Broken Frontier

Here we are again, with yet another Broken Frontier Inter-Review!

This time around we chat with writer/self-publisher Bob Heske, a man with an IMDB  profile (for scripting some high-profile short films) and who single-handedly put together his own self-published horror anthology in 2008 titled Cold Blooded Chillers.  Now, coming in February, Bob unleashes his first Diamond-distributed series, a rather interesting vampire tale with an equally attention-grabbing name: The Night Projectionist.

Published through Studio 407, a company that has been called (okay, by me, but still…) “the next Crossgen” in terms of diverse genre and quality product (and not, either sadly or blessedly, depending on your point of view, in the insurmountable continuity of CG’s core universe), NP is yet another atmospheric, dark and classy comic book from the studio that started on Wowio, and has since graduated big-time to the major leagues with such critically acclaimed titles as Tiger & Crane, Night & Fog and Hybrid (in film pre-production by Myriad Pictures).

The Night Projectionist can be ordered from your local retailer via Diamond December Previews, Page 305, Order # DEC084241.  Alternatively, when the time comes, the book should be available direct from the publisher at www.studio-407.com

Now let’s get to it!

Broken Frontier Review: My first exposure with Studio 407 was seeing their inaugural series, Night & Fog, on Wowio.com, for free download.  I never got the chance to read that book, but the quality of its visuals—the art and packaging—stood out among the rabble (and in those days, Wowio was mostly rabble).  Then Wowio changed ownership, and Studio 407 traipsed off into the night, and why?  Because the internet had done for them what most digital publishers dream of: it got their books noticed by Diamond, and by a movie production studio (Myriad Pictures), and so today Night & Fog is fast approaching its first mini’s end, with a cavalcade of graphic novels and new books to come, all hitting retail shelves in early-mid 2009.  One of the first to arrive: a little chilly ditty called…The Night Projectionist.

Having read a small preview for NP in Studio 407’s Shadow Chronicles #1, I already knew that Heske’s script, coupled with the art of newcomer Diego Yapura, were excellent.  However the preview was short, and the full concept not entirely understood by its end.  I knew it was about vampires.  I knew it took place in two settings: 1700s Hungary, and then modern day, inside a classic marquee movie theater.  But what the heck was it about?  Hadn’t a clue.  Now I’ve since plunged into issue #1 and read it’s every word, studied its every panel.  Here’s the skinny:

Strange deaths are occurring in Gothic-era Hungary, the town of Kisilova to be precise.  People are dying from the inside out, their bodies found wrapped in blood-red cocoons seemingly spun from their own viscera.  The church thinks a vampire is on the loose, and they’ve targeted a family most likely to be the culprits.  However, one man of God believes all his brothers to be reactionaries, and races to warn the condemned innocents that the entire town marches to kill them.  Cut to: the present.  Small town Massachusetts, on the night before All Hallows Eve.  An old theatre is showing a “Draculathon” as their final feature, before the city closes them down for good.  All the people gather, amongst a night of out-of-control bonfires and missing person reports, and once there, the theater’s single employee, the night-time projectionist, makes a startling announcement—all the doors are locked, and nobody leaves.

Outside the theater, something is coming.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Wow!  What a great freakin’ plot conceit this series has!  And that’s my way of saying welcome Mr. Bob Heske!  Now that you’re here, how about you give us a little background on where the idea for The Night Projectionist came from.

BOB HESKE: Thanks! The idea had been percolating inside my head for quite some time. Oddly enough, it was inspired by 12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet’s 1957 classic about a dissenting juror who changes the perception of 11 other jurors who are essentially a “captive audience” locked together inside a small room with a life-saving decision to make. The Night Projectionist has some of these parallels – 1)   it has a captive audience who (for those who survive) have a totally different perspective by the end of the story; 2) a “dissenting juror” (Dragos, the mysterious “night projectionist”) who originally went against his townspeople and who now has gone against his vampire coven; and 3) a mystery that eventually leads to “the truth” by the end of the story – in this case, why is Dragos holding this audience hostage inside a theater and, more important, what is coming to get them? Plus, the idea of placing a vampire story inside a movie theater really intrigued me since that is where most of us were “introduced” to vampires – inside a rickety movie theater.

BF: Small northeastern town, something horrible this way comes…classic and yet the details are sweetly unique.  Are you a fan of the Stephen King school of horror then?  Is the genre something you’d say is your favorite (what with  your self-published book, Cold Blooded Chillers to boot)?  Was Night Projectionist a story you’ve wanted to tell for a while?

BH:  Steven King? Sure, who isn’t? I’m also a fan of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. So what I tried to do with The Night Projectionist is make the protagonist have both superhuman powers and human weaknesses. In short, he’s damaged goods. We’re afraid of him, but at the same time we kind of feel for his sad predicament too. The Night Projectionist has all the mood, gore and action to attract hardcore vampire traditionalists; however, it also takes liberty to re-invent the vampire legend. More of that will unfold in issue #2. As for favorite genres – anything with “dark” as a prefix: drama, horror, comedy.

BF: On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate vampires as a perfect horror monster?  Are there any that top these blood-sucking bastards in your opinion?

BH:  Ten. Personally, vampires are much cooler to write about than zombies because they have so many God-like yet man-like qualities that we secretly covet: immortality, super- human strength, a heart-stopping stare, and a turbo blood and sex drive. They are so cool and wicked at the same time – like that “Bad Boy” in the leather jacket all the girls wanted to be with. Zombies are just drones who meander around Earth and kill whomever they bump into. The only other supernatural entities that come close are demons and ghosts.

BF Review: The opening of NP moves through a gloriously dark, Grand Guignol-spiced European setting, and immediately begins the book with Heske’s (it soon becomes clear) characteristically dense wordsmithery.  The plot is given space to breathe, or rather to steep, to slowly spin across the characters and their dialogue and their actions, saturating the reader with information and yet keeping the pace tight, so as to never feel rushed or piled upon indiscriminately.  The set-up backstory, and then the slide into present day, occurs at precisely the right moment: just when you don’t want it to end, and desperately wish you could leap back and see what happens!  But alas, NP moves to its centermost subject matter: the town and its inhabitants.  Once again, here, Heske weaves both original and classic elements, characters you love to hate (can’t wait for ‘em to die), others that seem heroic, in their small town-y laid back way, tensions and hatreds abounding between all (small towns are powder kegs in the hands of a good horror writer!), and then things as bizarre and never-before-seen as blood cocoons sprouting from the inside out of a body, vampiric part-time projectionists for old-time movie theaters, and then these elements meet in a pitch-perfect staging: a single locked location, mysteries every which way you turn, and a large cast of cannon fod-…er…I mean characters.

The eponymous anti-hero of the book, Mr. Projectionist himself, is definitely the draw, through-and-through.  His presence is a complete question mark, his origins only partially clear (due to the flashback-like prologue), his abilities uncertain and his motivations, purpose, and personality the things that readers will come flocking back, begging to discover after plowing through issue #1.  Even better, Heske superbly weaves just the right amount of side-plot weirdness, showing that there is more to the story than a single vampire and a theatre.  Much more.

There’s a strong sense of 70s and early 80s horror comics to Heske’s approach.  NP reads a little like DC’s Night Force, a little like Man-Thing, a little Swamp Thing, then a grand piano of early Stephen King dropped on top for good measure.  This isn’t your overly-sparse, content-lacking Steve Niles horror story of the modern era.  Night Projectionist is as concept-driven as 30 Days of Night, but offers a far more charitable load of character, event, tone, and nuance.

BF: How did NP come to be with Studio 407?

BH:  I met Studio 407’s principal – Alex Leung – on the Internet via an animator who had read and liked some of my film scripts, particularly a short called Psychosis. I ended up doing a rewrite for Alex on a project and shared with him the premise of The Night Projectionist. He liked it and, after I wrote a comprehensive treatment flushing out the characters, plot and backstory of the vampire myth, he was totally on board. Studio 407 has a very diverse arsenal of comic stories with 3 great monster comics coming out in early 2009: The Night Projectionist, Netherworld, and Demon Squad. Studio 407 pitches The Night Projectionist as “30 Days of Night meets Scream.”

BF: On the subject of your writing, what would you say was the major difference in writing NP versus the stories you penned independently for your self-published Cold Blooded Chillers?

BH:  The Night Projectionist is harder because it’s longer and more complex. There are many layers – past/present, protagonist plotline, antagonist plotline, captive audience individual plotlines – that I have to weave together and tie up cleanly at the end. It was a challenge but a good working experience thanks to a talented editor named Chad Jones (Editor in Chief/Creative Director at Studio 407 and author of the upcoming Netherworld series).   Cold Blooded Chillers is a series of horror shorts – like a sniper’s bullet they are fast, surprising, and deadly. Real fun stuff to write but not nearly as hard to do as a story like The Night Projectionist which has to appeal to vampire traditionalists but be distinct at the same time.

BF: Your perceived greatest strength as a scrivener?  Your most unanticipated weakness?

BH: I’m good with character and dialogue. I can also conceptualize a solid story line and make it happen. My strength is also my Achilles heel – making the “voices” of the characters from 1700s Hungary, modern-day New England and a Vampire coven be realistic and entertaining. Particularly when you write for characters who lived two centuries ago it’s easy to become cliché and flat rather than snappy and sharp. Plus, adding humor into a horror script also walks a fine line – either you nail it or you bomb.

BF: Can you name your top horror influences, and the # 1 influence on NP?

BH: All names you’ve heard before: Steven King, Alfred Hitchcock, William Goldman. Plus Stan Lee from Marvel Comics and Sidney Lumet for his directorial “voice” on 12 Angry Men . And there’s a new horror writer from New England whom I rather like named Joe Hill (20^th Century Ghosts horror anthology).

BF: Yes!  If anyone has a horror comic as good as Night Projectionist currently running, it’s Joe Hill’s Locke & Key!   His Box-Shaped Heart was a pretty solid novel, too.  Not as amazing as Key, but still a cut above the rest.

BF Review: Rounding out the classic/new experience of the book, artist Diego Yapura contributes pages that are startlingly reminiscent of Gene Colan in his prime.  Dark, fluid, a  grey haze of chiaroscuro and shadow play.  There’s also an obvious influence from Tom Mandrake and Mike Deodato, artists that wield a more solid, bulkier-black line, and Yapura works in a fine place in-between.  The Night Projectionist is a story as finely executed by its artist as it is its scripter, with visually creeptastic moments and intuitive layout throughout.

BF: How did Diego Yapura come to be involved in the project?  Does he have a comics or horror background?

BH: I don’t know Diego personally. Studio 407 handled finding the artist and colorist (Jorge  Blanco). But I will say this – you are dead-on right. The art is what really breathes life into this story. It’s a challenge drawing for two time periods but Diego pulled it off masterfully. Several reviewers have commented how “beautiful” the comic book is and that is testament to the artist and colorist. And more than a few have likened Diego’s style to Tom Mandrake. His attention to detail and the mood he brings to his artwork is just flat-out fantastic. The colors also do a great job accentuating the characters and story. The story stands up strong in ink, but the colors add a whole new  dimension. I think you will see more great things from both Diego Yapura and Jorge Blanco.

BF: Can you think of a moment in issue #1 that Diego blew you away with, more so than any other?

BH : I really loved his work on the first seven pages – the “setup” of 1700s Hungary. That really set the tone for me.

BF: Parting shot for Part 1 - the single best horror story ever.  Only one.  It’s a given that this is “what you think now” and not for all eternity.

BH: Halloween (1978) by John Carpenter. I was 16 and thought I was beyond getting scared at movies. Boy was I wrong! I remember walking to the parking garage with my high school friends and jumping out of our sneakers when someone inadvertently knocked over a trash can.

Be sure to join us tomorrow for part two of our Inter-Review with Bob Heske, as we tackle his self-publishing endeavor, Cold Blooded Chillers!  Until then!

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The Night Projectionist can be ordered from your local retailer via Diamond December Previews, Page 305, Order # DEC084241.  Alternatively, when the time comes, the book should be available direct from the publisher at www.studio-407.com

Bob Heske can be reached at www.bobheske.com, and his self-published work, Cold Blooded Chillers, can be seen at www.coldbloodedchillers.com