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Thursday, September 9, 2010
TRUE BRIT!
An interview with Richard Starkings
With the imminent and eagerly-awaited arrival of a new issue of Active Images' Hip Flask in comic stores, it seemed like as good a time as any to talk to one of our most successful comics exports, letterer and publisher Richard Starkings. I've known Richard for more years than either of us care to remember. He kindly lettered some spoof "Captain Britain" and "Transformers" strips I wrote for a British fanzine I also published in the 1980s. Back then, he was sharing a house with artist Kev " Iron Man " Hopgood in North London and on the occasions I crashed there after a comics event, it was always Richard who was still at work late into the night, lettering some strip or other for Marvel UK. To my eternal thanks, it was Richard who got me a freelance job as designer on "Doctor Who Magazine" that led to my (generally) happy career in magazine and comics publishing.
Like many other British creators, I owe him a great deal, and it's great to see the growing success of his publishing company in the US.
Richard Starkings learned the ropes of comic book production at Marvel UK in London. Moving to California in 1989 he worked with Graphitti Designs in Anaheim for two years before founding the Comicraft studio with John ‘JG' Roshell in 1992. Together they revolutionized the art of comic book lettering & design -- introducing US publishers to the practice of digital lettering which is now the industry standard. With Roshell, Starkings authored the book "Comic Book Lettering The Comicraft Way" and is the creator of the critically acclaimed comic book, "Hip Flask", which debuted in July 2002, illustrated by the Mexican born artist Ladronn.
Since 2002, Comicraft's publishing arm, Active Images, has expanded its publishing operations and will have more than ten trade paperbacks on its backlist by the end of this year. Comicraft's font catalog, which lists more than a hundred unique font families, is the biggest library of comic book fonts available online, or anywhere for that matter...
The third issue of "Hip Flask" hits stores in July this summer. Two years after the second...!
John Freeman: Richard, what can we expect in this latest issue of "Hip Flask"?
Richard Starkings: Anyone who's been following the story will see it finally kick into high gear. This issue, "Hip Flask: Mystery City" is actually the beginning of the story I conceived some seven or eight years ago -- "The Big Here and the Long Now". The first two issues were intended as a three-page ashcan ("Unnatural Selection") followed by an eight-page prologue which we had hoped to offer to "Wizard" ("Elephantmen"). Ladronn and I kept adding bits and they developed into more than 50 pages of set up!
John Freeman: Several people have noted the long intervals between issues -- has it been a problem for you commercially? Or did you know from the outset the book would appear so infrequently?
Richard: It must be frustrating for readers of the series to wait a year -- or this issue, two years -- between issues. I remember waiting for issue #9 of "Camelot 3000" and issue #4 of "Dark Knight Returns" for what seemed like eons... But nowadays people have forgotten that the last two issues of "Dark Knight" missed their ship dates because the work was worth the wait. I think the same is true of Ladronn's incredible art -- and let's not forget that he pencils, inks and paints it all himself, not like that slacker Frank Miller who only wrote and penciled "Dark Knight"!
That said, I had no idea that Ladronn would labor so long on "Hip Flask". I had grown accustomed to his monthly schedule on "Cable" and even his three issues of "Inhumans" (pencils and inks) only took him six months. So, no, I had no idea initially, that we'd be an annual event, but I have no intention of rushing Ladronn, given the beautiful work he produces.
John Freeman: How far ahead have you plotted the book?
Richard: The basic framework of the story has remained the same for six years. Ladronn has the next script but I've not yet written the last one, issue #5. I like to wait to see if Ladronn puts anything in the previous issue that might need following up before pacing out the next episode. For example -- Nikken was originally only in two panels of the Ashcan and now he's in almost every issue! That was something unexpected yet welcome that grew out of Ladronn's interest in the origin of the Elephantmen.
When will you be collecting the first issues?
The first issue, and 11 pages of the second are already in a hardcover collection available at all good comic book stores and Amazon.com. The story has been designed to fit five US comics and three European style albums. We're available in hardcover editions in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, and the second volume, which will collect the rest of "Elephantmen" and all of "Mystery City", should be available this time next year.
I don't intend to collect them into trade paperback until the whole story has been made available in hardcovers. It just doesn't seem fair. Waiting for the trade is killing comics! I love comics -- I love the serial nature of them, the title pages, the subplots, the cliffhangers, even the multiple covers! Even thought balloons!
John Freeman: How did you and Ladronn come to be working together on this?
Richard: Joe Casey was eager to make his collaboration with Ladronn on "Cable" stand out, so he put us in touch and we created a very European looking font for the book, based on Ladronn's own handwriting. Ladronn was very happy about this and offered to create a pinup of Hip Flask for me by way of thanks. The final drawing he presented to me really nailed the character as I saw him. A few months later, I asked him if he'd be interested in drawing the mini-series I had in mind, which Ian Churchill had actually been working on a page at a time here and there.
Ironically, Ian was no longer available because he had signed up to work at Marvel with Joe Casey on "Uncanny X-Men". Ladronn and I set to work on "Hip Flask" shortly after Marvel fired him off the last issue of "The Inhumans" series he was drawing.
I should add that I had been pestering my friends Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale to create a creator-owned title of their own for a couple of years and had even gone so far as to suggest a title -- "Mystery City". But Jeph and Tim were constantly being signed to exclusives at either Marvel or DC and even though they liked the idea in concept, they couldn't seem to make the time to even talk about it. I felt sure that a Loeb/Sale book would be a hit even without a mainstream super hero. Then one day I realized that rather than encourage my colleagues to create their own book, I should be creating MY own book.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I called Ladronn and asked him if he was serious about drawing "Hip Flask" for me and he said yes. I'm still waiting for that Loeb/Sale series...
John: The central character of "Hip Flask" is a hippopotamus. If you had pitched the idea for such a character to Marvel or DC, do you think they would have bought it?
Richard: Absolutely not. Many professionals couldn't believe what I saw in the character -- Jim Lee, Jeph Loeb, Rob Liefeld, Scott Lobdell all pretty much patted me on the head and humored me! Ladronn was the first creator I came across that understood that the character could come to life if we handled him right. Even so, it would never have occurred to me to pitch Hip to Marvel or DC, I just don't respond well to editorial involvement. I considered Image briefly but some of my friends were having a rough time there so I decided that self-publishing was the only solution. Had I thought of the character 15 years ago, I might have wondered if [the British SF comic] "2000AD" would be interested .
John: Did you have any idea, 15 years ago, when you left Marvel UK , that you'd end up in California running a lettering business?
Richard: Only inasmuch as I knew that I wanted to continue to work in comics. When I moved from London to New York, it seemed highly probable that I'd land a job in editorial at Marvel there. Mark Gruenwald, who I knew and liked (and somewhat resembled!) was eager to get me on staff but I needed a work permit of some kind, which I didn't have. Marvel UK's former managing director, Robert Sutherland, also talked to me briefly about editing for Marvel UK freelance so that I could continue to develop "The Sleeze Brothers" with John Carnell and Andy Lanning. Of course, that never happened either.
I got by lettering books for Greg Wright, editor of "Nick Fury" and "Marvel Spotlight" and writer of "Deathlok" at the time. When friends in Los Angeles convinced me to digitize my lettering style, Greg was the first editor to embrace it.
I "ended up" running a lettering business because our workload snowballed. I like to think it did so because of the high quality of our work, but the cynical side of me believes that our fast turnaround had more to do with it. I was probably one of the first letterers to work with a credited studio of assistants, and being able to letter 22 pages in half a day was practically unheard of ten years ago.
John: What's your fondest memory of Marvel UK?
Richard: Hmmm... The pretty girls? Yes, definitely the pretty girls -- but I also just loved working with so many different artists and writers on so many different titles -- "Action Force", "Transformers", "Thundercats", "Zoids", "Doctor Who", "Death's Head" and "Dragon Claws". When I left, I didn't realize how much I would miss being so involved in so many stories, and I definitely think I hungrily expanded Comicraft to recreate that sense of involvement -- I wanted to recreate the creative environment I'd enjoyed at Marvel UK.
I must add that I particularly enjoyed working with writer John Carnell and artist Andy Lanning on "The Real Ghostbusters" [Some of Marvel UK's "Real Ghostbusters" will be re-published by UK publisher Titan Books in October -- John]. That was a magical time -- "The Real Ghostbusters" was the first licensed comic I put together from scratch.
It featured more pages of original story than any other title Marvel UK was publishing, I introduced new talent and the collaborations with John and Andy spawned "The Sleeze Brothers".
As I hinted at earlier, when the fate of the Marvel UK/Epic book " The Sleeze Brothers" was briefly up in the air back in 1989, I spoke with John Carnell and his wife about setting up a company, by the name of Sleeze Inc (!), specifically to publish " The Sleeze Brothers" should Marvel UK decide to drop it. I had been very closely involved with " The Sleeze Brothers" and really wanted to see it succeed, but by the end of the year I had relocated to California via New York, and Marvel UK had published " The Sleeze Brothers" for six issues, to very little fanfare, and then dropped it.
John and I got caught up in making a living and the opportunity passed us by. He and I still talk about bringing " The Sleeze Brothers" back at some point -- the rights have reverted back to John and Andy now -- and it is a project I'd love to revive when the planets are in the right alignment once again.
John: Is there anything you learnt from your time at Marvel that set you up for how you operate today?
Richard: It's immeasurable really. I learned a lot about storytelling, selling comics, distribution and contracts and everything in between. Plus, anyone who remembers working with that old repro camera, or who has separated pages mechanically with rubylith and a scalpel --we have to call them X-acto blades over here -- has a completely different sense of the wonders offered by the Macintosh computer. Even though I wouldn't want to paste up editorial pages for "Secret Wars" ever again, it was nice to work in such a way that taught me to appreciate all the things I've been able to forget, like casting off type, working with hot wax and cleaning the trays that we used to develop bromide sheets.
John: Was there a particular company model or ethic you emulated in the creation of Comicraft?
Richard: I had read various books about Tintin's creator, Hergé, and was surprised to learn that he had taken on various advertising and graphic design assignments in order to help fund the studio that created the Tintin albums with him. Of course, this made perfect sense to me and very early on I saw Comicraft as a way of building a studio which might one day be able to produce comics of its own. I also knew that building a studio would be an interesting way of developing the skills and abilities I'd acquired at Marvel UK and Graphitti Designs.
I'll happily admit that when I lived in Venice Beach in the early 1990s eking out a living scratching letters in ink onto sheets of vellum over bad photocopies of comic book pages -- ah, those heady days of 'hand' lettering -- I would listen to Anthony Robbins Personal Power tapes. Once you get past your suspicion that Robbins wants you to believe that "Greed is Good," he has a lot of interesting stuff to say. As I sat at my drawing board yelling at him that it was impossible for me to earn more without lettering more, I would also listen carefully to his ideas regarding role-modeling.
As a Buddhist (and, um, fan of "Star Wars") I was well aware of the power of the mentor and disciple relationship, but up until that point I hadn't considered the possibility of picking a mentor who I had not only never met, but could never hope to, because Hergé had passed away ten years earlier.
John: How did you go about setting up Active Images after your time as a freelance letterer and what was the most difficult thing about doing that as a non-native in the USA?
Richard: I never felt that I was a "freelance letterer" for long -- once Comicraft was operating out of studio space in downtown Santa Monica, I felt that I was working for Comicraft. I was on payroll just like everyone else that worked with me. Consequently "setting up" Active Images was a natural progression.
I basically had to establish Active Images as an entity that could exist separately from Comicraft and thereby be the home for the intellectual property -- the font software -- we created for Comicraft. In the mid-1990s Marvel expressed a passing interest in actually buying the studio to serve as a lettering department, much as they had bought Malibu Comics to serve as a coloring house. Marvel's interest came to naught but we created a separate company so that prospective buyers who were interested in Comicraft as a production house couldn't also lay claim to the fonts we'd created.
John Freeman: What's been the biggest success story for AI?
Richard: Well, that would have to be the catalog of comic book fonts, without which there'd be no "Hip Flask", much less "Brickman Begins", "Strange Embrace" or "Comic Book Lettering The Comicraft Way".
We built comicbookfonts.com as a safety net, because I knew that once companies like Marvel, DC and Dark Horse figured out how to letter books inhouse for less money they would, and if they were going to buy fonts to make that happen, I decided they should at least be buying them from Comicraft. The continuing success of the font catalog has allowed me to invest in the book publishing side of the business.
As for the books themselves, well, "Strange Embrace", "The Spiral Cage" and "Comic Book Lettering The Comicraft Way" have been selling incredibly well through direct sale stores and on Amazon.com, and even though we only publish ""Hip Flask" once a year, we've moved more than 23,000 copies of the first issue through comic book stores and now more than 15,000 copies of the second issue, with orders still coming in on both. "Tim Sale: Black And White" was the first book we published that paid for itself out of the gate, insomuch as orders through Diamond, FM and Bud Plant covered the high cost of printing it.
John: Now you're publishing comics as well as lettering them. Was that always the plan?
Richard: I like the idea of a plan. I admire people who have a plan. But if I hadn't quit my job at Marvel UK on an impulse and jumped on the next plane to the States in pursuit of my girlfriend at the time, I might not have a Green Card right now. By the same token, if I had created a plan to publish comics, I'd probably be flipping burgers somewhere. Like you, I've never found the concept of self-publishing intimidating, having published a number of fanzines in my teens. Yes, yes, "Doctor Who" fanzines, I'm not ashamed!
If I was only publishing "Hip Flask", you probably wouldn't think of me as a publisher. Oddly enough, it's pretty much because of "Hip Flask", and specifically the long intervals between issues of which we have spoken, that I decided to publish other people's work. That and a chance phonecall to fellow Buddhist, Al Davison, who was looking for a new home for his acclaimed autobiographical comic, "The Spiral Cage". On a whim, I offered to publish it for him, figuring it was black and white and I'd already gone through the tedious business of establishing credit at Quebecor and setting up an account at Diamond -- printing a black and white book which was already drawn was the easy bit!
John: You've published the work of a number of other British creators -- Dave Hine, Lew Stringer, Glenn Dakin -- is there a particular reason for this and have you found a market for such projects in the US?
Richard: Yes and No. I approached Dave, Glenn and Lew -- and Ed 'Ilya' Hillyer, another Brit who created the book "Skidmarks" -- primarily because I knew and loved their work. I made the call to Dave Hine pretty soon after I had spoken to Al, and Dave was very receptive to the idea of putting "Strange Embrace" into trade paperback simply because it had never been collected since its appearance as a Tundra UK title in 1991 or '92. Dave and I had worked together on "Zoids" and, ahem, "Care Bears", way back in the Marvel UK days, and had always got along well. I didn't know Glenn and Ed very well, but they had worked on "The Real Ghostbusters" for Helen Stone who was my assistant editor for a year or so and went on to edit the book after me. Lew was a mainstay at Marvel UK, I loved his strips in "Transformers" and "Action Force" and I always thought that it was a shame that his superhero satire "Brickman" had never been collected.
The rationale behind pretty much all the trade paperbacks in our line was the fact that I wanted a copy on my bookshelf! The most successful trades have been "Strange Embrace" and "The Spiral Cage" -- the first two out of the paddock. I always thought that Al's autobiographical "The Spiral Cage" was a hard sell, but it's sold strongly every time I've re-solicited it and continues to perform quite well on Amazon. Dave's newfound fame with Marvel's "District X" has helped "Strange Embrace", but not as much as I had hoped.
John: What's the appeal of books like "Brickman Begins" -- which is very British in its humor -- to an American comic reader? Is there a big "Anglophile" market in the US?
Richard: If there was, then obviously I'd be cleaning up! Lew and I deliberately pitched the "Brickman Begins" collection as a parody of the forthcoming Warner Brothers film which, funnily enough, has a very similar name. Hence the Scaredy Crow prologue.
But humour is still a very hard sell -- just ask Sergio Aragones, who's the master of comic book humour and still can't sell many books. Although many American comic book readers claim to be Anglophiles, what they mean is that they like it when Alan Moore writes "Superman" and Neil Gaiman revives "Sandman". Top Shelf publisher Chris Staros has lamented to me that, in his estimation, Americans like to obsess over One Thing. If they latch on to super heroes then super heroes become their thing. If they latch on to "Star Wars" then they're "Star Wars" fans for life. That becomes their thing. If it's "Lord of the Rings", then that becomes their thing. If it's Alan Moore, then Alan Moore is their thing.
When he attends shows in Europe, Chris tells me that he's always gratified that comic book readers turn out to be much more broadminded. They like super heroes but they're also interested in "Star Wars" "Blankets", Cerebus" and maybe even "Hip Flask"! My own observations are pretty much in accord with Chris's. I've frequently encouraged friends who want to get established and succeed in the biz to pitch books featuring solitary characters with some kind of superhuman or supernatural ability that has legs as the premise for a series."Sandman", "Preacher", "Hellboy", "The Last Man" -- these are the titles American comic book fans are interested in reading. Yes, cities are good too -- "Sin City", "Astro City" and, ahem "Mystery City". But I bet Kurt Busiek gets fed up of being asked why there isn't a "Samaritan" ongoing series, and most retailers and comic book fans would prefer it if Miller wrote "Batman" and "Superman" for the rest of his life.
John: You've seen plenty of changes in the comics industry in the last 20 years -- what do you see as the top three things that have changed it significantly?
Richard: The key change is that 20 years ago way more kids were reading comic books. When I say "kids", I don't just mean the 8 to 12 year olds we were told to target at Marvel UK with titles like "Action Force" and "Transformers". I also mean the 12-18 year olds who bought "2000AD" in the 1980s -- or the Image books and numerous "X-Men" titles in the early 1990s.
When I go to a comic book store -- and admittedly the stores I go to are close to a lot of TV, movie or animation studios, so it's not your typical clientele -- the people I see there are mostly men aged 30-50. I rarely see kids any more, and even the customers buying toys are collectors, not children who are actually going to play with those toys.
The other change I see, which I believe contributes to the first problem, is that mainstream comics are totally dominated by fans-turned-pros. If you're entering an industry dominated by super heroes and you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of those super heroes then most likely you're going to write comics that appeal only to other people who have an encyclopaedic knowledge of super heroes!
The creators I looked up to in the 1970s were exceptionally talented artists like Frank Hampson, Frank Bellamy, Mike Noble and Martin Asbury and writers like John Wagner and Pat Mills. These guys were incredible craftsmen, and they created incredibly beautiful work, but you never got the impression that they were "fannish," and I think that was A Very Good Thing.
You shouldn't have to have read hundreds of issues of "The Avengers" or "The Fantastic Four" to write good comics, and your career in comics should depend on your creativity and originality, not your willingness to revive "Man-Thing" or "Superboy".
John: And what do you think will be the next major change -- or is it already happening?
I think the next major change is that kids will start -- and, yes, they HAVE started -- reading comics again! The chief appeal of manga is its accessibility to children of both sexes and of all ages. You generally don't need to collect hundreds of comics to have a complete collection, the characters are young and fresh and have their whole continuities ahead of them and parents don't understand them. I certainly don't 'get' "Shonen Jump", or have a desire to read it. I fell asleep during the "Yu Gi Oh" movie, but my three kids were gripped.
The fact that most Japanese comics -- and Japanese-style comics -- are in black and white kills the myth that kids will only read color comics. I never understood that -- I loved the British titles "Mighty World of Marvel" and "2000AD" when they were in black and white -- because the characters were young and fresh and had their whole continuities ahead of them... How about that?!
The other major change I foresee, is that manga will become the new mainstream and will inspire a whole new wave of talent, raised on manga rather than Marvel comics. More fans-turned-pros, I guess, but at least they'll have been looking at more recently minted material for their inspiration.
John: Back in the UK, the adventure comics market is all but dead. Why do you think that's happened?
Richard: Well, from what I gather, the distributors have squeezed adventure comics out of the market because they're more interested in comics that can be marketed to parents. I daresay that "2000AD"'s evolution from being a shoot-'em-up sci-fi kids' comic in black and white for 8p to being a sexy, ultra-violent, weekly version of "Heavy Metal" that sells for £1.75 -- Nearly TWO QUID ($3.70)! -- has hurt the adventure comics market amongst buyers. You may not have the WAL*MART mentality which acts as the Christian militia's arbiter of taste over here, but the management boards of Tesco supermarkets and the W.H. Smiths newsagents chain probably aspire to be as powerful as the management boards of WAL*MART.
John: Is there any chance do you think that a company will bring back either girls or boys comics?
Richard: Yes. Girls ARE reading comics again -- Japanese comics about boyfriends and fantasy heroines with wings.
John: Do you think the licensed comics such as "Transformers" and "The Real Ghostbusters" Marvel UK made such a success are a contributory factor to the death of the weekly comics?
Richard: I don't think there's anything wrong with a license. Even though it's public domain, Steve Skroce's "Doc Frankenstein" book is effectively a license. But it's done well, reads well and it's a lot of fun. Simon Furman's affection for Marvel UK's "Transformers" title kept it compelling for much longer than one might expect for a comic based on a toy -- and he continued his storyline in the US titles. Comics done well will always find their audience.
All the doom and gloom you hear on both sides of the Atlantic tends to issue from the mouths of old farts like you and me who have forgotten how to create comics for kids or never knew how in the first place.
John: would you say is your proudest professional achievement in the past few years?
Richard: Holding the first issue of "Hip Flask" in my hands was a great moment, but most of all I'm proud of my ability to adapt and constantly move forward in an industry that's all about throwing obstacles up against you.
Making the transition from working in comics on staff in the UK to making a decent living as a freelancer in the US was by no means easy and I'm not really sure how I managed it -- I never work with a plan, remember? -- but I'm glad I did, and I'm happy to have been able to lend a hand to my friends in the UK by bringing their work back into print.
John: And your proudest personal moment?
Richard: Well, that would be three moments -- holding each of my children in my hands for the first time -- and, of course, trying to raise them right thereafter. It makes working in comics look easy!
John: If you have one piece of advice for an aspiring comics creator what would it be?
Run away!
And seriously?
Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw! Draw!
And Draw some more!
Richard thank you very much for your time.
MEANWHILE, IN THE UK…
• Over 2000 comics fans attended the latest Comic Expo festival over two days in Bristol, attendance well up on last year, an event marked by the launch of artist Liam Sharp's Mam Tor Publishing with an anthology featuring the work of numerous British creators; and a sneak preview of the new UK comics characters revival from Wildstorm, "Albion", Plotted by Alan Moore, scripted by daughter Leah and John Reppion and drawn by Shane Oakley, there's a lot of excitement about the book here. You could try checking out e-bay for a limited edition ash can of the first issue -- only 479 were given away at the event and only 500 have been printed!
• The Expo also featured some fantastic indie work, including a new graphic novel "Angel Fire" from comics veterans Chris Blythe and Steve Parkhouse; "Brodie's Law" from Pulp Theatre Entertainment, written by Alan Grant; and much more. There's an incredible amount of small press in the UK but print runs are minimal - some creators print just 50 copies at a time. Other titles to watch out for are Carl Critchow's hilarious sword and sorcery satire "Thrud the Barbarian", "Zarjaz", a revived "2000AD" fanzine featuring the stunning art of David Gray. Watch out for this guy I have a feeling he's going to be huge.
• Weekly soccer comic "Striker" breathed its last earlier this month with #87: despite a loyal fan base the title couldn't weather declining sales thanks to the way news stand distribution is steeped heavily against smaller publishers here (see separate story here)
• And finally -- if you're curious to find out what I'm writing these days, cartonist Michael Jantze has just featured "The Really Heavy Greatcoat", a humor strip I've been writing for some 17 years, in the latest issue of "The Norm", the highly acclaimed, formerly syndicated comic strip now published online at http://www.thenorm.com. You can order copies of Issue 8 of "The Norm" directly here.
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April 22, 2008:
February 4, 2008:
November 20, 2006:
A Comic-Con without the Captain
