[bright music] [bright music continues] [bright music continues] [bright music continues] - 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 graphic novelist Christopher Williams.

Chris, welcome to "Comic Culture."

Now, Chris, I had a chance to look over some of your work before our conversation today and I'm struck by the subject matter.

This is not what we would consider to be a traditional comic, and this is why I was saying graphic novelist.

You are writing in a style that could be written as a prose novel, very heavy subjects, but very well done.

So, when you are coming up with your ideas, why are you pushing it in the graphic novel direction rather than maybe a prose?

- I mean, really because I don't feel like I'm a very good writer.

Yeah, I've just always been interested in art, and for a long time, specifically making comics.

And I feel like the sequential art form can better serve what I'm trying to get across than I probably could through just standard prose.

- It's interesting because looking at the presentation, I was looking at, was it "Recent"- - "Recent History?"

- "Recent History," yes.

And what I really liked about this as I was reading through it is you are using empty space.

You are using this pause between scenes, but also pause between emotions and sort of letting the audience become a, I guess pulling you in a little bit more as a reader.

So, when you are thinking about it, again, it's cinematic, it's like a novel, it's all of these things put together.

So, how do you sort of use this empty space in what we expect to have, you know, images to your advantage?

- I just try to, I don't know, especially with something like "Recent History," I know that there's a lot going on with the narrative with your, I try to put you as much into the main character's mind, Simon, and he's dealing with a lot of stuff.

It takes place over the last week of 1999 where people are worried about Y2K and what's going to happen the next week.

Is all of civilization going to crumble?

He's dealing with issues with his family and as he's doing this, he's going on a cross-country trip and trying to document old motels for a reason that I won't reveal.

But there's a lot going on and I try to use the space in there to just kind of illustrate the pauses that he's taken, that he's trying to clear his head and to be, I don't know, on as straight and narrow a path as possible.

But there's almost as if sometimes from time to time, like in the early part of the book, he encounters a school marching band that their bus has like left at a motel and that their driver and their chaperone have left to go to the hospital.

And so with all the space that I kind of put in there, then suddenly these things sort of intrude into his life and he's kind of forced into interacting and kind of having a story unfold for him.

- You are also very, I guess you're using color in a very interesting way because most of the art, the line art is black and white, but you are using a single color in each of these scenes and I guess each of these mindsets that Simon goes through.

So, is this something that is conscious as you are developing the story that you're going to use this color to sort of tie in and lead the reader one way?

Or is this something that just comes organically as you're doing it?

- It was something that came somewhat organically.

I was trying to, usually for the, for a number of my previous books, I was doing, I do everything digital, so it's not an actual ink wash, but like an ink wash brush.

So, I would do that to do shadows and things like that.

But for this, I wanted it to be very stark and then use just single colors throughout to kind of signify different chapters.

And then in the last chapter, I pull all of it away and it's just the black and white as he's sort of coming to terms with what he has to come to terms with.

So, yeah, there wasn't necessarily a rhyme or reason to what colors I used to denote different things that he's going through, but, yeah, just using that specific palette, I figured out that I was very happy with the way that that all looked together and would kind of progress through the book.

- And another thing that really comes through in your work is you have a great understanding of people.

The acting that your characters display on the page is very believable.

So, as you are sitting down at the drawing board or at the tablet and you're working, is this something where you're struggling over, you know, how Simon's going to react when he meets somebody on the roof of a hotel or something?

Or is this something where it's just kind of a natural flow and you kind of just lean into what feels right?

- It's kind of a mix of both.

For a lot of it, it's different things.

Like for this, different things would come to mind, different situations that I wanted him to encounter.

I get into this sort of mindset with all the books that I've worked on where, and I never really see it coming, but there's always about 2/3, 3/4 of the way through working on the book where for a week or so, I'm just kind of bogged down and I'm kind of depressed, and then I realize, "Oh, no, it's because I'm working on the part where, here comes the big thing that my character has to go through and I feel bad that they have to, that I'm the one that's putting them in that situation, but in order to tell the story, I need to do that."

- It's interesting, a lot of artists will talk about having to get into the mindset of a certain scene or a certain character.

So, for example, they might watch the same movie over and over again while they're working on a book or they might listen to the same track of music while they're working on something and have different themes while it's a fight scene or while it's, you know, a conversation at a diner.

So, as you are working on this, do you kind of pull into that, like, I'm gonna listen to the same thing over and over again as you're feeling these characters out?

Or is it something where, like you're saying, you just feel as you're drawing and that comes through?

- Yeah, usually very early on, I'll start pulling together a playlist of songs that will sort of inform the, like, as much as I love sequential art, the art form, and like the limitless possibilities of things that you can do within it, there isn't sound.

And so sometimes I kind of need that aspect.

So, making playlists of music that I think kind of fills out different emotions that I want to evoke.

And then I go for a nice long walk every day and usually that's a good time for me to kind of think about what I need to do either that day or the next day with the narrative moving forward.

And then in the end, for almost all the books that I've done, I make a playlist that I put into the books, a suggested playlist for each chapter or the entire thing, and just to sort of inform it a little bit.

And you can read the entire book without it, but, you know, maybe if you go back and listen to those songs for those chapters, maybe you take something else out of it.

- It's interesting, it reminds me of the Michael Nesmith album "The Prison," which he wrote essentially a short story for each of the songs that you would read while the song was playing so you could kind of get the soundtrack of what he was feeling.

And it's interesting how different things inform artists and how you're able to tap into an emotion that a songwriter's put into something and put it into sequential art.

And also, cinema has a great way of doing that.

And I'm thinking about your storytelling, which as I mentioned, you use empty spaces and you use a lot of dramatic pauses here and there.

So, as you are sort of conceptualizing the book and working on how the pages are going to be laid out, are you thinking in terms of, "I'm the cinematographer at this point and I need to get the the angle just right?"

Or are you thinking, "I wanna be inspired by this and I'm going to sort of go by the way Hitchcock might've told this story?"

- A lot of it, for a very long time, I mean, all the sequential work that I've done has been since late 2018, early 2019.

So, when I say a long time ago, you know, a couple years ago.

But for a long time, it was just kind of adhering to a three panel per page structure.

And with that, then, you know, it's wide screen, every panel is like, I can kind of make it look like you're watching a movie.

But what I've tried to do is to transition out of that and to kind of break free.

So, something like "I Lived In The Clouds" or "Recent History," taking the cinematic approach, but not kind of confining it to a box.

For me, it's more fun to do that, but it's also because there's something very comforting about here's, you know, four lines that I have to draw everything within that.

When you kind of do away with that and you have a bunch of open space to play around with, then it makes me a little more nervous about where I'm going to put things.

And so, yeah, when I thumbnail everything out, I'm very particular about where I want things to be.

I'll go back and I'll move things just, you know, maybe an inch this way or an inch that way, or sometimes redraw entire chapters of something because ultimately the way the characters are standing or the blocking within the scene I realized doesn't work, and yeah.

- Right now it seems that most of Hollywood, the big studios, are putting out the blockbuster films that they hope are gonna make the biggest return on their investment and the character driven films sort of have either gone away or are the purview of some streaming service.

And it's interesting 'cause comics are moving in the opposite direction where it seems readers are not necessarily, not that superheroes are losing their appeal, but a lot of readers are moving into the character-driven smaller stories that have an emotional connection rather than, you know, where you have to stop Thanos.

As someone who is a comic reader, and you're wearing a "Mage" shirt, the classic Matt Wagner- - Oh, no, this is a Madman.

- Madman.

- Sorry.

- Well, you know what?

They both have the lightning bolt.

- The dot's way down here, so, yeah, yeah.

- So, you know, when you are reading comics and getting inspired by those comics and you're getting inspired by what the media's doing today, how do you sort of, I guess, tell the story that you want to tell and connect with that audience?

- I was born in 1980.

Like, my prime time for being into comics was during the image comics boom in the early 90s.

And so most of my comic collection now is still from that era.

I looked through all those books, but it didn't feel like there was a lot of substance even when I was younger.

It didn't hold my attention as much as something like when I came across, or when a friend of mine introduced me to "Love and Rockets" when I was in college, that immediately grabbed me because it was just very down to earth.

Even the early stories with "Maggie the Mechanic," you know, it's still Maggie.

She's still like, feels like a real person even though she's like way off somewhere doing prosolar mechanics with a dinosaur and, you know.

So, yeah.

Sorry, I think I went way off the range there.

- Well, I mean, comics are interesting.

I think "Love and Rockets" is sort of that gateway for a lot of us because it's a beautifully drawn book.

The Brothers Hernandez are both immensely talented, and Jaime in particular.

He combines that really sweet Archie style with some really emotional grownup material.

And it's, again, that stark contrast to, I'm not going to say a particular studio, but, you know, they tended to be a little bit more bombastic, a little bit more exaggerated anatomy, and yeah, the stories weren't quite there.

So, you know, I think, again, the modern comic readers are a little bit more sophisticated.

And when you are creating content, are you thinking about that audience or are you just thinking, I have a story to tell?

- I'm thinking that I have a story to tell and one of the hard things is, or for me at least, was to get over my fear of sharing things, because a lot of my stuff, even though, you know, a lot of my characters, a lot of the characters in my books are not, you know, white males, but there's still something that I feel that I'm trying to convey through them.

And so, I don't know, I feel like I, once I was able to kind of get over the hurdle of feeling like I could share and that there wasn't anything for me to be scared of...

There's still stuff for me to be scared of.

I'm still scared every time I get ready to put something out.

But what I focus on is that odds are if there's, if I feel a certain way with what I'm trying to present through a book, then it's very likely that someone else out there feels the same way.

And not necessarily everybody, but, you know, someone might feel the same way and they might feel the way that I have felt for a long time and that's like, I'm the only one that feels this way.

I'm the only one that's going through this.

And so it's important for me and I try to encourage other people to be able to write the stories that they want to write and put them out there because if you can connect with those people, then I think that that's, I don't know, it makes the world a much better place.

And there's a place for, you know, super cross-hatching exaggerated muscles and that sort of thing, but I personally just don't find it as interesting anymore.

- What I find interesting is you said fear, and I think a lot of creators are, we tend to be afraid of what someone else is going to think.

And I know that for my students here at UNC Pembroke, you know, if you give someone criticism on their project, they can take it as a personal criticism rather than a way to perhaps improve their work.

So, as somebody who is a professional artist outside of the comics arena, did that help thicken your skin to take the criticism from maybe an editor or that beta reader who's going to tell you, "Oh, you know what?

Page 15 is, it needs a little of this or needs a little of that?"

Or was it something where you're still kind of getting those bruises when someone tells you that they don't get that particular bit?

- Yeah, it still sometimes, when I get that, I'll get questions back, I'll be really proud of something that I've done and I'll pass it off to someone and they're like, "Oh, wait, what?

What happened there?"

And like, "Oh, no, it's pretty clear, right?"

No, no, it's not.

And yeah, I mean, you want everything that you make to be just great first time out, but I don't know, that would make it way too easy.

So, I mean, with a lot of the work that I do, I now like usually a couple rounds of editing, like I do it myself, I'll go back over it.

I'll take a little time to step away from something and come back.

But yeah, like years of taking art classes in college and high school and all that and then being a gig poster artist for like 20 years now and, you know, talking to someone at a club and they're like, "Joan Baez's agent didn't understand what that poster was about."

And like, "Oh, okay, well, that sucks."

But, you know, yeah, the criticism kind of, it's not always great, but I feel ultimately it's really important because as long as the criticism comes from a good place, or even like bad criticism, you can still kind of go down, figure out what that's rooted in, and hopefully pull something good out of that.

And yeah, I don't think that the, yeah, short answer, yeah, the criticism, it still kind of hurts, but ultimately I'm happy to have it whenever it happens, so.

- So, one of the things that indie creators can do in order to find an audience is to go to conventions.

And you and I met at HeroesCon this year.

We were introduced by Ruth and Darren Sutherland, who are, I think the greatest part of the comic community are people like the Sutherlands who are reading so much different material and trying to share it with as many folks as possible.

So, when you are at a convention and you meet people who are either, "I'm here because John Romita Jr.'s here," and you've got people who are here because they know you're there, how do you sort of work to get people who are at the convention to kind of take a moment to look at what you're doing, have that conversation, and maybe, you know, they're gonna check out your website or buy one of your books?

- I'm not very good at that.

Yeah, I'll usually let people, I don't want to, because my work deals with a lot of heavy topics and usually some stemming from some aspect of my depression or loss or trauma or something, I feel bad, you know, trying to push stuff on people.

I'll usually let them come up and look through and if they have questions, then I'm happy to answer the questions or to engage with them.

But I don't feel like my work is necessarily something that's, yeah, that I should stand out in front of the table and say, "Hey, you should read the, do you have a parent with memory loss?

Well, you're really gonna like this one," so.

- But again, it's something that is so important to a lot of creators, and that's where you and I had a chance to speak, and what I really liked about what happens at a convention, especially when I get to meet someone who I find interesting, it's a chance to explore new ideas that I don't normally get exposed to because, you know, I'm working, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

I don't have a chance to read a lot of comics.

So, when I get exposed to something that's new and interesting, it's a great part of a convention.

So, when you are there and you're talking to someone, I know it's not comfortable for you- - Oh, yeah.

- But it's a great opportunity.

And do you have that moment where you can see somebody who maybe is a little hesitant, but you can kinda see that switch click because you do engage them in a way that isn't, I'm not trying to sell, but I'm trying to be a person, and they click to you on that emotional level?

- A lot of times it actually comes across, or it comes through with my being open about my, I have bipolar depression, and my mentioning that or bringing that up as the, they'll ask about one of the books that I've done and then that'll kind of come up, as like some of the earlier books especially dealt a lot more with my sort of processing my depression.

And that will usually hook some people in, you know, that I'm actually willing to talk about that sort of thing because, you know, more people are willing to talk about it now, but I know that when I was coming up, that was not something that was talked about.

So, I feel like it's, I'm always happy when people sort of seem to feel like there's a safe space to sort of talk about that and will tell me about their loved ones or their partner or something or even themselves, these things that they've gone through and, yeah, just how important it is to share stuff like that.

- You self-publish your material.

So, how do you sort of negotiate the day job, the discipline it takes to create content, and then finding a way to get the book into the hand of the customers by literally getting it published?

- I just kind of barrel through.

Every morning, I get up really early, I work for several hours and just try to keep, like, as soon as I finish something, then I push it out the door and get the next thing moving.

And yeah, I just kind of, as part of like sort of therapy for myself, I just kind of have to, I feel like I have to just keep moving, pushing forward.

- And you mentioned that you work digitally, so is it difficult for you to finish a page simply because you have so many possibilities to undo or try it again and- - Sometimes, but I have a little note above my desk that says, "Sometimes a page just has to tell the story."

And so if I feel like the page has done that, then I let it go.

And even if I'm like, "Well, but maybe if I worked on it for a couple more hours," no, no, no, save that energy for the next page, and yeah.

- And in the few minutes that we have left, it seems as if, especially for something like "Recent History," you've done a lot of research on classic motels, especially the signs outside, which were eye-catching because people were driving cars and they needed a place to stay.

So, is this something where you are just looking online or do you go to old books, and how do you avoid not getting lost into, "Here's another cool one.

Oh, here's another cool one?"

- Oh, well, there was plenty of that for this.

For "Recent History," like during lockdown, I had an idea when I was traveling that I would go and I would actually do this, that I would document old motels.

And I realized at some point that would be very expensive.

So, and would require, I have a 16-year-old son and it would require me to be away from home a lot.

And so, yeah, some of it were photos that I took.

They're based on photos that I took of different motels that I saw.

And some of it's like going down the rabbit hole of old motels online, so.

- And if the folks watching at home wanted to find out more about you, where can they find you on the web to pick up a book like "I Lived In The Clouds?"

- At my website, plasticflame.com.

I've got links to all of my books and links to my gig poster screen printing work that I've done for a couple decades.

- And I'm imagining that's a different discipline, but not any less satisfying.

- It causes back problems and shoulder problems, but I love it dearly.

- Well, Chris, they're telling us that we are out of time.

I wanted to thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule and driving down to Pembroke today.

- Oh, thank you.

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

We will see you again soon.

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