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Growing up in Potosi as high-schoolers, Matt Bryan and Mike McCubbins made music, animation, and comics all while absorbing the pen-and-ink cosmologies of underground comics artists like Harvey Pekar, Ivan Brunetti, Jhonen Vasquez and Mike Mignola, just to name a few. Their first collaborative comic book, Post-Apocalyptic Bake-Off, was a Zen look at a nihilistic, Beyond the Thunderdome-inspired version of Top Chef. Appetites still unsated, the pair are gearing up for the production of their newest graphic effort, Book of Da, which was recently selected by Kickstarter as a Project of the Day. On an unusually barking-dog heavy Sunday night, the guys and L/L discussed the structure of graphic novels, being Kickstarter critical darlings, and the pains of retaining artistic integrity.
So what’s the synopsis of the Book of Da? Can you give a general overview of the story without giving away too many details? And another question I have: do you always feel like you have a responsibility to the reader to give something that they can grasp onto, like a story?
Mike McCubbins: it started out as a 7-page story and it bloomed into a 150-page graphic novel.
Matt Bryan: I am a big fan of leaving it as open and vague as possible. That’s just what I like to do.
MM: Well, Matt, what would you say the story is about? The protagonist is this diver character. And why do you like him?
MB: He’s cool-looking.
MM: He’s nice. He’s the little guy.
So he’s kind of a sterile character.
MM: He’s the pure character. He’s also the archetypal, “man-with-no-name” character. You want to root for him because he’s essentially a pacifist. And all of the other characters, which include Da and the fish in the sea, are coming in and interfering with his existence. He’s just being cool, man. I’ve kind of thought of his treatment recently as a Thoreau in Walden kind-of-guy, Civil Disobedience, that stuff. I feel he is a character who is all about conscientious objections, in a way.
He’s a rebel.
MM: Yeah, he’s a rebel, man (laughs), he does his own thing, but he’s trying to be kind and careful. The diver encounters the pyrasquid Da, who demands something of him to which he doesn’t plan to give. The diver is the rebel in this situation, and Da is an oppressive force of propaganda upon him and his environment. Da controls the emotions of the fish, basically. If the diver pisses off Da, well, then the whole underwater context of his environment responds accordingly. A part of dealing with this outwardly antagonistic culture or environment is the constant back and forth between the acceptance and rebellion. And that’s a great deal of what the story is about.
Does the diver go on to express words?
MM: Yeah, he does, there is actual dialogue.
What I love so much about the beginning is that there is this incredible sense of weight: the weight of all conceivable water, of being down in complete darkness, with no one to communicate. It is almost a fight for one’s right to be inward, a refusal to sort of express myself with other people. I don’t know how the story plays out, but I am excited to see the finished product altogether.
MM: I kind of realized this after the fact, it makes me think, “Oh, Matt and I are both country boys, who have come to the city, to the pressurized city to try and make our ways.” In a sense, it could ask if it’s also about the pressures of the city on an individual?
MB: it’s basically a retelling of the Mary Tyler Moore Show (laughs). Is he going to make it on his own?
MM: It’s a fairy tale. It’s simple. It’s not a convoluted story with all of this espionage. We have three emotions coming from the antagonist. The reader isn’t going to find intrigue; a little mystery, perhaps, but it’s not going to be Tom Clancy (laughs).
I’m a sucker for these big, wordless panels. The diver is treading through this impressive blackness. I find the positive value of the absence incredibly resonant, just gorgeous.
MB: In the first script, didn’t the Reverend have some narration, telling the story of the diver?
MM: Yes. One of the things about the dialogue in comics is, if it’s not direct dialogue between people, it’s usually exposition.
MB: I think the first script had some text functioning as a “voice over,” and we decided to forgo it. Because, and just basically, I think we had translated some of the words [visually].
MM: We wanted to take our time and slow down. Since our main character is in an environment that is changing on him and in such a specific way, there are certain things we didn’t want to say, but that we want the reader to grasp from slowly taking it in. We took some dialogue out that was kind of explaining [to the reader], now the sea is mad at him, now the sea is shunning him, and instead expanded that section over several pages with pictures, showing the diver’s isolation.
Show, not tell.
MM: Like if you’re writing a novel, the idea is, “use concrete examples, don’t use generalized ideas.”
MB: You might run into a risk in using fewer words. People might be looking for words, they might miss a lot; they might not get it. Fuck ‘em, I guess. In some ways, you don’t want it to be accessible.
MM: The art of the thing is conveying the idea in pictures.
They have to function on a certain level.
MM: If not, why not just make this… Why is this not a movie? Why is this not a short story? Why is this a graphic novel? It’s important to have characters who are visually engaging, and it’s important to have their visuality be an important factor of their point in the story. Just the idea that this is a person alone, down at the bottom of the ocean, in a hostile environment… it’s already Taxi Driver (laughs). In our first page, we’ve already illustrated a great deal of the gist of the story. This is Clint Eastwood walking across the desert in a poncho, squinting to the dust. You can get quite a lot with just a setting, and the environment is the most important aspect of this book, I think, and how the hostility of the environment is embodied is if not the most important thing, it’s maybe the most novel thing.
When do you hope to have copies ready?
MM: We’re promising books to the backers by sometime in May. If we have the books to the backers before June, then I think we will have done really well, actually.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of any of the more reported-on examples of people getting screwed over by project creators who showed a lack of clarity in expressing for what the funding was going to be used.
MM: There is a Kickstarter group that wants to make an animated picture [of the comic], The Goon, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this fiasco. What they were offering was a treatment. They weren’t completely specific in saying that this wasn’t going to be an animated feature when they finished. They wanted just an actual drawn treatment of this to send to big studios to make. They were vague enough in their terms and high enough in their ambitions that it was, by the time they had lots of money, people were writing angry screeds on blogs saying to stay away from these guys.
Is there a sort of "successful Kickstarter elite" that you guys now find yourselves a part of? Have you been contacted by other people who’ve congratulated yours as a good project as opposed to a poorly executed one?
MM: A few places have commented specifically on the simplicity of the project and how they’ve been calling it “low risk.” It seems a lot of projects start the Kickstarter phase off at the inception of the idea they want to make, and then they want you to back the creative process and its eventual physical manifestation. We presented our video as from the start, not only already having the book done and everything designed about it, but also having the backer incentives ready to go.
MB: We basically showed in the video, “Hey, we have a photo of this. It exists. It’s not something that we’re just thinking about.”
You’re not raising money to go to Guatemala to be inspired (laughter).
MM; In our project’s comments, people have been saying, “love the way you set up your campaign” and stuff, and we’ve gotten some cool feedback because of how much work we did beforehand, which, I’m thinking more because we did a lot of work beforehand.
Did you hear anything from Kickstarter when they made you project of the day?
MB: Nope, we just noticed (laughter).
MM: It’s like if a god were to reach down and touch you on the head. You don’t really get a choice. Kickstarter spelled that out too, like, “If we deign to come down from the heavens and help you out, just be thankful that we did.” (laughter)
MB: I would credit our being selected more to the work we put into the Kickstarter page, rather than necessarily the book. I don’t know, maybe they think the book is cool-looking, but I think it’s mostly because we worked hard on making the page look good.
I think the image of the fish reverend character is a really good lead-in image, I think it’s drawn well, I think it’s strong, it definitely attracts people and the fact that your video illustrates essentially a tidy business plan, if not a virtual application for a business loan, certainly helped.
MM: If Kickstarter has done anything completely novel, it’s been in asking its users, “How good are you at marketing?” YouTube is like, “How good can you make a short film?” Facebook is more like, “How many friends can you make?” Kickstarter asks, “Are you an ad man?”
MB: Which is weird, because I feel like I’m terrible at marketing. Maybe there’s a big difference between making something and having to talk to people and shake hands.
MM: And even though Kickstarter’s been out for so long, you’ll find most people don’t know what it is. That’s changing now, and is probably helping us is. They’ve done so well in the last year with these multi-million dollar campaigns, other people are starting to stand up and say, “Who is this Kickstarter thing?” They’ve constantly been called the second biggest indie comic publisher because so many indie comics go through them to get self-published. I don’t know when Kickstarter’s graph will take a downturn, but simply that [their profile] is getting bigger certainly helps.
How long have you guys both been in St. Louis?
MB: Since 2003.
MM: since the end of 2003. So nearly 10 years ago.
MB: I moved up with my cousin, and then a few weeks later Mike moved up and lived on our couch. And then it was the three of us together for five years, I guess. The rent was cheap already, and then it became real cheap. It was fun. That’s when we kind of, well, that’s when I started thinking of making a comic. I think… I started drawing more. I had a story that I kind of outlined, or sort of wrote pieces of, and I started drawing it. I restarted it a few times over the course of a couple of years, not constantly, but once in a while I would take it out. I was using a ballpoint pen and copy paper. I was, just doing it without… you know if you read enough comics, you know if something works or not, but you might not know why it works or not. I didn’t have some of the whys, so it wasn’t very good.
When did you sort of realize that there are comic conventions of independent artists and they share their work and they trade things?
MB: I don’t know, probably not that long ago. I went to a few a long time ago, but those were kind of more mainstream. I didn’t go to an actual indie press comic show until a few years ago.
MM: at S.P.A.C.E.?
MB: We haven’t really been exhibiting but for a couple of years now.
MM: You’d see people here and there, you’d meet people here and there, at like bigger cons or something like that. We know a couple of people who make comics, and a couple of people even back in Potosi. But the idea of independent comics was something you saw in major movies as a teenager, like Chasing Amy and other stuff like that.
MB: And some of those indie guys showed up at some of those bigger cons.
MM: And if you get lucky, you just end up meeting someone where you find out, oh, this person draws pictures, and probably draws pictures of other cooler stuff.
Do you look at Book of Da as being a sort of launch-pad, a demo tape or calling card to the larger world of independent publishing or comics and stuff? Because now you have a really nice object you can show other people and gain their initial attention for a little big longer than an anonymous email.
MM: Yeah, definitely, it will be impressive to have the item in our hand and say, “Hey, look at us, we did this.” You always try to leapfrog from hopefully one success to another and try to gain a little clout that way. I think that that sort of thing will be best for Matt, because Matt is more focused than I am. He’s focused on drawing. My interests are everywhere, all the time. I’m trying to do a 100 different things, so I’m not focused on say, trying to sit for hours a day, and doing one thing, whereas Matt, if you’re talking career-wise, could probably benefit… get noticed. Matt, I don’t know if you think that’s true.
MB: I’m for hire (laughter). No, that’s true. I think you make it sound like I work harder than I do, but I try. At least when I have something in a project, I try to get it done. I may take a while. But that’s my ultimate goal, I guess, is to be able to pay my own bills. I think maybe I’m used to, sort of that teenage idea again of, “I’m not going to sell out, I’m going to do what I want to do.” I still want to do what I want to do, but I’m a lot less opposed to drawing something for someone if it’s not a half-baked idea.
Like Superman eating a cow?
MB: (laughs) No, see, that would be cool, if the cow was alive and had blood coming down his face. No, I guess I mean when I say half-baked is Naruto, which I know a lot of people are into and I have heard is actually good.
UPDATE, MAY 15, 2013: The Kickstarter Campaign was successful, and on Saturday, May 18, Star Clipper is holding a Book of Da release party from 5 to 9 p.m. Star Clipper is located at 6392 Delmar. For more info, call 314-725-9110, or visit starclipper.com.
