Broken Frontier

As the artist of High Moon, one of Zuda’s new entries, Steve Ellis shares his thoughts on the Internet, his work, and the future of comics.

BROKEN FRONTIER: What do you think of Zuda now and the criticism that has been leveled against it, in particular the flash interface?

STEVE ELLIS: It seems most of the criticism has to do with needing to download flash player to see the images. I know a few people who've had trouble with that, usually because they had older computers with slow hard drives. But overall, I think flash is a pretty universal system and it works very nicely. I really enjoy the zoom in feature. I've been examining the other people's artwork with the zoom.

BF: How did High Moon come about?

SE: Well, I've always been a fan of werewolves and Spaghetti Westerns. And I love genre mashing when it's done well. I had been working on a kind of Western/ zombie project when David Gallaher approached me at New York Comic Con and gave me the pitch for High Moon . It was really the right idea at the right time for me.

BF: As an artist who's worked extensively in both the comic and gaming industry, you've drawn your fair share of werewolves and other monsters. What is your approach to creating them?

SE: First of all I love monsters...I've heard people say things like they are  juvenile or whatever, but there is a visceral thrill to a good creepy horror story.

When I approached High Moon I wanted to deviate from the big bulky "muscle and fitness" werewolves I've seen in other places. I want to have lanky sinewy creatures more resembling actual wolf anatomy while still being tall and menacing. David and  I also have ideas for different stages of transformation so a werewolf could look totally human, half wolf (Like a cool, creepy version of the old Lon Chaney wolf-man) and full werewolf (like you see in the comic so far.) The fun is that werewolves in High Moon are just the tip of the iceberg. Macgregor has fought all manner of beast in the weird west and around the world...

The gaming thing helped me out a lot. I do a lot of paintings for Wizards of the Coast and other Game companies, and I really cut my teeth with the horror art working for Whitewolf games on stuff like Werewolf and Vampire. A lot of the color ideas I had for High Moon come out of the paintings I've done. I've fallen in love with textures and I tried to mix my love of Black and White with the color and texture of paint...I think it works pretty well.

BF: One of the first things that jumped out at me when looking at Zuda was the 4:3 aspect ratio, which is quite different than any traditional comic format. How is illustrating for the Internet different than for print?

SE: I really like the 4:3 especially for a Western. Whenever I picture the Old West I think of wide long pans across the desert and being able to set up a scene with a wide shot like you can with 4:3 is really fun. It causes the reader to read across which creates the illusion of a pan....

Other than that there are a few design issues, you have to get people to read in traditional western direction and I think once you’ve read all the way to the right it's a little hard to get people to know to go all the way to the right again. I found that keeping my layouts mostly traditional boxes kept the reading easier for the viewer. The wide page was quite dramatic.

BF: A growing number of comic creators can make a living with web comics while manga is thriving in the print market. Marvel and DC are both enjoying great success with movies and other tie-ins. Where do you think the comic industry will be in 10 years?

SE: I remember back in the mid Nineties sitting around with my friends talking about the demise of comics (of course we were talking about traditional super-hero stuff which was all you could get at the time) and the problems of distributing small press projects. We always came to the same conclusion. People who are not "fans" want  to read complete stories. They prefer books and I think that's one reason why manga is doing so well. Plus they've usurped the traditional superhero (12-18 market) and added girls which was quite a trick.

Another thing that helps out manga and comics in bookstores in general is that libraries have gotten behind comics as a kind of baby step for kids who are reluctant readers. Libraries are a huge market, one which comics as traditionally published can't get into.  The comic book pamphlet is a dinosaur except for collectors.

The web is a great way to introduce projects to the public. If you have the business acumen and web savvy to put one together and sell ads and products, you are golden. I'm glad Zuda came along because it frees e to take care of what I do best write stories and draw them. I hope Zuda can do this for a lot of creators. It's very hard to wear as many hats as it takes to run a web comic and often either the business end or the creative end suffers for the other.

In fact I wanted to publish the Silencers as a trade rather than as a series but was talked out of it by the publisher which I still think was a mistake. I'm hoping to ty to get a Silencers project out via the web if everything works out...time is always ticking....

Comics in ten years? I think with the rise of major book publishers getting in the game, the comics biz will become a highly creative, artist- driven idea driven business. It won't be the same, "Well we have to publish something in Super Spider comics this month let's get this out quick" type of business. There will be more people who own their own projects or co-own them with publishers, projects that are allowed to take their time to be created and will be of more and more superior quality. There will always be the workmanlike filler stuff, but I think there will be more diversity and the project will be more creative and fun. I'm excited to make more... Oh, I will be the King of Comics. [Laughs]

BF: What's your current reading list and do you follow any web comics?

SE: Reading list. To be honest, I have a pretty diverse reading list. I love anything by Kyle Baker pretty much, I pick up Hellboy whenever Mignola or Fegredo are drawing.  Then after that I follow artists or writers from project to project. I really dig stuff like The Salon by Nick Bertozzi, or stuff by Dean Haspiel and then I'll pick up Iron Man now because Eric Canete is drawing it...

I guess I've never been your traditional collector. I used to pick up things on a more regular basis but I don't get to the store as regularly since I left NYC and have lost track of a lot of books....I'll pick up an X-Men book and go..."Who are all these guys?" and put it back...I miss them sometimes...

BF: How has the Internet affected your career personally?

SE: The Internet has been a fantastic boon. When I first got into comics in the olden days of the early Nineties I was photocopying pencil pages and mailing them to every editor whose name was in the credits of a comic book. It cost a ton in  copies and postage to keep up with everyone. If I was going to do that with my color work I'd lose my shirt.

Now, with the internet, I can email clients, send art via FTP (instead of Fedex which costs a bundle) I can quickly contact anyone in my list of contact, and add new people to my list because many put their email on their sites. So the aspects of getting the work have been great.

The other side is how great is it that you can put your work up for everyone to see. I'll go to Drawing Boards or other sites and post art and get critiques or give critiques, you can meet other artists and share tips with people you would never have met ten years ago. When I was a young artist it was very lonely except when a con was coming to town...now there is community and inspiration. I look around the web and see my competition and know I have to step up my production... Man it's great...

Plus, I was trained traditionally, but when you add the arsenal of tools that are on the computer with painter and Photoshop, you can create some magnificent things. All the art on High Moon is a mash of traditional and digital. Some panels created completely digitally some colored in a traditional comics fashion and others painted. It's all combined in the computer. I miss the "real thing" sometimes, but the power you have with digital to create compelling images is amazing...

Did I gush too much?