Broken Frontier

Welcome back to our Inter-Review with Howie C. Noel, creator of the unique Mr. Scootles Volume 1: Mr. Scootles vs. The Inferno, a collection of issues #1-5 of the ongoing series, released by Alterna Comics, and hitting comics store shelves on November 26^th via Diamond^..

In PART ONE , we talked about the concept of Scootles and Noel’s frantic-paced plot.   Today, we look at the book’s art, it’s cool-as-hell use of color, and the series’ future.

Mr. Scootles can, alternatively, take money out of your pocket at the Alterna Comics website, as well as Amazon or, even better, you can download whole shebang for a mere $0.99 at Drive-Thru Comics.

Broken Frontier Review: So let’s recap: Mr. Scootles is a long-forgotten cartoon character from the days of black-and-white animation.  His creator, after committing the egregious sin of suicide, has consigned Mr. Scootles, by association, to ache-ee-double-hockey-sticks.  Soon after, a college film student, Jason, finds an ages-old canister containing the last remaining film reel of Mr. Scootles on-screen career, and this is quickly followed by murderous professors, demonic gatekeepers, angels, and even Judas Iscariot himself drops by to put his two cents in.  Say what?  Yeah, cartoons and the supernatural, that’s Mr. Scootles in a nutshell.  Everything else is sheer chaos.

If you’re looking for a book that’s packed with event, ideas, a twisty plot quite carefully crafted, a wild ride that evolves into something epic and complex, and if you love, love, love (like I do) classic animation characters dropped into modern PG-13 settings a la Three Fingers by Rich Koslowski and the Archibald one shots by MacPhereson and Bond, then Mr. Scootles is the epitome of cool, the very essence of buried treasure, the dusty tome in the back of a library long forgot, suddenly discovered.  This book is love to those of us wanting something bizarre yet recognizable, something new yet old-school, it’s a publishers dream to find (and I’m sure Scootles publisher Alterna agrees).

But let’s look beyond the surface, beyond the conceit and story.  Let’s look at the nitty-gritty: I say it’s a treat for any given reader, but why?  How?  160 pages, horror, plot twists, chase sequences, action, murder, you name it, this one’s got it.  And it never moves where you think it will.  The surprise of what every page brings is half the fun of Scootles.  Even understanding the premise, this is one impossible to second-guess saga.  Sadly, it’s hard to prove this without giving too much away, but let’s just say nobody’s going to guess the title of Volume 2 (previewed with a teaser at the end of Volume 1), not until they get there.

Broken Frontier: Welcome back, loser—I mean, comics creator dude—Mr. Howie C. Noel!  (Reader applause).  So tell us, where did the idea for Mr. Scootles originate?  Did it go through many iterations before settling into this series?

Howie C. Noel : Hold on, sir, I’m just going to allow the audience proper time to finish applauding…(15 minutes later) Thank you. Mr. Scootles began I believe in 2000, when I started wondering about all of the creations that people have abandoned over the years.  The lost cartoon characters like Oswald the Rabbit.  Or even a doodle drawn by someone at  work.  Where did they go?  I drew Scootles in my sketchbook and in the trade paperback you can actually see this sketch.  It has stayed pretty true to my original idea of putting an animated character through Hell, literally.  I self-published ashcans of the first two chapters sold them store to store in New York City.  I then starting self-publishing the individual issues until I decided to compile it into one volume.  It was always meant to be read in one sitting, eventually.  Plus, in the final chapter, the artwork turns from black and white to color and this would’ve been too expensive to have printed as an individual issue.

BF: Did you mean for Scootles to be such a smorgasbord of genres and characters?

HCN:   I think that may have been its natural progression.  I definitely wanted to put a little bit of everything that interests me into this story.  I think you just found a name for the sequel, too! Mr. Scootles 2: Scootles Smorgasbord!

BF: What would you say were the greatest fictional influences on Scootles?

HCN: Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe have always provided inspiration to my writing. 

Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman, and Jeff Smith are all amazing to me as authors.  I would say its greatest influences were largely movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and the classic animation of the 193s and 40’s from Walt Disney to Tex Avery.  I’m still influenced by the TV I watched as a kid like Commander USA’s Groovie Movies and Saturday Nightmares on USA.

BF Review: But enough about the clever concept and capricious plot; Noel is also an artist, and the sole artist on Scootles, handling pencils, inks, tones, and—in a surprising development that takes effect near the final fourth of the book—color.  Most importantly, Noel draws the perfect Mr. Scootles, a character that looks very much as though Howie discovered him in a dusty film reel in the basement of his own university’s archives, and traced the result straight off the film frames into his comic.  The character design is flawless, and Noel’s depiction of Scootles’ attitude, swagger, odd charisma, and helplessness proves no less.

If anything, it’s Noel’s human figures that are stylized and of a figurative build, large eyes, all angles and gawky limbs.  This works wonders for the supernatural elements of the story: the giant demon hog, the angels, even the gatekeeper and Judas, who, while no less human in shape than the humans, both come across as human-like albeit menacing, off-kilter, a little too non-human in small aspects that lend them a palpable uncanniness.  The regular ol’ joes, however, lean toward the cartoonish as well, which arguably is either an excellence or a hindrance.  On the one hand, it makes them instantly recognizable, emotionally and dramatically accessible without having to become Hemmingway-esque “complex” characters, which plays fittingly fine with the fast pace of Scootles’ plot.  On the other, if you’re looking for realism or a cartoon world meeting steel-hard reality, this won’t be the book to look into.  It’s a blend of two types of fictional universes, as the “our world” is, more aptly, “Noel’s world”, with HC Noel boys and girls and rules and regulations.  And this, then, is where Mr. Scootles finds himself unwittingly dropped.

Which isn’t to suggest that there isn’t a solid distinction, visually, between Scootles and the “real” world of the book.  Noel impressively keeps Scootles looking like the stranger in a strange land, no matter that his Earth is crafted with a modern animation artist’s eye.  Beyond that?  This book, as I’ve mentioned before, is action-packed and moves super-swift, and in no other element of the work is this so well handled and orchestrated than in its art.  Noel knows how to pace a saga, and layout scenes so that you can hardly catch your breath.  The action is sudden and shocking and beauteous, and the steadily mounting supernatural threats dexterously brought to the fore as the story barrels to its end.

BF: So is there an animation background in your work, Howie?  Or simply a whole lot of animation influence?

HCN: I never took any animation courses but I have always loved the art of hand-drawn animation.   I think it is a true art form.  The line work of animation has always influenced my style.  This story a tribute to animation and its creators.

BF: Are you a digital artist through-and-through, or any aspect of the book that was completed old-school on Bristol board or the like?

HCN:  I hand draw everything first. Pencil, then ink, and then I scan it into Photoshop for coloring and effects.  In fact, there’s a tiny bit of artwork that is only pencils at the end of the book.  The first part of the book is actually hand-lettered too until I gave up that madness.

BF: What would you say was the hardest part, art-wise, of completing Mr. Scootles Volume 1?

HCN: Keeping it all cohesive yet letting the reader see the growth in ability over time.  I didn’t want it to look like a completely different artist had finished the book but I wanted them to see my ability had grown and that the world of Mr. Scootles had become more detailed as the book came to an end.

BF Review:  From free digital downloadable e-comics to a big print collected edition, Mr. Scootles has come a long way but for good solid reasons.  This one is stimulating to read, really gets the juices flowing and it sure as shinola kept me glued from page 1 to 160.  This is inarguably an epic to read as a cohesive whole, instead of as separate installments.  Hell, the ending of Volume 1 is bad enough to have to stop on!  I won’t give a jot of it away, but let’s just say that this first book is merely the beginning.  The real story starts with Volume 2.  You’ll want to be there when it hits, and you’ll want to have read and re-read Volume 1 by then.

BF: So tell us the plans from here: where will Scootles be sighted for his debut, and when will be get the glorious sequel?

HCN:  Right now I’m planning several Mr. Scootles signings at local retailers so if anyone has a recommendation, feel free to email me!  Around New York Comic Con, I’m planning to throw the largest Mr. Scootles release party with my friend Kelly George of “Subject to Change”, and my mentalist/magician friend, Zenitram, to celebrate the culmination of this  strange journey of creating a graphic novel.  My website has the full list of new events.  The glorious sequel should be released in either late 2009 or 2010. I will give you a few teases for it: Its title right now is Mr. Scootles 2: Mr. Scootles Saves The World.  It will feature a vampire attack at Houdini’s grave in Queens, NY.  There will be blood. Not the Oscar winning movie, but in the Scootles sequel…a lot of blood will be spilled.   There will be magic.  And it will star Mr. Scootles!

BF: And any projects in the works in-between?  More with Alterna?  Something entirely else?

HCN:  Right now, I’m working on Vincent: The Painter of Death and I hope to release it with Alterna Comics in the future. I’m currently working on a secret project that is very close to my heart so I hope I can release some news on that shortly.  I’m going to be adding online comics soon to my site and I’m also scripting Mr. Scootles 2 right now!

BF: Awesome, Howie.  Thanks for being with us.  Parting shot: what would be your dream team-up to happen with Mr. Scootles?  Any character from any medium whatsoever.

HCN: First off, thank you for the interview. I really appreciate that you took to the time to check out Mr. Scootles. This is an amazing question. I’m going to cheat and pick two characters from two different mediums.  I’d pick Eric Powell’s The Goon so he could help Mr. Scootles kick some demon ass! Next, I’d pick Red Hot Riding Hood, Tex Avery’s beautiful redheaded cartoon star, because I owe Mr. Scootles a break after putting him through Hell these past couple of years.

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Look for Mr. Scootles Volume 1: Mr. Scootles vs. The Inferno at your local comic shop come November 26^th..

Alternatively, you’ll find the book offered at the Alterna Comics website, as well as Amazon and Barnes and Noble and, lastly, but certainly not least-ly, you can download the whole book for only $0.99 at Drive-Thru Comics.

And be sure to visit Howie C. Noel’s personal website for all updates and breaking news and to order a copy of his Vincent: The Painter of Death!