I was wandering around Uncommon Con and looking around
at the indie stuff there. I stopped at the booth of
this guy, JE Smith, who had a comic called Complex
City. The cover looked weird enough. There was a
Bulldog dressed in a trenchcoat, holding a pistol in
his hand. My curiosity was at full tilt now, so I
asked the man about his book. He sold me on it with
the tag line of "its a science fiction story with a
bulldog inspector as the hero." I bought it and read
it. It was good stuff. Jamie did a couple reviews on
it and I made the mental note to pick up some more of
his books next time I saw him, which turned out to be
the Dallas Comic and Toy Fest 3. Mom and I got the idea to
interview him when we got to the con and saw him
there. JE Smith has a GREAT book. If you want more
information, check out my of Issue 4.
Sidra:
Where did you get your idea for Complex City?
JE Smith:
Thats a complicated question. In 1998-99, I
did a series called Bulletproof, which was a
straight-ahead spoof. It was in-jokes, ragging on the
comics community in general, and the hero was a guy
named Bulletproof, who was a well-meaning but kind of
thick superhero. Id actually been toying with his
character since the early nineties. In 92 or 93, I
did a little ashcan with Bulletproof. I was just
kicking around ideas and I thought of a place he
should be operating out of, and the play on words of
Complex City came up. It was actually one of the first
jokes I wrote for that earliest Bulletproof. So, I
had done that and in developing Bulletproof I had
kept him in Complex City, and Id brought in some of
these supporting characters, like Bulldog Mallone.
Bulldog Mallone was a supporting character that kind
of grew out of the joke of hearing people with
nicknames like Bulldog. I thought it would be funny
to have this character off screen for a long time,
having people refer to him as Bulldog, and when you
saw him he actually was a bulldog. So, thats kind
of where that character came out of. I did three
issues of Bulletproof and when it didnt do so well I
tried to retool it into something that I could
relaunch. I decided that I was really enjoying
drawing Bulldog and I was thinking of stories that
would be more concerned with him. I left the parody
and in-joke kind of thing and just decided pretty
early on, that the new book would be more about Bulldog
than anyone else. After that it was just a matter of
fleshing out some other supporting characters.
Bulldog himself was born out of a long tradition of
anthropomorphic characters. Probably the most
influential on me was a character called Talky Tawny
from Golden Age Captain Marvel stories. It was a
talking tiger that I dont even remember why he was
able to talk or what his back story was, but that was
a character I thought was pretty well integrated into
that series. I thought it would be fun to have this
bulldog character and not have a world populated by
anthropomorphic characters. Instead, have this one guy
whod been around so long that everyone just kind of
accepted him and didnt really think of him as being
something other than human. So, those were all the
kind of ideas that were swishing around in developing
the first issue. Its a lot of weird influences from
a lot of different directions.
Sidra:
Most authors cant draw and most artists cant
write. How do you manage to put it all together?
JE Smith:
Well, I think of myself primarily as a
writer. I dont think Im a particularly good artist.
I think Im okay, but there are certainly many, many
people with much better chops than I have. It was a
decision early on. I actually spent a fair amount of time looking
for somebody to collaborate with, to hook up with, who
was a better artist than I am. I got a lot of
frustrations. I had guys, who because they were my
concepts and my ideas, didnt really have the
commitment I did to the series or I ran into a lot of
guys who I really didnt feel were at a professional
level of artistic skill. So, it came literally down
to a time when I was talking to a friend of mine, Steve
Bissette, who used to work on Swamp Thing in the 80s,
and he had launched a self published series called
Tyrant. Steve started off primarily as an artist and kind of moved into
writing for a second career and as a way to control
his own concepts. One night I was discussing this with
Steve and saying, "I dont really feel up to drawing the
book, but Im having a lot of trouble finding somebody
to collaborate with." Steve said, "Well, Jeff, it just
comes down to who you can you depend on. Whos going be
as committed to the project as you are?" The answer
was obvious and so I made a real concerted effort to
import my artistic skills. So, I tend to think of
myself as a writer who cant really draw, but Ive
worked really hard to get better, and I think the
improvement shows in the work. I think you can look
at Bulletproof 1 or 2 and compare it to the most
recent Complex City and see some artistic growth. So,
thats a very long answer to a simple question.
Sidra:
Do you see the stories as pictures first or as
a written story first?
JE Smith:
Its definitely the story first. Its
almost always dialogue first. I think Im a very
dialogue driven writer. I dont really feel Im
incredibly good at coming up with imaginative
concepts, but I think I can write nice interpersonal
dialogue. So, almost everything I do tends to be
dialogue driven. Almost invariably character
interaction occurs first. I do think visually to a
certain extent. I actually feel that layouts and
breaking up a story is one of my weaker points as an
artist. Thats something Ive tried to develop a lot
more and work on. . I certainly do think of it
visually to a extent, but as far as the first moments
of creation its almost always dialogue, characters,
and words. And hopefully youll think of ways to
present all that stuff visually. Thats always the
toughest part for me, the visualization.
Sidra:
Ubermodel, shes not your typical gorgeous,
big-boobed superheroine. How did you come up with the
idea for Ubermodel?
JE Smith:
I dont remember the exact genesis of that.
Pretty early on in Bulletproof I thought it would be
funny to have him going out on a first date with some
other superhero. To a certain extent, that was
inspired by a story Kurt Busiek did in Astro City that
I believe was called Dinner at Eight, which was two of
his main superhero characters going out on a date. I
always thought that was pretty nicely done. At the
very earliest conception of Complex City, I was
thinking it might be sort of an anthology book in the
way that Astro City is, in that the setting would
always be the same but we might concentrate on
different characters. After I got into developing it,
it became apparent that Bulldog was really the focus
of the whole thing. I always had that story in mind
of what it would be like if Bulletproof had a date
with somebody that was interrupted by an old fling
that happened to be a supervillain rather than another
superhero. I thought that would be kind of a fun thing,
to screw up a first date because first dates are very
screw-up-able. The basic idea was kind of a contrast.
The supervillain, whos called Bad Penny, was
originally going to be very much an Image girl.
She was going to have the big poofy hair, the tiny
tiny feet, huge boobs, and be completely over
rendered. Ubermodel was originally going to be called
Supermodel, but I didnt want to hear any kind of crap
from DC about Super anything. So I thought it might
be a little bit easier to get away with Ubermodel. I
just wanted her to be a sweet character whos very
wholesome and certainly very sexy, but not ridiculous
looking. I wanted her to be very real, in the way
that some supermodels are very wholesome and real
looking, but not usually that way women are depicted
in comics, except for Terry [Moore,] of course. I just
wanted her to be sort of real even though she has
superpowers. I wanted her to be a very positive kind
of character, a very sweet kind of character, and a
realistically proportioned character. Certainly she
was going to be beautiful, or as beautiful as Im able
to draw her, but I just wanted her to be as real as
the story would allow.
Sidra:
What made you decide to publish Complex City
as an independent publication rather than submit it to
one of the major companies?
JE Smith:
Actually, I didnt think it had a shot at
any of the bigger companies. Certainly DC or Marvel
would probably laugh me out of the office if I walked
in with some of these pages. Thats the great thing
about being an independent. Not only can you do
it however you want to do it, but people tend to be
more accepting of it if theyre seeing it in an
independent comic. I think that they expect less that
it look like a Marvel or DC comic, when youre doing
an independent. When you actually get down into some
of the lower echelons of some of the independent
companies, theres not really a way to make any money
at it. Nothing against any of these guys, but usually
their deal is that you get royalties. You dont
really get paid for anything up front, you get X amount of
copies, but you dont really get paid all that much.
The good thing about the win-lose risk of independent
comics is that if you can sell enough copies, you can
make some money off of it. Also, I just never liked
the idea of signing anything over to anybody. Its
just so much easier if you own it all and you publish
it. Youre in control of all of it. I dont ever
want to take somebody to court because they reprinted
something without my permission or whatever. Thats
not to say I would never ever pitch a project to
another company, because certainly one of the lessons
Ive learned with this book is its hard to get a
retailers attention for an independent book,
especially if theyve never heard of you, which most
people have not. So you know I wouldnt be completely
adverse to pitching something to an actual company,
but as far as this, which is my main project, it just
seems natural to self publish it. Its one of those
things where its a gamble, but everyone hopes theyll
be able to survive. Theres certainly a long road
littered with the corpses of independent books that
couldnt make it, but you know, Im like a lot of
other people and this is worth a shot to try.
Sidra:
What are the pros and cons of publishing small
press?
JE Smith:
Oh, a lot of what I just said. The pros are
you own it all, and you have complete control over it.
A good example is Complex City #4... its the first part
of a two-part arc and quite frankly, it was never
supposed to be a two-part arc. But because I was able
to work real organically with it, by the time I got to
page eighteen, I knew I wasnt going to be wrapping up
in four pages. So, I said okay, its a two-part
story. BANG! I made that decision Thursday and maybe
the next Friday it goes to print. So, I dont have to
satisfy anyone other than myself as far as the
creative end of it. I dont have to call anyone and
ask permission if it's okay to make this a two-part
story. Those are the pros... pretty much complete and
utter freedom to do what you want. The cons are its
really hard to get retailers attention. There are a
lot of local guys here that are incredibly fantastic
supporters. Pretty much every comic store in town has
been exceptionally supportive of me and my work, but I
can only drive to so many comicbook stores and woo the
owners. Once I get beyond the ten or fifteen stores
in the [Dallas/Fort Worth] Metroplex Area, then Im
sorta flying blind. I actually spent a good bit on
promoting the book, probably around five thousand
dollars, which is a drop in the bucket for any major
campaign, but for an indie comic thats a fair amount
of money, especially when you consider I could have
printed three books for that money. I put ads in
Comic Buyers Guide. I had an ad in Previews. I had
an offset printed ashcan where most people just have
Xeroxed copies. I actually went to a small print
company and had them print me up a few thousand
ashcans. I gave away about seven hundred of those at
the Chicago Convention last year. I mailed out
hundreds to comic dealers and told them put them out
and see if your customers like them. I did everything I
could think of and still the numbers were very low.
So, the market is unfortunately in such a bad way that
retailers are, afraid is kind of too strong of a word,
but theyre very hesitant to try out books that they
have no clue whether or not theyre going to make them
any money. Whereas ten years ago that might not have
been true and people would take a chance on a book
theyd never heard of. Now its just a lot less so.
Its really hard to get retailers to pick the books
up.
Sidra:
So the retailers arent that supportive of indie
books?
JE Smith:
There is certainly a core of retailers that
are supportive of these books, mine and many others.
But I can tell from my numbers that there are hundreds,
maybe thousands that arent ordering the books at all.
Whether thats where they dont even look in Previews
past the big four publishers, whether it just didnt
sound particularly interesting to them at the
description, or whether they just gloss through the
independent section of Previews, I dont know. I
dont know what the answers are. I just wish there was
an easy answer, and you know, Im certainly not trying
to sound ungrateful to those that did pick up the
book. Im extremely appreciative of any store that
orders the book, but like I said, its real obvious
from the numbers and from what I know, certain stores
are ordering. but there are hundreds of stores who are
just not ordering the book at all.
Sidra:
Do you find that comicbook fans are supportive
of indie comics?
JE Smith:
Yeah, very much so, its sort of like
independent music in that way. A lot of people have
some really cool band they heard on Friday night and
they tell everybody they can find about the band.
Ive found that to be very much so in the comicbooks
industry. Word of mouth is a fantastic way to get
people interested in your book. I do not believe I
have ever had a single negative letter about the
series, and I know there are people who have really
tried to spread the word , just customers, not even
retailers or reviewers. It's got a lot of good
reviews including from Sidra, but you know the thing
about the internet is you never know whos reading
what. Its out there, and there are a lot of really
cool websites. But you never know whos reading what...
seeing some review or seeing some promotion that you
may have paid for or gotten for free. Its just kind
of hard to know whats coming from what direction, but
yeah, I think word of mouth has definitely been helpful
in this series and certainly independent comics in
general. I know that with books I love. I talk them up
all I can, especially if youre in a comicbooks store
and somebodys looking indecisively at a book you know
is really good. Ill nudge somebody in the ribs and
say,"You know, give that one a try. Its cool."
Hopefully someone somewhere is doing that for Complex
City too.
Sidra:
One more question. In the back of issue four
you state that you havent reached the sales numbers
for Diamond. How else is there to get your book if
Diamond is going to discontinue it? Do you have a
website or something?
JE Smith:
Yeah,
or
will get you there. Right now were in the midst
of revamping it some, but you can always contact me
through the site, if nothing else. Right now we dont
have them set up for sale on the site, because that
was a conscious decision to promote getting it in the
stores. Since it wont necessarily be first run in
the stores, we are going to set it up so you can buy
it directly off the site. Theres also a secondary
distributor called Cold Cut Comics Distribution and if
stores have an account with them, the books are available
through that one. Theyre more of a back issue
distributor. They also handle a lot of independent
stuff. Diamond is what I call a first strike
distributor. Theyre the guys that sell it for the
New Comics Wednesday. Diamond delivers those. A lot
of times people who are looking for reorders will go
to Cold Cut, because its easier. Diamond tends to be
a little cumbersome in reordering on back issues.
Complex City 1 through 4 is still available through
Diamond if anyone wants to order it that way, but some
people find that its more trouble than its worth.
So you can get the first four issues through Diamond,
through Cold Cuts, or through my website.
