Below is an interview with comic professional Steven Grant. He's worked with DC and Marvel to independents to plenty of creator owned. He's talking about his new comic Two Guns coming soon from Boom Studios http://www.boom-studios.com/
Steven Grant's website - http://www.papermovies.com/
1. What was the genesis for this story? Did you have characters in mind and set them against some challenges? Did you have a concept and built from that?
The story didn’t really build much, it and the characters all popped into my head more or less simultaneously. That doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, which made it a story I had to get out. It meant I had been working on it unconsciously for a long time. But I knew most of the story from the start, with the characters in play. As I wrote it out I figured out where characters had to be added or subtracted, but the main four or five characters and basic framework were there from the start.
2. Could you describe the technical process of working with the art team? Did you give the artists a full script? Or did you give a more open script and go back and write the dialogue to fit the art?
In this instance, I wrote TWO GUNS as a screenplay, because I needed a spec screenplay to show around and didn’t have anywhere else to use the story. Ross Richie at Boom! Studios saw the screenplay and asked if they could turn it into a mini-series, so that worked out nicely but unexpectedly. All I really did in this case was insert issue breaks into the comics and Ross and Mat have been taking it from there, following the action to the letter and keeping all my dialogue intact. It’s an interesting way to work, because I wrote the screenplay a couple years ago, so what it’s turning into has been something of a surprise for me too. But this is the only time I’ve ever worked this way. It’s been interesting to see what Mat’s done with it.
3. What is it about the crime/noir genre that attracts you to it? What strengths do you think that genre has that you can do good stories in it? How about weaknesses?
Mainly, it offers a much wider spectrum of human action and response. Crime fiction in particular is a genre about losers, characters (even smart ones) who for whatever reasons make very bad decisions and have to deal with the consequences of them. Other types of stories, superheroes for instance, are about winners. But losers are much more interesting to write about than winners. In crime, as it’s written today, you don’t have to worry about who the hero and who the villain is; those roles are fluid and mutable. Its main downside is that it requires discipline, you’re restricted as a writer to real world considerations. Paradoxically, that also makes it a lot freer that many genres where you can just let your imagination run amok. In crime stories, you really have to focus on the story. The real restrictions on crime are the biases various writers bring to it, particularly in comics, where it’s often thought that “real” crime stories have to take place in the Roaring ‘20s. I don’t want to see a fedora in a crime story again for the rest of my life. But if you throw off your biases, you’ll find modern crime fiction is wide open. To go back to superheroes as an example, the overarching theme of superhero comics is that if you’re brave enough and determined enough, you will overcome your adversaries. The overarching theme of crime comics is that actions have consequences, but we can never be sure what those consequences will be.
4. What was it like working with Boom Studios? You're known to be quite doubtful of alot of startup publishers, so what does Boom Studios has that other publishers don't.
It didn’t hurt that I’ve known Ross for 12 years, and he had a better business plan (and better business sense) than most startup publishers. Not to mention upfront money for work. Working with Boom! is fine. When they decide to publish a story, and they don’t decide that with many, their objective is to help you get your idea of what the story should be on the page and into the marketplace. They don’t decide what story they want you to tell. How could I not like that?
5. Is this book for everyone? Could you pitch or describe it in a way that say young females raised on Manga and Independent Comics would be interested in it?
I doubt any book’s for everyone. But at minimum I’d say TWO GUNS is very accessible, with understandable characters. You don’t need any special knowledge or background to grasp the situation, and while it’s a crime comic it’s not “grim’n’gritty,” or ultraviolent. I’m not trying to do Quentin Tarantino. Here’s the series’ dirty little secret: it’s a comedy. The two leads, Bobby and Marcus, are likable characters and were always meant to be – in their own ways, they’re both good guys – and the story is really about the evolution of their (non-shonen-ai) relationship. I’d compare it to something else, but, honestly, I can’t think of anything TWO GUNS is similar to.
