Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, image, NYCC, reality

Image Comics: Where Creators Own Reality At NYCC '15

Published Mon, 19 Oct 2015 11:00:49 -0500

By Ale Bodden

Image Comics presented an all-star panel at NYCC featuring Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (Paper Girls), Leila del Duca and Joe Keating (Shutter), and Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn (Alex + Ada). It rolled in interview format ranging from creative process, to thought process while creating, and all the communication, trust, and work that creating a comic book entails. It was quite illuminating—as someone who one day wants to join the creator community, I love listening all the different ways in which people approach their art and the process behind it.

After being asked to explain their works, Vaughn described Alex + Ada as a sci-fi drama romance about a boy, Alex, who gets and android and it changes them; all inspired by Luna's love of stories like Ghost in the Shell and drama genre, while Vaugh steered more toward romance and story-telling. As per Vaughan though, Paper Girls is about four paper delivery girls that come face to face with the biggest story ever. Vaughan added that he wanted to write about twelve year olds in the 80's whom he could relate to—he explained, since he cannot relate to twelve year olds now he preferred the 80's. Keating explained Shutter, he says it is set in a much more fantastical New York than the one we know about Kate, our protagonist, whose life changes after a secret is revealed. While Keating explains that the story starts by being about 30% weird, which develops into full-on weird.

When asked about the time period in which they decided to set their stories, Chiang explained that it was important to have the characters dressed appropriately to the time without it being too much like costumes from the 80's. He explained he used all photos and yearbook as references; he wanted them to look like girls did when he was growing up. Luna on the other hand explained they avoided going into fashion statements so the story can remain timeless. He also explained how the mentally controlled devices were inspired by our use of cell phones.

When it was pointed out that Paper Girls has a twelve year old smoking on the cover, Vaughan explained he usually aims to send a message through he covers of his works, so people know if that book works for them. However, he said not many people usually comment on that. Our panel moderator commented that the last time he was in a comic book store he could see people from the distance carrying Paper Girls, Cliff noted that they aimed for a cover that would call to people's attention from afar. When asked why the dialogue is in his works so authentic, Vaughan talked about is experience while working as an interview transcribe. He said that the way people talk is often so different than the way dialogue is in fiction. He added that since realistic dialogue can be quite boring he gives it the illusion of reality—he stated that when he works on dialogue he often reads it out loud to see if it works. He encouraged writers to try it stating it is a very useful tool.

The next question was for Luna regarding his artwork, the attendee asked him how is he capable of showing so much emotion through his art without having to resort to dialogue. Luna explained that, since he does the artwork, lettering, and coloring for Alex+Ada he aimed for minimalism, and tried his best to avoid clutter while trying to create a believable world. He stated he is always aware of the space he is working on and using for drawing. Vaughn then added that the goal, when they first discussed their ideas, was to explore subtlety and expressions.

As per Keating, when asked how he gets in his character's head when she is so angry and frustrated all the time, he said a lot of research comes into play. He announced he has another book that will be coming out soon, where he wanted to explore the complete opposite of what he is doing with Shutter. The title of his new work will be Ringside, and it will take place in the world of professional wrestling—it will be coming out on November 25^th. Keating stated he keeps different notebooks to develop each of his ideas and sets schedules to work on each at different time. For Vaughan, he stated that it is easier to work on multiple projects at the same time to exercise different parts of himself rather than stay focused on just one title.

More questions rolled, yet I was particularly interested when a member from the audience asked which works each of them were particularly influenced by. Vaughan quickly answered Watchmen. Keating stated he was deeply influenced by Spawn #10, which was so weird and trippy that it just stuck with him and served as an inspiration. Del Duca said there was no comic that struck her, but it was reading webcomics in the 90's that inspired her—specially Demonology 101 by Faith Erin Hicks… and with that she got me, I love it! Luna stated that, since 6^th grade, he knew what he wanted to do which was draw comics. As per Chiang, he said he was deeply inspired by Sandman and Madman.

Ale Bodden is a freelance artist and writer. It is her third year attending NYCC with Bleeding Cool. You can follow her art-ventures through twitter at: @Nerdy_Faery, or through IG: @NerdyFaery.

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