The excellent artist/writer Garen Ewing has just posted an interview with David O’Connell, discussing his science fiction comic Tozo. As a lifelong science fiction and fantasy reader (as well as comics geek) I particularly enjoyed Garen and David talking about the pleasure of ‘world building’, which is a favourite topic for a lot of SF&F writers and readers (indeed some go so far as to produce seperate guides and histories to their created worlds and fictional cultures which can often be fascinating, a form of alternate history/culture/world creation which existed long before games like Populous and the Sims or virtual communities like Second Life):
“Garen: Was there a story-telling element to the newspapers and magazines you created as a child?
David: Certainly a world-building element, which is something I really enjoy doing, probably more than creating a linear storyline. I’d create news stories about fantasy countries with their own histories – the great thing is that history doesn’t have neat endings, the stories just go on and on through the generations. In that case the ‘story’ is merely a slice of time taken from that history, and left open-ended for the future to write, if that makes sense. I’d also write travel guides to the countries with illustrated sections on their customs, clothes and food.”
(descending into a world within the world of Tozo, (c) David O’Connell)
Now I know that probably sounds pretty geeky to some of you and I’m not going to try and say it isn’t, because it probably is. But an awful lot of us do love the intricate world building component and if a creator constructs a believable society exploring the details of how that world works can be almost as fascinating as the narrative, be it done with great but enormously effective economy (think Ursula Le Guin’s classic Left Hand of Darkness, which paints a picture of a very different, totally believable human society in a very slim book) or in enormously detailed epics (think Peter F Hamilton’s huge – and yet still well paced and engrossing – novels or Tolkien’s fantastical worlds which do come with multiple volumes of fictional histories).
(a glimpse of the wider world of Tozo in this gorgeous-looking scene, (c) David O’Connell)
Garen goes on to talk to David about creating the lovely-looking ligne claire world of Tozo, which is a title I had heard of but must confess I hadn’t read – until now. Thanks to Garen flagging it up there goes another bit of my ever-shrinking free time because I’m really going to have to sit down and have a proper look at Tozo. David also talks about collaborating with Sarah McIntyre (currently doing Verne & Lettuce for the DFC), the small press scene, the European comics market, the use of technology to get stories out there, going about the business of finding a good but affordable printer to make real-world physical copies of the comic and how he approaches creating the strip and its own Tozo wiki which explains more about events and the world its set in. To coin an old Vulcan phrase, its fascinating. You can check out the regularly updated online version of Tozo here and the Tozo Wiki here; the second print comic is due out shortly.
Thu, Sep 4, 2008
Comics and cartoons, Interviews