In part two (click here if you missed part one) of SBC’s interview (conducted in mid-August 2003) with the man of many talents, Richard Starkings, we discuss Hip Flask: Elephantman, Waste LA by Bill O'Neil & John 'JG' Roshell (in fact getting the vital data from Roshell himself). This second part also maps out the path forward for many of Starkings’ and Comicraft’s projects and related interests.
Tim O’Shea: You recently released Hip Flask: Elephantman. What other plans do you have for Hip Flask in 2003 and beyond?
Richard Starkings: Ladronn and I have pretty much accepted by now that Hip Flask is a book we'll be lucky to publish once a year. Ladronn is pouring so much attention into every detail that I can't really complain. But this does mean that the upcoming four issue series will take four more years to complete! Meantime we've put together the beautiful oversized hardcover 'widescreen' edition of Unnatural Selection for the European market and the US edition is currently available -- as regular and limited editions -- on our website. The regular edition hits stores in September.
TO: What's the greatest satisfaction you gain from working with folks like Ladronn?
RS: The most important element of any working relationship is respect.
I doubt that Ladronn would be working with me on Hip Flask if I hadn't earned his respect working closely with him on Cable, The Fantastic Four, Thor and The Inhumans. So far we've created three different 'Ladronn' fonts which we use to letter his work, and we worked from Ladronn's designs for the logo and titles of The Inhumans series. Unfortunately, Marvel didn't always show Ladronn the same measure of respect and after three issues of The Inhumans he was unceremoniously dropped in favor of an artist who was able to crank out the art for the last issue at a faster rate. Ladronn had reluctantly accepted his dismissal from Cable a year earlier, but his ejection from a mini-series was an insult too great for him to bear.
When I approached Ladronn with Hip Flask, I assured him I'd work with him to ensure that his work would be presented exactly as he wished. To date, I've kept that promise. So really, being true to my word is the greatest satisfaction. Ladronn has taken such a long time over the work that some of my colleagues have called me 'an enabler,' as if I'm a drug pusher assuring a junkie of his next fix. Of course, if I have enabled him to do the work which he himself calls the work of his life, then I'll take that as a compliment. Rome wasn't built in a day.
TO: What can you tell folks about Waste LA by Bill O'Neil & John 'JG' Roshell and David Hine's Strange Embrace?
RS: It's best if JG tells you the story behind Waste LA.
John 'JG' Roshell: Bill was a friend of mine whom Richard hired as the second full-time Comicraft employee. He was always keeping us entertained with wild stories while we worked, and one morning he walked in and told us about this crazy dream he'd had about a guy in a trenchcoat and fedora with a snake up his sleeve. At the same time, I was becoming fascinated with the scummier "backside" of Los Angeles, noticing how the city puts on a really pretty face, but behind that it's really run down and neglected. I was taking a lot of photos of the really dumpy, unseemly parts of Hollywood near where I lived, which included, ironically, some of the city's most beautiful graffiti art.
So we decided to combine our two ideas, and tell a story about this lonely nobody in L.A. who was tormented by dreams of a past he couldn't remember. After drawing one page, I realized I was much more confident with Photoshop than with a pen and brush, so I decided to tell the story with photos, digitally compositing friends and family as "actors" into locations I had already photographed.
At the time, there was a real self-publishing boom going on, and with the success (and helpful advice) of creators like David Lapham, Terry Moore, Jeff Smith, Brian Bendis and Dave Sim, it seemed that self-publishing was about the coolest way to make a living in the comics industry. However I was a little too late to catch the wave, because in 1996 the comics market took a huge dive, stores were closing left and right, and the ones that remained open weren't taking chances on unproven material.
Producing and publishing the comic took an enormous amount of time and energy (in between working full time for Comicraft as well), and I just barely managed to complete the five-issue story before running out of money and steam. The Limited Edition we just released comprises the final 150 complete sets that I still had stocked away, along with a brand new signed and numbered print. Plenty of digitally composed photographic comics have come and gone since then, and it's been fun to look back and realize I was the first to try something completely new.
RS: Strange Embrace is a project which was funded originally by Kevin Eastman and published by Tundra UK. When it first appeared in stores in 1992, as a mini series, I picked it up based on the fact that Dave Hine had worked for me as an inker back when I was an editor at Marvel UK. To my great surprise, Dave created one of the most original, intriguing and disturbing comic books I'd ever read and I had eagerly awaited a trade paperback collection for years -- to no avail. So I got in touch with Dave and offered to publish the book again, as a collection. Dave sent me all 200 pages of the artwork almost immediately -- and now, just a week or two after the Strange Embrace trade appeared in stores, there's already some interest in Hollywood -- as damn well there should be! If you want to know more about Dave Hine and the background behind the book, check out the interview with him we posted on ActiveImages.com. Just follow the Strange Embrace links!
JG: I love working on that book, and have had dozens of ideas kicking around over the years for potential AC websites, most based on the presumption that Astro City is a real place, that would have all sorts of real websites related to different aspects of the stories Kurt and Brent tell. Unfortunately, it was always a project that had to be pushed aside for actual, you know, paying work. With the recent relaunch of the series, I decided to just go for it, and one evening while the wife was out with friends and the kid was asleep, sat down and created a site for the "Astro City Rocket". With Kurt's approval, it was up within a week.
The Rocket is the Astro City newspaper, which Kurt often places in the comic to give background info on a character, or provide tangential details without slowing the story down with a bunch of captions or dialogue. He writes these long newspaper articles, from which I use as much or as little as I need to fill up the visible columns of the paper. As a result, there's usually lots left over, and I figured AC fans would enjoy getting to read those "articles" in their entirety. I have a bunch more archived articles that will eventually appear on the Rocket homepage.
It was also fun to set up the discussion board as "Bruiser's Bar & Grill", a location in the "Confession" storyline that is a hangout for superheroes, and create a homepage for "Herocopia.com", an imaginary website in issue #3 that is now not so imaginary.
TO: Is there anything you'd like to discuss about your myriad projects and entities that I may have not asked?
RS: We're putting together Tim Sale: Black and White, a hardcover art book featuring an extensive interview with Tim and sketches and art from his twenty-five year long career. We've been putting together websites for Tim and J Scott Campbell, which should be ready for launch soon.
There are also a couple of other trades and original projects featuring some high profile British creators that are still in the discussion stage right now. But hopefully, in a year or two, more people like you will be asking me the question I was confronted with by a customer at our Hip Flask booth last year: "Are you Richard Starkings....? Hey, didn't you use to letter comic books?"
