http://www.myspace.com/weirdlinggraphicnovel
http://www.dubisch.com/weirdling/index.html
Mike Dubisch’s resume is wide and varied. He’s worked for comic companies from Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse, to DC. He’s even done art for gaming companies, professional wrestling, and The New York State Museum.
Weirdling is Mike Dubisch’s creation, almost 15 years in the making. Below is a conversation with Mike about his creation Weirdling and art in general.
What got you started in Art and more specifically Sequential Storytelling?
My interest in drawing and art goes back to childhood, and goes hand and hand with my love of comics. Early on I was interested in Spider-man and other Marvels, and I also was exposed surprisingly early to EC horror and science fiction comics, and even the undergrounds and Heavy Metal magazine. I guess it crystallized around my early teens, when I started collecting comics seriously and also, read a biography of William Gaines and became obsessed with EC comics and Horror comics in general. But even before that, around ten years old or so, I started making up my own characters, envisioning and attempting my own comics and graphic novels, very much in the DC-Marvel universe mold- almost as soon as I became interested in the ECs I was drawing and self publishing my own horror and "Weird Science Fantasy" comics- laying the groundwork for Strange Fear books today.
What are some early influences?
When I began to have a personal style, in my mid teens, it was highly influenced by "Ghastly" Graham Ingles, Berni Wrightson, Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood and Richard Corben, as well as Stephen King, Clive Barker and H.P. Lovecraft. Later on there was Moebius, Barry Windsor Smith, Rand Holmes, Dave Sheridan, Greg Irons, and Steve Bissette and John Totleben.
What are some more recent influences?
Alex Nino, who I'd always loved, has recently been a big influence, Travis Charest is someone I strive to equal in quality, Aurthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker, Miyazaki, Junji Ito, Mike Mignola,H.R.Giger, Virgil Finlay, Maxfield Parrish, Will Eisner, Charles Burns, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Dan Clowse, Robert Crumb, Barry Windsor Smith, Jack Kirby, Alex Raymond and Hal Foster, and a bunch other major, major influences whose names escape me at the moment! Writers include Philip K. Dick, Orson Scott Card, Stephen R. Donaldson, Niel Stephenson, and early Larry Niven. My latest obsession is Robert Silverberg, the master of dark, weird science fiction.
What led you to creating “Weirlding”?
I conceived WEIRDLING back in 1992, when I was creating "Flesh Crawlers" for Kitchen Sink Press. KSP had indicated they wanted a continuing relationship with me, and while I enjoyed working with the writer, Rich Rainey, I began to realize I wanted to create a more challenging and complex story, beyond the "B-Movie" type script that I was working on. This was not to long after Alan Moore had knocked the comics world on it's ass with Swamp Thing and Watchman, and it seemed like the medium was growing up. In fact, I did option WEIRDLING to Kitchen Sink, and the first 16 pages were slated for inclusion in the Death Rattle anthology, but the magazine was cancelled and unfortunately Kitchen Sink went under while I was completing the first issue of the series. This threw off publication for several years, as no other publisher would touch it, and even after I published WEIRDLING as three magazine sized issues, it took me over six years to get my publishing company into a place where putting out the graphic novel made sense. So if WEIRDLING seems to be a throwback to an earlier era in comics, it's because it actually has it's roots in that period.
How did you go about developing all these different genres (Sci-Fi, Horror, Lovecraft, ect) into a one solid story?
I think I'm a born genre blender. I just never saw a reason to see them as different, Sci-Fi, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Fantasy- they're just great tastes that taste great together! I start by piecing together images and ideas that I wanted to illustrate, first just taking notes and turning it over in my head, no pressure, then eventually realizing I had a story, which I continued to refine even after creating my working script, having new insights into the plot even as I laid out the pages.
The title and story element, WEIRDLING, was in fact the name I published my very first comics under, for a school special projects fair when I was in sixth and seventh grade. So this book really is an amalgam of all the thing I liked, especially the Alien movies, zombies, H.P.Lovecraft, and the ideas I had from when I was very young, as well as from what was going on in my life at the time during my final year of art school.
I had gotten involved in the movement to legalize/decriminalize Marijuana, and educate people about the many non-narcotic uses of hemp as cheap, renewable, eco-friendly resource. While in art school, I was working for High Times magazine, volunteering time for NORML and the national Freedom Fighters organization, and co-founding a pro-legalization Freedom Fighters group at the School of Visual Arts that became the largest of its kind at the time. So of course, I wanted to use any platform I had to help spread this information that I was and still am passionate about.
I also wanted to tell a zombie story that went beyond the Night of the Living Dead scenario, in fact, at the time I originally conceived WEIRDLING there were very few zombie comics, since then we've see it explode into a bona fide comic-book sub-genre. Also, virtual reality and CGI were very new ideas at the time and I wanted those to be in there too.
[b} Can you go over your process of creating a comic? Do you do a full script first or just Storyboard/thumbnail it all out first?[/b]
In the case of WEIRDLING, I did write a full script. These days I'd just assume work from a synopsis- either way, when it comes to putting the images down I usually take a lot of liberties to achieve the full graphic storytelling potential. With WEIRDLING and all my recent writing, I thought I had the whole story worked out, yet found that I didn't really have my ending until I was drawing it. Many of the early pages have very refined preliminary sketches- by the end I was working from very small rough thumbs. No matter how worked out I think I have it, often I rework the page entirely once I'm at full size, sometimes changing out panels and whole finished pages if I think something could be better. WEIRDLING took me years to complete, these days I could complete the same number of pages in a matter of months.
How do you view the current comic market? What do you make of comics in bookstores? What do you make of Japanese comics gaining so much of a market?
You know, it's been a long time since I was walking into a store weekly and purchasing anything that caught my eye. I just can't offer an opinion on the entire market. I will say there are far more books out there I'd like to check out then I could possibly afford to. There's tons of stuff from the major publishers that look, at least from their publicity, to be very cool. But by old habit I mostly ignore the mainstream and buy independent and small press books, when I buy at all. I actually prefer black and white books. The exception is when artists I follow work in the mainstream, particularly I'm thinking of Richard Corben, who I'll follow anywhere.
Very glad to see comics and graphic novels in the bookstores, frankly, I've never understood the segregation. Let's get more comics in the bookstores and more prose novels in the comic shops!
Thank the stars manga and anime has spread like a virus. It only brings more fans to the medium we love. Eventually, I think, there will be less and less distinction between the japanese style and the european and american styles, there's just so much cross influence. In fact, my favorite manga creator, Junji Ito, and my favorite anime creator, Miyazaki, are both arguably stylistic realists, it's hard to exactly pin down what makes their work manga style (though it is.)
As for the industry, I do have this problem: As a backlash, I think, to the style over substance bent of the 90's, publishers now seem to be pulling hard in the opposite direction, only hiring artist whose story pages are beyond reproach- some of these artist I'm thinking of do some really great coves and pin-ups, but I find their story pages to be dull, without the character and style I love to see. I'm not sure Steve Bissette could have gotten a start in todays industry, with his wild page layouts and panels. Wrightson and Ingles both would be turned away today, I think, by many editors, unable to swallow the mannerist anatomy and dark, stylized rendering. For that matter, I'm not sure even Jack Kirby, with his sometimes chunky anatomy and wild, personal style could have gotten a start in the current environment.
Where do you see comic industry going in the future? Web based? Book Store Based? Do you have any plans to adjust your comic career to fit this potential direction?
My personal preference is for print on paper, I just cant get as excited by a comic I'm reading on the digital screen. I can only hope, as a fan, that paper books stay dominant. I do hope web based work continues to grow, and become more profitable, as a way to introduce and promote new and established products and artists. I love the comic shops, but like I said, I hope that the line between book store and comic shop continues to blur.
What other projects are you working on?
I'm drawing a great all ages fantasy/ mystery /suspense graphic novel co-created with my wife, children’s' book author/illustrator Carolyn Watson Dubisch.
It's called "The People that Melt in the Rain," and it does for all ages books what WEIRDLING does for horror, refusing to underestimate the reader, this comic offers up a truly complex plot in an engaging, digestible story that truly is for all ages, young and old. Some who are only familiar with me as an artist of the macabre are surprised to find me on a project like this, but actually I've been illustrating children’s books on the side for a couple of years now, and loving it.
I'm also fast tracking a new horror/adventure comic with creator Shannon Denton, tentatively titled "The Atlantean." We're both really jazzed on this, it's a monster movie with a rich, detailed backstory and a rock-a-billy soundtrack.
On the back-burner I have a shorter graphic novel called "The Crypt Kid" which may ultimately be packaged in an anthology from Strange Fear, with "The Wet Nurse," another short graphic novel originally created for Mamtor's cancelled "Event Horizon" anthology.
For folks starting out in comics and wanting to make their own book, what sort of advice would you give them?
Just do it. Even though it's harder then ever to break into the big publishers, with todays digital publishing options, websites that can be set up in a matter of minutes, and an on-line public always searching for something new, it's easier then ever before to make your work available to the public. Don't let some assistant editor, who has been trained specifically in how to find small problems with your work as an excuse to send you packing, decide for you whether you're good enough. Let the public in on your visions and let them decide.
