By: Nicole D'Andria
This time I’m kickstarting the week with aliens with the third issue of Martian Comics. This anthology is a 52 page special featuring seven stories. Martian Comics is an attempt to recapture the feel of early Vertigo comics like Sandman. All seven stories will be written by Dr. Julian Darius, a comics scholar. He also founded Sequart Organization. I had an in-depth interview with him about the project and the importance of comic books as an art form.
There are three different artists in this special issues including Jason Muhr (“One Small Step”, “Another Small Step”), Mansjur Daman (“Safari”) and Sergio Tarquini (“Ezekiel”, “What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?”, “Small Talk with Rats”, “The Other”). The stories are colored by R.L. Campos and lettered by Colin Bell. The cover, an homage of “American Gothic,” was drawn by David A. Frizell.
The first story is “One Small Step,” the telling of the
first time Martians landed on the moon while Earth’s most complicated activity was cave
paintings.
The second story is “Safari,” a tale about a Martian boy’s
coming of age which involves a hunt. His journey leads the boy to realizing his
father’s mortality as well as his own fears and powerlessness. This story features
the series’ very first fight scene which will leave the readers wondering who
to root for.
The third story, “Ezekiel,” features humanity’s prehistoric
encounter with technologically advanced Martians.
In the fourth story, “What Has Athens to Do with
Jerusalem?” features a returning character, Lazarus, who moves to Athens and
sees St. Paul and the beginnings of Christianity. He hears the Saint’s stories
about Jesus who Lazarus has met previously.
"Another Small Step," the fifth story, is a
sequel to “One Small Step.” This story shows Earth’s moon landing experience as viewed by Martians.
The final two stories are “Small Talk with Rats” and “The
Other.” These two stories will continue “The Girl from Mars” story that ended
on a cliffhanger in Martian Comics #2.
In these tales, the biggest villain will be revealed and a character will die.
The project will be funded if $2,600 is pledged by June 22nd,
2015 at 11:00 PM EDT. The money will go towards Martian Comics going into print for the first time, a special
Kickstarter-only paperback copy of the Martian
Comics #1-#3 that’s 106 pages long and includes
a letter column exclusive to this edition and Julian Darius. Darius has
largely been funded on credit and he requires funds to cover the costs of
finishing Martian Comics #3’s
coloring and lettering.
You can pledge as little as $5 and receive a copy of Martian Comics #3 in PDF form. For an
$11 pledge you will receive digital copies of Martian
Comics #1-#3 and the Sequart Organization will offer the backer a free
download of one of
its movies and a free download of one Julian Darius book (your
choices include Improving the Foundations, And the Universe So Big, The Weirdest Sci-Fi Comic Ever Made, Voyage in Noise, When Manga Came to America, and Classics on Infinite Earths).
Check out my interview with writer, comics scholar and
Sequart founder Julian Darius:
 |
| Julian Darius |
Me: Why
are you fascinated with science-fiction and, in particular, Martians?
Julian
Darius: I always loved science fiction. There's a wonder to it,
whether it's flying saucers or rocket ships, that's appealing on a visceral
level. Science fiction also starts from humanity's greatest accomplishments,
which are technological. Whether it's 2001 or Gravity or
Interstellar, some science fiction helps you realize just how hazardous
space is and how utterly amazing it is that we've landed on the moon and could
go further, if we wanted to. And I think that's a metaphor for what we're
capable of, as a species.
I also think science fiction is capable of interrogating
the human condition like no other genre. I certainly like realistic fiction,
and there's an awful lot of it and other genres that move me. Certainly, when
we see outside of our own perspective through reading or watching fiction,
we're expanding our understanding of society and what it means to be human. The
same is true when we read historical stories; it's possible to get a feel for
what it was really like, in a certain culture, in a certain place and time, and
this helps us to see outside of ourselves. But science fiction is able to
interrogate where we're going as a species. And in a lot of sci-fi stories,
human nature is key. Whether we form an alliance with aliens or kill them says
a lot about us.
Mars is fascinating to me, because it's the next planet
over. And a lot of those old, cool sci-fi visuals were tied to Mars. It was the
site of most of our thoughts about aliens living in our solar system. Of
course, that's over now, but reading earlier science fiction in which Mars and
other planets were populated makes me recall this wonderful time in which you
could really believe this, and our solar system didn't seem so lonely. In fact,
Mars almost certainly had life on it, and it probably still does, but it never
had time to evolve the way it did on Earth. We're very lucky. But Mars remains
this Other. Martians were our reflection. Sometimes, a dark reflection. But it
was this kind of other self, just nudged a little further away from the sun.
It's this idea I find so fascinating.
Me: Aliens
in general have multiple iterations ranging from little green men to grey
almond-eyed creatures. What is your favorite interpretation of an alien?
Darius:
As
a kid, I wasn't scared of an awful lot. But the grey aliens terrified me.
I used to lie in bed and hallucinate, or maybe just imagine really vividly,
that the roof of the house was gone, and there was a UFO over it watching
me. I also experienced missing time once as a kid, though it wasn't an
abduction or anything. But I believed in magic, and in UFOs, and had a very different
worldview than I do now as an adult who finds all of this to be a frightening
kind of magical thinking.
Those grey aliens horrified me on a visceral level. They
looked like horror embodied to me. Maybe it's the way they reflect human
fetuses, with those big eyes and thin limbs. There's something very evocative
there. Of course, now, I think those similarities reflect the human creation of
this alien model, and there's evidence of this, in terms of how that alien
developed. Similarly, different cultures imagine different aliens, so it's
pretty clear this is all culturally influenced and not "real." I
still think the idea of a grey alien, lurking in the dark of my house or in the
corners of my dreams, is a horrifying visual.
But I'm not sure that I have a favorite alien design. I
tend to like designs that are less human-looking. I am partial to the Vulcans
on Star Trek, but in general I'm disappointed when aliens look just like
humans.
Me: You
bring up some interesting historical events such as St. Paul’s sermons and the
moon landing. What historical event would you like to have Martians witness
that you have not already written about?
Darius:
I've
got plans to write about a lot of other historical events, and I'm sure I'll
come up with more. It's tempting to think of something like the eruption of
Mount Vesuvius and want to have Martians watching it. But I have to figure out
how to write a story around the event, and the story has to come first. It can
be a simple story, with a simple through-line, but I often have to roll it
around in my mind for months or even years before I really feel the core of
what the story is.
I have planned out some later Lazarus stories that deal
with the development of Christianity, as well as Jewish history, and those are
very important to me. There's a story coming up in ancient Egypt, but it avoids
the whole "aliens built the Pyramids or the Sphinx" cliché.
When I think of what I'd want Martians to witness, what
comes to mind is something like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a few years back.
It's these kind of things, which reflect human short-sightedness. They might
not be dramatic events, like a war, but to me they represent our inability to
think long-term and as a species. I often think that someone watching events
like that, from an outside or objective perspective, would be horrified. Our
own self-destruction would be so transparent.
Me: If you
could only pick one historical event throughout our entire history, what event
would you personally choose to see?
I wrote a thesis on Milton, and I wouldn't mind seeing the
execution of the king. I don't think we know whether Milton was in the
audience, but it would be great to see that beside him, were that possible, and
see what that event meant to him and to the crowd. It was a revolutionary
moment.
But I think we often romanticize the past. I would love to
see something like the fall of Troy, but it would probably be disappointing,
and I'd probably get sick and hate the food.
Me: How
would you describe the three different perspectives the art styles of Jason
Muhr, Mansjur Daman and Sergio Tarquini bring to the lore of Martians in this
book?
Darius:
One
of the joys of working with artists is that what you get back is almost never
what you envisioned, but it's different in fascinating ways. It's filtered
through a different mind and a different aesthetic, and I love those
differences. I'm not a writer who gives an artist a lot of notes, generally,
unless something's missing that is important to the plot. I just love seeing
what an artist comes up with.
Sergio Tarquini is the series artist, and I love his work.
He's an excellent storyteller, and we've developed a relationship in which I
trust him to ignore my suggested panel layouts and create something that's more
effective. I think he's a great artist, and he's tremendously versatile. I've
made him draw a tremendous variety of material, and he's able to do it all very
successfully. His work is stylized and uniquely his, but it's not so overly
stylized that it's distracting. I think he's also capable of being very
emotionally affecting. I've fallen in love with the characters he's
illustrated, and that's in large part due to him bringing them to life in a way
that affects me.
I always think of Mansjur Daman's work as very classical.
It's realistic and detailed, without being overwhelming. His work, to me, comes
from a tradition in which there was a kind of precision and very professional
feel to some comics’ art. His work sometimes reminds me of Alex Raymond and
John Ridgway, although Mansjur definitely has his own feel and his own
identity. I think Bryan Hitch is an inheritor of this tradition, to some
degree. I think Mansjur's style works very well for Martian stories, because it
grounds the Martians in a very real-world way. These fantastic aliens feel like
they occupy a kind of real space, and I can use this perspective that he brings
in my writing.
Jason Muhr is also a realistic artist, but his work favors
curved, open lines. It's a very clean effect. You could think of Alan Davis,
who similarly favors these curved, open lines. For something like a moon
landing, you need this kind of clean, realistic look, or it would look odd and
not like the moon landing you picture. One effect of these open lines is that
his work has a kind of brightness to it, so when he illustrates the Martians,
they seem happier in a way. And that fit his second story, in which the
Martians are being quizzical and the stories about this strange and wonderful
world they inhabit.
I think it's great having these multiple perspectives and
seeing the Martians through different stylistic filters. That was something
really important to me, when I was planning the series, and I feel like it's
worked out brilliantly with these two artists. The issue that's on Kickstarter
is the first time we get these other artistic perspectives, and I kind of feel
like it's the issue where the series kind of opens up.
Me: As the
founder of the Sequart Organization, can you describe the mission statement
behind this organization and the reason you founded it?
Darius:
Sequart
was founded to advance the idea that comics were a legitimate form of art that
could stand alongside any other medium.
Back in 1996, I was an undergrad who had read an awful lot
and really loved comics. Comics were more important to me than prose and
movies. They were my medium. But professors, back in 1996, were not there yet.
I was told comics were for kids. My professors were great, and I loved them.
They respected me and my mind, but they sort of treated this fascination with
comics as a strange eccentricity. There were no courses in comics. So I decided
to write about comics on my own. I started a website and began to fill it with my
thoughts on comics, with papers on comics’ history, with reviews, and with
documents summarizing publication histories. They got millions of visitors, and
others started writing for the site. We kept growing, eventually publishing
books and making documentary movies about comics. But it was a very organic
growth.
Me: I know
comic books have been stereotyped as “not real literature” and for “children.”
What do you think should be done to have comic books seen as a more serious
medium?
Darius:
I
wonder how much this old stereotype still holds. I think with the rise of
comic-based movies and the ascent of geek culture, we're hopefully past the
idea that comics are just for kids. However, I think that comics are still
regarded as this odd geeky thing, and they're usually talked about in really
insulting terms that show they're not thought to be real literature. For
example, people will praise how imaginative they are, or how cool a certain
plot twist was. But comics aren't widely being discussed the way we'd discuss
literature, where we tend to praise style and structure as part of discussion
of plot and character.
In some ways, while I enjoy seeing geeks get respect and am
still kind of amazed to see all these comics-based movies, I've come to fear
that all of this attention has been patronizing. It's very commercial. The
movies are successful, so TV channels and magazines feel the need to cater to
the geek audience. But this wasn't the dream I had in 1996. My idea wasn't that
comics were cool or fun, although that was part of it. My idea was centrally
that comics could stand alongside movies and novels as a vital artistic medium
that could be every bit as literary, every bit as versatile, every bit as deep.
And we're just not seeing that depth. It's there in some comics, but it's not
there in the way people think about comics. So we have this odd situation in
which people want to say they're down with comics, but the idea that comics are
capable of profundity is as alien to them as it ever was. Instead, they're
focused on how it's cool that people are into these Marvel super-heroes, or how
cool these comic-based TV shows are. And while this is nice, comics are really
secondary to this praise, and this praise isn't critical. It's not the way you
talk about literature, or talk seriously about movies you think actually
matter. Not every story has to matter, of course, but the medium of comics
should. And is still almost utterly lacking in respect as a literary form.
One of the things we desperately need to do for comics is
to create a kind of body of criticism. In terms of discussing movies, there are
tons of movie news blogs, and there are sites that do analysis of them from a
more fan-based level. And that's fine. But very sophisticated movie criticism
has existed, in a codified way, since the 1960s. There are film analysis and
film history programs at universities, and there are tons of brilliant books
about them. More importantly, we all understand that the popular buzz about
movies is separate from the informed assessment of those movies, their
strengths and weaknesses, and their importance in cinema history. We are
totally comfortable saying we love a certain movie, yet even as we say this, we
understand it might not be an important movie or a technically great one. If a
critic says that a movie we love isn't very well-written, or that the acting
isn't very good, we're not usually bummed out about it. We know there's a role
for that, for this kind of professional criticism, and it doesn't take away our
joy.
In comics, we haven't built this body of criticism. There
are more books about comics than ever, and Sequart's been a big part of that.
But there's not much of a history of professional criticism. So what you get is
a lot of fannish criticism, in which what people love gets praised as genius.
Meanwhile, when someone says that a certain comic isn't technically that good,
or that it's fun but not very important, or that its depictions are sexist or
Islamophobic or have other problems, fans tend to lash out in a really violent
way. Again, we don't do this for movies or literature. You can love Michael
Bay's Transformers movies without thinking they're ingenious works that are as
good as Citizen Kane, and you can love them without being upset that
critics point out their sexism. You can even admit those critics are right and
still love them. But in comics, because we don't have this culture of
professional criticism, there's a lot of hostility whenever comics we love are
criticized. And that's got to change, if comics are going to grow up and be
taken seriously as a medium.
That's the main thing I'd say we need to do now, to advance
comics. And a huge part of that is making room for voices that weren't
necessarily vocal in the past. The attacks on women, especially female critics,
has been heartbreaking for me. It chases smart women out of comics, and that
retards our advancement as a medium. We need this diversity of viewpoint, and
we need to cultivate a culture of comics criticism, not attack and silence
people because they dare to criticize a comic while also being female. This is
just not something that happens in literature, or movies. It's ugly and
flat-out wrong, from a purely moral and humanitarian perspective. And even from
a legal perspective, in a lot of cases. But this behavior is also hurting
comics, demonstrably, and to me, it has everything to do with lacking this
culture of criticism that other art forms have. The bottom line is that you
can't treat women this way and be a serious art form. It has to end. Now.
Finally, I'd say that comics have to be better. Some would
say that comics are better today than ever. In some ways, that's true. There
are a lot of good comics being made. I'm not sure it's a greater percentage
than ever. There are more comics being made today than probably at any point in
comics history. But I do detect a certain fearfulness to be literary. That's
not universal, of course. But I think that, as comics have gotten respect for
inspiring these blockbuster movies, we've focused on making cool and fun
comics. If you look at the comics in the 1970s and 1980s that really inspired
people to take comics seriously as an art form, most of those comics aspired to
be literary and to use literary devices. Will Eisner's graphic novels were obviously
an attempt to use comics to tell novel-like stories, even if they were painted
with some broad emotional strokes. Alan Moore's work was so infused with
literary language and literary devices. V for Vendetta, Miracleman,
Swamp Thing, and Watchmen were all attempts to do really
literary things with comics. Neil Gaiman's Sandman was also really
literary, and it got a lot of people who hadn't even read a comic before to
take comics seriously for the first time. Independent comics like Cerebus were
also very literary. Of course, not every comic needed to do these things, just
like every novel doesn't have to be Proust, and there's room for commercial
movies and for art movies. But it's those literary novels that really prove
what novels can be, and it's those artsy movies that are usually praised
decades later as proof of what cinema can really do.
I worry that today, doing these literary things with comics
is seen as somehow snooty, or smartypants, or something. It's just not done
much anymore. Part of this is a rejection of revisionism and of the darkness
that's kind of falsely leveled against all of these comics (plenty of them
weren't all that dark). But part of this is that the rise of geek culture has
been a result of blockbuster movies more than these literary comics.
Consequently, there's a culture within comics today that aspires to get movie
adaptations and aspires to get praised for being cool the way the movies and TV
series are praised. Even comics creators who want to make cool and different
comics can't help but be influenced by this culture. Everything around them
says the goal is to be cool and not to be good. I'm going to get in trouble for
saying that, but by "good," I don't mean successfully entertaining,
or a fun romp that's well-put-together. I mean literary, the same way that Transformers is
a really cool movie, but we're totally comfortable admitting it's not all that
good. The same way that absolutely no one credibly thinks 50 Shades of Grey is
good or well-written, even though tons of people like it.
So I think there's room for more literary comics, for stuff
that could credibly be put on the shelf next to Watchmen. A lot of
comics were trying to do that, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but I don't
think many are now. Instead, we're too busy tearing Watchmen down
and tearing down the idea that being literary even matters. Again, there are
plenty of good comics out there, and I'm not trashing the current state of
comics. I'm just saying that, as part of comics being taken seriously as a
literary art form, there should be some room for literary comics, the same way
there is for the sophisticated novel.
At Sequart, we're trying to change comics culture and to
create a body of comics criticism. And with Martian Comics, I'm throwing
my hat into the ring to try to show that there's a place for literary comics. I
see both as attempts to advance the medium as a legitimate art form.
Me: What
advice do you have for aspiring comic book writers?
Darius:
I
don't know that I have much advice, because I feel like I'm still struggling to
get attention for what I'm doing. I believe in it passionately, but I honestly
don't know if there's enough of a market to sustain it long-term.
I think that if you want to make comics, the best thing you
can do is just make comics. If you really want to do it, do it. Don't wait for
a company to discover you. Don't make excuses. Get started, because it takes a
long time to complete a comic. It takes a long time just to figure out how to
do it, from a technical perspective, like how to layout pages as files, how to
collaborate with different creators, and even what order things are done in.
The other thing to keep in mind is that making comics is
tough. People always talk about how cheap comics are, relative to film, but if
you have to pay artists and colorists, comics can be insanely expensive,
relative to the average income. Building an audience takes time, and success is
almost entirely about luck and only tenuously connected to quality. You hope
that if you do good work, people will discover and share you. You have to have
faith in that, or you probably wouldn't do it. But it's tough.
Finally, the thing I'd tell aspiring comics writers in
particular is that they should read and write constantly. You don't have to
write every day. But you have to write a lot. You should probably write novels
and screenplays and even poetry, not just comics. The world doesn't have to see
it all, and probably shouldn't, but you should expect to write thousands of
pages in different genres and media before you're really comfortable as a
writer. And you should read more than comics. Don't be insular. Be
intellectually curious.
Me: Thank you for your time and your in-depth observations about comic books. Best of luck kickstarting your little green men into print!
Do you have a Kickstarter? Want to be interviewed about it
and have it showcased on “Kickstart the Week?” Let me know in the comments
below or message me on my personal website www.comicmaven.com.
Other “Kickstart the Week” features:
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