Stephen: While last week we focused on the Mini Marvels Ultimate Collection and the impact those strips and stories had on your career, this week we’re gonna live a little more in the now and go through the G-Man Cape Crisis mini series issue by issue.
This was the first time you’ve attempted a story this long in form. You had your first variant cover.
Chris: It’s great to finally get to do this sort of thing.
Stephen: From a creative and distribution standpoint you had a little trouble getting the final issue out on the shelf.
Chris: Yeah, I had that Nate Banks project to juggle in between G-Man issues. It was a project I never saw coming, but I couldn’t turn down. It’s that classic situation of doing paid work for the sake of being able to do the vanity project. Towards the end, I fell behind by a bit on G-Man, but it was augmented by the holiday madness and Diamond’s skip week.
Stephen: How does it feel to finally be holding #5 in your hands?
Chris: It feels great! This is the biggest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s finally done!
Stephen: The first few pages are kind of G-Man 101 for the uninitiated with a great opening establishing shot of our hero soaring above the scene and running down the list of his powers, despite Tony jumping on a couple of technicalities.
Chris: I was trying to approach it with the assumption that this would be many people’s first G-Man comic. The whole “every comic is somebody’s first” routine.
Stephen: You hit up a lot of the intricacies of being a kid, i.e. - the magical powers of danedelions to detect if you do indeed like butter (I'd never heard that one before) and the finer points of ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS (a nice plug for Mini Marvels volume 1) such as the fabled "gun" throw.
Chris: I grew up with the dandelions butter myth. This point actually started a heated debate on my friend’s facebook page. His wife grew up with the same myth, but it was with buttercups, not dandelions. Even though I dropped a buttercup mention in the book, I hadn’t actually heard this before. So there was a long comment list of people weighing in, many in support of dandelions, many in support of buttercups. The comment that stuck out to me the most was “it’s dandelions if you grew up poor, buttercups if you grew up rich.”
I hadn’t actually set out to give a nod to Mini Marvels volume 1 (though I guess it didn’t hurt). The rock paper scissors bit just worked it’s way in there organically.
Stephen: What is Baxter the Bear's deal?
Chris: Baxter is just a lying, stealing, two-faced jerk. He’s based on a real person, even designed to look (and talk) like the guy does in real life, in spite of being a bear. He backstabbed a friend of mine at work and got my friend fired. “Baxter Bear” is a play on “backstabber.”
Stephen: And what are the Color Guardians raising funds for anyway?
Chris: I think “a worthy cause” was as close as I got to defining it. I haven’t decided if it’s to fund their team or to support a charity.
Stephen: G-Man gets into trouble in the first place through good ol' fashioned peer pressure. I'm sure any kid (or adult) reading this story can relate to the need to be liked by your peers for what you've got, be it your clothes, your toys, or your super powers.
Chris: Yeah, it was a pretty bone-headed move on G-Man’s part. I was thinking of the classic scenario of letting somebody borrow your bike, and then that’s the last time you ever see that bike.
Stephen: The end of this issue, right down to Tony's ploy on the last page wrapping up in a couple of panels, makes this first installment feel pretty self contained. Was that something you aimed for, kind of like Johnny DC or Marvel Adventures stories that aim to do one-and-done stories so kids don't have to find the very next issue on the shelf, or did you approach the writing of #1 differently than #2-5?
Chris: I like the idea of the self contained issue, even if it’s within a larger story arc. It’s not always easy, but in this case everything came together well and I went with it. Ironically, I was criticized by a couple of people because they said it seemed too much like a complete story, and it should have been a cliffhanger. People can be pretty specific about how things ought to be done, what the “right” way to approach something is. I find it’s not always that easy to make everything work the exact same way, nor do I think it’s necessary. I think it’s good to allow for some variation. I like cliffhanger endings as well. I think there are more than a few acceptable ways to end a story or an issue or a chapter.
Stephen: BOOM! First page we get a good view of the scope of Suntrooper’s mission. He’s got bosses, he’s got back-up, and you’ve got a good grasp of the lack of sound in a vacuum.
Chris: We didn’t see Suntrooper in the first issue, and I wanted to get him in the mix, so I tried to give him a nice quick intro that still gave you all you needed to know about him. I’ll probably use sound effects in space without disclaimers in the future.
After my brother saw this page, he created the “Suntrooper Squadron” video game for chrisgcomics.com, which is an adaptation of the old 8-bit Atari Asteroids game. I don’t think it could have been a more perfect fit if I’d planned it out ahead of time.
Stephen: On page 4 Great Man gets the big idea that really ends up driving the rest of the series, that being hi-jacking the Color Guardians’ gimmick and selling the flight bands to anyone that will pay!
Chris: Page 4 was meant to be more like his wake-up call. He was working too hard delivering papers, making less money than girls selling weeds. I was thinking he came up with his plan after page 6.
Stephen: Spidey had a paper route, Great Man has a paper route. Did you have a paper route when you were a kid? You seem to have a lot of pretty specific customer stories, except for, you know, Norman Osborn trying to blow up a paperboy with a pumpkin bomb.
Chris: My brother had a paper route which I got roped into helping him with, and eventually I took it over completely. So that led to giving Spidey the paper route (it was also a good fit), and it’s also why Great Man has a paper route. I’m aware there’s a risk that people will assume I’m just lifting the paper route idea from Mini Marvels, but in my mind, it’s the other way around.
Stephen: The gang spent the better part of this issue getting into pretty typical street-level superhero situations while trying to recover all of the flight bands (i.e. – fighting giant robots, super-speed trickery, stopping a bank robbery). Then Tan Man comes up against a dad that just won’t listen to his kid.
Chris: As usually tends to be the case, I wanted to show a lot with very little space, and I had broken the guys up into three scenes, and I wanted the scenes to be somewhat different from each other. I wanted it to be effortless for the other guys, and a bit more difficult for G-Man. And I felt the Tan Man scene would be a good change of pace between fight scenes. I also wanted to nudge G-Man’s costume colors from an all-black shirt to a dark blue shirt. This was a subtle change that meant using blue highlights instead of gray, but I still wanted to address it. I wanted a scene where G-Man’s shirt would be torn up, so I had that robot chomp through his shirt really good. After that scene, G-Man had to stop home for a new shirt, and I switched to the blue. I also started shading his orange pants a bit darker with red shading. I wanted G-Man’s colors to be the opposite of his brother’s.
Stephen: It was around the time that #1 was going to print that Jermaine and I first approached you about doing a variant cover for G-Man. What were your first thoughts when we asked you if it would be possible?
Chris: I have mixed feelings about variants. I’m aware of the feeling by many fans that variants are a sales gimmick that exploits a customer’s buying habits. On the other hand… I think fans these days know the deal. They know what they’re getting into. People don’t HAVE to buy two copies of the same comic. They can pass on the “gimmick” if they see it as such. I often pass on alternate covers, but I will sometimes buy alternate covers if it’s something I consider special or cool. The alternate cover will also sometimes get me to pick up a book I normally wouldn’t, but again… I don’t feel like I’m being forced to buy it. People ultimately buy the variant covers because they want them. And if people weren’t buying them, publishers would stop printing them.
That being said, I never anticipated a situation that I thought would warrant an alternate cover for G-Man. I never would have expected enough people to be interested in two covers for my little book. But when you guys said, “We want to do this and make a big event of it,” I trusted you knew what you were doing, and it felt really cool to make it happen.
Stephen: We have several of your process sketches up around the store, but how difficult was it to capture the Jefferson Pilot (or Lincoln Financial) Building?
Chris: It was tough. As a cartoonist with my particular simplistic style, I wasn’t used to drawing from life. Making up generic buildings is tough enough, but drawing a specific building with a very particular and unique architecture that needed to be recognizable was something I’ve never had to do before. It was pretty challenging.
Stephen: Issue #3 starts with Great Man demonstrating some pretty lopsided business tactics. On the one hand he’s keeping records “like a responsible businessman” and on the other hand he’s selling out his family’s magical secrets for $1,000 a pop.
Chris: Not only that… but he was initially the biggest voice of opposition in allowing others to use the flight bands. Classic big brother move.
Stephen: All that and you work in a recap seamlessly. How long does it take to make the dialogue feel that natural while getting a new reader up to speed?
Chris: I appreciate you calling it seamless. It’s not easy, and for every person that thinks the exposition is done well, there’s another person who will think it’s clumsy, forced, and disjointed. This goes for everything that has ever been written ever. How long it takes will always vary depending on what information is important and how much space you want to devote to recapping those important points. Sometimes it can be pretty simple, and sometimes it get’s pretty complex. How’s that for a straightforward answer?
Stephen: Who is the crocodile in line when the prices shoot up to $10,000 for a wrist band with a single magical thread in it?
Chris: The crocodile is nobody in particular. I like to draw goofy background characters, so they’re often just randomly designed on the spot. But after I drew the crocodile, I thought he looked familiar and I asked Gregg and Jacob if they’d ever seen him before. They hadn’t. I google-searched for crocodile chefs, but I couldn’t find anything, so I thought it was safe.
Stephen: And is that Fred Hembeck chillin’ a little further back?
Chris: It IS Fred. He’s actually in line in issue 2 as well, waiting to buy dandelions. I got his official permission to put him in the mix. That was a big treat for me, as I was an instant Hembeck fan as a kid from the first time I saw his work in Marvel Age. He used to do double-page spread strips in each issue, and I marveled at how he combined super hero comics with the humor comic strip. It made a big impression.
Stephen: Then we get a major crossover between G-Man and Savage Dragon! Dragon has always played a big part in G-Man’s history, but how did this particular crossover come about, and in such an Image United fashion?
Chris: Issue #150 of SAVAGE DRAGON was published earlier in the year, a big milestone issue. For an event like that, Dragon creator Erik Larsen likes to pack an issue full of extra bonus material. Because of my history doing back-up strips in SAVAGE DRAGON, Image publisher Eric Stephenson suggested Erik run a 4-page G-Man/Dragon strip in the IMAGE UNITED fashion you mention – that is, Erik would draw the Dragon, and I would draw G-Man – the way all of the Image founders are drawing their own characters in the IMAGE UNITED comic.
I wanted desperately for our little 4-page crossover to be important… to matter in the bigger picture. At first I wanted to tie my 4-page story into Erik’s Dragon story… but Erik had too many intricately weaved elements going on, and it just wouldn’t work. Then it occurred to me I could tie it into my Cape Crisis story, and then I’d have an official Larsen-drawn Dragon appearance in my own comic! I actually drew those pages before I’d finished drawing the first issue of Cape Crisis. I knew at some point I’d have the guys going after flight bands, so I was fairly certain I could fit it into the story somewhere.
Stephen: Princess Roja has obviously taken umbrage with Great Man for stealing the Color Guardians’ business model and she lets him know about it. Would you like to get into the fiery origins of “Red Girl”?
Chris: Red Girl is loosely based on Acme friend and Marvel editor Jen Grunwald. I had this team of girls that had a unified costume design, so their hairstyles needed to be fairly distinctive from one another. I thought Grunwald’s hairstyle would work well for one of them, and she liked the idea of it. Of course, she changes her hair style and color so often, I’m not sure people would agree it fits. But when it came to deciding which of the Color Guardians would be bossy and feisty enough to challenge Great Man, the choice was obvious.
Stephen: Things get pretty tense in the last couple of pages. The brothers squabble over the fate of G-Man’s cape. The cape gives way in a truly brilliant splash page! And people start falling like rocks from the sky! To disastrous results! Were you worried about kids sending you angry letters asking how you could take Great Man from them, a la rabid fans when Bendis killed Hawkeye?
Chris: I wasn’t worried at all. I would have welcomed it! To get a reaction like that would mean I’ve done my job – I’ve made people care about what’s happening. But while Great Man quickly became my favorite character to write, and seems to be the favorite character among adults, the little feedback I’ve had from kids is that they think Great Man is too mean. And I like that polarizing split reaction.
Stephen: Things start out really tense in issue #4. Great Man is having an out of body experience, watching everybody reacting to the early moments of his death, before we realize he's really passed beyond the veil and is awaiting judgement at the hands of a horned, shrouded character. 1) This is some pretty heavy stuff for an all-ages comic
Chris: This might be the perfect example of me refusing to “talk down” to kids. I think kids can handle heavy stuff like this. I think they want heavy stuff like this. They’re smart enough to know it’s a story, and they’re emotionally sophisticated enough to be moved by it.
Stephen: And 2) Did you already know at that point that the hooded figure would be Khrysomallos (or do they just look similar)?
Chris: Yeah, I knew it was Khrysomallos. He was one of the few things I had figured out long before starting the series.
Stephen: One of my favorite scenes in the whole series is Princess Roja's lament at the loss of her apparent love, Great Man. There's actually a ton of great asides in here. G-Man getting into the legalities of the devil's likenesses. The irony of G-Man's predicament when he's been captured by the woodland creatures. The out of the frying pan, into the fire nature of his escape. Great Man's "clarvoiance."
Chris: Thanks, I’m glad you liked that stuff!
Stephen: I'd be remise if I didn't mention...the Acme Crew appearance!
Chris: Indeed! Glad you caught that!
Stephen: By the end of the issue the magic of the cape is lost, but the gang is back together for a last ditch journey to find the one being that can unite the boys with their powers.
You were working on breakdowns for this issue on the plane when you came to visit for the G-Man's Greensboro Cape Crisis event, right?
Chris: Yep. I think I had already drawn the first half of the book by then, and was still trying to figure out the rest.
Stephen: What, if any, impact did seeing the local reaction of kids and adults alike to the mini series thus far have on your approach to the final two issues?
Chris: It’s always nice to get positive reinforcement. It was very reassuring. It gave me confidence to keep moving forward without second-guessing everything.
Stephen: Also, I don't know how many folks even know that we did the Q&A at Pearce Elementary the night before the signing, so what were you impressions of that event?
Chris: There was more enthusiasm from the crowd than I was expecting. I’d been previously accustomed to most kids being indifferent or downright antagonistic when put into that sort of position. Marvel used to have office tours when I was on staff there, and sometimes the tour groups would be class fieldtrips. Most of the time, these kids would be completely uninterested in comics, and some of them were just rude. I’ll also often see parents at conventions attempting to indoctrinate their kids into comics, and it’s pretty clear the kid would rather be anywhere else. But at Pearce, we had a focused and enthusiastic crowd. I believe the difference was that this was a reading club. Everyone there was there because they wanted to be there. It was a lot of fun.
Stephen: At the start of issue #5 Great Man is faking the ultimate sick-out from school, pretending to be dead, to the grief of Elemenno Elementary School's principal and his parents, leaving G-Man to live with the fallout. But soon enough the boys mount up to find Khrys, or "Chris."
Chris: “Great Man Absorbs Nuclear Blast, Saves Millions.”
Stephen: You seem to really let your art go nuts in this issue with the dynamic coloring of the boys trapped inside the sea monster and underwater amongst peril (one-eyed octopi with uzis and sabres and great white sharks with robo-boxing arms!?) and transcendant magic nature of the lines as the boys cross the barrier between their world and Sky Mountain.
Chris: It was a lot of fun to try out some new things. I wasn’t sure people were going to like where I was going with this issue, so I included a panel where G-Man and Great Man are jumping a shark.
Stephen: Even when the brothers reach Sky Mountain, their travals have just begun. Little fuzzy guys, stone men, skeletons, locus, robots, lizard men, mummys, giant frogs, and man-eating trees! Quite the guantlet!
Chris: I had to put them through their paces.
Stephen: Things are pretty metaphysical near the end. Great Man and G-Man free "Chris", who's real name is Khrysomallos, the source of their powers. Is your inner animal a ram, or am I just reading too much into it?
Chris: I’m not Khrysomallos, but when I noticed the Chris/Khrys thing, I attempted to play it so that readers might anticipate that I was going to do the self indulgent characters-meet-their-creator sort of thing. But Khrysomallos is actually a pre-existing character from Greek Mythology, similar to how Thor and Hercules seem to find their way into comics all the time. I tried to present it in a way that nobody reading it would need to have ever heard of him. It was just important that you see he’s an extraordinary god-like being.
Stephen: Most folks will be relieved by the open-ended nature of the story, promising "The End, For Now..." and opening the brothers up to many more adventures with their restored powers.
Chris: I hope so. I was hoping to squeeze more into this issue, but it will just have to wait for the next mini series. At least I’ll know where to start the next story.
Stephen: There's nothing quite as strong as the possibility two siblings share on the rare occasion that they join forces and come out on top.
Chris: How about three siblings?
Stephen: What role did your guest-collaborators Chris Eliopoulos, Art Baltazar, Franco, Gregg Schigiel, Jacob Chabot, and Brian Smith play in the series aside from providing even more great all-ages entertainment for the reader’s dollar?
Chris: All these guys are great guys that I really like as people and as cartoonists, so I was super excited to have them all contribute back-ups. But I generally talk to Gregg and Jacob far more than I talk to the other guys on a daily basis, so Gregg and Jacob are more in the loop with what I’ve got on my drawing table at any given moment. In fact, they were working on X-Babies more or less on the same schedule as I was working on G-Man, so it kind of worked both ways. It was always good to be able to discuss our specific problems with each other and weigh in with opinions or advice. With G-Man I was constantly in a panic. I’d usually be on the phone with Gregg saying, “I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea how this story is going to turn out.” Jacob lives with me, so I’d always be able to walk down the hall and show him my pages and ask if they were looking okay or not. Then I’d look at the X-Babies pages he was working on and reinforce my inferiority complex.
Stephen: You mentioned earlier your next project is going to be The Adventures of Nate Banks with writer Jake Bell and you said in the “G-Words” G-Man Letters Page of issue #5 that the first two books should hit in May. I had a chance you meet Jake when you and I were hanging out at San Diego Comic Con. Can you fill the rest of the readers in on what Nate Banks is about and the format that the series will take?
Chris: “The Amazing Adventures of Nate Banks” is a series of chapter books written by Jake Bell, published by Scholastic. The main stories will be prose narrative stories – all text – from the perspective of Nate Banks, a middle-school aged kid who lives in a world where superheroes are a reality. Nate is an expert superhero fan who fills us in on the intricate histories of all of his world’s heroes and villains, as Nate’s own stories unfold. Inevitably, Nate finds himself involved in some of the big superhero action himself.
While the main stories are not illustrated, each book will contain an 8-page full-color comic insert written by Jake Bell and drawn by me. I’m drawing the covers for the books as well.
The first book, “Secret Identity Crisis (The Amazing Adventures of Nate Banks),” is actually available for order now in schools with the Scholastic book fair. It will be available in stores, along with the second book “Freezer Burned (The Amazing Adventures of Nate Banks)”.
Stephen: Now that the series is put to rest, there are some people that might have missed out on #1 as it's been sold out at Acme since October. When can people looking to check out the whole story for the first time or get a collection that contains anything that they missed expect to find a trade paperback on the shelves?
Chris: I want to put a Cape Crisis collection together, but as of now I don’t know when I’ll be able to make that happen.
Stephen: Would you like to do the honors of making our big announcement for the week?
Chris: What announcement? The announcement that I’ll be at Acme Comics for Free Comic Book Day 2010? Is that the announcement you’re referring to?
Chris Giarrusso set Acme Comics sales records with his first two Mini Marvels digests, ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS and SECRET INVASION, and he's poised to do so again with the newly released MINI MARVELS ULTIMATE COLLECTION graphic novel. Chris is also the creator, writer, and artist for G-Man from Image Comics, and he finished up his first mini series, G-MAN: CAPE CRISIS, this week. To say that Chris's artwork and specific brand of all-ages fun have sparked the imaginations of Greensboro's youth is an understatement. Check out sketches, games, and comics at Chris G Comics.com.
Stephen Mayer makes his mama proud by calling to confirm appointments and walking to pick up lunch.
