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Interview of Robert Gavila, Crossover Comics Interviewer: Gerhard
G: “Nisha” is a very ambitious work—the first issue is 42 pages long!—considering that your previous works had been self-contained mini-comics what made you decide to do something this long and complicated? Presumably, as a four-issue mini-series you’re looking at a 160 pages or more story.
RG: This is a great question because it highlights the core problem I am now facing. I began this project with the idea that I would commit myself to a long story with a format and style that would allow me to work quickly. The story was brewing inside me; I knew what I wanted to say through the title character and I had a firm idea of various key story points throughout the entire story. I also had the not-so-bright idea of selecting a custom drawing page size that would allow me to work quickly: I believed that by drawing in a smaller than standard original page size that I would be able to finish the story in about two years. The size I decided to use was 8 inches by 12 and a half inches. This, as it turns out, was a mistake.
After the first sixteen pages (pages 1 through15, and page 18) I realized that I was driving myself crazy, trying to achieve the level of detail I wanted in that size. So I switched drawing sizes. I selected an 11 inches by 16 2/3 inches format. When that turned out to be too large, I changed to the standard 10 inches by 15 inches size. And, of course, with these larger drawing sizes my schedule went out of whack.
My biggest miscalculation was that I didn’t count on my compulsive lack of quality control—and by this I mean keeping the quality of the art consistent with my goal of telling a story quickly. My fascination with the craft of pen and ink work led me to invest greater and greater amounts of time and effort into creating more detailed backgrounds and more articulate lines. What should have taken only two years is now in its sixth year! I keep looking for ways to work better and smarter, but I’m not willing to compromise on the quality of the art work. I’m not saying I draw well—far from it—but I am trying to draw the very best I can.
Now, why “something this long and complicated” after so many minis? I’ll have to go back to my youth to explain that. As a kid growing up I loved comic books; I used to write and draw my own pseudo-Marvel stories with characters named after people I knew—really corny stuff, but it was a good channel for my hyperactivity and imagination. I kept up this hobby until I was about 16 and then I switched to studying music, the guitar in particular. I was generally disinterested in comics then because of the way comics were being produced. This was the late 60s. Marvel titles, in my humble opinion, were committing a compound crime of producing formulaic and increasingly expensive comic-books. When the price of a comic jumped to 25 cents, I was out. Fast forward now to 1992: I was 41 years old, going to college nights and working as an accountant in a pharmaceutical company. I decided one day—very impulsively and out of character for me—to take a quick look at what was going on in the comic-book industry. I liked what I saw: Mark Schultz’ “Cadillacs and Dinosaurs” blew me away. You can imagine what happened next: I began writing and drawing again, this time for my local church. After a few years, this story—the Nisha story—came to me. I imagined a story about somebody who is gifted in one specific way, and how that gift would impact her life. By why should I devote myself to an epic (by my standards) story line? My reasoning was “What if I had begun a completely original story back when I was sixteen? Wouldn’t I have easily finished it a long time ago?” I know that sounds a little silly, so let’s just say that the advantage of reaching your forties is that since every year takes a proportionately smaller part of my whole life, it seems more reasonable to take a long term perspective on a hobby-based project.
And really, check out how long novelists take to finish their first books: it is not so extraordinary to find hopeful writers typing away late nights for five years or more before they complete their first major work. It’s the same thing for me, except I have the advantage of putting out my book in four sections and learning from that whole printing, promoting, and distribution experience as each issue is completed.
G: The story seems to take place on the borderland between Conspiracy Theory literature and What If Super-Heroes Actually Existed literature. Do you see Conspiracy Theory as having a validity that should be examined or do you just consider it a good jumping-off point for a comic-book story? Also, who do you think has been the most successful in depicting a world where super-heroes actually exist?
RG: Definitely, I favor Conspiracy Theory (CT) as a jumping off point for an entertaining comic-book story. I’m not certain what you mean by “Conspiracy Theory as having a validity that should be examined”. If you’re asking whether I believe that a character like Nisha could have existed, the answer is certainly in the negative. However, my Nisha story is based on reported facts.
I can thank the New York Sunday Times and the CIA for the initial premise of my Nisha story. Back when I was a kid, reading through various parts of the Sunday Daily News and NY Times that my father would heap onto the dining room table, I came across an interesting article. Apparently, the Soviet Union had just announced that they were abandoning their psychic research project, that the results of the project were simply too inconclusive. The article went on to explain how the CIA was very aware of this project and more than a little upset by it. In fact, the CIA and the U.S. Congress strongly suspected that this research project was the cause of President Richard Nixon’s unfavorable wheat deal with the Soviets back in 1972. Specifically, the CIA thought that a team of psychics were planted in a room next to the negotiating room with the goal of scrabbling Richard Nixon’s thoughts. This article was filed away in the back of my mind for the next twenty-five years until I called it up and put it into play in my story. I don’t personally believe that the Soviets were effective at scrambling an American President’s brain with a team of psychics, but it is an engaging jumping off point for a “what-if” story.
It’s funny how you can project (or is it ‘inject’?) CT into almost anything. While reading Richard Reeves’ “President Nixon” (Simon & Shuster, 2001, NY) to get some background material, I was more than a little amused when I read Kissinger’s account of how the President was “kidnapped” by the Soviets during the negotiations. (Reeves: 489). Brezhnev unexpectedly grabbed President Nixon by the arm, scooted him into an elevator and whisked him away in a motorcade out to the countryside. The suspected reasons for these actions were explained in the book, but in the mind of a comic-book writer the question that comes up is “What if they were running away from something. Maybe something—or someone—was getting out of control.”
Speaking of CT in a general sense, I am of the opinion that we cannot presume to know all the relevant facts about any reported event. I found James Bamford’s “Body of Secrets, Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency” to be a fun read for that sort of stuff. In particular, the part where (and I quote) “… the Joint Chiefs of Staff had calmly approved committing acts of terrorism against Americans in order to trick them into supporting a war they wanted against Cuba.” (Bamford: 330). Here I’m referring to Operation Northwoods, where we find that some of the closest advisors to President Kennedy plotted to start a war through treason simply because they were “restless from a decade of peace, (and ) out of touch with reality.” (Bamford: 301) If I made up this stuff, I am certain that I would be widely considered a paranoid kook. Maybe we need Conspiracy Theorists. Maybe they extrapolate some of the remote possibilities that occasionally might be true.
Getting back to your question, the second part, “who do you think has been the most successful in depicting a world where super-heroes actually exist?” I really like Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” as the best of the breed. I picked it up while trying to get reacquainted with comic books. I liked reading about how a superhero got his cape stuck in a revolving door while trying to stop a bank robbery. I wondered how “The Incredibles” got away with stealing so much of the “Watchmen” book. The Congressional hearings and the outlawing of vigilante crime fighters—all of that might have come directly from “Watchmen”! I noticed that Michael Chabon was a consultant for the movie. I think his “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” was absolutely terrific, so I don’t see him in the role of the plagiarist. But somebody was taking more than an occasional peek at that book while putting together “The Incredibles”. Nonetheless, I did love the movie. I want to see it again.
G: How are you finding it getting the story done in combination with what I assume is a very demanding day job? Are you about where you thought you would be, a little behind, a little ahead? What advice would you give to a comic-book creator who is going to try to do the same thing, a long story while keeping up with a full-time job?
RG: It is a difficult thing to be committed to a project like this. One of the most helpful resources I found for managing this project was “The Cerebus Guide to Self Publishing.” In particular, Dave Sim’s advice to consider how we spend our time was very helpful. I was (and still am to a slightly more moderate degree) a movie-junkie. I am still working on recognizing where I am losing time, where I should be more disciplined. Another great resource that helped me get my first issue completed was “The Project Management Book of Knowledge” by the Project Management Institute and the “Project Management Professional Exam Prep” by Rita Mulcahy. Now let me warn you: this is DRY STUFF! I was prompted to read this material by my day job, but I kept seeing in almost every sentence how it fit my comic book hobby. When I set a firm goal to get my first book completed in time for the 2004 SPACE convention, these were the books that helped me manage and complete that project on time and within budget.
But I admit that as far as the whole book goes, I am WAY BEHIND schedule. Can I live with my pace? Yes. I don’t see that I’m moving slowly. Far from it. I’m moving well for the type of quality I am trying to produce. Here’s a little story. I drove from New York to Philadelphia to meet Mark Schultz at the 1993 Comic Book Convention, and when I met him I was surprised to hear him say that he draws so slowly. I told him, “Slowly? No, you work very hard and complete great work in the time it takes.” He shrugged. It meant the same thing to him: he still couldn’t produce the work fast enough to make a living at it. But I take artists to task for that attitude. If doing something else to make some money allows you to create the quality of work that you dream of, without compromise, then why not? You don’t have to put on the yoke of drawing flying clowns in spandex for an international conglomerate if you don’t want to.
Advice for other creators who hold down a day job? Okay, here’s my best advice, given with the warning that I am not somebody to take advice from, being a fifty-three year old part time artist. Think of what you are doing as the closest thing to creating a movie, one panel at a time. Occasionally we read about how a great actor waited for ten years to see a self-financed pet project come to fruition. (Ed Harris’ “Pollock” is one example.) If you consider how many people it takes to set up and film one small five minute section of a movie—the boon operator and the sound engineer, the camera operator, the director, the director’s assistant, the lighting designer, the costume manager, the actor—and the amount of money it costs to film that one segment—the film (or digital storage), the camera, sound and lighting equipment, the salaries, the catering, the post-production studio time—keep in mind that the same power to create a moving piece of art exists in your one hand with one single drawing instrument and a piece of Bristol board. How many pages does it take to create the equivalent of five minutes of movie time in a comic book? Two pages? Five pages? Think of the tremendous value that your time and talent has when compared to the resources that are necessary to create that five minute segment of a movie. And guess what: your special effects will be created far faster and cheaper than anything Industrial Light and Magic can do. In short, don’t underestimate the value of what you do or the power you have at your drawing table, and don’t let anybody detract you from your goal or belittle your selected medium. You’re creating something special that only you, through hard, dedicated effort, can bring to the light of day.
G: How have the sales been on the book? How many copies did you print and how did you decide on that number of copies?
RG: Sales have been abysmal. Ha! That’s a nice way to follow up my lofty view of self-publishing! Yes, sales have been in the range of about thirty copies. I tried to promote the book. I got a listing of the most populated American cities in descending order and searched out the specialty comic book shops in the top 25 cities. I mailed out three copies to each shop with an introductory letter and details on how the book could be ordered. The biggest problem I faced was that Diamond Comic Book Distributors refused to carry the book. Nothing hurt as much as Diamond’s refusal. I wrote to Steven Leaf, trying to understand why he refused my submission. At first the art was criticized. They recommended that I do the entire project over again. After I pressed them for more details, Brand Manager Robert Randle wrote to me that he simply thought my book wouldn’t sell enough copies to justify carrying it. Simple enough, and I can’t argue with that sort of reasoning. But it did blow me away for a few months. I sold some copies at SPACE in Ohio and later at MOCCA in New York, but those events are not necessarily places to sell out our remaining inventories. I participate at those events to meet similarly engaged individuals who share a common passion for this medium.
I ordered one thousand copies from the printers, which was the quantity that would allow me to break even at the price I intended to charge. And, of course, these sorts of decisions require various calculations, preferably in a spreadsheet program, so that what-if analysis can be performed. But all the planning in the world cannot save you if you cannot get your product distributed—it is, after all, one of the four ‘P’s of marketing: product, price, place and promotion.
G: Your website contains art samples of drawings you did on vacation in Aruba, Croatia and Nerezine, Italy. Do you actually draw on the trips themselves, or do you draw your pictures later from photo reference? Also, which would you say was your most successful drawings in this category?
R: First, I must mention that I love these questions. I cannot believe that you took all this time to search out and look at all of this material! What’s especially funny is that I feel like I should be interviewing the interviewer! In fact, I saved some sample questions for the end of this interview. Okay, the vacation drawings. One day I decided that I had been living in a very narrow cultural mindset. I had already traveled extensively throughout North America and Canada during my music career, but never outside this continent. So I went to a travel agent and booked myself a trip throughout Spain. I traveled by myself on this trip, being single at the time. I brought a small spiral pad of Bristol paper, pencils and Micron permanent ink pens with me. I adopted an approach to drawing remote locations on that first trip and haven’t changed it since then. I would walk around, say Seville, look at loads of stuff, taking it all in, and then I would look for something that I thought was an iconic representation of the place. In Spain it might be the top of a wall that surrounds a castle. I would look very quickly back and forth between the pad and the scene, trying to capture the essence of the scene as accurately as possible with a pencil on the Bristol pad. Then I would take my somewhat detailed pencil sketch to a café or some place where I could sit—maybe even back to my hotel room—and ink it in as soon as possible, favoring a crosshatching approach to make it look more ‘artsy’. I could complete the inking in an hour or two, in most cases.
I always carried a very good camera with me on all of my trips, but I never photographed a scene and inked in a drawing from the photograph. To me, the drawing and the photography were two completely different things. With the drawings I wanted to include something of what I felt about the scenes. I tried to be as accurate as possible but I was happy that the drawings were not perfect renderings of the scenes. Hopefully, some of my subjective perceptions were infused within the final result.
My most successful drawing—if one is going to go by the number of hits I get on my web site—is my drawing of the White House. I get tons of hits on that drawing! It’s by far the favorite. My web site’s statistics list multiple permutations of “White House sketch” and “drawing of the White House” as the most numerous search strings that lead viewers to my web site. Maybe that drawing is being searched out for pasting on the cover of a school report, or maybe it’s the first thing terrorists look for when they want material on one of their most prized targets. I don’t know, and I’m certainly surprised by it. I like “The Walls of Nerezine” much more than the others, but that’s my tastes. Incidentally, I have lots of drawings that I haven’t posted on my web site yet. I should get busy and put them up too.
G: Have you gotten any positive reviews from comic-book websites for Nisha?
RG: Nope, only one negative critique that I came across one day. This guy in Ohio, Kevin Bramer, picked up one of my minis—where I showcased “Nisha” and some other cartoons a few years back—and he kind of knocked it. The link for that review is http://www.opticalsloth.com/authors/robert_gavila.htm. I don’t know if he ever saw the completed 42 page issue I put out in 2004. On the positive side, I’m happy with the feedback I’ve gotten from people who actually write. Mystery writer Jim Fusilli (“Closing Time”, “A Well-Known Secret”, “Tribeca Blues”, and “Hard, Hard City”, G.P. Putnam, 2001 - 2004) gave me terrific positive feedback. It’s funny because I really sensed that Jim Fusilli understood what I was doing and what might be the most redeeming qualities of my work. But then some self-proclaimed comic-book critic with a web site knocks my stuff and I get all insecure, wondering if he’s right.
In the end, after the sting of criticism wears off, I invariably get out another board of Bainbridge #172, rule out some guidelines, and get back to work. After such slight success, maybe you can see why I’m positively knocked out by making it to the Short List of Nominees for the 2004 Day Prize. The Day Prize is especially significant for me because it’s positive feedback from one of my favorite artists. I know you guys have way, way too much integrity to list some fan for any but the best reasons.
Okay, now I hope you’ll afford me the opportunity to play the fan and ask you a few questions. I got to watch you work with a ball point pen two years ago at SPACE and I was surprised at how you held your pen. You drew your lines across the page from left to right in a horizontal sweep with your wrist flowing across the paper. Do you find yourself drawing your lines in this manner for most of your work? When you work this way, do you feel compelled to hold your breath so that your shoulder and wrist position is not affected by your breathing? Do you ever pull the pen down the page toward you with your wrist more firmly planted in one spot? And in a somewhat related question, have you found yourself changing your approach to drawing your crosshatched backgrounds over the years as far as your technique is concerned? And finally, I read how Dave Sim recommends using a zipatone that is no denser than 30 dots-per-inch. Do you similarly find that there is an optimal spacing between lines so that they reproduce well in print?
I apologize for jumping out of character from an interviewee to an interviewer, and I hope it’s not too jolting for the reader. I just think that it’s way too surreal to be interviewed by one of the creators of “Cerebus”. Just way too weird. Did my friends at my job put you up to this as a joke? Just kidding. Thanks again. It’s really an unbelievable surprise, totally unexpected, and a great honor to be nominated.
Robert Gavila Crossover Comics Friday, December 31, 2004 Happy New Year |
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