Lost Ollie is a hybrid live-action and animated, four-part series on Netflix about a boy and his toys from director Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse) and creator Shannon Tindle (Kubo and the Two Strings) featuring the voice talents of Mary J. Blige and Tim Blake Nelson and starring Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin). Scot Stafford of Pollen Music created the score by blending two wildly different musical genres.
Ollie is a rabbit toy with a country twang who wakes up at the lost and found of an antique shop. Vague memories remind him that he was separated from his best friend, Billy. So Ollie decides to take a journey, following the little clues offered by his fractured memory to guide him. But he has helpin the form of Zozo (Nelson), a toy clown, and his friend Rosy (Blige), a pink, sword-wielding teddy bear. During his adventure to find his family, Ollie remembers his life with Billy, his parents, and the hard times they faced. Billy’s also searching for his friend despite the troubles happening to and around the young boy.
PopAxiom spoke with Scot Stafford about making the music for Lost Ollie.
Split In Two
Scot’s story starts, in part, because of a musically talented older brother. But the skill was a mystery. “It was nowhere to be found in our family before him. I have no idea what possessed him, but he was obsessed with music at a very young age,” Scot explains. They took piano lessons, and by the time Scot was five, and his brother was eight, he was writing songs.
They had a cassette recorder that recorded a bit too fast. “When we’d play it back, it would sound slow. So we’d sound like older people,” Scot continues. “Farts would sound funny.”
Scot and his brother “became obsessed” with recording themselves, including creating a fake radio station. “We’d write these songs about disco but in no way remotely influenced by disco. It was what we thought disco was from watching all these cool people on TV.”
When asked about his earliest influences, in addition to disco, Scot references going to church as a child. He was amazed by the impressive sounds of a choir and the immense pipe organs.
Scot studied classical music but only played it half the time. “I was always in a rock band or some experimental noise band. So by day, I was a classical musician and this mischievous rocker by night.”
Scot attributes his wide range of interests early on to his ability to adapt to the ever-changing nature of film and television music production. “Every project is different,” Scot says. “I think Lost Ollie brought a lot of different things together. We all have different interests, and when a project can bring those together, that’s unique and precious.”
Rip-off
In his 20’s, Scot focused on songwriting and playing in bands. “It didn’t fully pan out, at least regarding a career,” Scot laughs. However, his early musician years led Scot to meet and befriend a number of incredible creatives.
One such creative was animator Doug Sweetland, who had been coming to Scot’s rock shows for some time. Pixar was gaining acclaim as an animation studio, and Sweeland had just finished up on Bug’s Life when Doug approached Scot with ideas for a collaboration on an animated music video for one of the band’s songs.
“I was fed and nourished by animation, but at that age, it wasn’t what I was paying attention to,” Scot says. “I also thought at the time that computer animation was more about the death of art than creating a new one. So I was one of those guys.”
Doug and Scot started talking about doing a music video together. Doug pitched a few ideas for some songs, and then Scot’s perception of Doug completely flipped. “It’s hard to describe, but I realized this person I thought I knew was a complete genius,” he recounts.
Years later, Doug was directing a Pixar theatrical short called Presto and asked Scot to come on board as a composer. “It evoked a lot of nostalgic cartoons,” Scot says of the score. “It was an incredible opportunity to dive into the golden era of cartoon scores.”
“I went deep into Carl Stalling who was probably, along with John Williams, my biggest influence,” Scot says of the legendary composer. “I spent a month trying not to rip off Carl, but the people that influenced him.”
About Lost Ollie
Scot met with show creator Shannon Tindle. “The first thing he said was that he wanted it to sound like an Appalachian Lord of the Rings,” he remembers. “That’s a very evocative thing to say. Sometimes these broad strokes are a strong idea. I knew I had to work on Lost Ollie.”
It was the “perfect prompt” for Scot, even if most others might balk at that strange combination. “Not only do I have family roots in Appalachia, but it’s also something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I grew up for a big part of my life in West Virginia. That region is a special place culturally in terms of music and instruments.”
Scot also grew up as a big Tolkien nerd. “I memorized Elvish poetry when I was 12 years old,” he recalls. To have a project like this that brought together Appalachia and folk music with the implied epic orchestral music was intriguing.
He asked himself, “How do I find a family of instruments that would speak those two languages to get to that level of emotion?” The answer to his questions came in the form of a fretless mountain banjo, which he learned how to play, as well as a mountain dulcimer. Both instruments are heard frequently on the score.
Wrapping Up
There’s no doubt that it was a challenge for Scot to blend orchestral and Appalachian folk together harmoniously. “We had some talented musicians in the recording studio,” Scot explains. “I worked with Stephen Spies, a staff composer at Pollen. He’s a talented fiddle player. I got him to record some of the fiddle parts, which became one of the central sounds of the score. Subtle changes would push things to sound more orchestral or more Appalachian.”
Also key to the score was the technology used to capture the sound. On Pollen’s JJ Wiesler’s recommendation, they recorded the orchestra in Atmos in Budapest. “We captured the front, back, and height of the hall, placing microphones according to common Atmos speaker locations. Most of the time, when you mix music, you never provide Atmos to the mix. It can be hard to preserve that throughout the process. But because JJ was mixing the music, and long-time collaborator Jamey Scott was doing the final mix, we were able to pull it off,” Scot says.
In the future, Scot’s excited to push formats creatively for more impactful, immersive experiences. Fans of a beloved Japanese franchise will also be excited to learn about Scot’s next project. “I’m working on Shannon Tindle’s next big project, an Ultraman feature,” he reveals.
Is Lost Ollie on your watch list?
Thanks to Scot Stafford and Impact24 PR
for making this interview possible.
The premise is simple: read one comic every day for the entire year. It seems like a simple task but there is no way that I read 365 comics last year, even if you count the individual issues in collections. So, this year, I am committing myself to this reading challenge, in the hope that I can broaden my reading habits and fully engage with my favorite hobby again.
I’ve realized that this project is turning into something of a comics diary, revealing more about me as a person than I expected. And that’s the beauty of comics. It’s not just about picking up the latest copy of Spider-Man on a Wednesday, reading it, and then slipping it into a sleeve for it to be filed away. The comics we read are a reflection of our mood at the time we read them. They represent our mindsets, our opinions, and our personal philosophies. When I first started writing about comics, places like Facebook and Twitter were instrumental for sharing those thoughts, getting recognized, and starting conversations. These days, not so much. I barely use my Twitter account, and Facebook is for personal use. I hide as much as possible behind privacy walls. I am running out of places where I can talk about comics, especially about the kinds of things that interest me about the medium. Most of what I read on social media frustrates me and often raises my hackles. The conversations are puerile and often founded on discrimination and hate. I know this is only a small representation of ‘comic fans’ (and more often than not, they’re not really comic fans), but they are usually the loudest and dominate conversations. I have also seen a number of the websites that I loved become nothing more than listicles and promotional tools for the publishers. They are devoid of discussion.
Every now and then I go through a stage where I contemplate giving up on comics. I have a cup of tea and think about leaving the house of ideas behind me. At the end of last year, I cancelled my standing order at my local comic shop, one that I had for over a decade, because I was no longer able to afford it. At least, that was my excuse. In reality, I wasn’t reading the comics that I was buying — even the ones that I liked such as Saga, a title I haven’t read since the hiatus, but have still bought every issue of. I guess, as I’ve gotten older, my tastes have changed. I am more interested in the concept of comics than I am in actually reading comics. My enjoyment has moved away from the pure entertainment of the medium towards an appreciation for the art.
I was in a Facebook group dedicated to comic appreciation which turned out to be more predominately people showing off their comic collections and new buys. There was very little discussion about the comics or the medium in general. One post that has stuck with me was from a man who was complaining that the workers in his local shop (young ‘uns, obviously) weren’t aware that Miracleman was an old character made popular in the 1980s by Alan Moore and published in magazines long since extinct. This poster was mortified that he had to explain to the staff that the character dated back to the early days of comics and had been reinvented and re-released on a number of occasions. He finished his post with a quip about a hypothetical 5 year old trying to convince him that a Funko Pop toy was a comic. Oh, how these young un’s lack any knowledge. Except, to that theoretical 5 year old, the Funko Pop figure would probably factor into his love of comics. The toy would be a large part of how the child would engaged with and enjoy comics. In the same way that large audiences go and see the Marvel movies, and in turn consider themselves connoisseurs of comics. My love of comics was born through the Transformers comics of the mid 1980’s. I loved the cartoon show and bought piles of toys (unfortunately, lost to car boot sales over time). The comic was bought for me because of the other media I consumed and I soon became addicted to it. For me, the interest in comics started with television shows and toys. Therefore, who are we to deny the love of paraphernalia surrounding the medium?
This project was supposed to help me find my love of comics again and, 8 weeks in, I think it has but not quite in the way that I thought. I don’t want to spend each week reading 7 comics and then writing a short review about how much I liked them. My intention was never just to write a list of my favorite comics and why I read them. Therefore, in the future, I’m going to incorporate other aspects of comics, as I have already done, into my daily ‘reads’.
Anyway, this week I have been mainly reading comics from the digital anthology Aces Weekly. I subscribe to the site and pay some money every now and then to get access to the volumes as they are released. The fact I don’t know how much or when I pay says something about my commitment to the business model that David Lloyd is promoting. I log into the site possibly once a year and read a whole bunch of comic strips in one go, instead of reading it week on week, which I think you are supposed to do. The following comics are the 7 that I enjoyed, for one reason or another, from my sporadic reading this week.
Living the Dream Credit: Aces Weekly
Comic Number 57: Living the Dream by Fer Calvi
I started to read this strip from the latest volume (number 61) but it’s only three weeks in. The comic, however, like so many others in Aces Weekly, has been going on for a number of issues, so I went back to read the earlier chapters. I picked this one out because of the art style. I love the cubist renditions of the world the characters inhabit and how the color changes from the ‘real’ world into the digital world affects the way you read and digest the story. The visual change is significant and striking but, fundamentally, the art style is the same.
I’m not really a fan of the story, or the characters, as I found the dialogue flat and forced but flicking from page to page to look at the wonderful art was enough to justify reading several chapters.
The Pack Credit: Aces Weekly
Comic Number 58: The Pack by Jok
The Pack is a perfect short story and a wonderful comic. The black and white artwork sets the atmosphere of this gritty crime story with brutal characters in a brutal narrative. It reminded me of the older crime comics I was reading last week and uses the medium brilliantly to tell the story. Jok manipulates the space on the page to invoke emotions and involve the reader directly with the narrative.
Jok is an Argentinian artist who has found a market in European comics. He adds a sense of humor to his work but, as demonstrated in The Pack, it is his draftsmanship that is his greatest talent. The story slides across the page like the ink from his pen.
Combat Colin Credit: Aces Weekly
Comic Number 59: Combat Colin by Lew Stringer
Going all the way back to volume one for this comic strip action. For those who know, Combat Colin was published in the weekly marvel comics Action Force and Transformers. So, I’ve been reading this strip for many, many years. Lew Stringer is a lover of British comics and enjoys the whimsical nature of the gag strip. With Combat Colin he mixes aspects of different strips to produce some uniquely entertaining. The jokes are dreadful (on purpose) and the characters are over the top (again, that’s the point) but somehow the strip is endearing.
In this first volume, Colin and his sidekick, Steve, fight Giant Zombie Yeds, created by mad scientists who were just experimenting on corpses (as they do). Seemingly dismissable, Combat Colin is actually steeped in history and draws on aspects of the comic strip that have been around longer than the comic book. There’s more to Lew Stringer than cheap tricks and bad puns. His work is worthy of discovery.
Panza Tripod Credit: Aces Weekly
Comic Number 60: Panzer tripod by Reza Benhadj
“Let’s admire the countryside.”
Z21 — the central alien character in this story by Benhadj — sums up the visuals perfectly. This is a visual treat where a combination of shadow and negative space make up the images within the panels. The comics within Aces Weekly have a page design to fit a monitor screen, a different shape to the standard American comic book, and Benhadj uses it perfectly with a combination of full page long shots and collections of small, tight panels. The framing in this story is spot on and is reminiscent of the original Alien movie.
Visual scope. That’s the best way to describe this comic.
Bog Trotter Credit: Aces Weekly
Comic Number 61: Bog Trotter by Katie Cunningham and Hailey Renee Brown
This macabre vampire-esq story about female empowerment is told in mostly grey scale artwork. The darkness that underlines the narrative is reflected in the disturbing creature that stalks the tale on almost every page. Cunningham and Brown weave a cunning short story about the sexism embedded in the educational establishments around the turn of the 19th century but do it with a gothic horror twist.
The comic reads in the same way a Hammer Horror movie plays out: lots of elaborate costumes and clever word play barely distracts from the creature in the room. The rendering of the vampire creature is suitably grotesque as it enchants the leading lady. It is succinct and smartly plotted.
Head Case Credit: Aces Weekly
Comic Number 62: Head Case by Ale Mangiarotti
Buried in volume 56, Head Case is another short story with a twist. The first half is a silent comic about an artist and his hat. But somewhere in the middle it takes a turn.
Existential dread and writer’s block are the backbones for Mangiarotti’s tale — one that needs to be read to be believed.
Nothing Maybe Something Credit: Aces Weekly
Comic Number 63: Nothing Maybe Something by Chris Geary
It’s a love story, of sorts. A tale of friendship told in the simplest of ways. Often abstract and occasionally touching, this comic exemplifies the genius of an anthology like Aces Weekly. It is so different from everything else in this week’s list and a breath of fresh air in general.
Read it in issue 50. Also read “Swell” in issue 44. It’s about a man in a boat on a rough sea. The artwork is sublime.
Aces Weekly is an online comics anthology that showcases a mix of talent from all over the world. You can buy specific volumes or subscribe and get the weekly editions as they are released, even if you only log in once a year. Along with the mixed talent there is also an array of genres and styles on offer; it really does have something for everyone, whether you are into gag strips, sci-fi action stories, or avant-garde tales. Check it out here.
Welcome to Self-Published Spotlight, a regular interview column where I will be highlighting self-published comics and the creators and small print publishers who make them.
As soon as I laid eyes on Sam Blanchard’s (aka Shlepzig) art, I was taken. Heavily stylized, flowing and clean, his art has a ton of movement and design. You don’t so much look at it, it jumps right off the page and straight into your eyes. Sam has also had a storied life in and out of comics (for example, the dude is also a swashbuckling fencer swordsman who coaches kids). Talking to Sam was a lot like ingesting his comics, full of love for the comics medium, with true artistic sensibility and the talent of delivering A LOT in a short amount of time.
Monkeys Fighting Robots: Sam what’s your comic book origin? How and when did you get into comics? Sam Blanchard: Like pretty much everyone else, I started reading comics as soon as I could read. Normal fare, Superman, Spiderman, Peanuts… the stuff everybody read in the mid-70s. I also loved cartoons, the Fleischer Popeyes, Loony Tunes and Disney shorts. I was drawn to everything cartoony, I would run home in 3rd grade to catch Speed Racer on local channel 12 making me a weeb at an astonishingly young age. There was a FF I remember from when I was 7 or 8. The Four are kidnapped Prisoner style to Latveria where Doctor Doom has them kept in this creepy community, it must have been a Kirby issue because the weird technology and designs were intoxicating to look at. My parents were both art teachers and aspiring professional fine artists. So drawing and painting were the default activities whenever kids were over or there was just a little downtime. Maybe that’s what made me sensitive to visual narrative, maybe it changed something deep inside me. All those factors came together and by my early teen years, it was clear there was something different about me. I gravitated to D&D in the early 80s, I obsessed over the Toth-designed Herculoids and Johnny Quest, Thundarr blew my mind. I bought comics obsessively in the early to mid-80s when amazing things were happening in the medium. I discovered Heavy Metal in 1979 on the back shelf of the Magazine rack where I wasn’t supposed to look, next to the Easy Riders. Rick Veitch’s Abraxas and the Earth Man, Corben’s Den and my favorite Ranxerox. My mutant powers were somehow unleashed around high school. I would never again be like other humans, I was doomed to be a cartoonist. In 85 to 86, the year I graduated from high school, there was the indy comic boom. Previously it was just whispered legends of zines like the Freak Brothers found in head shops or behind the beaded curtains at used record stores. Now there was Cerebus and ElfQuest, creator-owned properties. AD2000 stuff coming out of Europe… stuff beyond just Marvel or DC. The turning point was the Turtles. TMNT was fantastic but that’s not its key to success, it was a balance of goofy and gritty and the art was good but not too good. You read it and were inspired to think, “I could do that”. So I started to believe. So did everybody else, when I went to the campus comic shop it was filled with TMNT imitators as well as a million others. Most of them were awful. I took a step back and thought how can I do this without making something as awful as most of this? There was a long pause.
Eastman & Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as drawn by Shlepzig
MFR: That’s a Tolkienish journey! So when did you make a conscious effort to create your own book? SB:I checked out of the comics scene around the time I left my first college journey in 1990. I rode my motorcycle around Oregon, couch surfing, playing in the SCA and other salacious lifestyle choices. I narrowly missed becoming a tattoo artist. One thing led to another, I was studying engineering and art in Portland, Or. I was doing freelance illustration through the indy zine circles in 1993 and illustrations for the never published Great Adventure Game (aka GAG). I was doing ok but not making a ton of money when I found myself a single father to my son Bjorn. I kinda figured I should get a steady job. So I quit studying art, buckled down, moved out to the desert and got my engineering degree in another year (25 credit quarters and a Summer term). That kinda stuck for many years until the USA decided a Scooby Doo villain should be the president. I had picked up my art supplies now and again over the years but not seriously. I occasionally picked up a copy of Spider-man or Daredevil to read on the train to and from NYC every day. I kept coming back to comics, exciting stuff was happening in comics and manga through the 2000s but it never stuck for long. Now though, I needed some serious art therapy or I would just refresh the Washington Post feed to find out what president cheeto had done next… The work culture was awful, and the evil bank I worked for was going downhill (they had to pay billions of dollars in fines after the subprime fiasco) so I was pretty much left alone in my office. I could draw most of the day, answer a few emails and run the scripts I had written that mostly did my job for me. I discovered the Cartoonist Kayfabe vlog through BoingBoing (that had been running Ed’s Hip-Hop Family Tree) and started posting my art on Instagram as I started getting my chops back. I was considering making a comic again once I felt I could draw a bit now. I started doing Draw This In Your Style challenges #DTIYS and was doing them as little 4-panel strips to learn how to tell stories (in print in collection Number 1). I met James Edward Clark and Matt King (Tales To Enlighten) through Instagram. I was definitely getting more confident in my art and storytelling. The bank decided to let me go in December of 2019, and I was cool with that, they gave me a generous severance and I was ready to take on the dual life of fencing coach and cartoonist. Things were going swimmingly, I finished the high school fencing season in Feb. I opened my fencing club in the same month. I had met a bunch of makers online like Erik Klaus and was following Jamie Jones and Matt Sardo with Monkeys Fighting Robots. My plan was to go to a bunch of cons in 2020 to network and figure out the ropes. I had my first con badge and was super excited for Zapp Con, on March 20, 2020. We know how that worked out. So we were all scrambling to figure out if this was going to be a 28-day or a Mad Max scenario. I discovered Cartoonist Kayfabe Ringside Seats. Matt King was just starting work on TTE 2 while finishing up TTE 1 and asked me to do an 8-pager for him. So that was a long-term gig to do whenever (I think it took over two years to get done). Then the fateful call to arms for Image Grand Disaster to do some coloring for a story that was running late. That was it… I was locked in a small room, never coming out, drawing all day or reading comic books, and watching anime with my daughter. I was a full-fledged cartoonist now.
Sam combines his love of comics and fencing!
MFR: From finance to fencing to funny books! I love it! SB:Engineering for a finance company. I was part of the global engineering team leading data center strategy.
MFR: Still makes you a man of many hats!
SB: Like Johnny two-hats!
MFR: One thing I admire about you is your speed at cartooning. Having sat with you through various zoom drawing/hanging out group sessions you have an amazing pace. And not only that, your art doesn’t suffer for it. How do you accomplish that level of speed?
SB: I draw fast for a couple of reasons, firstly I just can’t stick with a piece for too long, I get bored and lose interest, or overwork the piece. Dealing with my children’s ADHD I’m pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADD and high-functioning autism myself. So I also suspect that’s part of it. Just kinda working within the confines of my own head. Why does it work? I think I have good instincts and my first decision is probably the best one, that way I don’t fall prey to self-doubt and rework a piece until it’s just mud. It’s a philosophy I think is true for most people. I don’t think I have extraordinary instincts, I think we all intrinsically understand what works and what doesn’t. The trick is committing to that raw unedited idea without flinching. I use a phrase when I am coaching “being fully committed to a bad plan is better than half committed to a good plan”. Artistically, the idea is that we will edit ourselves out of something really innovative when we start to hold back. Not that everything comes out as pure gold, but those raw ideas are the ones that are most interesting and most honest to our true inspiration. So I just throw ink down and see what happens. It’s usually pretty interesting. I think my work gets a lot less interesting when I start to think about it too much. Of course, some of it is just not good, but I try to move on to the next thing and see what happens.
MFR: With all that in mind then, what would you say is the favorite of your works or the one that best represents you and your art? SB:That’s a tough one. I have only been at this a couple of years so I don’t have an expansive body of work like a lot of the cartoonists I know. I feel like my skills are still growing really quickly and I am evolving as a storyteller. So the best representation of me as a storyteller is probably yet to come. I really love the book Red and the world of File 2231 in which it resides (there is more upcoming). That scratches a lot of itches for me, the sisters of our lady of extraterrestrial lament are semi-erotic, hyper-violent, supernatural nuns in retro 60s miniskirts and gogo boots fighting against sll the things that go bump in the night: over-the-top action, pulp sensibility, supernatural horror, sexy ladies and a little goofball humor. There so much more to come. If you read my 2021 Collection you get a pretty clear view of who I am, but I was just a baby cartoonist then (fundamentally, I still am). That collection is a really wide view of me, my influences, my history, my process and learning how to do cartooning. It’s a very personal project. The work I did for a Troma tribute comic (hopefully coming out soon) is really astounding (and unspeakably filthy). Certainly outside of my explicitness comfort zone but pushed me with composition and color so I learned a lot. Perhaps a turning point for me was the Cyber-Ice-Strike six pager I did for the Ringside-Thology session on Liefeld night. I solidified a couple of things for myself that are becoming signature design elements for me, borderless panels and a single color palette defined as a background color that the rest of the art sits on top of in both positive and negative space. Narratively, the character came together and the story leaves you wanting more (I am often asked when more is coming out with this character). I think I have danced around that answer sufficiently.
MFR: Can you talk about your process? Do you approach each project the same? or does it change for each? And what’s in your tool kit, both analog and digital?SB: As far as making comics it can vary depending on where my story is coming from. If I am writing myself it’s very loose. I get some plot points on paper and start drawing some images that match. I string them together on the page and act out dialog looking for those “I’ll be back” moments where the dialog clicks with the scene to bring the right nuance. When I get a script from another author I prefer to get something really loose. I want to use my storytelling instincts and style to set the pace and mood i am getting from the story. My favorite collaboration was Heavy Traffic written by Jonathan Thompson and visually compiled by me (featured in Wizerd #2). Jonathan had a set of plot points for a 16-page story about the world and we had a 6-page limit for our submission. I banged some ideas back and forth with Jonathan and trimmed it back and I think we delivered a really powerful piece. I did a great project recently with David Allen where he had already written a ‘full’ script and it was a really good story but I had a couple of issues with the pacing. We worked on a bunch of edits to get the story but never settled on the edits to the page composition I wanted. I ended up doing it twice with both layouts (it only required a couple of extra panels to be drawn – digital composition FTW). The end result is fantastic, Pepere will be in Fugitive Poems Fall release of Containment Breach #4. So i kinda roll with the punches, but really prefer an open sandbox to play in. What is called The Marvel Method is my favorite collaboration method for that reason. I feel that you’re going with an artist to tell your story because you like how they do it, let them tell your story they way they think is best. Artistically, I usually do really loose pencils on paper and follow with ink on paoer. There’s something about what I can do with a tool in my hand on actual paper i can’t achieve with digital. I use mechanical pencils with regular or blue line Iead in .5mm .9mm and 2mm sizes (mostly the bigger ones). I ink mostly with Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens and Microns but also use some manga nylon brush nibs (kuretake? maybe) and felt chisel tip pens. I’m playing with stamps as well (another inspiration borrowed from Jesse Lonergan whom I probably owe money for the ideas I have lifted from him).
Cover to bootleg/fan Weapon X homage ‘Weapon Echh’
MFR: Do you have a favorite part of the process and by contrast one that you just HATE? I’d also love to hear your specific influences, both in terms of comics and any other medium or media. SB:My favorite part is probably inking, that’s where the art comes to life. I enjoy the entire process, if I had to hand letter everything, I would hate that. I don’t hate page layout, but it is the part I find most daunting and frustrating. In part, because I collage my pages together, sometimes I don’t get the image size right and I have to trim or squish it to get it to fit the panel in the page. Or sometimes i just have to redraw a panel because I changed my mind about layout. All in all, I really enjoy the entire process, writing, drawing, lettering and pre-press editing. I’m always learning new things, so maybe ill eventually learn a process I hate.
Influences is a big one. Classic comics from the Silver Age through the 80s and the early indy scene. All the big names fit in there. Ditko, Kirby, Buscema, Byrne, Neal Adams, Perez etc Later, Sienkiewicz (New Mutants), BWS (Machine Man), Kaluta (Starstruck), Corben (general horror), Veitch (Abraxas), Moebius (Arzach, Incal), Jansen (DD), Sim (Cerebus), Eastman, Laird (TMNT). Michael Golden (Micronauts) And oddballs like Edward Gorey and Charles Addams Classic comic creators like McCay, Herge, Herriman, Schultz are also big influences. Heavily influenced by Alex Toth’s adventure cartoons from Hanna-Barbera. Illustrators/painters like Maxfield Parrish, Arthur Rackham, Gustav Dore were big inspirations from the books I read they illustrated. Story wise I love pulp lit. Robert E Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lovecraft, Poe, Hammett, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, that whole lot. Miller really captured pulp sensibility in his seminal series from DD to DKR to Sin City, it’s all pulp tropes. I love anime and manga, the view of storytelling outside of western culture is a really fresh take. So n the anime and manga world, that’s what I was picking up in the 90s. In the post-Robotech/pre-Streaming world you could find all manner of VHS insanity and Viz was just starting to invade bookstores. Early stuff like Battle AngelAlita, Patlabor, and M66 led to the theatrical releases of Fist of The North Star, Akira and Ninja Scroll. I love all that over-the-top stuff. I moved to the east coast in ’98 the internet was changing everything, so much stuff. It was all influencing me. Post 9-11 I was minding a data center in SoHo that the company I worked for was moving out of. It was basically just me in the building for 3 months with practically nothing to do. I started drawing again for a while. Browsing the internet with the new search engine Google I discovered some incredibly influential artists, Celia Calle and through her Ashley Wood. Lately, my favorite modern manga work has been Tsutomo Nihei and his combined world of Blame, anything and everything by Masaaki Yuasa or Satoshi Kon and Pluto by Naoki Urasawa. Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe also has a golden touch. Incredible stuff all around. The Gonzo Studio era is also a favorite, expansive work like the Range Murata designed Last Exile, the crazed Count of Monte Cristo adaptation, Ergo Proxy and Serial Experiments Lain and TekkonKinkreet. The abstracted designs and deeply layered stories are intoxicating. There was the dawn of Trigger studios, I adore everything out of Trigger. It’s so fluid and crazy kinetic. The opposite is the Ghibli creations. I remember relentlessly hunting down the first (terribly edited) release of VHS of Nausicaa after seeing part of it airing on channel 12. All of Miyazaki’s work has such heart. I strive for that kind of honesty in my own work. Films and such, I love all the cheesy sci-fi exploitation flicks of the 70s. Invasion of the Bee Girls is such a touchstone, but that whole era pre-Star Wars. After Star Wars everything was kinda trying to be Star Wars, but before that, you had goofy navel-gazers like Silent Running or Zardoz to Planet of the Apes. Those are my favorites. I lean into some of that sensibility in making comics. I dont think in operatic arcs but in smaller scenes in back alleys and obscure corners (like The Maxx). Same for my musical tastes, I was a goth/punk aficionado in the 80s after growing up on hippie folk music. That DIY gritty art punk scene was my favorite stuff. Basically, if it was a band that launched itself after listening to the Velvet Underground I loved it. We are the sum of our influence after all. All the parts of my history inform the art and stories I create now. Uniquely weird and a bit off-kilter. I don’t need or want my art or stories to be beautiful or objectively perfect draftsmanship but I want them to make you think about the subject or look at the medium in a new way.
MFR: Why the nome de plume Shlepzig? What’s the story behind it? SB:That’s an interesting one. I’ve used Shlepzig as a handle since before the world wide web was part of the internet. The origin is a deep cut from Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (a favorite novel of mine, I forgot to write a fourth essay on my deep love of post-modern writing…) In the story, the protagonist, Tyrone Slothrop, has to sneak across enemy lines into Nazi Germany to determine the secret payload on a V2 rocket the schwarzgerat. To do so he secures a fake ID for Max Schlepzig (who is apparently a historical reference to an actual german actor at the time, near as I can tell he was not a sympathizer). So in those days a limited amount of memory was allocated for your login ID and you were limited to 8 characters. As a result, I dropped the C as the least important letter and thus Shlepzig was established. That didn’t stop Jim Rugg from spelling it Schlepzig in his Octobriana process book with the bit of fan art I did. Shlepzig is kinda funny as it seems to trigger any latent dyslexia people may have. Invariably people get the letters mixed up one way or another. Once they get it though, they don’t forget it. That’s the story of Shlepzig, which is almost as interesting as the story of how I came to be called Sam (which isn’t really my name either).
MFR: And where can people find your work? SB: To browse most stuff, my Instagram and Facebook accounts:@Shlepzig.comics and @Shlepzig.nsfw. There’s my Twitter @Shlepzig I have a YouTube channel @Shlepzig with tutorials. I also have a Twitch @Shlepzig. You can buy books and prints and stuff at my Etsy shop @ShlepzigIllustration Or support me on my Patreon @Shlepzig It’s all linked through my Linktree https://www.linktr.ee/Shlepzig or my website https://www.shlepzig.com My Deviant account is active again as well. Search me up on Amazon for Shlepzig or Drive Thru Comics for ebooks (not as cool as physical books) Lastly, find me at cons. I am booked for NJ CollectorFest on March 12, HeroesCon in June, and Black Label ComicCon in August. I am applying to SPX, Baltimore CC, NYCC, Rose City CC and SDCC.
SAMURAI DOGGY #4 hits your local comic book store March 8th, but thanks to AfterShock Comics, Monkeys Fighting Robots has an exclusive six-page preview for you.
About the issue: The brutal battle against the robots in Skypanel Park continues. The Boy finds himself in trouble and Doggy needs to make a quick decision. How will this fight end?
The series is by writer Chris Tex and artist Santtos.
Check out our SAMURAI DOGGY #4 preview below:
Are you reading SAMURAI DOGGY? Sound off in the comments!
PREDATOR #1 hits your local comic book store on March 8th, but thanks to Marvel Comics, Monkeys Fighting Robots has an exclusive four-page preview for you!
About the issue: FEAR IS REBORN! On a planet far from Earth, eight strangers find themselves in a deadly game. But this time, the Predators aren’t the only ones on the hunt. Someone has the Yautja in their sites – and they’ve been searching for this game preserve for a long time. Ed Brisson and Netho Diaz kicks off an explosive new series that will turn everything you thought you knew about Predators on its head!
The issue is by writer Ed Brisson and penciler Netho Diaz, with inks by Belardino Brabo (with Victor Nava), colors by Erick Arciniega, and letters by Clayton Cowles. The main cover is by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Richard Isanove.
Check out the PREDATOR #1 preview below:
Are you excited for PREDATOR #1? Sound off in the comments!
Why Marvel Comics should kill off Mary Jane in Amazing Spider-Man, that’s a bold statement. But after years of thinking about it and following how Marvel has handled the character, it is the right decision. Moreover, if written well, a decision that will elevate the character and pull Amazing Spider-Man out of stagnation.
The premise is simple: read one comic every day for the entire year. It seems like a simple task but there is no way that I read 365 comics last year, even if you count the individual issues in collections. So, this year, I am committing myself to this reading challenge, in the hope that I can broaden my reading habits and fully engage with my favorite hobby again.
This week has been a long week. I have been trying to get my head back in the game for some personal study but I am finding it difficult to concentrate and focus. I guess it’s that time of year. As a result, this week’s reading is all over the place and I’m not sure how much time I gave the new comics I tried to read. Probably not enough.
A Hill to Cry Home by Gareth A Hopkins
Comic Number 50: A Hill to Cry Home
I’m fascinated by the comics form, what you can and can’t do within the medium. Since the late 1950’s, comics in Western culture have been dominated by the superhero and what most people understand as comics today is based on a very straight forward formula of panels on a page telling a narrative. But comics can be so much more. Once, during a conversation over a drink, one of my friends said that we have only just begun to discover what comics can be and I agree with him. Over time there have been people who have pushed the envelope and experimented with the medium, people such as Chris Ware, Seth, and Melinda Gebbie. Although not as prevalent as in the Art world, there have been movements within comics, such as Underground Comix and Abstract comics.
Which leads me to Gareth A Hopkins’ A Hill to Cry Home. Last year Hopkins released a collection of abstract comics in a book called Explosive Sweet Freezer Razor. The book contains 10 very visually different short stories and this one is available free on the following website: abstractcomics.blogspot.com
One thing that this comic will do is start a conversation. The idea that a narrative is instrumental to a comic is thrown into question by abstract comics but not, perhaps, by this one. There is a narrative leading through the pages which you can piece together from the different text boxes. But what the text does is force you as a reader to look for forms and meaning within the visuals. However, whether this is a merit or a detriment to the comic is open for debate, one that has led me down an internet wormhole of blog pages and research articles.
Fantastic Four Vol 1 Credit: Marvel Comics
Comic Number: 51: Fantastic Four #570
Speaking of high concepts.. Jonathan Hickman’s run on Fantastic Four is as high concept as modern superhero comics get (I’m sure that people will have opinions on that and any recommendations for alternatives are greatly welcome).
This issue is the one that starts Hickman’s journey through the “worlds greatest comic magazine” and immediately introduces a number of narrative elements that will pop up across the entire run. There is Reed’s relationship with his father; the introduction of Bentley, the Wizard’s son; and the Council of Reeds. Hickman packs so much into each issue. But the highlight is that the comic is focused, at every step, on the family. First and foremost is the Fantastic Four themselves, but this is an extended family and the concept of ‘family’ in greater terms.
I can’t always put my finger on it, but Hickman elevates the comics that he works on above the standard monthly floppy. He imbues the story with gravitas and his ruthless planning is visible from the first page.
Dale Eaglesham captures the grandiose world beautifully and makes it impossible not to become engrossed in the lives of these superheroes. If I have a complaint, it’s that Eaglesham sometimes has trouble with children’s anatomy. Unfortunately, Val occasionally appears more like a design for a Funko Pop figure than the super intelligent daughter of the strongest character in the Marvel Universe*. But, it doesn’t affect the reading experience, unlike some artists’ work, and everything else is superbly drawn so pretend I didn’t mention it.
*Sue Reed. I stand by my statement.
I Keep Coming Back written by Alan Moore
Comic Number 52: I Keep Coming Back
Everyone knows Alan Moore and can probably name a whole bunch of his comics that have had some influence on the industry. He is, after all, one of the best comic writers ever. However, for as good as Watchmen or V for Vendetta is, I think that some of his best writing is in the lesser known titles and short stories that have littered his career.
There are two of his stories book-ending The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics, both of which resonate with two of his more famous works. I Keep Coming Back is an exploration of the exploitation of famous murderers, in this case Jack the Ripper. The story is told in first person narrative, as an unseen writer visits a location related to the killings and some of the victims. It is almost a ghost story as history haunts the buildings that are trying to move on.
Oscar Zarate uses three stacked panels per page to capture the locations and the people as they awkwardly interact. Zarate’s artwork is expressionistic and often as poetic as Moore’s words. There is a beauty to some of the characters while others are portrayed as voyeurs of the macabre, creepy and uncomfortable to be around.
It is only a short story, 12 pages, but contains so much to pick apart that an immediate re-read will reveal new depths. Alan Moore is a genius writer and his work is improved by the superb artists that he worked with. Together, Moore and Zarate created a fascinating masterpiece in 12 simple pages.
Immoral X=Men #1 Credit: Marvel Comics
Comic Number 53: The Amazing Spider-Man #20 (914), Immoral X-Men #1, She Hulk #10 (sort of)
One of the reasons for this project is for me to engage with comics, therefore I am trying to pick up brand new releases, to keep up to date. As such I picked up a couple of Marvel new releases.
Unfortunately, none of them really grabbed me and I’ll have to count them all as one in order to get my page count in. I didn’t actually get to the end of any of these titles.
I ended up flicking from page to page, then comic to comic. Part of the problem is that I’m not keeping up to date with any of these titles and none of them are easy jumping on points. I felt like I was joining in the middle of a story, even with Immoral X-Men #1, which you would have thought would be a good starting point for a new reader. But, no, it’s actually part four of an ongoing story.
I tried.
Fantastic Four Vol 2 Credit: Marvel Comics
Comic Number 54: Fantastic Four #575
Onto book 2 of Hickman’s Fantastic Four run and the introduction of the four cities. What four cities? “There will be a war between the four cities. The dead must not be forgotten. The future man must return to save the past.” (from Fantastic Four #576) Haven’t you been keeping up?
This four part arc is a mix of adventure and world building. The fun, often ridiculous, adventures speed the reader through each issue but then you spend hours deliberating over the world building. What is relevant and what isn’t? Although, this is Hickman, everything is relevant.
On a re-reading of these comics, I again feel that the only let down comes from the art. Eaglesham draws some amazing scene’s and captures the dynamic sequences very well but some of the family drama elements don’t have the same gravitas. However, that doesn’t stop this issue, and the three that follow it, being a superb read. This is Hickman learning to play with the big publishers’ toys and, in my opinion, he does a better job than most writers. Especially at this point in his career.
The Mammoth Book of the Best Crime Comics
Comic Number 55: The Court
Back to The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics for The Court written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by Warren Pleece. This is an obscure little tale of organised crime and the indulgence of the extremely rich. It contains an element of the supernatural and a cultish organisation or religion. It’s not clear exactly which. And that is the major hook for this short story: it’s never clear exactly what is going on. The reader is led into this world by the narrator and we never learn any more than he does.
In literature there is the notion of the unreliable narrator, one who is untrustworthy and deliberately deceptive, whereas in The Court Gaiman uses an uninformed narrator, one who doesn’t really understand what is going on. He is judgmental and overconfident but he is nothing more than a cog in a greater machine that the reader is aware of but can’t fully see.
Pleece uses strong contrasts between light and dark to build up the pages. Dense shadows fill panels, blocking out characters or locations. There is a sense of unease underlining the narrative which is overlaid with a noir voice-over equal in tone to any Mickey Spillane novel.
The Ten-Cent Plague
Comic Number 56: The Ten-cent Plague by David Hajdu
When it comes to reading books, I’m a bit slow. I tend to have several books on the go at the same time which means I might only read a handful of pages from any one book every few days. But I do love a good book and The Ten-Cent Plague is a damn fine book.
(I know this is not a comic, but it is about comics and I’ve read 8 issues of the Fantastic Four this week so, if you think this should just be 100% comics, copy and paste Comic Number 54 above and just change the issue number)
Hajdu’s book is a fascinating and intricate examination of the early days of the American comic book leading up to, and including, the famous comic book scare of the 1950’s. It is packed with insights from artists, writers, and even publishers from the time, giving their view of the industry and lending an authenticity to the historical narrative. Contained within the book are some of the great comic book legends which Hajdu tears open and picks apart, layering different perspectives to give a fairer, if more unsettling, account of actual events. One of the most unsettling is the list of names at the end of the book, detailing those who never worked in the comic industry again after the introduction of the Comics Code Authority. So much talent was driven away by the greed and power hungry who wanted to control one of the biggest mediums of the 20th Century.
I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in the history of comics. I have read a fair few books about this period in history but, as demonstrated by The Ten-Cent Plague, I am still only just scratching the surface of the ins and outs of the industry.
Are you reading many, many comics, or have any recommendations/thoughts about what I could read in the approaching weeks? If so, let me know in the comments below.
Ant-Man: Quantumania is consistently entertaining, but the film doesn’t excite me for what lies ahead. While it features some lighthearted moments that are in line with what I love about this series, the overall story is underwhelming and comes off like a mature Spy Kids 3 meets Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Still, Ant-Man: Quantumania does allow Jonathan Majors to showcase why he is such a tremendous talent. It’s unfortunate that he isn’t enough to make this third entry worthwhile.
I was hoping Ant-Man 3 would deliver a plot that was worth investing in, but instead, it’s thin and underwhelming at best. Admittedly, Scott and Cassie’s relationship still manages to pull at your heartstrings. With Phase 5 now underway, this beginning doesn’t get me interested in future projects. Directed by Peyton Reed, Ant-Man: Quantumania stars Paul Rudd, Kathryn Newton, Jonathan Majors, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, and Bill Murray. Scott Lang (Rudd) explores the Quantum Realm with his family and comes across Kang the conqueror (Majors).
The visual effects can be a bit jarring at times, which is unfortunate since there are a few cool moments in the Quantum Realm. Setting the film completely away from Earth wasn’t the best decision. What’s worse is the jumbled story that accompanies this visual fest. Ant-Man: Quantumania is more interested in telling jokes about genitalia than letting its real strengths carry the story. Kang’s introduction shifts gears, but anything related to the Lang’s is mostly carried by Janet Van Dyne (Pfeiffer), who has the most compelling arc outside of Kang. Her connections to Kang give her a purpose, while her family is mostly standing around.
Cassie and Scott’s relationship is on the fence, and pieces are being set up for Cassie to prove her worth as a hero, but then someone else claims the spotlight. Dr. Hank Pym (Douglas), is here to tell us about his relationship life while his wife was gone, and then he has an atrocious reunion with an old friend. Douglas’ contributions to this project are useless and not necessary. While this film is messy, each performance was decent or exceptional. The exceptional is reserved for Majors, who excels at playing villains you will love to root for. His delivery makes Kang an intimidating force.
Newton’s performance as Cassie is effective enough, and I was able to believe that she and Rudd were a father-daughter duo. Her character traits might not be the most likable, but Newton’s downfall comes from the dialogue she has to work with, which leads to a very poor joke about genitalia once again. The writing felt like a never-ending rollercoaster of jumbled subplots, bizarre character decisions, and terrible jokes. Ant-Man: Quantumania has an engaging opening, but takes you through an underwhelming story to connect back to that highly effective opening. While Pfieffer is incredible as Jane, her motivations also make her unlikable at times.
I’m not surprised that Ant-Man 3 is receiving a polarizing reception, but I’m shocked that this was decided on as a good start to Phase 5. If not for Pfieffer and Majors, a majority of the story would be struggling to stay afloat. The action isn’t that great either sadly, and I did enjoy the last brawl between Scott and Kang. Some of the editing decisions lead to less fluid motions, which is never a good experience. Examples of this can be found when Kang and Scott are battling. Still, I wasn’t completely bored during this film and did enjoy it for what it was.
Ant-Man: Quantumania might not be one of the better MCU entries, but audiences should still be able to have fun with it. Strong performances and the mid-credit scenes might make this worthwhile. Sadly, this third entry is the weakest addition to the series, but I’m sure Ant-Man 4 will be here sooner than later.
From acclaimed writer James Tynion IV (Something is Killing the Children, Detective Comics) and artist Michael Avon Oeming (Powers, Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye) comes an intriguing and creepy love letter to classic paranormal encounter stories in Blue Book #1. Featuring Aditya Bidikar on letters and a backup story drawn by the legendary Klaus Janson, Blue Book #1 is a stellar start to this paranormal thriller from Dark Horse Comics and Tynion’s own Tiny Onion Studios. With a script that focuses on bringing the reader into the setting of these strange encounters and gorgeous, moody art from Oeming, this opening issue is a gem of genre-work and a must-read for fans of all manner of horror storytelling.
“In this debut issue, Tynion presents what he calls his “True Weird” stories. Tales of ordinary people encountering the strange and the impossible. Teaming with artist Michael Avon Oeming, they retell some of the most popular UFO and alien encounter accounts starting with the infamous Betty and Barney Hill abduction–the widely publicized and very first abduction that went on to shape and influence all future encounter stories.”
Writing & Plot
James Tynion IV calls upon the terror of a historical encounter with his script for Blue Book #1. This opening chapter tells the start of the tale of Betty and Barney Hill, the Civil Rights activists who were infamously known for having been – supposedly – abducted by extraterrestrials. Every alien abduction story since the 1961 incident, both fictional and anecdotal, has been modeled in some way by this event. Tynion approaches this tale with the drama of a classic television recounting, but combined with his own seasoned style as a horror comics writer. This comic sees use of expository blurbs to give background info and context about our two lead characters. While info-dumps like this are often frowned upon in the comics medium, they fit in here perfectly. Tynion conveys the feeling of this story being an especially intense dramatization – the kind of thing that you’d catch on the Discovery channel in the middle of the day or late at night. This comic took me back to the feeling of being enthralled and unnerved by these kinds of abduction stories as a kid. Tynion’s writing outside of the narration is subdued, with minimal dialogue between Betty and Barney. What dialogue is there feels naturalistic and sharp, with an increasing sense of urgency as the couple becomes more concerned by what is following them through the sky. This approach continues into the backup story, a recounting of some unusual sights in and around Coney Island in the 1920’s. Being a gifted horror writer who understands comics, Tynion scripts many wordless panels where the visuals do all the talking. This first chapter of Blue Book is tightly scripted and suitably intense due to James Tynion’s horror-writing talents.
Art Direction
An unsettling “weird-true” horror comic needs equally unsettling visuals, and that’s where the unmistakable style of Michael Avon Oeming comes into play. The Cave Carson artist brings the strange, UFO-based events of that night in 1961 to life with a beautiful yet chilling visual aesthetic. Oeming’s ever-distinct character designs capture the humanity and growing terror on the Hill couple’s faces as they are pursued. Oeming’s constantly tense mood takes a couple sharp turns into the outright menacing, making for some panels that will stay in my mind for some time to come. His color choices – a steady background of deep blues, blacks, and pale white lighting – completes this visual journey with an atmosphere that wraps readers up in its setting. His sequential direction keeps the tense while flowing at an even pace. Close-up shots of the Hill’s as they drive and observe the thing chasing them are followed by wide-shot panels of the peaceful Northeastern setting turned sinister by the craft floating through the night sky. Klaus Janson’s art on the backup story is just as impressive, but in a different manner. His heavily inked black and white imagery creates a vision of Coney Island that feels like a setting from an ancient myth. Janson’s work here makes Tynion’s narration and dialogue feel like an episode of The Twilight Zone. This backup story shows that the goal of Blue Book isn’t necessarily just to terrify – but to inspire wonder and curiosity in the unusual. Aditya Bidikar finishes the book off with his expertly handled lettering. His fonts are easy to read and shift naturally with the tone of dialogue. The narration text mimics a typewriter font, and the actual style of the dialogue lettering has a distinctly classic appearance. This approach furthers the aesthetic of decades past, perfecting an already outstanding visual experience.
Verdict
Blue Book #1 is a brilliantly creepy and unique comic in a genre seldom utilized in the comics medium. James Tynion IV pens a script that captures the specific feel of a great TV dramatization, but with the tension of a true thriller. The visuals from Michael Avon Oeming in the main story and Klaus Janson in the backup are utterly stunning and will leave a lasting impression on unsuspecting readers. Be sure to grab this new release when it hits shelves on February 22nd!
Comic fans! Welcome to NCBD Night Live, a new monthly comics interview show hosted by Eli Schwab (Cosmic Lion Productions), Rick Lopez (Next Panel Press) and Manny Gomez (MFR’s Self-Published Spotlight). You can catch the show LIVE every third Wednesday of the month (on New Comic Book Day) at the Cartoonist Kayfabe Ringside Seats page on Facebook, but if you miss the live event, you can catch it here on Monkeys Fighting Robots.
This episode features comic creators Jonathan Thompson (Burn Residue/Airplane Mechanics/Night Of The Comet), David Pepose (Savage Avengers/Spencer & Locke/Going To The Chapel) along with comics collector Shaun McNally.
