Eric Stephenson has come a long way from working with the comic book pariah Rob Liefeld back in the 90s. Now he is Image Comics Executive Director and has the power to get the new anthology book Four Letter Worlds out there. People may be surprised by this book because it contains material that would normally be put out by a company like Top Shelf Comix or Drawn & Quarterly.
The book is broken up into the four categories love, hate, fear and fate with work by creators like Amber Benson, Jamie McKelvie, Jamie S. Rich, Jeff Parker and many more. The story I gravitated to the most was the very personal story Stephenson wrote, called Junk. It is about him telling someone else very revealing things about his divorce.
Buy Four Letter Worlds
Daniel Robert Epstein: Whats going on today?
Eric Stephenson: Just making comics. On good days, its just about the most fun you can have.
DRE: Whose idea was Four Letter Worlds?
ES: It was my idea. It was something Id wanted to do for a while. There was a song by a band called Echobelly called Four Letter Words that I habitually misinterpreted the lyrics to, and I got the initial idea from that. The chorus ended with the line, This is a four-letter word, and I kept hearing that as, This is a four-letter world. That got me thinking about how words like love, hate, fear and fate impact peoples lives, and that in a lot of ways, we really do live in a four-letter world. I had originally intended to do it as a project on my own, with me writing all of it and 16 different artists illustrating the various stories. As I got into it, though, I thought I might actually want people to read this thing, so I decided it might be a better idea to get some other writers involved.
DRE: Would you tell a contributor like Jeff Parker what emotion or feeling he would be illustrating?
ES: Well, the way the project came together is I contacted a group of writers and artists, creators whose work I liked, and pitched them the basic concept. The guidelines were pretty simple: Each chapter contains four stories, covering love, hate, fear, fate, and each story is eight pages long. Once a creator expressed interest in participating, they were free to choose which word they were dealing with. Everyone picked what they wanted and there really wasnt much of a problem with people wanting to do the exact same story. So, no, I didnt phone up people like Jeff Parker or Chynna Clugston or Joe Casey and say, Youre doing a love story, or whatever. Each creator decided that for his or herself.
DRE: The story you wrote, Junk, is obviously very personal. Was it totally true?
ES: For the most part its true. Its kind of Ive had the conversation recounted in that story several times, with several different people over the last few years. For whatever reason, people are always interested in hearing about the divorce. I dont know if youve been married or divorced, but whenever someone learns I went through that experience, it tends to take over the conversation.
DRE: I just got married about a month ago so dont make me cry please.
ES: [laughs] Yeah, sorry. Its actually not that sad a story, at least not at this point. People are always like, Wow, you got divorced? What happened? And everyone tends to assume I hate my ex-wife, which is kind of weird. Theres a big difference in hating someone and deciding you just dont want to be together for the rest of your life. Whats really odd, though, is that, at this point, my ex-wife and I have been divorced longer than we were married, so. And as I point out in the story, there are lots of instances where I forget I was married. I havent spoken with her in several years, but in writing this story, it made me wonder if its the same for her. Shes remarried, has a child I have to imagine there are times when it kind of creeps up on her, too: Hey, I was married to some other guy once!
DRE: The story kind of belies your previous writing credits. It seems like you mostly did genre stuff.
ES: Junk is actually the first thing Ive written in several years. Before that I was writing mostly superhero stuff, and a lot of which, I wasnt particularly proud of.
DRE: How was it writing this autobiographical story then?
ES: Well, it was weird, I guess, because when I first started thinking about stories for this book, I wasnt intending to an autobiographical story. I mean, I actually wound up doing this particular story by default, because being the magnanimous guy I am; I let everyone else choose their stories before I picked one myself. So, I had stories all planned out for love, fear and fate, but I hadnt given much thought to a story for the hate chapter. So, obviously, thats the one I wind up with. Once I decided what I was going to do, it took me a while to figure out how to approach the material without sounding like a whining divorcee. Im not sure how well I succeeded, but I feel the storys pretty honest, if nothing else.
DRE: How long have people been working on this book?
ES: This project has been in the works for about two and a half years. The way I went into it was to get people together first, fill all the slots and then set a release date. The lineup has fluctuated over two and a half years. Had we done the book in 2002, it would have been by a vastly different group of creators. For various reasons, the original plan didnt work out, though people signed exclusives with other publishers, whatever and the book evolved into what it is today, which I think is a good thing. Im very proud to have gathered this group of talent together in one book.
DRE: Did anything change once Erik Larsen took over for Jim Valentino as publisher of Image Comics?
ES: Not really, because this was something I had been doing on my own as a pet project. There was a point when I was even thinking about publishing it myself, outside of Image, but once Erik replaced Valentino as publisher and I was promoted to my current position, it seemed like self-publishing the book would kind of undermine what were doing here. And Erik was satisfied with what I was doing, so his input kind of boiled down to, Keep going!
DRE: How long have you been editing comic books?
ES: Ive been editing since 1992. I started out working at Extreme Studios, which was Rob Liefelds part of Image. I wrote and edited comics for Extreme before later doing a little writing work for Marvel.
DRE: I remember you now! You wrote a lot.
ES: Yeah, and like I said, a lot of that stuff Im not so proud of. I mean, I look at some of that stuff now Brigade, Bloodstrike, Team Youngblood and it just makes me wince. Its actually really embarrassing because every now and then Ill talk to guys who are writing or drawing comics now and they tell me they read Brigade or whatever and really loved it. My response is generally, Whats wrong with you? But I guess there are guys of a certain age who did enjoy that stuff on some level.
DRE: Well those books sold so well that someone had to like them.
ES: I guess. Theres no accounting for taste.
DRE: I think I bought a few of those books.
ES: Then Ill take this opportunity to apologize. Unfortunately, I cant give you your money back.
DRE: Was it a challenge to figure out what order the stories should go into Four Letter Worlds?
ES: Not really. I knew from the beginning it was going to be love, hate, fear and fate in that order and determining the running order for the individual stories wasnt too difficult. Once the things came in and I was laying the book out, it just made sense for, say, B. Clay Moore and Steven Griffins Spin to start off the Love section and so on. The tone of each story kind of dictated where it fell within each chapter, and I think I lucked out in that all the stories are very different.
DRE: Doing a book like Four Letter Worlds isnt guaranteed to make money so what do you feel you get out of it?
ES: Well, on a personal level, its rewarding to do something that reflects my own tastes, that is my vision from start to finish. Ive spent so much time working for other people, working characters or concepts that didnt originate with me, and what really motivates me these days is doing work that I want do, creating comics I would want to read myself. The ultimate goal is really just to do good comics, you know? As long as I can keep doing that, Im happy, and thats really my primary motivation at this point in my life. I mean, Im certainly not in this business to get rich.
DRE: Do you see more books like Four Letter Worlds on Images slate?
ES: Definitely. This is actually the fourth anthology were released over the last year, with the first two volumes of Flight and the recently-released Negative Burn collection being the others. Flight isnt exactly the same type of book, its less structured in terms of theme, but its filled with excellent non-genre work by creators like Michael Gagne, Doug TenNapel, Derek Kirk Kim, Becky Cloonan, Sonny Liew and just a whole list of other insanely talented people. The whole project is the brainchild of Kazu Kibuishi, and its really just magnificent work. Its about as different from the perceived notion of what an Image book is or should be as Four-Letter Worlds. Negative Burn is a collection of material originally published elsewhere, but it includes work by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Paul Pope, P. Craig Russell, Evan Dorkin and really, way too many others to list without making myself hoarse. The collection is being followed by a quarterly anthology. The first issue is due out any day now, actually.
DRE: What else do you have coming out this year?
ES: Speaking just for myself, I actually have a couple things in the works. Ive been working on a semi-autobiographical graphic novel called Long Hot Summer with artist Jamie McKelvie (who illustrated Amber Bensons story in Four-Letter Worlds), and that will be out in September. Its kind of the other end of the story I did for Four-Letter Worlds it recounts some things that happened just before I first met my ex-wife. Its also about being involved in this weird, insular Mod scene in Southern California during the late 80s, kind of after the SoCal Mod scene had lost a lot of steam. Jamie and I also did a story for the first issue of the Negative Burn quarterly, a weird little story set in Berkeley record store Mod Lang. And after Long Hot Summer, Im launching a new superhero series called Nowhere Men with an artist named Terry Stevens. In terms of Image, weve got a lot of exciting things coming up from now through the end of the year. Weve got the collected Ultra, which is probably best decribed as Sex in the City with superpowers, written and drawn by the Luna Bros. Theyre also working on the follow-up to that now, a series called Girls and thats a sci-fi story that really has to be seen to be believed. Ive read the first two issues at this point, and its great stuff. And this Fall, Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith will debut an all-new supernatural crime thriller called Fell. I just got the art for the first issue of that, actually, and its amazing. Theres lots of other stuff new material from Jim Mahfood and Robert Kirkman, a new book by Dogwitch creator Dan Schaffer and Queenadreenas Katiejane Garside but if I go into full-on whore mode and start gushing about every awesome project we have in the works, we'd be here all day.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
The book is broken up into the four categories love, hate, fear and fate with work by creators like Amber Benson, Jamie McKelvie, Jamie S. Rich, Jeff Parker and many more. The story I gravitated to the most was the very personal story Stephenson wrote, called Junk. It is about him telling someone else very revealing things about his divorce.
Buy Four Letter Worlds
Daniel Robert Epstein: Whats going on today?
Eric Stephenson: Just making comics. On good days, its just about the most fun you can have.
DRE: Whose idea was Four Letter Worlds?
ES: It was my idea. It was something Id wanted to do for a while. There was a song by a band called Echobelly called Four Letter Words that I habitually misinterpreted the lyrics to, and I got the initial idea from that. The chorus ended with the line, This is a four-letter word, and I kept hearing that as, This is a four-letter world. That got me thinking about how words like love, hate, fear and fate impact peoples lives, and that in a lot of ways, we really do live in a four-letter world. I had originally intended to do it as a project on my own, with me writing all of it and 16 different artists illustrating the various stories. As I got into it, though, I thought I might actually want people to read this thing, so I decided it might be a better idea to get some other writers involved.
DRE: Would you tell a contributor like Jeff Parker what emotion or feeling he would be illustrating?
ES: Well, the way the project came together is I contacted a group of writers and artists, creators whose work I liked, and pitched them the basic concept. The guidelines were pretty simple: Each chapter contains four stories, covering love, hate, fear, fate, and each story is eight pages long. Once a creator expressed interest in participating, they were free to choose which word they were dealing with. Everyone picked what they wanted and there really wasnt much of a problem with people wanting to do the exact same story. So, no, I didnt phone up people like Jeff Parker or Chynna Clugston or Joe Casey and say, Youre doing a love story, or whatever. Each creator decided that for his or herself.
DRE: The story you wrote, Junk, is obviously very personal. Was it totally true?
ES: For the most part its true. Its kind of Ive had the conversation recounted in that story several times, with several different people over the last few years. For whatever reason, people are always interested in hearing about the divorce. I dont know if youve been married or divorced, but whenever someone learns I went through that experience, it tends to take over the conversation.
DRE: I just got married about a month ago so dont make me cry please.
ES: [laughs] Yeah, sorry. Its actually not that sad a story, at least not at this point. People are always like, Wow, you got divorced? What happened? And everyone tends to assume I hate my ex-wife, which is kind of weird. Theres a big difference in hating someone and deciding you just dont want to be together for the rest of your life. Whats really odd, though, is that, at this point, my ex-wife and I have been divorced longer than we were married, so. And as I point out in the story, there are lots of instances where I forget I was married. I havent spoken with her in several years, but in writing this story, it made me wonder if its the same for her. Shes remarried, has a child I have to imagine there are times when it kind of creeps up on her, too: Hey, I was married to some other guy once!
DRE: The story kind of belies your previous writing credits. It seems like you mostly did genre stuff.
ES: Junk is actually the first thing Ive written in several years. Before that I was writing mostly superhero stuff, and a lot of which, I wasnt particularly proud of.
DRE: How was it writing this autobiographical story then?
ES: Well, it was weird, I guess, because when I first started thinking about stories for this book, I wasnt intending to an autobiographical story. I mean, I actually wound up doing this particular story by default, because being the magnanimous guy I am; I let everyone else choose their stories before I picked one myself. So, I had stories all planned out for love, fear and fate, but I hadnt given much thought to a story for the hate chapter. So, obviously, thats the one I wind up with. Once I decided what I was going to do, it took me a while to figure out how to approach the material without sounding like a whining divorcee. Im not sure how well I succeeded, but I feel the storys pretty honest, if nothing else.
DRE: How long have people been working on this book?
ES: This project has been in the works for about two and a half years. The way I went into it was to get people together first, fill all the slots and then set a release date. The lineup has fluctuated over two and a half years. Had we done the book in 2002, it would have been by a vastly different group of creators. For various reasons, the original plan didnt work out, though people signed exclusives with other publishers, whatever and the book evolved into what it is today, which I think is a good thing. Im very proud to have gathered this group of talent together in one book.
DRE: Did anything change once Erik Larsen took over for Jim Valentino as publisher of Image Comics?
ES: Not really, because this was something I had been doing on my own as a pet project. There was a point when I was even thinking about publishing it myself, outside of Image, but once Erik replaced Valentino as publisher and I was promoted to my current position, it seemed like self-publishing the book would kind of undermine what were doing here. And Erik was satisfied with what I was doing, so his input kind of boiled down to, Keep going!
DRE: How long have you been editing comic books?
ES: Ive been editing since 1992. I started out working at Extreme Studios, which was Rob Liefelds part of Image. I wrote and edited comics for Extreme before later doing a little writing work for Marvel.
DRE: I remember you now! You wrote a lot.
ES: Yeah, and like I said, a lot of that stuff Im not so proud of. I mean, I look at some of that stuff now Brigade, Bloodstrike, Team Youngblood and it just makes me wince. Its actually really embarrassing because every now and then Ill talk to guys who are writing or drawing comics now and they tell me they read Brigade or whatever and really loved it. My response is generally, Whats wrong with you? But I guess there are guys of a certain age who did enjoy that stuff on some level.
DRE: Well those books sold so well that someone had to like them.
ES: I guess. Theres no accounting for taste.
DRE: I think I bought a few of those books.
ES: Then Ill take this opportunity to apologize. Unfortunately, I cant give you your money back.
DRE: Was it a challenge to figure out what order the stories should go into Four Letter Worlds?
ES: Not really. I knew from the beginning it was going to be love, hate, fear and fate in that order and determining the running order for the individual stories wasnt too difficult. Once the things came in and I was laying the book out, it just made sense for, say, B. Clay Moore and Steven Griffins Spin to start off the Love section and so on. The tone of each story kind of dictated where it fell within each chapter, and I think I lucked out in that all the stories are very different.
DRE: Doing a book like Four Letter Worlds isnt guaranteed to make money so what do you feel you get out of it?
ES: Well, on a personal level, its rewarding to do something that reflects my own tastes, that is my vision from start to finish. Ive spent so much time working for other people, working characters or concepts that didnt originate with me, and what really motivates me these days is doing work that I want do, creating comics I would want to read myself. The ultimate goal is really just to do good comics, you know? As long as I can keep doing that, Im happy, and thats really my primary motivation at this point in my life. I mean, Im certainly not in this business to get rich.
DRE: Do you see more books like Four Letter Worlds on Images slate?
ES: Definitely. This is actually the fourth anthology were released over the last year, with the first two volumes of Flight and the recently-released Negative Burn collection being the others. Flight isnt exactly the same type of book, its less structured in terms of theme, but its filled with excellent non-genre work by creators like Michael Gagne, Doug TenNapel, Derek Kirk Kim, Becky Cloonan, Sonny Liew and just a whole list of other insanely talented people. The whole project is the brainchild of Kazu Kibuishi, and its really just magnificent work. Its about as different from the perceived notion of what an Image book is or should be as Four-Letter Worlds. Negative Burn is a collection of material originally published elsewhere, but it includes work by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Paul Pope, P. Craig Russell, Evan Dorkin and really, way too many others to list without making myself hoarse. The collection is being followed by a quarterly anthology. The first issue is due out any day now, actually.
DRE: What else do you have coming out this year?
ES: Speaking just for myself, I actually have a couple things in the works. Ive been working on a semi-autobiographical graphic novel called Long Hot Summer with artist Jamie McKelvie (who illustrated Amber Bensons story in Four-Letter Worlds), and that will be out in September. Its kind of the other end of the story I did for Four-Letter Worlds it recounts some things that happened just before I first met my ex-wife. Its also about being involved in this weird, insular Mod scene in Southern California during the late 80s, kind of after the SoCal Mod scene had lost a lot of steam. Jamie and I also did a story for the first issue of the Negative Burn quarterly, a weird little story set in Berkeley record store Mod Lang. And after Long Hot Summer, Im launching a new superhero series called Nowhere Men with an artist named Terry Stevens. In terms of Image, weve got a lot of exciting things coming up from now through the end of the year. Weve got the collected Ultra, which is probably best decribed as Sex in the City with superpowers, written and drawn by the Luna Bros. Theyre also working on the follow-up to that now, a series called Girls and thats a sci-fi story that really has to be seen to be believed. Ive read the first two issues at this point, and its great stuff. And this Fall, Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith will debut an all-new supernatural crime thriller called Fell. I just got the art for the first issue of that, actually, and its amazing. Theres lots of other stuff new material from Jim Mahfood and Robert Kirkman, a new book by Dogwitch creator Dan Schaffer and Queenadreenas Katiejane Garside but if I go into full-on whore mode and start gushing about every awesome project we have in the works, we'd be here all day.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 12 of 12 COMMENTS
EricStephenson said:
TedKoppel said:
I'm really encouraged by the direction Image comics is going, by the way. It's much closer to what they should've been doing in the first place.
[Edited on May 30, 2005 by TedKoppel]
Thanks, that's pretty much how I see it, too. We've got some great stuff coming out, and I'm just stoked to be involved with it all.
-e.s.
Yeah, I was pleased with Flight Vol. 2 and Four Letter Worlds which I got at the same time. When someone told me about Flight originally, my reaction was, "Wait...Image published this?" Seeing smaller people's work and new talent (like our Mr. McK up there) being pushed makes me optimistic for the medium. Especially since it seems to be doing pretty well; the first volume of Flight certainly didn't have anyone like Jeff Smith in it.
So hey, good job man. Keep it up. I'll be watching and writing incoherent diatribes online somewhere if you fuck up, so, you know, that's a pretty scary alternative. Nobody wants that.
TedKoppel said:
EricStephenson said:
TedKoppel said:
I'm really encouraged by the direction Image comics is going, by the way. It's much closer to what they should've been doing in the first place.
[Edited on May 30, 2005 by TedKoppel]
Thanks, that's pretty much how I see it, too. We've got some great stuff coming out, and I'm just stoked to be involved with it all.
-e.s.
Yeah, I was pleased with Flight Vol. 2 and Four Letter Worlds which I got at the same time. When someone told me about Flight originally, my reaction was, "Wait...Image published this?" Seeing smaller people's work and new talent (like our Mr. McK up there) being pushed makes me optimistic for the medium. Especially since it seems to be doing pretty well; the first volume of Flight certainly didn't have anyone like Jeff Smith in it.
So hey, good job man. Keep it up. I'll be watching and writing incoherent diatribes online somewhere if you fuck up, so, you know, that's a pretty scary alternative. Nobody wants that.
Wait, dude. You said I had talent!