Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Chris Stevens, Comics, entertainment, locust moon, Locust Moon Comic Festival

Philly Comix: Talking With Chris Stevens About Dream Compass, Locust Moon Comics Festival, Little Nemo, And More

Published Thu, 29 Oct 2015 12:00:32 -0500

Last updated Wed, 02 Dec 2015 13:54:48 -0600

By Nikolai Fomich

Nikolai Fomich: Chris, why do you love comics?

Chris Stevens: Nik, I think that would be like trying to explain why you fall hard for someone – sometimes you can't put your finger on it but there's no denying it. I've loved them since I was a little kid, followed them closely since I was nine or ten, and I've grown up with them, and them with me, I think. So it's really a natural part of my life and has been for as long as I can remember.

NF: Which comics meant the most to you growing up? Which creators did you find yourself most drawn towards?

CS: Frank Miller's comics had a huge impact on me. There wasn't a male figure in my life growing up, and Miller's comics offered a sort of protection that was very comforting to me as young boy.

Then there is the trinity of comics writers from my boyhood, and they had an immeasurable effect on me – Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison. We recently did a book, Prometheus Eternal, and Grant Morrison wrote a short story for it. The fourteen year old me who quoted Animal Man in school papers is still processing that.

Arthur Adams was my favorite artist as a boy, and he's only gotten better as the years go by. It would be hard to calculate how much bright-eyed cheer and joy reading anything Arthur drew in the 80's gave me. He brought something new to the game and I was the right age to fall completely into it.

And then, right after high school, discovering the work of Paul Pope and David Mack had a profound effect on me. Those guys are poets, and the personal tone of their work was really a beacon and a guidepost to me – a kid from a small town who hadn't been exposed to some of the things David and Paul had obviously discovered and were now bringing to readers through their work.

NF: Before co-founding Locust Moon, you wrote several stories that appeared in anthologies from Random House and Image. Talk a bit about those early days and your experience breaking into the field.
CS: I was in my late twenties when I decided I better take trying to make comics seriously if I didn't want to be washing dishes and looking back in anger and regret at forty. We could debate the results [laughs]. But for most of my twenties I did a lot of writing with no focus. I was trying to make comics with whoever I could meet who wanted to make comics where I was living -Atlantic City – and it just never went anywhere. So those stories you're talking about are the culmination of years of frustration and f-cking up, and they gave me some confidence and a step in the next direction.

NF: I take it that next direction was Locust Moon, the comic shop in West Philly which you opened with Josh O'Neill and Andrew Carl back in 2009. How did this come about, and how did Locust Moon evolve from a small comic shop to the independent publisher we know and love today?
CS: Josh and I met working in a shitty shop for a shitty guy, and that kind of brought us together. He had just graduated from school, and I had just moved to Philadelphia. We hit it off, and thought we could do better for the neighborhood and burgeoning comics community we knew was already there, so we pulled together whatever resources we could and opened the original Locust Moon a few blocks from where the current shop is in the spring of 2010.
The evolution from shop to press is where Andrew comes in. Andrew had been a customer at the shop Josh and me had worked at. We got to be friends, and I quickly learned not only how much Andrew loved comics, but [that] he wanted to make them too. Between us, it felt like we had the right mix of personalities and abilities to try to make our own books, and before we knew it we were making what turned out to be Once Upon A Time Machine.
NF: How did that book come to be?
CS: It was really an attempt on our part to put to rest the oft-heard lament of the aspiring creator that you can't break into comics or get your comics out there – just make comics. So that book was unique in that 90% of the folks involved were unpublished at the time, and as much as we were its creators and editors, there was a grassroots feel to it. We are wrapping up the sequel now, and I think it's a stronger, tighter book – but the first one will always hold a place in my heart.

NF: Earlier this year Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream won two Eisner Awards, for "Best Anthology" and "Best Publication Design" (congrats Jim Rugg!), as well as a special Harvey Award for "Excellence in Presentation." Looking back on what you've accomplished with Josh, Andrew, and a dream team of gifted cartoonists, what has Dream Another Dream meant to you?
CS: To get to honor Winsor McCay and Little Nemo in a way that wasn't embarrassing and can maybe claim a place as a vital companion to its inspiration is very humbling and entirely to the credit of the creators who gave their time and trusted us to do it right. A big part of doing it right is working with the right people, and there was no second choice as far as handling the look and design of the book, so it's very satisfying to see Jim Rugg receive the recognition he has for the work he did.
NF: This Halloween, Locust Moon will be hosting its fourth annual comics festival, celebrating the talents of both local Philadelphia cartoonists and honored guests, such as David Mack, Bill Sienkiewicz, Denis Kitchen, and Chris Claremont. What can comic lovers look forward to from this year's Locust Moon Comics Festival?
CS: I think they can look forward to a kind of intimacy that's hard to come by at a comic show. They can look forward to meeting a diverse, amazing collection of creators in a setting that allows them to be participants, not fans. And, if they stick around for Sunday's brunch at the Locust Moon shop, they can look forward to pancakes.

NF: Finally, I understand that you have several new projects coming out in the near future, including Dream Compass, which will feature art by Arthur Adams, Jae Lee, Farel Dalrymple, and James Jean, and Once Upon A Time Machine 2. What can you tell us about these projects?
CS: The next stories I wrote will come out in Once Upon A Time Machine 2. I got to work with Dave Chisholm and Weshoyot Alvitre, and I owe them both for helping me break out of a slump. I was going to be writing a story for our mutual friend Dave Proch, but you mentioned Dream Compass, and that's kind of taken over my creative mind right now, so I had to slip off and let Dave come up with his own thing which – as you and I both know Nik – will be sex.
Dream Compass is something I've been working on for a long, long time, and it's taken a lot of roads and had a lot of stops and starts. It's always had amazing artists but it never really had a point or a purpose until recently. Now the stories I'm lucky enough to have seen drawn by folks like Farel and Arthur Adams and Jae Lee will be folded in to an autobiographical tale that hopefully looks at my attempt to live a life in comics honestly. Maybe someone will learn from it, or get a laugh, or run for the hills. But it will be a beautiful book, taking an open look at some ugly things, and it's that mix that I'm interested in, because in my experience, that's life. Thanks for chatting with me, Nik. See you at the festival!
NF: Thanks Chris!
Chris Stevens is a Philadelphia-based comic book writer, publisher, editor, and co-founder of Locust Moon. Follow Locust Moon on Twitter @LOCUSTMOON and visit their website here.
Nikolai Fomich is a Philadelphia-based writer and teacher. Follow him on Twitter @brokenquiver.