The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Walrus Comix has an interview up with the very fine Simon Fraser, who has done a lot of work for the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic from The Family to Judge Dredd but is probably best-loved by fans as the co-creator of the swashbuckling Nikolia Dante for 2000AD. Simon discusses his influences (moving through some influential Brit creators like Bolland and McMahon to encountering European work from artists like Bilal), artistic methods and working for 2000AD. I’m also pleased to see Walrus discussing online comics and how creators view them and how they can use them:

(page from Simon Fraser’s Lilly MacKenzie from Act-I-Vate, (c) Simon Fraser)

“I’ve always been very active online, mostly because I’ve moved about so much and lived in so many different countries and cultures it was always important to keep some continuity with my readership and my friends in the industry. I’d only really toyed with the idea of a webcomic up until I moved to Brooklyn last year. I met Dean Haspiel and then the rest of the ACT-I-VATE crew through a mutual friend and hanging out with them really sold me on the idea that webcomics were a really vital and powerful way of self-publishing. Being a print guy I had the usual snobbery about such things, but doing Lilly from week to week has been a real revelation for me. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed making a comic as much as I enjoy making this one.

If you’ve been in the comics industry for a while it becomes obvious that giving up the copyright to your ideas just so you can get work, pretty much sucks. You find yourself, after the initial excitement of being hired has passed, as an interchangeable part on a production-line, servicing other peoples Intellectual Property. Webcomics give you near total autonomy while at the same time a huge distribution reach, it’s very much an artists medium. Working as part of a collective, especially one as eclectic in style as ACT-I-VATE, provides the impetus and the friendly rivalry that you need when you’re not getting paid.”

(Nikolai Dante in the sex issue of 2000AD – Nikolai being such a shy retiring type of chap is obviously mortified at the dancer’s gyrations. Art by Simon Fraser from a 2000AD cover, borrowed from his site)

Regular readers will know that Act-I-Vate (where the link to this interview came from in the first place) is one of my personal favourite webcomic destinations and I love the fact that it is a group of very different creators offering a diverse number of strips, often playing with conventions and techniques in a way the might not be able to do in a print comic. And of course there is a chance for a creator to attract new readers too – I came to the site via reading the online version of Shooting War and discovering the artist for that, Dan Goldman, had work on this collective, which in turn introduced me to the other creators’ work on the site. I’m sure that’s a similar pattern for a number of readers and that, for example, fans of Simon’s outstanding print work would go to have a look at his online material and in the process find a whole bunch of other creators on the site, some of whom they will never have read before.

It’s not just a good way for creators to experiment and get new work read, it’s a good way for readers to expand their horizons, trying out new styles, creators and material they might never normally pick up in print. And as your reading horizons expand and tastes become more varied then hopefully that feeds back into the print side of the business and readers will be not only more willing but actually enthusiastic about exploring different material in print, which could only be a good thing surely? Meanwhile you can read Simon’s Lilly MacKenzie Act-I-Vate strip from the beginning here. And since we’re talking about Act-I-Vate, there’s a brand-new strip beginning today in the form of the Black Chamber by Rob Schamberger, which boasts some bloody superb-looking artwork which looks like monochrome watercolour paint, but which Rob says is actually ink and watered down ink. However he did it, I think the effect is gorgeous and I’m going to have to keep an eye on this strip.

(page from the opening of Rob Schamberger’s Black Chamber on Act-I-Vate. How lovely and atmospheric is this artwork? I think this just helps prove my point about readers finding some brilliant material online)