Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Chimichanga; The Sorrow of the World's Worst Face, Comics, dark horse, entertainment, eric powell, Stephanie Buscema

Powell And Buscema Talk Chimichanga: The Sorrow Of The World's Worst Face

Published Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:00:03 -0500

by Dan Wickline

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Eric Powell is back with Chimichanga: The Sorrow of the World's Worst Face and he has Stephanie Buscema doing the art this time around. I got a chance to talk to both recently about the return to Wrinkle's Traveling Circus and just what readers may find in the big top.

DAN WICKLINE: What made this the right time to return to Wrinkle's Traveling Circus? Did the new story idea come first or was it just time to go back and visit Lula and Chimichanga again?

ERIC POWELL: I had been wanting to do more Lula stories for a while but just couldn't find the time to fit it into my schedule. The story had been lingering in my head for some time. Being a huge fan of Stephanie's art, I really wanted to work with her on something. To my surprise she was really into the idea of collaborating on a new Chimichanga series and made it possible to get a new volume of the misfit circus in production.

DW: What has change since the last time we've visited the circus and what do you have in store for readers this time?

EP: They got a new hotdog machine for one. One of those rotisserie kinds. Also, one of the clowns developed a nasty rash because they weren't bathing regularly. Clowns on a whole are unhygienic.

DW: Ronny seems like he would be a perfect fit for the circus, but he seems angrier than even Gene. What can you tell us about him and why is the Sheriff after him?

EP: You'll have to read to find out. But Ronny is a jerk. And so is the Sheriff. This book is just about jerks being jerks. That and Gremlins that live in belly buttons.

DW: Lula's opening song is a great way to re-introduce us to the characters, but she makes a lot of interesting references including quoting Apollo Creed and JFK. As a child in a traveling circus, that's a pretty diverse knowledge of history and pop culture. Just how old is she supposed to be and where does that knowledge come from?

EP: I would never want to hang out with a seven year old who didn't know who Apollo Creed was. I'm snobbish that way.

DW: With two artists working on the project, how did the designs for the characters come about? And what do the scripts look like? Are they as detailed as if written by someone who only writes? Do they contain sketches?

EP: It was all Stephanie. I only contributed one or two minor character designs. Standard scripts. My scripts tend to be pretty sparse. I want to give just enough info to let the artist do their thing.

DW: (for Stephanie) What is your art process on these pages? Are they hand drawn or done on the computer? How long does a page take You?

STEPHANIE BUSCEMA: When we started this book, it was really important to me to try and make the illustrations look and feel as close to the quality of a children's painted picture book as possible. Luckily, everyone has been very supportive (and very patient!) with me-and I hope I was successful in doing so. I'm certainly not nearly as fast as the majority of comic artists when it comes to interior pages.

Everything is drawn and painted by hand, clean-ups and color corrections are done digitally. Process starts with the obvious script and layouts, I pencil everything, then transfer images on to watercolor paper. A rough color script and notes are made and I start laying in my backgrounds first, this can be 2-4 pages at a time to maintain the best color consistency from page to page. Then characters and foreground are painted in. Final art is then scanned in, color corrected and cleaned up digitally to remove any small imperfections or paint smudges. Gouache isn't the most forgiving material to work with…you really have to make your first pass correct or it ends up in the garbage can, so I take my time. Page completion time varies depending on detail, number of panels, etc. Some take hours while others take days.