Broken Frontier

Continuing yesterday’s interview , Ted Naifeh talks with BF about the gender exploring, gritty, How Loathsome, his thoughts on success and becoming the Iron Artist at Dragon-Con.

BF - How Loathsome obviously caters to a different audience than that of Courtney Crumrin or Polly and the Pirates – could you tell us a little about How Loathsome and how the writing process differs from your “all-ages” titles?

TN - I never set out to be known as a children’s book writer. As I mentioned before, I prefer to come up with a story, and then tell it in a style that best suits it. With Courtney and Polly, I fleshed the stories out into a children’s book style when I realized that this is what the core idea was. With How Loathsome, the stories obviously needed to be written in a different fashion. But there are some similarities between some of the stories in HL and Courtney.

Mainly, the difference with How Loathsome came from sharing the writing chores with Tristan Crane. He has a very different agenda as a writer, and different kinds of books influence him. It was, for the most part, a very successful collaboration. We found a method that really worked well, and if I ever collaborate in future, I’ll use it. The method was this: we’d both write chapters, and then trade them to clean up or finish them. Sometimes there would be a line or scene we wouldn’t agree on. He wouldn’t like my idea and I’d dislike his. This happened numerous times. In those cases, we resolved the dilemma by scrapping both ideas and coming up with something that we could agree on. Nine times out of ten, we both preferred the new idea to either of our old ones. We had to learn to put aside our egos, but since we were both inexperienced writers, we found that our egos weren’t all that well developed in the first place, and it was easy to let them go. I think it overall made for a vastly superior book than either one of us could have created on our own.

This weekend at Dragon-Con I had a long talk with Marv Wolfman (meeting him was quite an honor, I must say) about the nature of Hollywood, and he asserted that sequels to highly successful films often suck because the creators become so powerful that they don’t have to suffer rewrites. I won’t name names here, but I’ve seen many examples to support what he said. A good collaborator can be more valuable than gold, provided you’re man enough to put aside your ego and take criticism.

BF - While you’re generally seen as an “alternative” guy, you have done some superhero stories – Dark Horse’s The Machine and an X-Men tale for Marvel. Any other plans or aspirations for forays into the capes and tights field?

TN - Maybe, but I’m not scrambling for a gig with the Big 2. I’ve never seen the point of superheroes for the sake of superheroes. I like the idea, but I think that, more than almost any other genre, writers of these books miss the point. This is one of the reasons I believe that superhero movies capture the imagination more than the comics they’re based on. Movies tend to boil down the essence of a concept, while serial comics tend to dilute it. If you read twenty or so issues of X-Men and ask yourself, “What do the X-Men do?” You might not have an answer (other than ‘bicker’). Sit down and watch the movie, and the answer becomes plain. They fight for acceptance in a prejudiced world. Movies have to make their point within two hours, whereas serial comics don’t seem to have any imperative to make any kind of point ever. I enjoy the occasional miniseries about superheroes, but I can’t be bothered to dive into an ongoing series in the hope that the point it may or may not be leading to over the next thirty issues is a compelling one. Give me The Incredibles any day. Or even Mystery Men.

There are exceptions, and of course, it depends on the writer. Some writers really do wonders with the medium, as demonstrated by Alan Moore, and more recently, folks like Brian Bendis and Greg Rucka. I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at a superhero, but I’d need far more freedom than the big 2 are likely to offer. As a compromise, I’ve been considering doing my own superhero comics and publishing them through alternative publishers like Image. Who knows? Maybe I can come up with a something unique in the cape and tights world.

BF - What should someone expect when they read a Ted Naifeh story?

TN - Joss Whedon says that he prefers to start with emotion and build character and plot around it, and I agree with that. Robert McKee (author of Story, the standard textbook for screenwriting) says that character and plot are the same thing, since the purpose of plot is to reveal the character’s true nature, and I agree with that as well.

I’d like to think that my stories offer strong, emotionally resonant characters and plots. Maybe my plots have holes in them. Maybe my dialogue is occasionally awkward, and not as witty as some writers out there. But I think that my characters come across as genuine, believable and empathetic, and, like a good pop song, the stories grab the reader on an emotional level.

BF - From reading your Livejournal entries about Dragon-Con, it sounds like you had quite a bit of fun with the Iron Artist competition. Would you mind explaining a little about the competition and your experience with it?

TN - Boy, that was a harrowing experience, I can tell you. It’s sort of a rough mockery of the glorious Iron Chef show. Two artists compete in a sort of paint-off, incorporating a theme and secret ingredient, both of which are announced at the beginning of the event. We then have 45 minutes to think up and create a painting incorporating those elements. This year’s theme turned out to be airplane nose art (of the sort WWII pilots put in their planes), and the secret ingredient was penguins. As the challenger, the whole thing was pretty rough on my ego at first. The incumbent Iron Artist, William Stout, is a serious painter with a long and successful fantasy illustration career. I’d only ever dabbled in paint, and not for over eight years.

In any event, though Bill’s painting was sharp and slick from the get-go compared with my ugly, smeary mess, I ended up pulling my piece out of the fire at the last minute, and it turned out reasonably cute and charmingly retro. The winner was decided by which painting auctioned for the most money, and for some reason, mine went for five dollars more than Bill’s. So now I’m the Iron Artist, and I get to go back to Dragon-Con next year to defend the title, all expenses paid. My girlfriend and I were talking about doing Burning Man, but we’ll just have to put it off another year. Oh well. It’s not going anywhere.

BF - What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced as an independent comic creator? 

TN - The biggest challenges for me were 1) sticking with it for years until I found success, and 2) doing what I want while still making a living. Both were entirely worthwhile endeavors, and though I faced years and years of frustration, the place I’ve gotten to in my career is pretty satisfying. If you had told me when I entered the business that it would take this long to get where I am, I’d have given up immediately. But thank goodness, no one can tell the future.

I meet young artists all the time, and they keep asking me what advice I can give them about breaking in. I see that desperate look in their eyes, as though they’re searching for some secret trick that’ll make it all easy. From my experience, there isn’t one. I found success the moment my work became worthy of it, and not a minute before. It’s hard to look into the eager eyes of these young guys and girls and say, “You’ll make it when you’re good enough,” but that’s the only answer. Publishers are desperate for skilled artists, and if you have the chops, they’ll snap you up in a minute. The trick is developing the necessary skills.

All of us, with very few exceptions, have faced years of rejection at one point or another in our careers, and to me, that’s part of the humbling experience which makes us into talented creators. The artists that didn’t go through that always have some defect, some blind spot in their work. They usually freeze at a certain level and stop growing. I sometimes envy the early success of artists like Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlene, but I don’t envy them where they are now. My career has been a slow climb to moderate success, but I wouldn’t trade it for an easier career path. I know how to climb now, and I never intend to stop and rest on my laurels.