THE STORY OF O Graphic Novel Reviewed

In 2009, I reviewed THE STORY OF O hardcover collection of the late Guido Crepax's comic book adaptation of the Pauline Reage's classic of sado-masochistic eroticism.  I just discovered that the out-of-print collection is now available digitally at Comixology. So, I present that link here and reprint my review in full for any who might be curious.  The price for the digital is $9.99 or you can download a 10-page preview version for free.  Here's the link.

THE STORY OF O
Writer: Pauline Reage
Artist: Guido Crepax
Publisher: NBM Comics Lit/Eurotica

“O realized that through the medium of her body shared between them…they attained something more mysterious and perhaps more intense than an amorous bond…a union of which the very conception was arduous.”

To review hardcore erotica of the sort like THE STORY OF O is a challenging task, at least for me. It is easy to approach something like this with a flippant adolescent mocking tone. But, as far as I’m concerned, that does a disservice to the artist’s intent in something like this. For those who may be unfamiliar with the story itself, the original prose version of THE STORY OF O was first published in the 1950s and was a shockingly explicit and brutal yet also sensual and erotic examination of sexual submission. The story was so shocking, in fact, that the French government attempted to suppress it. In the most graphic of details, this misogynistic story involves a man’s deliverance of a series of progressively more degrading, painful, and humiliating sexual abuses to his mate. Through these acts of bondage, pain, and shame he breaks her spirit and reduces her to his complete and utter will-less sexual slave….even to the point of having her branded with his initials.

Even in these more “open” times with all forms of pornography available to anyone with access to the internet, the story is still shocking in the extent to which the writer…a woman herself…dove headlong into the deepest parts of the human sexual dark places. It is a dirty thing to read. It is harsh and mean and twisted. After each new level of abuse that O endures, her husband makes her tell him she loves him. If she reaches a point of enjoying the pain or abuse, then the abuse is increased until she breaks again. It is a story of depravity and how such debasement can be twisted into love.

Ultimately, while the original novel itself is a classic of erotic literature because of the times in which it was first published, this graphic adaptation by Guido Crepax is a classic itself even though it was not originally published until the 1970s. Crepax, who passed away in 2003, was an amazing Italian comic artist who tore down barriers in his commitment to using the comic book form to tell truly adult stories. In his attempts to liberate the European world of comic art in the 1960s and 1970s from the emphasis on childish content, he boldly stepped up and tackled sex and pure erotica as his own emphasis. From his own original character Valentina to adapting classics of erotica in graphic form, he established himself as a master of the sexual genre and comic art medium. Crepax’s adaptation of THE STORY OF O is widely considered his magnum opus….and with good reason.

In this review, I’m not going to attempt to give an opinion on the “story” because that would be akin, in my opinion, to reviewing a Classics Illustrated adaptation of…say…A CHRISTMAS CAROL… and actually taking time to talk about Charles Dickens’ efforts in writing the original story. So, I will let the story stand on its own and I’ll let each reader determine his or her own degree of comfortability with it. Instead, let me address what is paramount in this new hardbound complete collection of Crepax’s adaptation…which was originally serialized…and that is Crepax’s efforts here as illustrator of Pauline Reage’s story.

First of all, the Eurotica imprint of NBM Publishing has done a beautiful job of packaging this book together. Crepax’s work is entirely in stark black and white, as befits the story itself, and the book designers have utilized his work in crafting an attractive black cover with a gorgeous small panel of O’s face blindfolded and with a chained collar on her neck. It is perfectly symbolic of the overall theme of the book itself and slyly provocative enough to catch the casual observer’s eye with its placement surrounded by so much blackness…once again the use of black also symbolizing the harsh darkness of the world the reader is about to enter. The subtle and unique circular signature of “Guido Crepax” is also positioned on the cover so that those who know the name also know what they are about to encounter within the pages of this book. The end papers are almost entirely black except for a series of 1” x 1 ½” panels running horizontal from end to end to where they almost look like a series of frames from a film. The panels present O performing graphic sexual acts of submission and guide the reader to turn the page where the next two pages are entirely white except for an ever so subtle profile image of O’s face with her open mouth and extended tongue directing the reader to turn the page and start the story.

Crepax is a master storyteller and he wields a lyrical brush. His style is beautiful with a nouveau tendency towards elongated bodies and necks especially…but not grotesquely so. The smoothness of his brush work just glides across the page in most instances and only in the most intense moments does he allow his work to get rough and scratchy. It usually flows beautifully and sensually…especially in those moments of tenderness usually reserved for moments of woman to woman love-making. When the misogynistic men are raping and abusing O, his work gets harsher and it makes for an interesting contrast in emotional impact.

I found his storytelling in panels to almost be a class in and of itself in how to deliver information to the reader. As graphic as he gets in showing all forms of sex and brutality, what is also fascinating are his artistic choices in what he chooses NOT to show and leave to the reader’s imagination. Such decisions are what make this work so effective from an artistic perspective. This is not a happy work. It is not a joyful work. It is something that should shock the reader’s sense of propriety and what’s right. It should even generate disgust and anger at moments. And yet, the beauty of Crepax’s art somehow makes it palatable and I found it to be something I couldn’t put down…and have gone back to a number of times to look at his approach to presenting progression and movement. Crepax uses minimal line work at times when he wants the reader to feel more sensual and then heavy and harsher linework when he wants the reader to be repulsed and shocked.

He utilizes very little actual dialogue in this adaptation; instead he delivers the narrative primarily through pictures. He takes an approach to the page that never follows the standard comic book panel format but completely shakes it up with utter inconsistency in panel choices. Indicative of the trauma that O is undergoing in her life, the reader is never allowed the reliable precision of the standard 6 panel comic book page. Through it all, however, one thing never changes and is reliable….O is never less than always beautifully sexual. Crepax makes sure that her sexual beauty draws the reader’s eye even when the heart or mind might want to pull away from the events that are unfolding.

Guido Crepax truly was a master storyteller, and while he may have focused his talents in an area that many are afraid to go, if you can handle the content, Crepax’s THE STORY OF O is actually a must-have for those who love graphic storytelling in all its many forms.

Celebrating 75 Years with 5 Things You May Not Know About Superman

Everyone knows who Superman is.

Everyone.

Today we celebrate the 75 Year mark of his first published appearance in the first issue of the comic book ACTION COMICS #1 which hit the newsstands in 1938.

Rather than just do a reflection back over all the things people already generally know about Superman, I thought I'd pick 5 things I think are interesting about his history that most people are unaware of.

So, without further ado or boring exposition....DID YOU KNOW?

1.  SUPERMAN DID NOT FLY IN THE COMIC BOOKS UNTIL 4 YEARS AFTER HIS FIRST APPEARANCE.

This is true.  For 4 years, he could leap 1/8th of a mile.  It was described in the comic books as being like a giant grasshopper.  It may be a bit more science-fictioney realistic too. The explanation was that the gravity on Krypton was so much heavier that Earth's was comparatively very light and gave him the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. This was a bit that his youthful creators, Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster just cribbed from Edgar Rice Burroughs' JOHN CARTER books.  Truth is that Superman's original incarnation was cobbled together from a bunch of different pulp influences like that.

Sidebar 1: Superman also had no x-ray vision, heat vision, or any other super-senses until around the same time he started actually flying in the comics.
Sidebar 2: Superman was shown flying in the Max Fleischer cartoons in 1940 even though he didn't actually do it in the comics until 2 years later.

2. SUPERMAN HAS AN ENTIRE FAMILY OF "SUPER" CHARACTERS.

Don't believe me? There's Superman, Bizarro-Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, Superbaby, Superdog, Supercat, Superhorse, Supersquirrel and even a Supermonkey.  And there's probably more that I'm forgetting.  Plus, we might not even have the word "Super-Hero" without Superman.  Who knows?

Sidebar: There were 7 cartoons back in the 1940s featuring a parody of Superman called "Super Mouse".  They were so successful they revamped the character into something more than just a parody and called him "Mighty Mouse". 

3. KRYPTONITE DIDN'T SHOW UP UNTIL 11 YEARS AFTER SUPERMAN DEBUTED.

That's right. In the comics, there was no "Kryptonite" for 11 years.  So, before you start complaining about word leaking out that the upcoming Superman movie MAN OF STEEL isn't going to have Kryptonite in it, just remember that the character cruised along just fine for 11 years before that plot-device deus ex machina was introduced into the mix.

Sidebar: While it is true that Kryptonite did not appear in comics until 1949, the actual first appearance of the concept of it was on the successful long-running Superman radio show. When Superman voice actor, Bud Collyer, got ill and could not perform, they invented Kryptonite for the series so that in the episodes Collyer was absent from they could just have Superman groaning and moaning for the broadcast.

4.  NOBODY KNOWS CLARK KENT IS SUPERMAN BECAUSE HE HAS BEEN SUBCONCIOUSLY SUPER-HYPNOTIZING EVERYONE.

Back in 1978, one of the worst Superman comics ever published attempted to explain something nobody needs or wants explained.  It is a classic technique of dramatic license to let the audience in on a deception that those in the play or movie or whatever should be able to see through (a mask, a pair of glasses, a disguised voice, etc.).  The audience accepts it simply because they have to accept it to enjoy the show.  The Superman/Clark Kent deception is one of those.

In SUPERMAN #330, during a 10 year or so phase where Clark Kent was a national news anchorman like Brian Williams or something, somehow, a story got through all the editors' collective good senses that should've been quashed at the concept stage.  Instead it was actually published and explained that Superman has been subconsciously super-hypnotizing everyone to see Clark as ugly with bags under his eyes and with a receding hairline (basically David Letterman without a gap in his front teeth).  We won't even get into all the problems with that on so many levels.

Sidebar: DC Comics obviously realized the error and promptly relegated the comic to the forgotten bins of stories they'd like to pretend never existed.  Sort of like the issue in the midst of the Civil Rights era where Lois Lane turned herself into an African-American to experience the plight of inner city Black people.  But that's a different blog post.

5. SUPERMAN'S NAME HAS A RELIGIOUS MEANING.

You may or may not know that Superman's Kryptonian name is "Kal-El."  You may or may not also know that the boys who created the character, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were Jewish. 

Some of you will know that in Hebrew the "El" is a short-form for "Elohim" which is one of the collective names for God.  The closest Hebraic approximation for "Kal-El" actually translates to "Vessel or Voice of God."

Considering how the character quickly evolved into a Messianic archetype, a more appropriate name could not have been chosen.  And the amazing thing is that it was assuredly chosen without consciously understanding what it meant.

As Jung would say....synchronicity.  You just have to look for it to see it.

IN MEMORIAM 2012

WWTDD? What Would "The Dude" Do?

Artworm (also known as Here Comes....Power Girl)

This piece is a moment in which you get a peek inside my mind.  For as long as I can remember, I would occasionally read a book and get a need to draw a character or scene from the book stuck in my head like getting "Funkytown" stuck in my head as an earworm.  Even if the piece stunk and got tossed in the trash, I still would have to put it down on paper before I could get it out of my head.  This still happens to me, but I can't always nail it down to the reading of a book.  Now, I tend to get these ideas that appear in my brain and gnaw at me until I get a chance to translate it from thought to physical existence.  This is why I have a ton of random drawings and character designs taking up space in drawers and folders in my home.

Well, this is one of these things.  I came across a cosplayer photo online one day.  It was a nice looking lady dressed as Supergirl.  Yet, when I looked at her I thought her expression and body reminded me more of Power Girl way back in the 70s.  For those who don't know (or remember), back in the early '70s, in the DC Comics line, there existed a comic book called ALL-STAR COMICS that focused on a parallel Earth called "Earth 2." On this Earth 2, this was where the original Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman from the '40s existed and by the 1970s had aged towards retirement.  In that continuity, Batman was about to retire and Bruce Wayne was going to become Commissioner of Gotham City. Robin was an adult (with an updated costume) and Bruce Wayne's adult daughter had taken up the mantle of defender of Gotham as, The Huntress.  In this continuity, there had never been a Supergirl, but one day the middle-aged Superman (with gray temples indicating his age) introduced to the world, his super-powered younger cousin who would be known as Power Girl.

So, the next thing my brain did was began fixating on a "What If?" kind of scenario in which the television actors who had embodied Superman, Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Wonder Woman in the '60s and '70s would be the personifications of those Earth 2 versions of the characters.  So, I did some Googling for official posed photos of those actors. I tweaked the costumes as necessary to match the Earth 2 versions.  Then I took the Supergirl cosplayer and gave her a haircut and a new costume and...voila.

I have a group shot imagining the Earth 2 Superman (George Reeves) introducing his cousing, Power Girl to Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter), Batman (Adam West), Robin (Burt Ward), and Huntress (Yvonne Craig).

Now that I've drawn it, it's out of my head and I can relax now.

An Interview with Artist Chris Shy about THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD

As Prof. Challenger for AICN COMICS, I recently interviewed artist Chris Shy about his new graphic novel, THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD.  I am cross-blogging it here for those who follow my blog and don't follow AICN.  Enjoy!

THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD is a collaboration of ShadowCatcher Entertainment and Black Watch Comics written by screenwriter Dave Hunsaker and illustrated by Christopher Shy. They debuted the book at the 2012 New York City Comic-Con where it was a complete sell-out of available copies that weekend.

It is described by the publishers as “a bold, alternative journey into the mind and life of legendary later 19th and early 20th century photographer/filmmaker Edward Curtis and his lifelong fascination — some would say obsession — with the Indians of North America and, especially, the hidden aspects of their spirituality.”

Thus, it is both biography of a controversial historical figure but also a fictional exploration of those aspects of his journey that are not known in great detail.

The key players are Curtis, his adolescent daughter Beth, his best friend George Hunt, and most importantly the Kwakiutl Indians. The graphic novel follows them deep into the foreboding woods of Vancouver Island where they become immersed in the culture of the Kwakiutl and attempt to capture on film the dark ceremonies and cannibalistic rituals that are continuing to be practiced in defiance of the law.

Chris Shy is a painter of comics/graphic novels. He founded Studio Ronin and has completed a number of works for the both the comics field and for Hollywood. He has painted graphic novels such as SILENT LEAVES and SOUL STEALER on the independent side and produced striking covers for Marvel Comics and others. For Hollywood he has created production designs and artwork for films such as FRIDAY THE 13TH, CONAN, and PATHFINDER. When not producing graphic novels or engaged in a film production, he also finds time to maintain a following as a fine artist as well with gallery shows.

Now, on to the questions.

ME: Chris, thanks for taking the time to talk to me and the AICN readers about THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD. Talk to me a little about the genesis of this project. Did writer, Dave Hunsaker, come to you with the idea ready to go or was this something you two developed mutually?

CHRIS SHY: I met Dave Hunsaker through a mutual friend, Sean Davis. Dave needed concept art for a screenplay he had written to visualize a pitch on that project. The Curtis project came up later, as a general discussion. I think our shared passion for Curtis bore out the concept of me adapting the screenplay. I met the producer on the project, David Skinner, of ShadowCatcher Entertainment, whom Dave had written the screenplay for. As in anything, once you really like the people, you find a way to work together.

ME: Can you tell me a little about the relationship between your Blackwatch Comics and the film company, Shadowcatcher Entertainment? Did this project begin as a failed film project or, rather, is the graphic novel a likely basis for a future film production?

CHRIS: Well, it all starts with Studio Ronin. BlackWatch Comics was an outgrowth of Studio Ronin becoming too big for one studio to handle. I founded Studio Ronin in 1996, to publish art books, and do design. Ronin now handles mostly the film and concept side of things. They build special effects models, concept design, the bread and butter of pre-prep on any project I do.

Michael Easton and I founded BlackWatch Comics seven years ago as a way to concentrate very carefully on the publishing side of the graphic novels, during SOUL STEALER. Michael and I had a very specific idea on how we wanted to do those books, and we knew the only way was to simply do these ourselves. We hired a team, recruited some of the best folks out there, and started publishing our own books. When we decided to go forward with THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD, for ShadowCatcher, a big discussion was would we shop the book for distribution.

In the end, we decided full creative control was what we all wanted, and to do that, BlackWatch Comics would publish and ShadowCatcher Entertainment would be our partner in that endeavor. The screenplay was never a failed film project. I think a story of this scope was something of a passion project for David Skinner and Dave Hunsaker, and knowing that this was a bit off the beaten path, adapting this as a graphic, evolving it to another stage first, was going to allow it to take on a fuller life, and breath, rather than just sending it out into the wild.

As far as I know, THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD was kept pretty close to the vest, before I was approached to adapt it. I think we would all love to see it evolve as a feature, but at this stage, we are all very proud of this book, and what we were able to achieve with it.

ME: I'm curious about your familiarity going into it regarding Edward Curtis and the history of the Native American cultures he was instrumental in recording for history. Was he or his work something that already fascinated you or did you have to dig into something new for you?

Edward Curtis
Self-Portrait circa 1889

CHRIS: I would say I have been fairly obsessed with Curtis since I was a kid. I had a few books with his photos, given to me by my Grandfather. Growing up in Kentucky, exploring the forests there, camping, I felt a kinship with Curtis and the time he spent in the unknown. I carried my cameras and water colors into the forest, up the side of cliffs, and imagined carrying this giant camera with boxes of glass plates, trying to record a way of life that was rapidly disappearing. My great Grandmother was Native American, and we as a family knew very little of her, or her heritage, so I understood and felt Curtis frustrations, or not knowing, of seeing a generation watch as things changed, and disappeared, and no one bothered to try and document any of it.. I think in the end, the body of work he left behind is a treasure. It both illuminates and haunts us, it informs and yet each photo leaves behind so many questions about the people he photographed.

ME: What type of research did you need to do for the visual side of this project? Are you going more with your imagination or are you trying to ground your fantastic imagery with a grounding in reality?

CHRIS: If we look at this story at the beginning, Dave Hunsaker and David Skinner had been hip deep in this for quite a while. Their attention to detail was amazing. I would describe my involvement as the last member of an expedition to show up on the dock before the boat left. I had a general knowledge of Curtis, but knew very little of the Kwakiutl, or their existence in British Columbia. To that end, one of first things we did, as a group, was travel, and see the actual locations that Curtis did his work on. We shot location photos in Seattle, at pioneer square, visited the Flurry Gallery, to examine original volumes of Curtis’ photographs, and all of the wonderful large size reproductions and prints of his work, in detail. David Skinner owns a set of Curtis’s 20-volume book set “The North American Indian,” so I was able to look and study some of the volumes in great detail. A true experience.

We traveled to Vancouver Island, and I shot reference, and took extensive notes. We visited the remains of Fort Rupert, the site of a former Hudson's Bay Company fort which was built in 1849, near present-day Port Hard. Vancouver Island was where Curtis spent most of his time, and shot most of his film In “The Land Of The HeadHunters.” So, to stand on those spots, visit the remains, it was very profound. To hold a camera in my hand and take those photos, in the same spots Curtis had taken his, I understood a small amount of what he must have went through, and endured. Some of these places are not easy to get to, standing on banks, and beaches, looking at ancient Pictographs curved in to the stones, this was truly the end of the known world for some of them, and I began to understand why Curtis traveled there. It truly is a beautiful place.

From there we traveled further north, to Cormorant Island, to the village of Alert Bay, and visited several Kwakwaka'wakw sacred spots, including a First Nation burial ground. The Kwakwaka'wakw play such an important role in the Curtis story. His best friend George Hunt was Kwakwaka'wakw, and Hunts struggled within the Kwakwaka'wakw community. The role of the British government, taking Kwakwaka'wakw artifacts the at the time, and the Kwakwaka'wakw’s struggle to get those artifacts back, and retain their identity. In all of this we have Curtis’ obsession with The-Cannibal-At-The-End-Of-The-World myth. I wanted to get as many photos relating to those events as I could. I want stress we never used anything exactly as we saw it, out of respect for the Kwakwaka'wakw. They lost so much, and fought very hard to get their heritage back, I didn’t want to present anything as it was found, to take advantage of that history, or try and present it as exact, which would have been impossible. So I went about immersing myself in their artist style, to try and understand how they would have drawn certain sections of this. The artifacts housed in the cultural center helped immensely fill in any gaps.

Illustrating this was one of hardest things I have ever undertaken; I was completely exhausted at the end of this book.

ME: That’s intense. So, given all that research for authenticity and understanding, to what extent is the story itself based on real events or is it essentially wholly sprung from the imagination but featuring characters from real-life?

CHRIS: It is certainly based in some small part on his life, and where he went, and the relationships we know he had. As to conversations he may have had, we can only speculate. There is precious little we know about the time he shot his film at Fort Rupert. We have the film, we have some documentation, and we know the outcome of his life, his career in ruins. The fiction comes in when we try and speculate on what may have happened in those gaps at Fort Rupert, and certainly I would call this historically based fiction. I would not call it something in the vain of ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER. The events Dave Hunsaker wrote about, no way claim this was what happened to Edward Curtis during that specific time, but the story is woven very tightly around what we do know, and we immersed ourselves in Curtis’ life to try and have those conversations in our own heads that Curtis, and his daughter Beth, and Hunt may have had, based on that.

As for The-Cannibal-At-The-End-Of-The-World myth, that’s all based on the myth, and our speculation, and thus fiction. What would a man do when faced with a giant Raven God? Again, fiction, but based on what we know of Curtis, and his obsessive nature, it’s safe to say he would take that journey I am sure.

ME: Curtis came under criticism during his life and afterward. Is this going to deal directly with any of those more controversial aspects or leave that to the historians?

CHRIS: I have my own opinions, but leave that debate to the historians. Our book touches on that only lightly.

ME: The sample images are darkly foreboding with a true sense of horror. Is that the tone you set out for on purpose, or did it evolve organically as you started visually putting it together?

CHRIS: I knew from the beginning how I wanted to approach the book, and then that promptly vanished after our research trip. I took it one page at a time. I did plan the overall tonal shift as Curtis went from Arizona to British Columbia, but after that, I found myself very much in uncharted territory. I worked very long hours, and at times I had it, at other times, I felt I was chasing what I wanted, and it was always just out of reach.

ME: What philosophical and emotional themes are you examining?

CHRIS: Man against nature?

Man against man?

Certainly, it was man against himself.

There were scenes where Curtis seemed almost doomed to me, his quest not unlike a search for the mythical Holy Grail. Madness, the quest of a truth, and the obsession of understanding what came before the modern, what shaped us into the species we are now. When Curtis descends under the waterfall, to the bottom of the lake in the Hamatsa initiation, is this Dante? Is this penitence? In the Greek Mysteries, initiation connoted not a "beginning" (initia), but the opposite: "finishing." In this part of the story, Curtis was facing darkness, a final truth, The-Cannibal-At-The-End-Of-The-World. That for me, was our ancestral truth, the horror we overcame to become what we are now. Under that water Curtis would face The Ancestors.

ME: How long have you actually been working on it?

CHRIS: I think, from beginning to end, almost two years. If you count the publishing side,the principle art took a year. I think my original estimate was 6 to 8 months.

ME: Just because I’m always curious about how each artist approaches putting pen or paint to paper, can you describe your medium and technique a little bit -- give the readers insight into how Chris Shy works when he takes a blank canvas and builds a world?

CHRIS: Every book is different. I use tempura, watercolor, and photography. I print some things out, then over paint, then scan them, and over paint again. For some of the scenes in this, I used a certain shot that Curtis took, but used it for the middle, and painted everything outside of it, the unseen background. I wanted to bring him to life. Beth, his daughter, I loved painting. I only had one good photo of her. I kept one of Beth, and a Curtis photo of an Apache girl from 1903 on my desk during the project. I often blended the two together for my work on Beth.

ME: Do you block and pace the story before you start ruminating on what designs, colors, and textures will best serve the story?

CHRIS: I read and thumbnail pages as I go. I read it several times, sketching each page out very small. Pacing is very important. I don’t concern myself with page count. It takes what it will take to do it right. If a project is 96 written pages, I let the story unwind according to how long I feel it must be. Certain things need to be uncompressed. It’s one of few precious things we can still do in this medium. Let it be. Just let it become what it must.

ME: Your painting and storytelling style are evocative of a strong synthesis of fine art with graphic storytelling. That's such a truly rare fusion. Graphic storytelling, as a commercial art, has tended to be driven more by pragmatic art techniques mainly to increase speed and reproduction. The advent of the modern notion of graphic novels as literature and a business that has come to embrace more time-consuming and expensive mediums and techniques has laid the groundwork for someone like you to create beautiful and haunting works of art that also tell stories. Is it more your heart to touch emotions through painted imagery or through the flow of your unique way of storytelling? Or do you see this as an impossible separation?

CHRIS: It’s impossible to separate it. I have always been a Comic Book artist. I was doing comics when I was 8. It has been, and always will be my true love. The story pushes you into creation of a world, and the art brings it into focus, and it is the force of creating every scene, based off that story, has always made me a better artist, and storyteller I do fine art, gallery work, but all that comes from doing graphic novels. I have never done monthlies, I search out complete stories, and paint them from beginning to end.

For me, it’s the only way. I think they call us “Graphic Novelist” now, but I was always proud of just being a comic book artist. It’s a unique job, a tough job, and not a job easily explained to anyone outside of those who do it. I have completed 14 books, and I have immersed myself in each one of them. Approached each with no rules based on previous work, or experience. I may have a style, but I always try and shake it on each one. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I fail, I have a marvelous team I work with, who bust me if my panel structure gets too confusing, or my art gets a bit abstract.

My production manager, Emmelee Pearson, Editor Kevin Stein, I depend on them. If something gets too esoteric, if it isn’t smooth they gut me like a fish. I need that. Two hundred and fifty pages into a book, is like Alice slipping down the rabbit whole. Each book is a war, a struggle, and a unique level of abstract thinking. My team keeps me sane.

ME: When do you know you are done?

CHRIS: It’s never done, in my opinion, but I am very good at knowing how long it’s going to take, to get those pages completed. I try and build in a month or so for polish, and as I have said I thumbnail, essential for coming in on deadline.

ME: Do you find yourself going back to the work and tweaking it or are you easily able to step away and move on to the next thing?

CHRIS: Yes, I do spend about a month going page to page, doing my own art changes. Then I invite my team to read through and tell me where I went off the rails. I always do a certain amount of concept art. I can always tell when a book has been a tough ride, based on how many pieces I have had to do to work out a sequence. THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD took hundreds.

Once a book is done, I try and move on to something completely different. I usually can switch gears pretty fast. I like to take a month or so off between each book, if possible.

ME: What is your involvement on the actual design and production of the printed version of the book itself? I know some artists, just hand it off and wait. Are you involved in the technical side of production as well?

CHRIS: Yes, from the very beginning, back in the 1990’s Studio Ronin began handling the layout and production of all of our books, and this was no exception. I have a very precise idea of how I want a book laid out. I like to ease into a story a certain way, and ease out. I open, and close a story with as many pages as I feel necessary for this to stand on its own. I don’t like house ads, I like the credits to be presented a certain way, I like everyone working on a book to get their credit. I have fought some very bloody battles for Studio Ronin and BlackWatch to get the credit they deserve. It’s a team that has been working together for a long time. We think the same, argue the same, and are very truthful and caring about what we do. For us, this is making the best novel we can, a film on paper, when adapting a script. This is our life’s work.

ME: The aspects of your art that resonate with me is that it always moves me emotionally but also there are marks of intelligence in all of it -- something almost archetypal or mythological -- whether it is based in familiar reality or drawn from the suppressed imaginations of our nightmares. Not every artist is able to combine the intangibles of intelligence and emotion in each image. Is this planned on your part or just something that happens without your conscious knowledge?

CHRIS: I am always aware of it. I have always been fascinated by myths, the beginnings of man, the rites of passage, and rituals, the countless stories of The Dying God, Indian Culture. These are the great heritage of everything that came before us, and the basis for all of our ability to Story Tell. Isis, Osiris, Demeter and Persephone, Moses, Christ.. Every character is abandoned, a reluctant king, a Dying God, a Sacrificial Hero. In my mind, Curtis was yet another, who sacrificed something for those he loved. Elements of Christ, elements of Ananke, obsession, all stories are told and retold. The Devil is in the details. Dave Hunsaker wrote an amazing story. David Skinner gave me the freedom to approach it the way I wanted. They worked long before me, on this, and I worked very hard to find things in this they had not found.

ME: What’s next for Chris Shy?

CHRIS: I just finished another novel set in the DEADSPACE Universe, loved doing that, and just returned from a place called Madeline Island for a new trilogy I am working on called I SLEEP IN STONE.

ME: Thanks again for taking the time to talk to me, my friend. I look forward to talking to you again, soon. Readers can find out more about THE NORTH END OF THE WORLD at  www.thenorthendoftheworld.com, at www.blackwatchcomics.com, and or order a copy directly at www.artemisperfecteditions.com/thenorthendoftheworld.html.

Laura Siegel's Open Letter Re: DC's Strong Arm Legal Tactics

The Siegel vs. DC Comics legal battle is one I've followed since the beginning.  I've written about it more than once on this blog. I wrote about it back in law school around the time that the Siegels first filed their VALID Termination of Transfer of Copyright.  I have been on their side in this affair, even while recognizing that they were likely fighting a losing battle.  However, as with any ongoing litigation with back-and-forth suits and counter-suits and cross-claims and more, there were facts which the public has not been aware.  Worse, there have apparently been potentially libelous, outright lies, thefts, breaches of confidences, and more also being spread throughout the various media outlets.

This is not uncommon in a case like this that is worth untold billions of dollars in the long run.  There is a reason why corporate hack attorneys like those working for Warner Brothers on this case get the salaries they get -- they win.  And they will screw anyone over to be the one who wins it.  So, I stand guilty of allowing myself to get caught up in their lies and buy into the info they have quietly spread around for years and now recently quite blatantly (after poisoning the well out there) concerning the Siegel's attorney Marc Toberoff.

I admit, I should never have believed the Corporate snakes who characterized him as a hustler out there trying to wrest a controlling interest over the Superman copyright from the Siegels and advising them against accepting reasonable settlement offers.

Now that Jerry and Joanne Siegel's daughter, Laura, is speaking out publicly, we have a voice out there that is real and not buried under corporate double-speak obfuscation.  We now know what has really been going on, and we know that it is flat-out untrue that (1) the settlement offer was reasonable, and (2) that Toberoff was the reason for the rejection.  In fact, the settlement offer was rejected before Toberoff was involved in the case.

The only thing apparently true in terms of the Warner Bros characterization of Toberoff over the years is that he is working this case on a contingency.  The reality is that nobody other than an equally Brobdingnagian corporation would be able to financially mount a challenge like this unless it was on a contingency.  WB has already spent tens of millions of dollars and I am sure they are prepared to spend tens of millions more because the fear of losing billions (and a stream of pink notices for their staff lawyers) is more terrifying to them than burning in Hell for eternity.

I know one thing for sure, I trust the words of the "real" people involved in a case anytime over the measured and controlled automatons in suits and ties that scurry out of the Corporate antpile.  I trust them less than politicians.

Below is Laura's letter in full and without edit.