The Family Dynamic Published by Comics

As comics become a cultural force, McGill graduates are making their mark

BY BRAD MACKAY

By now it should be clear to even the most casual observer that comics are enjoying an unprecedented cultural moment.

With movies based on superheroes earning more than $7 billion U.S. over the past five years—including last year’s billion-dollar blockbuster The Dark Knight—their dominance in the arena of popular culture is indisputable.

The influence of comics can also be seen on bookstore shelves, where graphic novels and manga are shouldering out traditional prose novels for the dollars of younger readers. Even the New York Times has taken notice, unveiling a Graphic Books Best Seller List that’s stacked with everyone from Batman and Spider-Man to a graphic novel version of Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

Meanwhile, a new generation of more literary-driven cartoonists are busy crafting works that challenge the preconceptions of the medium, and garnering praise and prizes along the way. For example, Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth racked up a pile of honours, including the prestigious Guardian First Book Award (the first comic ever to do so).

Oh. And earlier this year the Louvre—home of the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa—debuted its first major exhibition devoted entirely to comics.

With that sort of coverage, it’s no surprise that a number of McGill graduates are making their mark in the comics community. Here are a few.

ROOKIE SENSATION

It’s a safe bet that no one was more surprised by MARIKO TAMAKI’s sudden, overnight success in the comics realm than Tamaki, BA’94, herself. The Toronto-based writer never set out to be a celebrated comics scribe. She enrolled in McGill at 17 with an eye to becoming “the next Timothy Findley,” and left with a degree in English literature. She quickly immersed herself in Toronto’s vibrant arts community, where she wrote and performed in plays and penned her first novel.

Mariko Tamaki, author of the award-winning graphic novel, Skim
KC Armstrong

Then Skim happened.

Her debut graphic novel, produced with her cousin Jillian Tamaki, Skim recounts a turbulent period in the life of Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a Goth-ish teen navigating her way in an all-girls private school. Published in January 2008, the book has since become a certified sensation, capturing an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel, landing on the New York Times list of Best Illustrated Books of 2008, and nabbing a Governor General’s Literary Award nomination—the first comics work to ever receive such an honour. More recently, Skim garnered four Eisner Award nominations—arguably the “Oscars” of the comics industry.

A fast-talking 33-year-old who balances her literary bona fides with a punk sensibility, Tamaki has ridden the Skim wave into a promising career in comics writing. Her sophomore graphic novel, Emiko Superstar, about a suburban teen who unexpectedly finds acclaim in the underground arts scene, debuted in late 2008 and she has an autobiographical story in the upcoming Top Shelf anthology, Awesome 2: Awesomer.

Mariko recently talked about the surprise success of Skim and the unexpected controversy that surrounded her GG nod.

If you had to sum up Skim in a Hollywood-style pitch, what would it sound like?

MT: Skim is the anti-Gossip Girl, the anti-Sweet Valley High. In the subject matter it covers, like suicide and love, it’s also, I hope, a book that runs in the opposite direction of key high school reading texts like Romeo and Juliet. It’s a book that says that just because everything isn’t working out, you don’t have to give up and give in. Nothing that happens in high school is the be-all and end-all, even when it’s suck- ing pretty hardcore.

You’ve mentioned before that you knew very little about the process of making comics before you started Skim. How do you think that affected your approach to writing comics?

MT: I gave [Jillian] the dialogue and the same sort of directions that you might give an actor, like this is what the scene is. Skim was really written in acts and scenes, because of my background in theatre.

Then there’s the GG nomination—the first ever for a comics work—which was tainted by the fact that it was nominated in the “Children’s Literature–Text” category. Which, to many in the comics world, seemed to suggest that your cousin’s contributions were being ignored. Can you talk about the experience of being nominated? What was your reaction when you found out that you were the only one nominated?

MT: I didn’t really understand it [at first]; I was like, “Uhh, text?” It didn’t make any sense. So, I called Jillian and we were both like, “This sucks!” I was still happy that it had been nominated—but it totally sucked.

My first reaction was, “Why wouldn’t she be nominated for the illustration category?” If this is a story that’s been nominated for the text, how does it make any sense that the illustration—which tells a huge component of the story—not be nominated? Everybody who comments on Skim comments [about] the illustration.

The issue quickly became something of a comics-world cause célèbre after Chester Brown and Seth, two of Canada’s best-known cartoonists, penned a protest letter to the Canada Council urging them to include Jillian in the nomination. The letter was co-signed by a number of A-list alternative cartoonists, from Adrian Tomine and Bryan Lee O’Malley to Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman. How did that make you feel?

MT: We were really thrilled when Chester and Seth contacted us. It also felt like, even though we were new to this community, from the get-go we’ve had such amazing support. I did feel that [the whole controversy] was an opportunity for someone to speak to this genre at large. The collaborative efforts of artists should be supported, I think. You see that it’s a factor in theatre, where collaboration is an accepted part of the process. I think it should be a factor in graphic novels as well.

ONLINE AND OFFBEAT

As the creator of the web-comic Teaching Baby Paranoia, BRYANT PAUL JOHNSON, BA’94, has carved out a quirky niche market for his brand of smart and funny cartooning. The weekly strip, which he has published online since 2000, features intricate (and “periodically factual”) history lessons that come complete with voluminous and misleading footnotes that send up everything from academic snobbery to meta-writers like David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers.

Available for free on the web-comics stalwart Modern Tales, the strip began in a McGill student paper and later emerged as one of the first strips to appear exclusively online at the onset of the decade. Since then, Johnson’s readership has grown to include diehard web-comics fans and others fond of absurd, post-modern humour.

Reached by phone and email at his home in Northampton, Massachusetts, the 36-year-old opened up about how McGill helped shape his approach to cartooning and the uncertain future of the traditional newspaper strip.

What’s the story behind the title of your webcomic? It’s not exactly Peanuts.

BPJ: Teaching Baby Paranoia started out as an editorial comic in the McGill Tribune. It was the punchline to a New Yorker-style cartoon that I had done, that I never actually ended up using. But I liked the sort of nonsense quality as a title.

The subtitle for your strip is “At The Crossroads of the Academic and the Asinine.” That’s appropriate, what with its ersatz history lessons and long-winded footnotes. Where does that come from?

BPJ: I just started writing random little faux history stories and found that that was the stuff I was enjoying the most, so that’s what the strip became. My degree at McGill [classical civilization] was kind of eclectic, in that I would take whatever classes I thought were interesting at the moment. The strip sort of reflects that, in that I have this kind of dilettante thirst for different subjects. So anytime I think of something that might be interesting to read about, chances are a comic comes out of it.

How does one earn money by publishing online? Are you making a living off your web-comics?

BPJ: Comics are unfortunately not my only source of income. I make money doing freelance illustration work for video game companies.

I don’t think there are too many people who are making a living solely from doing web-comics. But I can honestly say that the audience is significantly larger than the audience for traditional print comics, if only because you’re getting people who would read newspaper comic strips, but wouldn’t go into a comic bookstore.

I think one of the reasons why a lot of people are using the web is that monthly print comics have become financially prohibitive—especially for self-publishing.

Bryant Paul Johnson’s comic, Teaching Baby Paranoia, can be found at www.moderntales.com.

MASTERING MANY MEDIUMS

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in part in his parents’ native Nicaragua, ROBERTO AGUIRRE-SACASA, MA’97, grew up in what can only be called fan-boy heaven. Each week his mother, a huge horror buff, would take him and his two siblings to the neighbourhood 7-Eleven, where they would buy Slurpees and comics; horror comics for her, superhero and Archie comics for the kids.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa writes a popular adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand for Marvel Comics
Drew Reynolds

Some 30 years later, Aguirre-Sacasa has carved out a successful and unique career for himself, dividing his time between writing for theatre, television and his first love, comic books. When he isn’t penning scripts for HBO’s acclaimed Big Love, the 38-year-old New Yorker is writing provocative plays (Good Boys and True, Based on a Totally True Story) and best-selling comics for the industry-leading Marvel Comics group. His latest, a 30-issue adaptation of Stephen King’s epic novel The Stand, has been met with healthy sales. His upcoming comics projects include Marvel Vixens, a series that he describes as being “like Sex and the City, set in the Marvel Universe.”

We caught up with Aguirre-Sacasa in New York City where—in between doing loads of laundry for his boyfriend—he discussed the congruencies between the stage and the comics page, his Edward Albee-inspired take on the Fantastic Four and his little-known role in McGill comics history.

You seem to have it all: a respected career as a playwright, a lucrative writing gig at HBO and every little boy’s dream job; writing comics at Marvel Comics. How did you pull it off?

RAS: There’s no other way to describe it other than it was a very, very lucky break. I was in grad school for theatre [at Yale University] and I heard that the president of Marvel Comics was looking for new writers—from film, TV, novelists, essentially anyone who had an affinity for their characters. I pitched a bunch of stuff [including a treatment for The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four], then about two or three weeks before I graduated from drama school, I got a call saying “We’d love for you to write the Fantastic Four.” It was great timing.

Are you a comics writer who dabbles in theatre, or a playwright who experiments in comics?

RAS: I would say that I am a playwright who lucked into this incredible day job that supports my addiction of playwriting.

How accepting were comics fans of you? Your debut run on the Fantastic Four (in the comic Marvel Knights 4) caught some heat after you made them file for bankruptcy and get kicked out of their home base—the Baxter Building—all in the first issue.

RAS: In the beginning I think there was a lot of curiosity that a playwright who had never written a mainstream comic was going to be writing Marvel’s first family. But these days, it’s much more fluid. TV writers and screenwriters and novelists who had never written comics before seem to sneak in more easily than they used to.

Has writing for a monthly comic had an effect on the way you approach your theatre or TV work?

RAS: Characterization and dialogue—all those tools that are a playwright’s bread-and-butter—have influenced my comics. One of the things I heard a lot about [my work on] the Fantastic Four when I first started, was how the dialogue sounded so real and how the characters seemed very emotionally complicated.

Now, when I look back at those issues they seem incredibly type-heavy to me. I feel like every issue has Sue Richards and Reed Richards screaming at each other like George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?

You’re primarily a writer now, but you originally aspired to be a cartoonist and even penned an ongoing comic in high school. I’ve heard from other McGill grads that you actually wrote and drew a number of stories for Newbies Eclectica, a notorious alt-comics anthology published at McGill in the nineties.

RAS: That is true. My stories [for the anthology] were very eclectic. In one issue I did a story about a kid who hit puberty and started becoming a werewolf, in another I did a story about my obsession with Spider-Man and the Spider Woman from Kiss of the Spider Woman, which is crazy. It was my love letter to both of them. I have a comic book rack —you know, like from the old-school comic book stores —and those issues are on it in a place of honour.

Your current comics project has you writing Marvel’s high-profile adaptation ofThe Stand, Stephen King’s epic fantasy novel. What has the process been like for you?

RAS: I’ve never been particularly interested in adapting another writer’s work. I love pilfering from other writers, and spoofing other writers’ work, but in terms of doing a faithful adaptation? I wasn’t that interested in it.

I had not read The Dark Tower, the [Marvel] series that preceded The Stand, but an editor at Marvel called me anyway and said, ‘We think we’re getting the rights to adapt another Stephen King book. Would you be interested?’ I thought, well gosh—I’m not particularly interested. But then he told me the novel was The Stand, which is of course one of King’s most beloved books. It also happens to be one of my favourite Stephen King books; it also happens to be 1,400 pages long.

So, I thought if I’m going to do this, it’s going to become the quintessential The Stand. I want this to be on people’s shelves for all time. I want there to be no better adaptation of The Stand, ever.

The Stand is slated to run 30 issues. Not only is that a big commitment for you and your collaborator [artist Mike Perkins], but you have to face the author himself, King, who has been vocal about his displeasure with past adaptations of his work—including Stanley Kubrick’s movie version of The Shining. How do you cope with that?

RAS: It seemed daunting at the time. But it’s like every other project; you write one word after the other, one issue after the other, and suddenly we’re a third of the way through it. I’m incredibly proud of it. It’s probably the most consistently beautiful book I’ve worked on. Mike’s work is just great. Whatever hesitations or doubts I had initially have completely gone away.

CHAMPIONING COMICS FOR KIDS

Remember the comic books of your youth? The ones jam-packed with funny animals in brainless situations or little kids traipsing into—and waltzing out of—potentially dangerous predicaments? J. TORRES, BA’93, DipEd’94, sure does.

Concerned about the dearth of kid-friendly comics, the Filipino-born writer began penning all-ages comics about 10 years ago that bucked the then popular trend of violent, revisionist superhero stories. Done as a rebuke to the increasingly grim and gritty superhero fare, Torres’s comics gained popularity in alt-comics circles and led to a few mainstream comics gigs.

In the decade since, Torres has been recruited to write a slew of new age-appropriate comics for younger readers, including Wonder Girl, Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st Century, The Batman Strikes, Teen Titans Go!, Degrassi: Extra Credit, Alison Dare and Jason and the Argobots. He has also brought his perspective to bear on a series of more personal, adult works such as Days Like This, Love as a Foreign Language and The Copybook Tales, which have helped earn him five consecutive Outstanding Canadian Writer nominations (and one win) in the Joe Shuster Awards.

Torres took a break from his busy schedule—which includes wrangling his one-year-old son and putting the finishing touches on his upcoming graphic novel Lola: A Ghost Story (based, in part, on Filipino folklore)—to talk about his comics career and the fall, and eventual rise, of comics for kids.

What was your first comics job?

JT: I got my first break in the mid-nineties with a creator-owned series called Copybook Tales. It was illustrated by my friend Tim Levins. Copybook began as a self-published, photocopied mini-comic that we sold on consignment in comic book stores, as well as on the Internet, way back during the “Usenet” days. We would also send copies of each issue to various editors and publishers. After five issues, SLG Publishing offered to publish Copybook as a “real” comic.

Tell me: What happened to all the great kids’ comics?

JT: What happened in the late eighties was that as the small but loyal comic book audience matured, so did the storytelling. Not that this was a bad thing—out of this period came seminal works like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, but the industry threw the baby out with the bathwater with their “comics aren’t just for kids anymore” mantra, and pretty much lost an entire generation of potential readers.

About 10 years or so later, you saw a reaction to this in the small and alternative press where people, including yours truly, started to produce all-ages material in the hopes that someone would notice. The age-appropriate books have been out there all this time. You just had to know where to look. Book publishers eventually figured that out and now we have their help in getting comics into bookstores and libraries and into the hands of younger readers.

So, have we turned the tide? Are comics a viable, popular option for younger kids, or is the future paved with video games?

JT: I think we’re in a good place right now. Even the Big Two [Marvel and DC Comics] seem to be trying harder to reach that younger demographic. It was only a matter of time before they realized it was key to their survival and that of the comic book industry in North America.

J. Torres is currently writing the new kid-friendly series Batman: The Brave and The Bold for DC Comics. You can find out more about his comics at www.jtorresonline.blogspot.com.

Brad Mackay is an Ottawa-based freelance writer who has worked as a reporter for the National Post and CBC.ca. His articles about culture and comics have appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, enRoute and Toronto Life.