[music playing] - Hello and welcome to Comic Culture.

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is writer Charles Santino.

Charles, welcome to Comic Culture.

- Good afternoon.

Thanks for having me on.

- Charles, you are working on a creator-owned series called Rammer and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the concept and the creation of this character.

- Sure.

The shortest elevator pitch in entertainment, he's a master thief in a future police state, seven words.

And the idea has been kicking around for quite some time.

And I had the opportunity with my publisher Markosia to finally do it and so it's out.

- OK, so you say it's a master thief in a future police state, which is an interesting way to look at, I guess, sci-fi as a way of looking at the future in either optimistic terms or in a dystopian term.

And this seems to be somewhere in the middle because you could still be a master thief even though it's a future police state.

- The other aspect of the dystopia that's a little bit different is that it's pretty advanced economically, because they've perfected hydrogen power.

So there aren't a whole lot of poor people and there aren't a whole lot of slums relative to what you would think would be in a future tyrannical police state because energy is almost free.

So it looks a lot more like Metropolis than it does like Gotham City, but the iron hand of the police state is everywhere.

And it's interesting to try to steal and be a thief in that situation.

But if you look at the history of any tyrannical society, there's always been crime, and there's always been corruption, and there's always been cronies who are in with the government and paying off the government to look the other way.

So he does manage to keep under the radar and make a decent living.

And staying under the radar is probably his biggest problem.

- And I had the opportunity to look at some pages online.

I guess when you were working on your Indiegogo campaign you posted some pages there.

And the one thing I've noticed about it is you use a very animation style to your artwork.

It's very much like those early 2000 DC Comic Justice League or Superman adventures that we would see on Cartoon Network.

And I'm wondering, as you're doing something that is a heavy theme of a future police state, does that style, that juxtaposition of that light style work well with the material that could be a little bit dark?

- I hope so.

That was the idea was to have a grinding of these two elements against each other, the almost kid friendly style with the grim themes.

But it's a PG-13.

It doesn't have any excessive violence.

There's no gore.

There's no nudity.

Any sex is off camera.

The cursing is limited to hell and damn.

So it's actually probably less extreme than a lot of comics you might see that kids will be reading, but it is a crime noir type of story and the stories are pretty intense.

And the feature within the feature TOPS, Tales of the Police State, the backup stuff is even more grim.

Those are pretty depressing stories about life in the police state and they don't involve our hero Rammur.

They just involve average citizens who have to deal with day-to-day life.

- And it's interesting because it's great when you have a concept that you can do this world building for.

And having the ability not only to tell your main story, the story of Rammur, but also to tell these other stories of, I guess, what life is like for every other citizen in this area, it's fun.

And I guess as a writer, it gives you a chance to explore maybe some ideas that wouldn't fit into Rammur proper but would allow you to scratch that itch.

- I have to put on a different hat and get into a different head to write those stories, because those stories are really-- they're kind of depressing in a way.

I think they would appeal more to a customer or reader that likes Fantagraphics type of books.

The main feature Rammur, I think, is more mainstream and a little bit more straightforward, but they're in the same package.

I do think that they fit together.

The art styles are not that different between the two sections of the book.

- And you are producing this book on your own or at least you have produced content on your own and then you were doing crowdfunding.

And now you're working with Markosia.

So as somebody who is a creator, how do you balance the creation and all that business stuff that goes into successfully crowdfunding a book, paying your artists, and then being able to negotiate with the publisher like Markosia?

- I knew going into the crowdfunding that it was going to be a lot of work, but it was more work than I could possibly have imagined And it was doing interviews constantly and also being on social media and promoting it, but Markosia was actually-- I was hooked up with them beforehand.

They didn't do until recently-- they didn't do print versions of individual issues, just digital.

So the purpose of the crowdfunding was to raise enough money to print it.

And right at the end of the crowdfunding, I found out that they did manage to have print on demand.

So the format is a little bit different.

It's square bound instead of saddle stitch like a magazine.

And there probably won't be a crowdfunding for number two because the whole point of the crowdfunding for number one was to have print.

But now print is available.

So Markosia has been my publisher for three different projects and this is the third one.

It's been available digitally for about a year.

And the print is right now on Amazon and a couple of other places for pre-order.

And it'll be published 12/31.

So New Year's Eve, it'll be published print on demand for anybody that wants a print copy.

- You are talking about saddle stitch and you're talking about square bound, I mean these are technical terms.

And I'm sure that your career in comics you've been exposed to all this technical stuff.

But I'm imagining, again, there's that learning curve where you have to kind of go through a little bit more to make sure if you're publishing an issue on your own, what the paper's stock is going to be like, and if it's going to reproduce properly, and how you're going to get the lettering to make sure it lines and everything else.

So when you're working on all this, how much of this, again, is that sort of I've got to make sure I get this right before it gets far in printing.

- It's pretty much all encompassing.

Because I'm not only the writer, I'm the editor, I'm the art director, I'm the packager, I'm the producer, I'm the business manager.

I'm doing everything except drawing it because I have to hire artists to draw it.

And the plus side of that is you get things exactly the way you want.

The downside is if there is a problem, a mistake, an issue, there's nobody to blame.

You can't point to somebody and say you messed this up on me.

It's all on you.

So it's great in that you get all the credit, but if there's a problem, you've got to take the blame upon yourself as well.

As far as production goes, I understand just enough about the actual production, but I'm constantly relying on people much more experienced in that sort of thing.

And I'm constantly asking questions.

I do have a little trick.

And one of the things that I do when I talk to people is I pretend to know even less than I do about what I'm asking them about.

And the purpose of that is so that they don't gloss over something that's important that they might gloss over, because they think, oh, he seems to know quite a bit, so he probably knows about that whatever that is.

I dumb it down, so that they'll-- just make believe I don't know anything and give it all to me.

And there's still things that I don't really understand.

I just found out that a TIFF file-- and I'm sure you know what a TIFF file is.

There's JPEGs.

There's PNGs.

A TIFF file is actually a layered file that can be taken apart electronically by an artist, so that they can get at the layers.

I just found this out.

I mean, this is something that I should have known years and years ago, because an artist asked me why do you want my actual file that I worked on?

I can just give you a TIFF because that's a layered file.

And I was like, it is?

Oh, OK.

I know it's high resolution, but I didn't know it was layered.

So these are the kinds of things-- you mentioned lettering.

One of my big bugaboos is about lettering.

I see a lot of otherwise professionally produced comic books that the lettering is almost an afterthought.

And they just throw something on there that looks terribly amateurish and it just ruins the whole thing.

And professional lettering is relatively inexpensive.

It's probably the least expensive part of putting a comic book together.

There's no reason not to reach out to professional letterers when everything else is ready.

- And it's interesting you mentioned letterers.

They don't seem to get the credit that they deserve, but literally they're putting the words on the page that the reader is absorbing.

And I know when you talk to some of the greats like Tom Orzechowski or Taylor Esposito, they talk about how difficult it is to find the space or to make sure that the words line up the right way so that it flows for the reader.

So on your side, on the production side, you partner with artists on your book and you partner with the letters.

How do you sort of find these folks to make sure that they're going to be able to reach the level that you expect from your work and make sure that you can count on them to hit the deadlines the way that you need them to?

- That's another part of the incredibly time-intensive process of producing a comic book.

Trying to find the right people is kind of like casting in movies or TV.

It is so important that you find the right people.

And in the case of Paulo Peres who's the main artist on Rammur, I did a Google search on the keywords animated style comics.

I found his website.

I reached out to him, and he was available, and he was fast, and he wanted to do it.

Other people have reached out to me.

Marco Perugini who did the promotional video and has done some backup stories for Rammur and TOPS.

He reached out to me.

I don't know how he found me, maybe doing some sort of Google search.

But letterers, there's a lot of letterers out there.

And the one that I use, I've been using now for probably maybe close to 10 years, I think.

And there's other individual letterers that I've used just for logo design, but not for actual lettering.

So if you look at the credits in Rammur, there's a lot.

There's five or six individual artists.

There's designers.

There's the letterer.

The logo designer.

A lot goes into it and, again, it all has to filter through me.

I have to find these people.

I have to manage the process.

I've been very, very lucky for a few years now with people being timely, responsible, doing what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it and delivering on time.

Paulo Peres is like clockwork.

At the end of the month, I get the pages.

Sometimes I have to make an adjustment or two, but for the most part it's ready to go.

And I've been very, very fortunate with the talent that I've been working with.

It's not easy to find-- it's not easy to find people who are good.

A lot of them are overseas and partially that's due to economics.

Because you pay somebody X amount in the United States, they might not be able to afford food.

You pay them the same amount in the Philippines, they're probably making more than their doctor.

So the exchange rate has forced people to go overseas.

And fortunately, the rest of the world, they want to do business with the United States, they learn English.

So I don't have to learn 15 different languages, everybody seems to know English.

And working for an American publisher, producer, whatever, that's the big brass ring for a lot of people overseas.

So it does put you in a position.

And I consider myself not particularly a big name or well-known, but the fact that I'm an American when I reach out to people overseas, that's a big deal for them.

- It's funny you mention being an American working internationally with artists.

Because we're in this digital age, where just 20 years ago, perhaps you were having to mail stuff or FedEx your artwork, your original pages to your publisher and now you're working in the United States with artists across the world.

And you're working with a publisher Markosia that's based in Great Britain.

So as you're coordinating all this, how do you manage the different time zones and make sure that you're able to make sure that somebody who might not be a native English speaker can understand maybe some of the idioms or things that you throw in there that might seem obvious to you, but might not make literal sense to them?

- I try to use very, very simple language and sometimes it's quite humorous as to what is misunderstood.

Because sometimes their English is not exactly perfect, but you can generally get the sense of it.

Sometimes there's a little bit more back and forth than you'd like because they're not quite getting it.

But I would say I have as many issues with American artists communicating with them and English is their first language.

So it's not just a language problem, it's a communication problem.

And if you're not face to face with people, if it's just email, sometimes it can be very tricky.

Sometimes I'll look at an email I sent somebody and I think I'm 100% clear as to what I'm asking, but what I get back indicates to me that I was not clear at all.

- That's true.

The written word, I guess-- sometimes if we're trying to make a joke or something, it might not translate the same way, even if it is somebody who is in the United States.

So occasionally, there are those little misunderstandings.

So I guess it does sort of train you to be more concise and more precise in the words that you're choosing to speak with people.

And the other thing I was going to mention you're working with Harry Markos of Markosia Publishing.

And you said you've worked with him for a number of different projects, so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what those projects were.

- The first one was an autobiography written by a guy named Steve Kissing.

He's in Cincinnati.

He's an advertising executive and he wrote a memoir called Running from the Devil, Memoir of a Boy Possessed.

Pretty interesting book from the ages 11 to 15, 16.

He had a very rare form of epilepsy where he saw and heard hallucinations, visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations.

And they were 100% real to him and he literally thought he was possessed by the devil.

And he didn't tell anybody about this.

And this went on for five years and he finally had a full blown epileptic seizure in public.

And so the jig was up He couldn't hide it anymore.

But he wrote a very fascinating book and I thought it'd make a great graphic novel and very visual obviously.

And Markosia picked it up.

After that, a funny animal crime noir called Danny and Harry Private Detectives.

A storyboard artist named Walter Brogan, I found him online for another project then, but he had these characters that he showed me, these funny animals that was set in the late '40s.

And it was all different characters-- cats, birds, other creatures, but we played it very straight, a straight crime noir story.

And again, you're talking about the friction between an art style and the content.

Danny and Harry definitely had that as well.

Getting back a little bit to international things, the name Rammur spelled R-A-M-M-U-R.

The reason being is that I wanted the web address of the of the character's name.

R-A-M-M-E-R, Rammer spelled rammer is taken by a Norwegian company that produces heavy machinery.

And rammer, R-A-M-M-E-R, excuse me, that's taken by a Turkish chain of grocery stores.

So I grabbed R-A-M-M-U-R. That was available and I snatched that up.

And I only later found out that Rammur, I think, is an actual name.

I think it's a first name.

I think it might be an Indian first name.

I think.

I didn't know that when I sallied forth with that name.

Nothing wrong with that.

It's still kind of an odd word for American audiences.

And I guess that's OK, because it does take place in the future and it is science fiction.

So to have weird names that maybe sound familiar, but are spelled weird, nothing wrong with that.

- That's true.

I mean, we do look at science fiction-- we certainly expect or rather accept names like Spock, Uhura, Darth, so it's fun to be able to play with different types of names when you're creating your characters.

So when you are creating your characters, and it's one thing when you're creating a master thief in a future police state-- is that the seven words?

- That's it.

- It's very effective, because I just was able to put it out.

It's another matter when you're working with somebody who has written a biography or perhaps when you're adapting a novel for a graphic novel series.

So when you're doing this, how do you jump between what's written on the page and what you think would make a good visual?

So that way you can cut out some of the words that maybe the author is written, but still get the same feeling and then put in the right words to help tell that story.

- Yeah, the first thing I would do-- and I'm I do a lot of adaptation, so I'm always in that process-- is try to figure out the math of, OK, this book is 250 pages.

It's approximately x amount of words.

I want to have an average of maybe 100 to 125 words per comic book page.

So I just try to figure out, in terms of pure content, what's going to fit into let's say 140-page graphic novel.

And then I'll look at each page and figure out, OK, only 50% of the page is going to make it what's on here.

So I've got to extract the most important and visually compelling 50% of each page and that's a real process.

And the decision-making on that has to be done very, very quickly, or else it'll just take forever to get the thing done.

- I'm imagining doing this, you have to do a lot of reading to not only work on the books that you're working on, but to find the next book.

So when you are thinking about the next project and you maybe go to the bookstore, or some website that might be talking about a book, or maybe someone sent you a book, how many times do you go through there and say, you know what, this one's not working?

And how long does that process take for you to say this one won't work as a graphic novel adaptation?

- It's got to be very quick or else you get-- I've never been deep into a project and realize it was not going to work because that's just death.

I mean, I'm looking up my bookshelf right now, I've got four books that I've had there for years, and years, and years that I think would make great graphic novels.

And I'm just waiting for the opportunity to turn them into graphic novels.

The decision-making process has to be very, very quick.

There are a lot of great books out there that just I don't think would make a great graphic novel.

They've got to be visual and they've got to move quickly.

And if they are 500-pages long that's a real problem.

The perfect size is about a novel that's about 150 pages.

There used to be plenty of novels back in the '40s, '50s even into the '60s, even into the early '70s, a lot of paperback novels were 150 to 100 pages.

Those days are gone.

- Right, I'm imagining trying to adapt Michener might be an issue.

- Not interested.

I did adapt Ayn Rand's Anthem, which is a science fiction novel and it's the perfect length.

I didn't have to leave anything out.

I was able to adapt it almost word for word, because it's maybe 100 to 125 pages long.

And Joe Staton did the art for that.

- And that's another thing you're able to pull upon some of the bigger names in comics history to work with you.

And I'm assuming that has to do with the fact that you've been working in comics since the 1980s.

I know that you did some work at Marvel.

So how did you kind of get your foot in the door and start going into the world of comics?

- Started out just pitching to Marvel.

And I've always been pretty audacious about just asking people to do things.

Michael McDowell was a horror author.

He was riding the wave in the late '70s, early '80s with Stephen King.

He was a bestselling author of horror novels-- I mean, horror novels.

And he worked on "Tales of the Dark Side" and "Beetlejuice."

But before he did that, I contacted him and I said, I had an idea for a horror novel.

And I was an assistant editor at a small publisher in New York.

I said, we have this outline.

I didn't say I wrote it.

I said, we have this outline.

We're looking for somebody to write this book.

I put him in a room, he read it, he came out, he loved it, and he said I want to do this.

And I said, well, we have a problem.

We don't have a publisher and I wrote it.

And he said, I don't care.

I still want to do it.

So that's how I found a guy who was a best selling author at the time.

I just reached out, presented my project.

I decided that why make an issue out of my lack of experience?

It's not an issue if I don't make it an issue.

If he likes the work, he likes to work.

- In the case of Joe Staton, I started working with him maybe 20 years ago.

Actually longer than that, closer to 25 years ago.

I just reached out to him.

I just reached out and said, here's what I'm doing, do you like this idea?

And we kicked around some stuff and he did some artwork on Spec I have a pretty good track record for getting artists to do proposals on Spec.

Just do artwork without any promise of being paid.

Obviously, if it sells they'll get paid.

But if they like it, they'll do it.

If they don't, they don't.

- Well, that is an interesting skill to have, the ability to be a good self-promoter without coming across as too pushy.

And unfortunately, we have about a minute or so left in our conversation.

So if you had to give someone advice, they're out there, and they think they've got a great idea for a comic, how could they possibly, in a minute or less, sell that story, so that maybe that perfect elevator pitch is something they can master?

- Boil it down to a 25-word description and make that description so compelling that it has to be written.

And then work up a maybe 10-page outline giving the details of how it's going to play out.

And I think too many people try to do too much.

They try to do too much world building.

You mentioned that a while back world build, they try to do these galactic spanning things.

The Rammur stories are really small.

They have a handful of characters and almost nobody who isn't involved in the story had any idea that any of what happened in the story took place.

That's how small the focus is.

People, they think much too big.

They want to create an entire universe with 10 titles.

Create a story that is limited and keep it tight.

- Charles, they are telling me that we are out of time.

If you could tell people who are watching if there's a website where they can find you.

- They can go to Indiegogo and type in Rammur, R-A-M-M-U-R. And we're still there in demand meaning they can purchase the book.

Rammur is on Amazon as well.

And I can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

- Well, Charles, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me.

It's been a very fast half hour.

- Thank you so much.

- I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching Comic Culture.

We will see you again soon.

[music playing] Comic Culture is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.