary. I don’t know how this shapes my work… It’s the only place I’ve ever been from. I studied comic art in Italy and I think I have a much more European approach to comics.
ST: I think that being in Budapest Attila has a really good handle on the old world/ candlelight aspect of SEVERED. When I went to visit him in Budapest, I noticed that while clearly a first world city with all modern amenities… you get a sense that it wasn’t too long ago that everything was lit by gas lamp.
EC: How did you develop your own style – i love its realism, but also heightened reality – you make it better. What are you working on now ?
AF: Thank you. I guess it comes from your inspirations. The comic artists that I like most are mostly painters and my style naturally developed this way. Right now I just finished the second Percy Jackson book and am now working on a 5 issue run of Conan for Dark Horse.
BACK TO SCOTT-
EC: What’s next ? What’s your feeling on the state of comics – and does self-publishing have a prayer in that world ?
ST: I think we are close to a time when if you assemble the right group of people who really inspire the readers and audience – then i think you can actually release an entire series of comics via Kickstarter, also because you can figure out your costs beforehand to a degree – how do you feel about that?
I’m working on 3 original comics ideas right now (one of those is a horror with Scott). I’m also writing a couple screenplays. Indie Comics are fantastic in that you can do whatever you want… tell whatever story you want… and if its good… get it into the hands of smart, loyal and awesome fans. That having been said… don’t quit your dayjob. I think it’s nearly impossible to make a living making indie comics… it’s a really tough road.
EC: Who would be your dream writer/illustrator you’d like to work with ?
ST: As for writers, I’m not sure how a collaboration would work… the only reason it works for Scott and I is that we’ve known each other for so long. But if I were to write something with anyone else… (Its pretty obvious) I’d love to see how Alan Moore puts together a story. I’m also a huge fan of SCALPED and think that Jason Aaron must be some kind of crazy genius. I would love to see his process. As for artists, there are so many that I really love,
EC: Would you ever do a Western?
ST: Absolutely. I love Westerns and think that the comic medium is very well suited for it. I have one story idea that has been kicking around for a while that I hope to one day make and it has a major western element.
EC: What was that moment when you knew you were a writer, and then how did you pursue it or not pursue it after you knew ?
ST: I’m waiting for that moment. I guess the first time I got a pay check for writing I could say I was a professional writer but I’m not sure I am a WRITER. I’m definitely a story-teller though and love shaping a concept into a complete story.
Initially, I wanted to end with a favorites list, but as I thought of that I heard the universe groan, so I’m calling this the gun to your head questionnaire. The answers should come from your creative gut if at all possible, that is to say, the first thing that pops into your mind.
A Book – THE ROAD
A Film – ALEXANDER NEVSKY
A Song – SYNCHRONICITY II
A Songwriter – TOWNES VAN ZANDT
Your Last Meal – SOME KIND OF ISRAELI BREAKFAST AT MIRIAM IN PARK SLOPE
A caffeinated beverage, or drink of choice? – SAZERAC
A Graphic Novel – V FOR VENDETTA
A Place on earth – NAMIBIA
A Writer – VONNEGUT
An idea or character that interests you (which you’ve yet to explore) – NICE TRY. – okay, I’ll bite… this is something I just saw walking back from breakfast: A dogwalker with a keychain with about a hundred keys (likely to apartments all over the neighborhood) – there’s a story there somewhere – my mind veers dark so I’d say it would have to do with some nefarious character abducting this dogwalker and setting up some sort of criminal network with their access to these houses. Maybe one of these houses belongs to a clean-cut 40 year old accountant and now her apartment has became a heroin stash-house unbeknownst to her.
October 29, 2012
MY NEW WEBSITE IS DONE!
While this has taken much longer than I would have liked, I’ve learned both in life and writing (or creating art of any kind), the work quite often tells us when its done. Thank thank thank you to Ryan Catabay, the mad scientist over at http://www.rytekgrafx.com.
I couldn’t be happier with the new site’s design, and now I can focus on sharing both the tales I’m spinning and the thoughts rattling the cages inside my head!
Thankfully, I’ve got some pretty amazing content stockpiled, and what’s cooler is that it makes me happy to be launching the new site so close to Halloween!
1) An interview with the twisted and talented mind of SCOTT TUFT, Writer & Creator of SEVERED, one of the best Horror comics I’ve read in quite some time (in my humble opinion) along with a bonus interview with his collaborator, artist Atilla Futaki.
2) A review of ARGO to kick off the arrival of heartier, winter fare.
AND FINALLY! THIS WEDNESDAY, ON HALLOWEEN (OR ALL HALLOW’S EVE IF YOU LIKE)…
3) An interview with NY Times Bestselling Author, LAURA LIPPMAN, about writing first novels that I cannot wait to share. She was kind enough to grant me this interview around the time her latest novel, AND WHEN SHE WAS GOOD, came out, and in addition to being a hugely talented storyteller, she’s also an incredibly lovely person.
Hope everyone likes the new website as much as I do.
Thanks all, and see you soon!
