Broken Frontier

Comic book readers who grew up during the Silver Age of the industry may remember the space race, smack-dab in the middle of the Cold War. In First In Space, James Vining is revisiting that stressful time-period as he retells the story of Ham, a chimpanzee sent into space by NASA in 1961. Following some extensive research and many hours behind the drawing table, Vining is ready to present his debut project through Oni.

BROKEN FRONTIER: First in Space is your debut project. How exited are you about entering the comics scene? Is a lifelong dream finally coming true?

JAMES VINING: This is something that I’ve been working towards for a while- this book in particular.  Frankly, I was a little nervous, not being a writer and having what at the time, was a large project for me.  Fine artists talk about the fear of the blank canvas-well, try 70+ blank canvases that have to tell a story!

BF: Not being a writer, what was the production process of the book like? Did you lay everything out on the page and add the dialogue afterwards?

JV: I just sat at the computer for about two weeks and kept my nose to the grindstone.  I think in terms of what the writing is going to look like as I’m writing, so all the layouts were in my head initially. Once the script was done, I’d do a thumbnail on the page to remind me of what I was thinking. Dialogue changed a couple times, but I’d scan my roughs and do my word placement in Photoshop to be sure I gave myself room. 

I’m also not a letterer, so the Oni folks were nice enough to supply me with one after the fact who did a much nicer job than I had done.

BF: How come you went for an ‘inspired by true events’ type of story right out of the gate?

JV: The initial plan was something crazy and fantasy based.  But every time I started the script, I’d wind up writing the worst issue of Sam and Max ever!  I started doing some research late at night aboard ship and found some really compelling images. 

From there I decided to try to stick to the true story because I thought it was much more interesting than the other ideas I had and it was a story that I hadn’t heard before.  Monkeys in space, how could I go wrong?

BF: Unlike other historical fiction works, like Maus, Persepolis or The Fixer, of which the authors have lived through the times they’re portraying, you weren’t born yet when Ham was sent into space in 1961. What made you settle on this particular part of history?

JV: I’m old, but not that old.  I was pretty much stuck with the time period in which Ham lived-once I decided to try to tell his story.  It just meant a little extra research.

BF: How much time did you spend doing research overall?

JV: Short answer: about 2 years of intermittent research.  I was still in the Coast Guard, and after September 11th, we were all pretty busy for a while.  I take my commitments pretty seriously, so while I was in I was in all the way.  It wasn’t until after I got out that I could sit down and organize all the stuff I’d found and make a trip to the National Air and Space Museum archive.

BF: There’s a long list of references included in the back of the graphic novel. Which of these articles, books and videos proved to be the most helpful while crafting the work?

JV: The film One Small Step was tremendously helpful.  It helped to get an idea of the tone I wanted.  David’s film is more about the negative aspects of animal testing and I decided I wanted to let people make up their own minds about the issue.  But the film also had great visual reference that I wouldn’t have otherwise had access to. 

The news articles were all helpful in getting little anecdotal instances.  The contest with Johnson’s aide, the recovery of Ham’s capsule, and the press conference afterwards were all taken from articles.  

The NASA site was helpful for getting the nuts and bolts of the science end of things down.  There’s an article online compiled by NASA historians called “This New Ocean” which talks about the Mercury program and combines technical info with straight narrative.  It’s very thorough!

       

BF: Did you find it difficult to find Ham’s ‘voice’? After all, real-world monkeys don’t speak, and Ham’s constantly surrounded by researchers and the like that do hold actual conversations…

JV: I just decided to make him like a small child.  Little kids don’t understand “big pictures” and such—they tend to respond to their immediate experiences.  Early versions of the story found Ham almost “brooding” and more aware of what was going on than the scientists, which felt wrong and vaguely pretentious. 

An interview I found that Ed Dittmer had given said the chimps would act like little kids- “tussling” and such.  After all, Ham was still a kid.  He was 4, which is about 8 in people years if I’m not mistaken.

BF: Your style is somewhat of a middle ground between the cartooney and the clear line/ligne claire approach. Whose work are you inspired by?

JV: Well, it’s not how I normally draw.  I tend to do stuff that is more photo-referenced and specific.  Or rather I try to anyways.  It would take me forever to draw a book that way.  Also, this story wouldn’t have worked if I tried to be more realistic in the drawings.  That’s my biggest complaint about the old Classics Illustrated historical graphic novels—they are all done in this very competent, realistic way which feels kinda sterile. 

So, I adapted the way I draw myself in cartoon form into a style that felt right.  I looked at Bruce Timm, James Sturm, Jeff Smith, and came up with something not nearly as good as any of those guys!  But it’s comfortable for me and it allowed me to get the job done.  Now I really dig it and will keep with it until I get it just right, as long as it suits the story.

       

BF: You also rely heavily on the characters to move the story forward—your backgrounds are often either kept very simple or nonexistent altogether. Why is that?

JV: I don’t find the backgrounds to be all that important when you get into the actual story.  I could have laboured over them and made each one a Geoff Darrow-like masterpiece of detail.  But it’s not very efficient to do that, particularly for the story I wanted to tell.  The reader is going to breeze right through the book anyway.  One good establishing shot per scene, then give the appropriate information to get the job done. 

Hopefully I didn’t scale back too much, but it seems that a lot of Japanese stuff approaches backgrounds in a similar way.

BF: In your acknowledgements, you write that First in Space wouldn’t have existed if not for your time spent in the US Coast Guard. What kind of experiences did you have there that led to the creation of this story?

JV: In coldly materialistic terms, it was the $15000 I was able to save in the last 6 months or so I was in the service—which allowed me to live that winter and spring without having to work as a barista or some such to fund my comics making!  Of course, the Navy-speak I learned was helpful as well as gaining an understanding how enlisted relationships work. 

I joined in the first place to get an appreciation for what my dad and grandfathers had done, to build confidence, get leadership experience, and to do my part as far as serving my country and its citizens in some way.  I’ll spare you the soap-boxery, but I think it’s important to do for others.  Plus I got to drive boats, which is awesome!

BF: Did your findings change your initial outline for the story?

JV: Not really.  My findings were the story—I just had to organize them and decide what kind of story I wanted to tell.

BF: Once you had decided on subject matter and execution, what was the path to find a publisher like? Was winning a 2006 Xeric Award helpful in any way?

JV: I wrote the whole thing and illustrated it soup to nuts before shopping it around.  I figured it would increase my chances of getting picked up if the prospective editor knew they had a product pretty much in hand.  I showed it to a bunch of folks at San Diego initially.  The responses were tepid, but I think that is largely because San Diego is so busy for them—editors, etc., don’t have time to really look at everything you stick in their faces.  But I got a few cards and decided to wait until the convention season ended before sending samples to them. 

In the meantime, I heard a lot of folks tell me I should apply for the Xeric.  Self-publishing is a mammoth undertaking, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the men and women who do it, but I didn’t necessarily want to go that route.  However, I thought I’d better apply for the grant anyway (the deadline was about a week after San Diego), otherwise I’d have to wait for the March Xeric deadline and another year before the book would have a chance to find an audience.

I won the Xeric about 2 weeks AFTER I got the call from Oni, so it wasn’t helpful in getting picked up.  I sent them an e-mail to let them know that Oni had taken the project on and that I wouldn’t need the grant after all.  I thanked them for thinking highly enough about the book to accept me and figured that was that…

About two weeks later I got a call from the Xeric folks.  They said that they still wanted to let me keep the title and promote the book as a Xeric winner.  I checked around with a couple folks in the comics biz whose opinions I respected to make sure I wouldn’t be rubbing anyone the wrong way by accepting the title before calling the Xeric Foundation back.  We all decided that if we made it clear that I didn’t accept the grant money that everyone should be happy.   That’s why there’s a little statement after my name on their website.  I feel like Roger Maris with the (*) by his name in the record books!

BF: What’s next for you following First in Space?

JV: I’m pretty busy dealing with First in Space right now.  I have something in the works, another historical piece, but I want to wait until I actual start it before I start talking about it.  Don’t want to be that guy about whom people say, “Say, whatever happened to that book about Charlemagne that you said you were working on five years ago?”

BF: Do you want to build an oeuvre consisting mainly of historical graphic novels?

JV: I figure I could do a lot worse than to be the “historical fiction” guy.  And there are so many stories out there that haven’t been told.  Maybe eventually I’ll get the gumption to try writing my own fictional stories, but I figure there are enough talented voices out there doing just that.  I want to try to do something I feel is a little different.

Take a look at the First in Space website at www.firstinspacecomic.com for more background information on the project, and to view some of the videos and clips Vining used as reference. Ham blasts into comic book space on (release date). For more information on Oni Press and its other titles, go to www.onipress.com.