Broken Frontier

Debuting last month from Evil Twin Comics, Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey's Comic Book Comics looks set to do to the great movers and shakers of the comics industry what their Action Philosophers did for history's greatest thinkers. Broken Frontier caught up with Fred to chat about their latest foray into biographical history with a unique comedy slant...

BROKEN FRONTIER: For those readers who haven't picked up the first issue or read any of the pre-publicity can you sum up the series and its aims in one or two handy-dandy paragraphs?

FRED VAN LENTE: Comic Book Comics tells the inspiring, infuriating, and utterly insane story of the American comic book industry in the irreverent style of Action Philosophers creators Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey! We are beginning with the birth of the comic strip and going right through the rise of web comix.

BF: How did the idea for Comic Book Comics originally come about?

FVL: Basically, we saw the ground coming up at us pretty soon on Action Philosophers -- we knew we would run out of philosophers (or, at least, philosophers we wanted to profile) about halfway through the series, and we wanted to keep this non-fiction comedy gravy train rollin', you know? The history of comics is still in the same basic ballpark as philosophy – the humanities -- but different enough for us to stretch different muscles while doing it, which is always good. So I started researching CBC simultaneously with AP right around... Right around the time AP #5 came out, in fact.

BF: As mentioned, this isn't the first time you and Ryan have used the comics medium to tackle non-fiction in a comedic way of course. It must be very pleasing to see the three collected volumes of Action Philosophers in print?

FVL: It is, and our company, Evil Twin Comics, plans to keep them in print for time immemorial. Volume Two was out of print for a while, but we just got a second printing done of that, so you can buy 'em all at your local comic shop, or at our own on-line store.

BF: How long will the series run? Comic Book Comics seems a lot more linear than Action Philosophers and thus more likely to have an intended finite run.

FVL: Yeah, although it's tough to say exactly how many. I originally estimated five issues for AP and that went nine. Originally, we were thinking four for CBC but already it looks like we'll have to do at least six. "As long as it takes to get the story right," I guess would be the best way to put it.

BF: As an information professional myself the one thing that really impressed me with the first issue of Comic Book Comics was the obvious depth of research that must have gone into it (and I loved the bibliography at the end!). Tell us a little about how you prepared for this aspect of the project, the resources you used and the time you invested in it.

FVL: Thank you sir! Well, it helps that I've had a long interest in comics history dating back to when I was in school (I was an English Lit major). I actually attempted to write a Kirby biography back in 1999-2000 and a lot of the material in the first half of CBC comes from that research.

I've done everything from devoured old comics to books on comics to haunt the various public libraries here in New York to track down old magazine articles about comics. I've gone to the Museum of Television and Radio in Manhattan to watch old "Batman" episodes and to the Smithsonian in Washington to look at the early works of Roy Lichtenstein. Each research project is a journey, and I try to get as much out of it as possible – the journey itself often being its own reward, of course...

BF: Issue #1 looks at events at the dawn of the comics industry, an era that you must have found to be more sparsely-documented than others when researching it... and conflicting records of events must presumably have been something to work around throughout the series. How do you approach distinguishing the "facts" from the "fiction" and sifting through the apocryphal anecdotes or biased commentaries?

FVL: Frankly, I haven't found a whole lot to dispute. The facts themselves tend to be pretty self-evident. Where we can find more source of debate – and interest -- is in the interpretation of those events -- or argue how a preceding event set up the one that follows it. As the series progresses, we'll actually be getting more theoretical, and more like Action Philosophers, I suppose, as we tackle more abstract issues as creators' rights and the concept of authorship.

Read this complete chapter from Comic Book Comics #1 at the Evil Twins site here.

BF: What can we expect to see covered in the next couple of issues of CBC and how frequently can we hope to see the book published?

FVL: Early on, we were coordinating our publication schedule with our convention appearances and that's why CBC #2 is coming out in July, for San Diego Con. That's our last con for a while, actually, so I'm hoping we can get #3 out much sooner, like in October. We'll try for the every-three-months rate that we managed to do with Action Philosophers (give or take). We're only held up by how much Ryan can procrastinate in a day, really. (Are you reading this, Ryan? Heh-heh....)

As for content? Well, in #2 we get the explosion of the Golden Age, how World War Two affected the comics (and vice-versa), the true confessions of romance comics, and the rise of E.C. Comics.

In #3, it's the Wertham purge and the Comics Code, the beginnings of comics fandom and the birth of the Silver Age, and then we decide, once and for all, who was the more important creator in the Marvel Universe -- Stan Lee or Jack Kirby. This is sure to be our most controversial issue yet!

In #4, we've got Pop Art, the Adam West Batman TV show (two very related things), R. Crumb & the undergrounds, and the magazine comics of the 1970s -- Warren, Heavy Metal and the like.

So as you can see we've just scratched the surface so far.

BF: While still maintaining the same wonderfully irreverent approach, CBC seems to be more tongue-in-cheek comedy and a little less biting in its humor than AP. Was this a conscious decision or am I just reading too much into one issue's worth of material?

FVL: I imagine it's more of a nature of doing a more linear history as opposed to an anthology of biography. We have to lay down a lot of groundwork before we start exploring more abstract issues, so I think we'll be getting more and more biting as the series progresses.

BF: From a reader's perspective CBC #1 reads like two creators having a total ball and really enjoying what they're doing. Please tell us that this collaboration is as much fun as it looks and that in 50 years time, in a future timeline version of CBC, someone won't be blowing the lid on the embittered nature of the Van Lente/Dunlavey partnership and their mutual loathing?

FVL: I think the most shocking discovery will be our secret marriage back in '06. And that Ryan is a woman..

Comic Book Comics #1 is currently on sale at all good comic shops priced $3.95 or direct from the Evil Twins website $4.00 plus shipping.