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What exactly did
you do on Top Ten again?
Last things first:
from issue three onward, I did layouts for the comic. I got the
scripts, then figured out where in the panels the characters and
backgrounds went, and placed the word balloons. I also inked the
panel borders. Gene finished the artwork after that. On the first
three issues, it breaks down like this: On the first 13 pages of
issue 1 I did nothing. Gene did the whole thing with Emil Castenada,
his former assistant/coworker. After page 13, I started in with
Gene and we both did everything. I would do some pencilling, he
would do some pencilling, I would do some inking, he would do some
inking. Generally, I did broad strokes like layout and character
poses, and Gene did detail like texture and backgrounds. The reason
we chose to not do it that way anymore was that it was way too time-consuming,
and Gene and I do the steps in cartooning very differently. I like
to do layouts with word balloons sketched in, then tighten pencils,
putting in all the black areas, then ink. Gene would do light layouts,
basically working out a wire-frame model of the character, then
tighten a little bit, then ink with the help of photoreference.
What's it like working with Alan Moore?
The thing about Alan Moore's work that people usually notice
is that it's easy to read. Alan has mentioned to me that he likes
his scripts to be "artist-proof", a survival technique
from his days at 2000 AD, when he would have no idea who would be
drawing the next story that he wrote. For that reason, the scripts
oftentimes seem as if Alan is hedging his bets (mentioning characters
by name more often, describing an object that everyone is already
looking at, commenting on the current plot development an extra
couple times, etc). There are also unbelievably long descriptions
for every panel on every page. He will almost always say where in
the panel everything is located, including placing the characters
in the same order as their word balloons. The bottom line is: Alan
Moore has covered his bottom line. The story is readable almost
no matter what. The real advantage to that is that as an artist
getting this script, you are free (insofar as Alan Moore cares)
to do whatever you want. As long as you get the basic gist of what's
described in the panel, the word balloons will pick up the slack.
I try very hard in my comics to make them as readable as possible
and not rely on these devices, but sometimes when five things need
to be happening at once, I'm awfully glad they're there. As far
as what Alan is like as a person, he's awfully friendly to talk
with (on the phone; I've never met him face to face), and he's enthusiastic
as heck about telling stories (sometimes a smidge irritated about
comics in general). He's told me some terrific anecdotes; I highly
recommend working with him if you ever get the chance.
I've seen you get "Special Thanks" in some comics,
what the heck is that?
You'd probably be referring to a mention in Justice League of
America #43, and in the first Tom Strong hardback. Those were issues
in which I was asked to speed up the drawing process by doing layouts
for the penciller. I would do just what I did for Top Ten: choose
the orientation and size of the panels, figure out where in the
panel the characters, backgrounds, and word balloons would go, then
sent the page along to the penciller, who would put in details,
make the characters "on-model", so to speak, and basically
draw it in his own style. There is a sample of a JLA layout online
if you'd like to 
see
it.
How did you get started in the industry?
When I was in college, I drew a comic strip called "Booperman"
for the Scarlet and Black, Grinnell College's student newspaper.
After one semester of doing that, I took my best stuff and put together
a packet of strips with a cover letter and sent them to the addresses
I found on the inside covers of comic books, to the attention of
the Submissions Editor. That shows how much I knew; a few of them
were returned because the companies no longer existed. The cover
letter wasn't very aggressive; I just said that I was a sophomore
in college and that I was looking for some advice on how to be marketable
in the comic book industry by the time I graduated. Not surprisingly,
most editors treated this as a submission and sent me rejection
notices, though some sent helpful notes (Chris Warner at Dark Horse
was very encouraging). In general, I thought the mailing hadn't
made much headway, but it was exciting to feel like I was getting
into the game. When I was back at school, I got a phone call from
Bob Polio at New England Comics, who said that they were impressed
with my strips and wanted me to send them some sample pages of their
characters, specifically the Chainsaw Vigilante. I sent them a three
page story, and after much deliberating, the decided to let me write(!),
pencil(!!), ink(!!!), and letter(!!!!) the new Chainsaw Vigilante
series, the third spinoff from the Tick (Paul the Samurai and The
Man-Eating Cow having preceded it). The most I had ever drawn before
this point was a weekly strip, about the size of a Sunday comic
strip, in the school paper, so it didn't take me long to realize
I was in over my head. The three issues of CV that came out are
widely divergent in terms of style, as I was pretty much flailing.
These were not a hit, as you might imagine, and the series was cancelled
after the third issue. That was a disappointment, since I had a
five issue story in mind, but at that point, I was in the spring
of my junior year of college, busy as heck, and could have used
the rest. When I decided to get back in the comic game, I had three
published comics to my credit, and I had done all of the creative
work on them, so they were a heck of a portfolio piece for a young
artist. I sent those issues out to a bunch of other comic book companies,
got a bunch more rejection notices back, but this time, Dan Vado,
the president of a small company in San Jose, California called
Slave Labor Graphics, called back. They allowed me the opportunity
to start my own series, called The Replacement God, which, along
with Andi Watson's Skeleton Key, started a new imprint there called
Amaze Ink. From that point on, any moves forward, backward, or sideways
in my career have been done by going to conventions, chatting with
people, showing my work, selling comics, and generally trying to
get along with everyone as well as possible.
What kind of art supplies do you use?
Look at the "Frequently used Art Supplies" column
on the top right of this page.
(coming soon)
I read that you were a writer on "The
Tick"?
Since my first professional comic work was for New England Comics
Press, on The Chainsaw Vigilante (a Tick spin-off), I came to meet
Ben Edlund and Chris McCullough, creator of and writer on the Tick
animated TV show, respectively. Chris brought me in as a potential
writer and storyboard artist and I worked for a couple weeks in
New York, staying in Chris' very small apartment, writing an episode
called "The Tick vs Corporate America", a story in which
Arthur finally quits the superhero business for an accounting job
and the Tick does everything he can to win him back. Eventually,
over the course of the time I was there, the script didn't really
come together as the story editors would have liked, and they eventually
killed it. I was paid handsomely for my time, and soon after, the
word came down that the series was going to be cancelled by Fox
Kids. All in all, it wasn't a very auspicious entry into TV writing,
but what can you do sometimes. I had fun living (sort of) in New
York, and I liked hanging out with Ben, Chris, Randolph Heard, and
a bunch of NY cartoonists, playing darts and shooting the breeze.
Ben ended up writing a preface for my graphic novel The Replacement
God, which no doubt gave it some street cred with the hipster kids.
I saw your page at Hollywood comics, is there
going to be a
Replacement God cartoon?
Not very likely. Knute's Escapes made the rounds a few years
back as a potential animated short for a kids network, but it was
not picked up. I didn't pursue it very intensely, since I had a
feeling the quality of animation that would be available wouldn't
be the best, and being young and idealistic, I didn't want my stuff
to look cheap and uninteresting. Though it is a comedy series, it
has enough action that would look dumb if it was animated badly.
I certainly wouldn't rule out anything in the future, but as for
now, I'm not terribly interested in licensing Replacement God properties.
What happened to the fan club?
Thomas Dougherty disappeared. We miss him. Tom, all is forgiven!
Come on home, son.
Oh, wait. Also, the Replacement God disappeared. Yeah. My bad.
Do you consider youself and artist who writes or a writer who
draws?
It goes in cycles how I consider myself, and you can see it
reflected in my work. In the first Replacement God series (with
Slave Labor), I considered myself a writer first, artist second.
I would write out detailed scripts and wouldn't allow myself much
freedom in terms of the visual storytelling, preferring instead
to get a lot of story into the 24 pages. Once I moved the series
over to Image, I felt like my art was getting better, and I wanted
to stretch myself a little more, so I changed my perspective on
the series, and was really more of an artist that also writes. I
had more pages to tell the story (so I told myself), so the story
slowed to a snail's pace compared to the previous 8 issues. In the
later issues, I was really just writing the dialogue as I drew it.
Lord, that was slow paced. Since then, I haven't done much where
I both wrote and drew the whole work, but my philosophy has swung
back the other way, and I guess I currently consider myself a writer
who draws, and I try to make my stories pretty efficient, pagewise.
I think of my style as being pretty classic American style, and
so I like a lot of words and a lot of panels on my pages. Heaven
knows how that will go over in Japan, but giant lead balloons are
suddenly springing to mind for some reason.
I heard you got married..
That I did! August 25, 2001 was the day I married my adulthood
sweetheart, Julie Fogelstrom, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Actually,
it was a hundred years after my great-grandparents also got married
in St. Paul. My grandfather had a photo of them around the time
they were married that he gave to us. That was pretty cool. The
best man was Shad Petosky, my best friend and the guy who introduced
us, and, those of you with sharp eyes will notice, the co-publisher
of Replacement God Sensational #6.
As other married couples can attest, no matter how completely
you plan everything out, there will still be a disaster of some
kind, ranging from minor (no ham available) to major (groomsman
misses ceremony with groom's tux jacket). Ours was along the minor
end, luckily. As we stood at the makeshift altar (a wreath hung
on a tree) outside the Summit Manor on Summit Avenue in St. Paul,
a very fancy street with lots of beautiful and huge houses (and,
it should be said, a large number of weddings occurring that day),
and listened to Anna Guck read some poems, we suddenly heard some
rather loud engine noises. Well, Anna stopped, and we turned around
to see what the heck was going on, and along came a couple motorcycles.
They waved, we waved back, they honked horns, we appreciated this
infusion of yang into our heretofore yin wedding, more motorcycles
followed them, and we started to wonder what was going on. The motorcycles
just kept coming. Ten minutes passed, and you still couldn't hear
anyone speak except when they were yelling in your ears. Fifteen
minutes. I saw a friend of mine arrive late, presumably having been
held up by this little parade. Twenty minutes. The best man feigned
sleep and a groomsman petted his head to comfort him. It had started
out funny, gotten not funny, but luckily was now funny again, at
least to Julie and me. The most uptight people at this point were
the minister and the woman that owned the manor, the rest of us
having presumably accepted that, well, so goes this wedding. After
about 20+ minutes, the last motorcycle passed (later, esteemed comic
book artist Gene Ha informed me that there had been 833 motorcycles.
God knows only Gene would bother to count that many of anything,
bless his heart) and we concluded first the poems, then the ceremony,
and moved on to the reception, which, luckily enough, had no real
disasters (except a cabal of Christian friends removing themselves
to a remote upstairs room during the toasts so as to get as far
away as they could from the alcohol). I commented later that I had
been advised by other married friends of a few strategies for remembering
the big day, such as periodically looking up and taking a mental
snapshot of the people and things there. I assured everyone there
I had had ample opportunity to use up several rolls of mental snapshots
in the time we had been given, and that no doubt neither I nor Julie
nor anyone there would ever forget the day.
Are you still at the addresses printed in The Replacement God?
email:
zander@zanderandjulie.com
physical address:
Julie and Zander Cannon
Koporasu Yoshida B-203
Ishii Machi 2988-3
Utsunomiya-shi
Tochigi-ken 321-0912
Japan
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