One Page At A Time Interview...Jason Franks, part 2

And now...the conclusion of my interview with Jason.

DC: The Sixsmiths OGN, which you wrote, was just released through Slave Labor Graphics and is available at comic shops everywhere. Yet, you and J. Marc Schmidt have also kept up a regular Sixsmiths webcomic at the same time. How did this project come about? And are there plans to continue the saga of this unconventional yet entirely relatable family?

JF: Marc came to Melbourne for a book launch and while he was here he asked me to write a GN for him to do with SLG, who had published his two prior books. We'd previously worked together on about half a dozen short stories, as well and on the webcomic Nannah Laveaux. We bounced ideas around and before long Cain manifested in Marc's sketchbook, wearing a pentagram t-shirt. A kid from a family of satanists. Melmoth, the vicar, followed quickly. It just sort of rolled along from there. We decided to do a webcomic, because the discipline of producing something weekly is good and because it seemed like a good way to build an audience while we worked on the book. Free original content every week.

It took us about 3 years to get the book done, with the webcomic running for the latter two of those--it was a lot of work! I do know what happens to the characters next, but at present there's no more Sixsmiths on my schedule. I need a holiday!



DC: McBlack, another OGN that you released in 2010, is an all-out action-adventure page turner which you both wrote and illustrated. Where did that character come from and what's next for him?

JF: McBlack came out of a sketchbook. Many years ago, when I was young and stupid, I decided I wanted to do a crazy ongoing action series called THE BADMAN and I went through my old sketchbooks looking for characters and ideas. McBlack was a doodle that I decided would be a good design for a recurring antagonist. I pencilled most of what would have been the first issue, but I could see that I didn't have the chops for it, so I never finished it. Some years later, when it seemed like it was time to write a full length OGN, McBlack volunteered himself for protagonist duty. I guess he was getting bored. At the time, I was a bit annoyed by the way that classic crime noir stories are so obviously ripped off by comics writers in need of a plot, so that was where I--we-- started. McBlack wearily agrees to participate in a fairly derivative noir mystery. The situation gets stranger and stranger and McBlack's patience with the situation gets thinner and thinner, until he starts to shoot holes in the plot--not to mention the fourth wall. The Badman himself does make an appearance in the book, dismantling McBlack in much the same way that he dismantles the story structure.

I have written a second McBlack graphic novel, LADY McBLACK, but I'm not sure when it will be properly underway. In the meantime there will be a one shot, written by me and illustrated by Mike Athey, Tom Bonin and Trevor Wood.



DC: Does research play a big part in your writing (or in the pre-writing phase)? Do you mostly gather information on the net or have you ever improvised and done some "investigative journalism" for the sake of accuracy in a story?

JF: I do a lot of research if the story calls for it. I usually start out reading what I can online, then I go and find books for more detailed information. If I can go to actual locations, I will--the first time I went to Japan I traveled far and wide so that I could check out various castles, samurai houses, boats and other things that I felt I needed to add veracity to a project I was (and still am) working on. Couple of years ago I went snooping around a private estate that I wanted to use as a location for something I was writing; crawling in the bushes with a camera and hoping that nobody saw me and called the cops. (Nobody did). Next year I've arranged to conduct some interviews for what I hope will be a major new project.

The temptation is to defer writing until the research is 'done', but I think that's a bit of a fallacy. At some point I have to decide that you have enough facts to begin writing and just do the rest of the research on the fly.

DC: You've covered many genres in your comics and prose work. Any different genres or media you'd like to explore?

JF: I have been writing a lot of more straight-up crime stuff over the last few years, although almost none of it has seen print yet.... so expect more of that. I tend not to think of story first, genre second nowadays, and I just go with whatever I feel like writing.

Far as other media go, I would love to do some screenwriting. A few years ago I wrote a short film that I was going to shoot with some friends, but I wound up moving back to Australia before we got properly underway. It's still an itch I'd like to scratch.

DC: Do you have a set routine or schedule for writing? Or is it a case of fitting it in whenever you can?

JF: I try to squeeze in as much as I can nights and weekends, because I work full time--which makes it hard to keep a schedule. But even when I'm not working I don't really have a routine. I try to do a bit in the morning, a bit in the afternoon, a bit after dinner and squeeze in chores, email etc around that. This changes if I have a deadline approaching, in which case I just spend every available moment working furiously to get the work work is done. In this kind of cycle there's no time for second-guessing, so I like to make sure there's a clear path to the endgame well before that.

DC: How do you combat writer's block?

JF: I've never suffered from writer's block, and I believe this is due to me pursuing so many projects at once. If I don't feel like working on something one day I'll work on something else. This does make it difficult to focus on one thing, but, as I just mentioned, once the end is in sight I'm usually able to turn my whole attention to it. It's a great feeling to knock one off and then look at everything else I have lying around with fresh eyes. "Which one will I do next?"

Writer's block isn't a problem I worry about, but I do stress that I'm not getting enough of everything done. I guess I'm a bit of a workaholic.

DC: I love reading interviews with creators, and one of my favourite aspects of it is advice they have for people who are starting out, or want to start out, in the industry. It's really interesting to see what experienced pros view as important in that regard. So...what tips would you give to someone who wanted to be a comic book creator?

JF: First: read. Not just comics--books, films, non fiction... read anything you can get your hands on. If you don't read you've got Buckley's hope of becoming a good writer.

Second: write. Every day. You have to do the work if you're going to break in.

Those are the easy steps. The rest is down to luck and perseverance. Keep working, keep meeting people, keeping getting work out there. I don't think, for most creators, there's one point where they can say "I've made it! I'm a pro!" It's a scale--you build up to it with small steps. Sometimes you have bad luck or you screw up, and you get sent to the back of the line. That's okay, it's not a race. Do you talk about giving up? Do you bemoan the fates for not giving you a break? Do you believe there's a conspiracy trying to keep you out of the comics industry? Well, guess what? There is. If you can't hack it, it's best you quit now and save the rest of us having to listen to it.

For the rest of you... stick with it. I'll see you in the funny pages.

DC: You've lived in North America and Australia. What's your take on the difference in their "comic book scenes"?

JF: Access.

In the States you have easy access to editors from dozens of comics publishers, dozens of conventions and trade shows every year. You can get out and meet people and network, you can find an audience for your work if you hit the road.

In Australia, everything is local. The scene is going a bit more national now, thanks to the internet, but our cities are so geographically remote that even that is difficult. There's currently one publisher with direct market distribution, one with newsstand distribution, and a few traditional publishers who provide a very small amount of work for the bookstore market, but that's it. These days we have a few options as far as the circuit goes, but that's a very recent thing. Five years ago there was one per year. If you want to seriously do comics, you have to look overseas. Our population is small, and domestic sales are proportionately low. Also, it's hard to get out of the slushpiles without some facetime. Facetime costs thousands of dollars in airfare and accommodation. It's a battle!

I think the spirit is quite similar, amongst creator groups over here and in the US. People are enthusiastic, they want to do the work, they produce excellent work... but it's hard to get seen where it counts. I think there is a lot of hope being put on the digital publishing revolution as a way of leveling the playing field a bit--I am certainly keen.

DC: Sometimes I feel a bit of reluctance to fully embrace the coming "digital revolution" as you put it...but I'm getting over it. What does "digital revolution" mean to you as publisher, writer and fan?

JF: I think this digital revolution is more or less inevitable. They've been threatening for years, but finally I think there's enough publicity and enough devices on the market that consumers and publishers have to take it seriously. Like most people of our generation, I prefer to read books on paper... but the fact is that younger people not only expect to read everything off the screen, they prefer it. For me, as a creator... having an audience is the main thing. I don't care how they want to read my work, so long as they want to read it.

Traditional publishers are panicking, but I think they're finally catching on. For smaller publishers I think it's a great deal--all of those economies of scale, those unbreakable distribution monopolies are destroyed when you go digital. We have the largest possible audience ever and our works are becoming more easily accessible and available than ever before. Creative media will never again be so easy for so few organizations to control. That's exciting as hell, if you ask me.

DC:Thanks so much for all of your time.

JF: My pleasure, Dino. Thanks for having me!


Here are a few websites to check out for updates on Jason's work...
Blackglass Press: http://www.blackglasspress.com/
Jason's blog: http://jasonfranks.livejournal.com/
Jason's site: http://www.jasonfranks.com/

One Page At A Time Interview...Jason Franks, part 1

Jason Franks is a writer, artist, editor and publisher. He has co-created The Sixsmiths, currently available from Slave Labor Graphics...He runs Blackglass Press, which has recently published his McBlack graphic novel and the Kagemono anthologies, and he is a frequent contributor to both prose and comics anthologies. In other words...he's a busy guy!



DC: Did you start reading comics as a kid or was your introduction to the medium later on? Were there any influential creators or stories (either in comics or prose) that made an impression on your young brain?

JF: I had some comics, as a kid, and I loved them, but I wasn't an avid reader of the medium. I had two Spider-Man issues, a Batman, and a Frank Miller issue of Daredevil (I had no idea who he was, but it was my favourite). I had a big pile of Archie digests that a cousin gave me...a dozen or so issues of Mad Magazine. Comics were an occasional treat, but I was a voracious reader of prose, particularly science fiction. I started on Enid Blyton, Captain WE Johns and Lesley Charteris, and before I was finished Primary School I'd discovered Ursula Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, David Brin, Robert Heinlein and Ian Fleming. Le Guin and Zelazny have, in particular, been huge influences. I've reread their major works at several different junctures in my life and I take away something new from them.

I discovered comics late in high school. The appallingly-talented Gregory McKay gave me a Sandman issue to read and I was hooked. That was really my first serious introduction to the medium and for a long time the bulk of my reading came from DC's Vertigo imprint. Sandman was a favourite, quickly joined by Garth Ennis' Hellblazer. When Warren Ellis took over Hellstorm at Marvel, with Leonardo Manco drawing, it was a revelation: it looked and read like something I might have created, if I had the chops. Then Garth started up Preacher and it was all over for me. I was hooked.

DC: I feel the same way about Preacher. I was (and still am) tremendously influenced by the character development and storytelling techniques that Ennis and Dillon used. In particular, I'm fascinated by the non-linear nature of the story (taking a "pause" from the main narrative to flash back in the lives of the key players). I find it to be a beautiful device when it's used well. Whether it's conscious or not, I find those techniques seeping into my work. In your previous answer, you make mention of some iconic storytellers as influences. How does the work of your literary heroes affect and influence your writing, whether it's prose or comics? And...do you think you're conscious of it, or is it something you recognize later on as you're looking back at the work?

JF: I took specific things from all of my old heroes, absolutely.

Zelazny was a big part of my love of cross-genre storytelling, as well as his taste for protagonists who throw out the script.

LeGuin's Earthsea stories disturbed me profoundly. They wear the trappings of quest fantasy, but the quests themselves are a lot more philosophically complex than you see elsewhere in the genre--even considering that these books were written for children. Le Guin's books have this grimly Taoist outlook which I have spent many years trying to unpack in my own work.

Garth Ennis' ear for dialogue made me really attend to that aspect of writing, along with Quentin Tarantino's movies and Elmore Leonard's novels. Even so, I think people underestimate Garth: even when he's phoning it in, his stories are flawless paced for drama, action and particularly comedy, and I can't think of any other comics writer I could say that about. Pick up any given Garth Ennis book and it's a lesson on clear, effective storytelling.

The books I read when I was younger have permeated my writing to the point where I am not always conscious of the influence--often it's not until I reread something that I can see it how it effected me. "Bloody hell, so that's where I got that from!" It's humbling.

My more recent influences are different--since I really started working at being a writer I've found that my reading is a lot slower and more analytical. Nowadays I deliberately deploy tools I've learned from my more recent influences and I can name them quite precisely.

DC: So, when did you know you wanted to be a creator, and what were the first steps you took to set you on the path?

JF: I've wanted to be a writer since I was about six years old. Writing fiction is something I've done for pleasure as long as I've been able to read. I started to really take it serious when I was at University--by which I mean, I started submitting stories to magazines. I sold my first one in 2001. I was always interested in comics, but I wasn't serious about it the way I was with prose. I messed around with the medium a bit, drawing as well as writing, but it wasn't until 2003, when I gave a script to another artist to draw, that it seemed a viable option. I had the basics of good storytelling down, but having to communicate the story to an artist took some work. That first story was bloody difficult, in point of fact. But it paid off: I was bowled over by the pages that came back from the artist, and I got so much good feedback for the story that I started writing more comics, looking for more artists. The bigger my portfolio got the easier it got to find collaborators... and here we are today.

DC: In addition to being a writer, you're also an artist. How do you distinguish between a story that you're writing for yourself to illustrate versus one that's for another artist? Is it based on the length of the project or the subject matter?

JF: I don't think of myself as an artist. I'm a writer first and foremost. I enjoy drawing, but my abilities are quite limited. When all is said and done, I'd rather have my stories drawn by someone awesome than by someone mediocre. I write every day, but I can easily go for months without drawing a page.

I do try to tailor scripts to the artists, if I know who the artist is before I start writing. If I'm writing for myself, my scripts tend to be quite sparse. Working out how to tell the story is exciting and I have to save some of that for the drawing table if I have to take the piece to pencil. This causes me a lot of problems, too--a loose script is easier to wander away from, especially if the going is tough. I try to write stories that I think I will enjoy drawing, but more often than not it feels as if my reach exceeds my grasp.

DC: So, focusing then on scripts that you write for other artists...do you have a typical process that you use for getting to the finished product? For example, do you do a detailed outline first or do you thumbnail the whole thing before moving on to a first draft? Or is it one of those situations where the process may change depending on the story?

JF: It varies a lot, depending on how well I know the artist and how I am approaching a particular story. Sometimes I have page-by-page breakdowns, sometimes I start on page one and work through to the end. Sometimes I write the dialogue like playscript or screenplay and then rejig it into comics, if it's heavy on dialogue or action. I don't always write every scene in the order it will appear in the book.

Often I want to write my way into the characters. For a longer work I'll usually write a dozen pages of script before I'll go to a detailed outline. That said, I usually know how a story will end before I start. Sometimes I have to work my way back to the beginning. I like to have room to improvise on the page.

DC: Interesting point about "writing your way into characters". Is it fair to say that in general, you start with character (instead of starting with plot)?

JF: Generally, yeah, although my characters are often ciphers when I start out. Most of my stories have protagonists who are antiheroes, villains or even monsters, and for me storytelling is very much a process of problem solving. I often know the end of a story before I know the beginning, and a good ending hinges on a particular action. Then I work it backwards--why would somebody behave that way? What kind of person would come to that conclusion? Sometimes it's not until I start putting words in characters' mouths, let them walk around a bit, that I get a good feel for them.

Characters do, quite often, surprise me. There have been several occasions where I didn't figure a character out until after I'd finished the story. Looking back, I'd see a sense in it that I was not aware of as I was writing the story. I know that sounds like a bunch of pretentious writer-bullshit, but it's also true. There is something decidedly schizophrenic about writing fiction, when it's going well.

DC: Is your process any different for short stories versus longer ones? And while we're on the subject...what makes a good short story? Just by its nature, it seems a lot more difficult to focus on character development, mood, atmosphere and such when you've got limited space.

JF: Short stories are really difficult--I think that's why I love them so much. You have to cut brutally to make a short story work in the space constraints, there's no room for showing off. You have to start every scene as late as you can and cut away from it as early as possible. You have to impart just enough information to tell the story in a way that's satisfying.

Structure is key: you're probably not going to get a 3 act story into 6 pages, so you need to work out how to make everything work despite it. You want an action scene? That chews up a lot of space. Action sequences mean that you have to cut even harder. You need to establish character and mood quickly and economically while you tell the story, using whatever means necessary.

Every story is about conflict, on one level or another. Be clear on what that conflict is when you start writing and use it to keep yourself focused as you execute the story. The nature of this conflict may not be apparent as the story progresses, but it should be by the time the story is over.



DC: Sticking with the topic of short stories...you've edited several collections of short stories (Kagemono). Do you have an editorial "style"? And relatedly, in your opinion, what makes a good editor?

JF: Aside from the prerogative of choosing stories that I like, I don't have an editorial 'style'--I think style is something that should be left up to the writer. An editor should be an enabler, not a co-author. I try to fit my level of involvement to individual creators' processes without interfering too much. If a writer needs help cutting a story back, tightening dialog or resolving certain plot points then I'll work with them on that as best I can, but I don't want to be the kind of editor who rewrites other people's work.

If I get a story that needs a lot of rewriting I will either reject it or, if it has potential, I'll ask for another draft based on some broad observations. The most frequent problems I see are writers asking for too many panels or cramming in too much dialogue.

Come back next week for the conclusion of Jason's interview. In the meantime, check out the website for Blackglass Press right here: http://www.blackglasspress.com/