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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Digging For Dirt with Justin Gray
Caleb Gerard talks with the writer
Digging For Dirt with Justin Gray
By: Caleb Gerard
Justin Gray is a relative new name to most comicbook readers but he is already writing on plenty of high profile books. I think if you read below you'll get a very good idea of what kind of guy this is and why, so far, his work at Wildstorm has met with so much positive press. There is so much more to Justin then just his comicbook work though and not just limited to his work through Paperfilms and comics.
Anyhow, read on and be amazed by comicdoms own Indiana Jones...
CWN: Tell me about "The Resistance" from Wildstorm.
Justin Gray (JG): Imagine Robin Hood and his merry men carrying handguns that fire beer can sized bullets at androids manufactured to hunt illegally born children. Imagine a world where genetic manipulation creates mermaid fetish entertainment, armored tanks climb 600 story skyscrapers. Imagine a civil war that nobody seems to care about because the media says it's ok not to. Imagine all of that and you're just scraping the surface. Stuck in the middle of this madness are a handful of resistance fighters trying to stay alive when everyone wants them dead.
CWN: A metaphor...?
JG: Several. The book, while being very action oriented does have several underlying themes taking a critical look at how government policies dictate social class divisions and how the media easily distracts people. Can you tell I'm still bothered by the Florida election results?
CWN: And your other project with Wildstorm, "21 Down".
JG: 21Down takes place in Wildstorm continuity and is centered on characters that have been given superpowers. It's a book that looks at human relationships, sacrifice, family, what it means to be a superhero in the real world. These superpowers are handed to them by an urban legend called Herod. Herod marks them for judgment on their 21st birthday, which in most cases means they're dead or never heard from again. Our lead character Preston is trying to understand not only why he was given these powers, but also if he wants to use them as a hero. Jimmy, Jesus Saiz and I are focusing on making the series accessible to a wide audience, including people who don't normally read comics.
CWN: Which Wildstorm characters can we expect to see playing prominent roles in the series?
JG: Right now we're creating some new ones, but I am a fan of Warren and John's Planetary. You'll see some references to that book starting in issue 7. Also, we're talking about having some fun with Midnighter since he seems to be an easy target.
CWN: Reading your bio makes my life feel so boring...
JG: You know what they say; life is what you make it.
CWN: Did you always intend on being a globetrotter or has all of this been pure coincidence?
JG: I'm an air force brat so I've been bounced around most of my life. I've been cross-country traveling since I was a kid. If I had the means to do so I'd go everywhere.
CWN: So, you mined amber in the Dominican Republic, ever find dinosaur DNA?
JG: Jurassic Park bent reality to suit its needs since dino's checked out some 65 million years back. In fact the insect they used in the film wasn't even a mosquito it was a fungus gnat. The carbon dating we had done on he Dominican amber showed it was roughly 20 million years old, so there was no chance of resurrecting T-Rex, maybe we could clone some small mammals though.
CWN: Are you one of those people who gets distracted to the point of annoyance by details in movies? For instance, I can't watch medical stuff with my wife the nurse since she's constantly pointing out errors.
JG: If it's something I have first hand experience with, or have done extensive research on I usually laugh about it. That is unless it's essential to the story then it's just disappointing that the creator was too lazy to look into it. Still, there are always times you have to wing it.
CWN: In fact you've spent quite a bit of time doing dino related activities, tell me a bit more about that.
JG: One summer I spent two weeks in Wyoming digging up the remains of a triceratops. There were a handful of us out in desert under 115-degree heat and no shade, covered in dust and sweat with little brushes and highly toxic glue, I loved it. Growing up I was a dinosaur freak, I knew all the Latin names and had a scrapbook full of drawings, it's one of those things I never expect I'd have the chance to do.
CWN: Can we see any of your digs in any museum?
JG: I've never found anything large or important enough to warrant a museum spot. I did do some photography for an exhibit at the Smithsonian during something humorously titled "Bug Week", which was part of the Entomology department.
CWN: What is a fish processing plant?
JG: Cold, wet, smelly...a level of hell I'm sure Dante would agree. Basically it is a vast warehouse where whole fish are delivered by boat then loaded in containers. You dress up in six layers of clothing and pull a rubber suit over that. You take iodine baths. Then begins the tedious process of cleaning by hand, freezing, boxing and then shipping the fish out to Japan. All for the staggeringly low wage of 6.50 an hour, 18 hours a day.
CWN: Do you still eat fish or are you totally off it knowing what is done to get them to our shelves?
JG: To be honest I stopped eating salmon. When I was in Alaska I ate fish for lunch and dinner, every day, but it was fresh, the best I'd ever had. The stuff I get out here doesn't compare to pulling it out of the water.
CWN: How the hell do you wreck a Mercury Mountaineer?
JG: Pretend it's a monster truck. Drive it hard, fast and with reckless abandon. Physics will take care of the rest.
CWN: Physics is a bitch.
CWN: How do you get from virtual sidekick to Doc Savage to writing comicbooks?
JG: The amber and fossil market was in a steep decline, Doc Savage fell on some hard times and the museums began scaling back on their orders. We used to get these $100,000 orders for product and basically package them by hand, but slowly business wound down to a collectors market. At the same time I was helping him develop a fiberoptic light box that would be used for microphotography. Ultimately, Kodak was interested in the prototype and Roy wanted to close up shop and get the patents rolling. Facing unemployment I had to make a decision on what I wanted to do next. Aside from film and novels, I'd always been interested in writing comics, but as anyone who's ever tried to break into the industry knows, it's nearly impossible. After a few years of doing the impossible, I figured I'd give it another shot.
CWN: Did you do the whole unsolicited-submissions thing?
JG: I used to have annual rejection letter burnings. I'd save all the rejections in shoeboxes and then on New Years Eve I'd get drunk and burn them. It wasn't just comics it was magazines, lit agencies and major publishing houses as well. I probably sent an average of 30 submissions a month. I learned a lot from those letters.
CWN: How did you meet your collaborator Jimmy Palmiotti?
JG: I met Jimmy in Chicago. I jumped in my truck and drove from New York to Wizard World in 98. A month or so later I was interning with the Knights. Jimmy and I have one of those friendships where you can't pinpoint the exact time you became friends, but you feel like you've known each other forever.
CWN: What does a comicbook intern do?
JG: I don't know really. I spent a lot of time with Xerox machines, I made some lunch runs, it was a fun experience meeting people and seeing how the production end works. I spent most of my time trying to get proposals through at a time when Marvel was going through some administrative changes. Ultimately, it was pretty clear that I'm not a corporate office kind of guy.
CWN: Cats or Dogs?
JG: My pit-bull likes cat pan seared with a nice demiglas.
CWN: Glad my cats are in-door animals then.
CWN: Since you had what amounted to a very interesting life prior to your comicbook writing life, what do you do now in your free time?
JG: Happily I can say that writing is taking up a lot of my free time; I'm getting back into martial arts and making plans to chase a tornado next summer. I'm a heavy weather junkie. Tornadoes are fascinating to me. Hopefully I'll survive the experience.
CWN: What kind of martial arts? Being a beginner myself (Karate, yellow belt) I'm curious about the other forms...
JG: I trained an amalgamated style called Shaolin Kempo, which was Chinese boxing mixed with Shotokan. After that I spent a few months training Wing Chun (Chinese Gung Fu). The school was very large, not what I was used to. I trained Hapkido, which is a Korean style, with a much smaller and considerably more aggressive group. I've been out of it for about seven years, but I miss it so I'm in the process of finding the right instructor.
CWN: Segue back to comics... You're doing something for the Matrix Movie Website, what are the details and is it related to the sequels?
JG: I met J.G. Jones when he was doing Black Widow for Marvel and we hit it off right away. I begged on numerous occasions to work with him, but the situation was never quite right. Fast-forward a few years and JG gives me a call and asks if I want to collaborate on a project for the Matrix website. He outlined the type of story he wanted to do and of course I couldn't say no. The story doesn't tie directly into the sequels, but it deals with the core concept of the matrix.
CWN: Are you dealing with one of the main characters from the 1st movie or your own character(s)?
JG: Wanted to incorporate some of the main cast but inject a new idea based on something really annoying about computers.
CWN: Tell me about your comicbook writing process...
JG: It varies depending on the project. I'm obsessive about accuracy and research after the central idea has been established. I spend weeks or months gathering information for a specific story to make sure I know what I'm writing about inside and out. After that it's a question of free form writing, just filling pages until it get the right feel for it.
CWN: How involved in the process are your artists?
JG: Very involved. Admittedly, Jimmy and I turn out a very comprehensive script detailing everything from mood, lighting and coloring. We do it mainly so that the artists get a good feel for everything that's going on and then they add as much or as little as they like. We're lucky in that both Juan Santacruz on the Resistance and Jesus Saiz on 21Down have the ability to see what we're after and improve it in unexpected ways.
CWN: Any work planned with other comic's publishers?
JG: Right now Jimmy and I have a project at DC set for release next summer. Aside from that, we have a number of creator owned projects in the works, but it's too soon for me to talk about the details. I'm also shopping around an original graphic novel.
CWN: Can you talk about the DC project or the graphic novel then?
JG: I can't discuss the DCU project yet because it's too soon, but it will be different than the other titles. The graphic novel is a feminist crime drama involving an exclusive card game in Vegas where all you need to play is a million in cash and a lifetime of sin.
CWN: You did some fairly recent work for Chaos! Comics (reimaging) so I'm hoping that you will share your feelings on the recent goings-on with their bankruptcy.
JG: I met Brian Pulido in Chicago and spoke to him on the phone a few times; he's a likable guy who managed to keep Chaos rolling for ten years, which is admirable considering that he was doing non-superhero titles. I'm sorry for Brian and the people that were burned in the fallout. Unlike some other's I wasn't directly affected by the bankruptcy.
CWN: Does this occurrence make you wary of working with smaller publishers?
JG: No, not at all. You take risks in any kind of business. The thing I find appealing about smaller publishers is not only is there a higher percentage of ownership, but also there are fewer restrictions on the types of stories you can tell.
CWN: If you were allowed to "play" with any comicbook character which one(s) and what would you like to do with them?
JG: It depends more on what I would be allowed to do with the characters. There are icons I'd like to play with, but there is often a strict code of conduct on how these characters operate. Batman, The Question, Green Lantern, Silver Surfer, Hulk and Doctor Strange are a few.
CWN: If you were given free reign...?
JG: What Jimmy and I discussed doing with Doctor Strange would cause a massive ripple through the industry, a lot of fans would probably freak and want to kill us, but the crossover press coverage would be huge and it would be a very interesting book. The Silver Surfer is a great character simply because of his affection for and frustration with humanity, he offers a pair of eyes with which to view the world in a very critical and emotional way. Plus how can you not love a big purple planet-eating nemesis?
CWN: What concept (movie/TV/novel) would you like to bring to comics?
JG: I don't particularly favor comic adaptations from film or TV to comics.
CWN: Not a straight adaptation more of an extrapolation, like the stories on the Matrix site...
JG: Yes
CWN: Flip side, which comicbook concept would really work well outside the world of four-color printing (not one of yours though, dude)?
JG: Well, they aren't four-color but I think The Golem's Mighty Swing and Whiteout would work well. Superheroes are tough for me. As well done as Spiderman was, I still cringe at the sight of someone running around in broad daylight in tights. On the other hand the Silver Surfer is a character if handled correctly would be interesting.
CWN: Professional wrestling has proven that most grown men should not be wearing tights.
JG: A friend pointed out that when he was growing up Pro Wrestling was pretty much a great source of soft core porn, so whose to say?
CWN: As a relative newcomer to comicbooks how does the future of the medium look to you?
JG: It really depends on how you view comicbooks. Superhero comics aren't going to disappear. There may be fewer titles published and fewer people working in the industry in the future, but they will be there. The real question is will there be a time when the larger companies are publishing work that reaches beyond the core audience and into mainstream culture.
Right now when you go to a chain bookstore and observe the distribution of shelf space you'll see that sci-fi, fantasy and other comicbook genres are dwarfed by literature, crime and romance. The graphic novels available are mostly superhero and fantasy titles. A book like "100 Bullets" should be in the mystery and crime fiction section but it's not. "Leave It To Chance" should be in the kid's section, "The Golem's Mighty Swing" should be in cultural studies or social sciences or lit. Just like anything else, if you want it to sell it has to be sexy and it has to be available. I'm optimistic. I think it will happen.
CWN: What "graphic novel" would you give to a non-comicbook reader to show them that "comics aren't just for kids"?
JG: Obviously it would depend on the personality, but there are a number of great books like Maus, Beg The Question, Happy End, Golem's Mighty Swing, Nobody, Ghost World, it goes on.
CWN: Do you have tattoos?
JG: A few, yea. I'm about to get some more.
CWN: Do you go in with specific ideas for your tattoos or are they impulse buys?
JG: I usually get them at some point of transition in my life and I chose them based on that.
CWN: Politics... where do you see yourself on the "left"/"right" scale?
JG: Left or right, it's not really important when the foreign policies are the same. I'm waiting for the aliens to come down and slap the $$$$ out of us so we finally look at things on a global scale rather than killing each other over plots of land and finite fuel sources.
CWN: Do our politicians speak FOR us or TO us?
JG: Both, depending on what they want to achieve. I don't want to channel Michael Moore, but politics frustrate me in that it doesn't matter what I think in the grand scheme of things. I'm still bitter about the 2000 election scandal and the ease with which it was accepted.
CWN: Should the fictional world of comics use the non-fictional events that have devastated our lives in the last year?
JG: I worked for a not for profit agency that aided victims of crime. What that taught me is there is no healing in denial. Using the events to share stories, emotions and help deal with the aftermath is one thing, doing it for an exploitation purpose is wrong. You'll notice that there is no dialogue or identifying of the victims in 21Down #2. It's difficult to live in New York and not feel the need to write about it, it's inescapable.
CWN: What were you doing Sept. 11, 2001? Do you feel there is a need to "memorialize" the day?
JG: Trying desperately to convince my wife, who works for a Wall Street firm, to come home. Is there a need to memorialize the day? Yes, although patriot day isn't the right way to handle it. It's not like December 7th is old navy day, you know?
CWN: Considering the obvious limited time for "21 Down" how can the series NOT end?
JG: Selling 100,000 copies every month would help.
The book is called 21Down and that being the case it's not restricted to a specific character. Right now Preston is the focal point and there are many adventures we have planned for him before his day of judgment. You notice I didn't say death. He's not disposable and we're not treating the book like an anthology, everything that happens has to be logical and relevant to the series. The last thing we want to do is cheat the fans with some quick out especially when we're trying to land on their pull lists.
CWN: Even before Preston is "judged" will he continue to be the focus or will we start to meet more and more of the "downers"?
JG: Preston is important to the series as a point of entry for new readers and an identifiable hero for the people that have already embraced 21Down, but we will meet more people with the curse of superpower, as in the case of Harmony in issue two. Right now we're focused on getting more attention for the book, which is the challenge we face considering how costume oriented the big sales numbers are.
CWN: Who are your favorite creators in comicbooks?
JG: Working now or in the past or both, because that will just be a long list of who's who in the medium.
CWN: To shorten the list, lets say artists working today that you'd like to do a comic with...
JG: Ahh, a moment of dreamy self-indulgence. As I mentioned, JG Jones is someone whose art and dedication are both intimidating and inspiring, I've been begging Amanda Conner to work on something with me for years. I adore her. In no particular order, Paul Smith, Geoff Darrow, Gene Ha, Seth Fisher, Eduardo Risso, Phil Noto, Steve Lieber, John Cassiday, Jim Mahfood, Jim Lee, Butch Guice, Dave Mazzuchelli, Enrique Brecchia, Jose Ladronn, Marcelo Frusin, Brian Hitch, Darwyn Cooke...OK, this is what I was trying to avoid. I'll stop now, but there are more.
CWN: Best new band that not enough people are listening to?
JG: Right now I'm not listening to traditional American or English bands. Rock and roll is a parody of itself, just stagnating and going through a dull period without trying to reinvent itself, there isn't the same energy and personalization that used to piss off parents. Instead I'm deeply entrenched in French Lounge, techopera and things like Midival Punditz, DJ Cheb I Sabbah, Cirrus, Fabrik Nos Dust Brothers and Sun Electric.
CWN: Only French musician I know is Cabrel, and I THINK he's Canadian.
CWN: This is the place that I give over to you to talk about whatever is on your mind that you feel should be shared with the audience:
JG: Are they still reading way down here? Hahah.
A blown opportunity Justin. So, what have we learned? Hey, reread the piece it is pretty self-expanlatory.
Be sure to check out all of Justin's books and look for future news on releases from him here at Comic World News and Paperfilms.com.
Thanks for your time Justin hope you had fun.
Caleb Gerard
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April 22, 2008:
February 4, 2008:
November 20, 2006:
A Comic-Con without the Captain
