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If you don't know who Scott Chantler is yet, you will. Scott is drawing
the new STEPHEN COLBERT TEK JANSEN comic, coming out from Oni Press. In
this interview we talk to Scott about his getting involved in comics,
working in the animation industry, his earlier graphic novels like DAYS
LIKE THIS and NORTHWEST PASSAGE (twice nominated for a Joe Shuster
Award) and of course, the Stephen Colbert book.
Jamie:
How were you introduced to comics?
Scott Chantler:
Like a lot of people my age, probably by the Batman TV show from the '60s (I was born in 1972, but most afternoon TV in the '70s was reruns from the '60s.) I can't remember a time when I didn't know who Batman was. There are drawings I did of the character from before I started kindergarten. The first comic I can remember owning was a Denny O'Neill/Neal Adams Batman story, which had the origin of Man-Bat in it (couldn't tell you what issue that was, or from which series...I wish I knew.)
Jamie:
Your bio states you went to a film school and did some computer animation. What made you decide you wanted to do comics?
Scott Chantler:
Oh, I always wanted to do comics. But it took me about a decade to break in, so I had to do something in the meantime. I figured if the comics thing didn't work out, being an animation director would be a close second. What they don't tell you in school, though, is that the animation business is a complete nightmare, and that everyone in it would rather be doing comics.
Jamie:
Okay, what is it about the animation business that makes it a complete nightmare?
Scott Chantler:
It's just so corporate. You'd think that a business that's so art-driven would find a way to put the work first, but you'd be wrong about that. Animation is big business, and like any big business, the studios are driven by profit and little else. They suffer the same short-sightedness and tunnel vision. Animation is the closest thing an artist can get to a steady paycheque, but you pay for it by hardly being an artist at all. It's 9-to-5, in an office, with all of the unpleasantness that those things entail. You might as well work in a bank. Animators are just cogs in the machine. To have any real creative input at all you need to be a director, and even they have to deal with the marketing department, not to mention whichever jackass is above them on the ladder of corporate politics.
Which is too bad, because the art form is one of the most powerful that there is. Pixar seems to be able to navigate the corporate world while still maintaing a high level of integrity artistically. Most of the industry, though, is the victim of its own small thinking. Comics, by comparison, are a creative wonderland, print being much more of a niche market. There's significantly less money at stake, so publishers are much more willing to take risks. The downside, of course, is that it's a pretty difficult field to make a living in.
Jamie:
Your first work was Days Like This, an OGN dealing with a 60s era Supremes like band. Was that at all intimidating? A lot of pro's start off by doing mini-comics, anthology pieces and self published comic books before doing something long form story like that.
Scott Chantler:
I didn't just go into DAYS cold. I'd done mini-comics in high school, a variety of small press stuff in the '90s, and even Web comics back before everyone and their brother was doing one. So no, I wasn't really intimidated. It was exactly the kind of project I'd always wanted to do, I just needed the opportunity to do it. I was ready for it.
Jamie:
Whenever minorities are presented in comics there is always a worry that somebody will take offense to their portrayals. I don't recall any offense taken to Days Like This. What went into designing those characters?
Scott Chantler:
The trick is to base them on real faces. Even though the art in DAYS was fairly broad, design-heavy cartooning, I still started from photographs of real girls. When you're just making up faces out of your head, it's easier to veer into stereotypes.
It never even occurred to me when I was working on that book that I was walking any kind of fine line. J. Torres and I certainly never talked about how to appeal to the African American audience, or anything of the sort. But when I started promoting the book at conventions, I began to notice just how much people responded to a positive portrayal of people of colour. It was really gratifying and, like I say, something of surprise. Just the fact that it's got three smiling black faces on the cover makes it pretty much unique. I've seen African American fans at shows stop cold in their tracks just glimpsing it. Which usually leads to a sale.
I love DAYS LIKE THIS, and love the fact that people (like yourself) are still talking about it. I couldn't have asked for a better vehicle to introduce myself and my work to the comics readership.
Jamie:
How did Days Like This come about anyhow?
Scott Chantler:
Back in the year 2000, I did a short-lived Web strip called PULP! I got an email from J., saying that he was reading and enjoying the strip, and wondering if I'd like to work on something with him sometime. At that point I'd pretty much given up breaking into comics, and was just doing the Web strip as a way of letting my storytelling urges out for a walk. J. wasn't as big then as he was now, but I at least knew who he was, and he was really my first meaningful contact inside the industry.
About a year later, he told me about DAYS, and that he had Oni Press lined up to publish it. It was just a matter of getting Oni to approve me as the artist, which ended up being no problem, since then-editor-in-chief Jamie S. Rich had once been the submissions editor at Dark Horse, and remembered me from all the samples I'd sent him back in the day. So it all just kind of fell unexpectedly into my lap, which was strange after all the years I'd spent kicking and screaming trying to break in.
Jamie:
I can't help but notice your art from Days Like This and Northwest Passage is quite different. Where did you learn to draw in different styles?
Scott Chantler:
I don't know if they're all that different. I pretty much always draw how I draw, but I do kind of move around within the range of my style. The project dictates the exact look. DAYS was about very young people, and had a very innocent feel, so I took that as my cue to strip the art down to its bare essentials, using the most simple and appealing designs I could. NORTHWEST PASSAGE, by contrast, has a lot of personal drama and danger, and if I was going to make that stuff real for the audience, I had to take a couple of good steps closer to reality, but without losing the expressiveness that's also vital to the storytelling.
Jamie:
What made you decide you had to do a book about early Canadian history?
Scott Chantler:
I'd done two books in a row--DAYS and SCANDALOUS--which were very heavy into classic Americana. Which is great, and fits my style like a glove. But I really wanted to write something myself, and if I was going to do that, I wanted it to something set somewhere other than New York or Los Angeles. I'm a bit of a history buff, and always thought the Canadian fur trade would make an excellent backdrop for an adventure story. It's part patriotism, part just writing what you know, I guess.
Jamie:
Were you concerned that comic readers wouldn't really care to read about Canadian history?
Scott Chantler:
Yes. I was reluctant to even pitch the series, but Jamie Rich dragged it out of me after I happened to mention the idea on Oni's message board. Everything about this project--from its Canadian setting to its serialized release--was a risk, and the gang at Oni really needs to be congratulated for taking it. I couldn't believe it when they green-lit the book. While I was working on it, I really just tried to write it for myself, and hoped that there'd be at least a few people out there who shared my sensibilities. I was prepared for it to be a failure, albeit a noble one. Somewhere along the line, though, the collected edition of LOUIS RIEL came out, which made a splash, especially with the audience *outside* of comics, so I began to have some hope that I wasn't just wasting my time.
Jamie:
Is Northwest Passage totally made up or are there bits of real history in the story?
Scott Chantler:
It's completely fictional, though a lot of it is inspired by real events and real people. The annotated edition that's coming out will detail a lot of the historical basis for various scenes and characters.
Jamie:
Northwest Passage was your first book you wrote and you did very well with it. Was there any books in particular that helped you with the craft of writing?
Scott Chantler:
For some reason, before I began scripting, I thought it was necessary for me to read Robert McKee's STORY. It's the writing book that everyone talks about, and I guess I thought it was going to make the process easier for me somehow. It really didn't. I got virtually nothing out of it. I'm glad I read it, and I agree in principal with a lot of what he writes, but not much of it was new to anyone who spends the lion's share of their time thinking about stories (as I do,) and I broke every rule in the book at least once while writing NORTHWEST PASSAGE.
The most helpful writing book I've ever come across is Ronald B. Tobias's 20 MASTER PLOTS (AND HOW TO BUILD THEM), a practical, no-nonsense guide to story construction. I'd never have gotten through NORTHWEST PASSAGE without it.
Jamie:
Your upcoming work is the Stephen Colbert Tek Jansen series, is it a mini series or ongoing?
Scott Chantler:
It's a five-issue miniseries.
Jamie:
What kind of comic is Stephen Colber Tek Jansen going to be? It looks like a sci-fi book.
Scott Chantler:
It's sci-fi satire. So you're kind of right.
Jamie:
How far are you into drawing it so far?
Scott Chantler:
Jamie:
Will there be any faux-right wing political commentary in it?
Scott Chantler:
Yep. We're mostly taking digs at bad science fiction, but given that Tek is an idealized version of the Colbert character, his one-sided Republican worldview definitely comes into play.
Jamie:
I notice the series has 4 other creators attached to it, writers John Layman, Tom Peyer, Jim Massey and artist Robbi Rodriguez. How does this work out?
Scott Chantler:
John and Tom write the feature stories, which I draw. Robbi draws the back-up stories, which are written by Jim Massey. There's a lot of great talent on this book.
Jamie:
Doing licensed books is new for you. How has the experience been so far? Any problems dealing with the licensor and getting Stephens likeness down?
Scott Chantler:
It was difficult at first. Thanks to my experience in animation and commercial illustration, I'm used to changes and notes. But it took several tries for me to come up with a look for the book that Colbert was happy with. The trick was *not* to do a caricature. And not to try to make it look like the animated bits on the show. My first attempts were very cartoony, and very much based on Stephen's visual persona--the narrow face, the flip in the hair, the wonky ear, etc. But he was concerned that an emphasis on caricature would make it seem too much like a humour book. He wanted to play it as straight as possible--like he does on the show every night. We eventually settled on a look that's not unlike the space comics of the '50s and '60s--heroic and dramatic, but kind of funny in spite of itself. And very different from the Sedelmeier cartoons.
Jamie:
Most of your comic work has been in OGN format. The Stephen Colbert book is a periodical format. How are you finding the switch in storytelling style and never ending looming deadlines?
Scott Chantler:
It's actually a lot easier to schedule your time in smaller, more manageable chunks. With graphic novels, you're doing so many pages over so long a time that it's easy for things to go off the rails without you even noticing until you realize you've got forty pages to do in a month. With TEK, I know that I need to, say, pencil fifteen pages in three weeks. That's a page a day, which is pretty hard to lose track of.
Jamie:
Have you met Stephen Colbert yet?
Scott Chantler:
Nope. I didn't make it to the New York ComiCon signing, because I was too busy drawing the book! But hopefully our paths will cross somewhere along the line.
Regards,
Jamie Coville
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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