Due to his ghost cartooning for Adam Brodys character on The OC, Eric Wight has a higher profile than most of his fellow artists. Now hes parlayed that fame into the excellent new graphic novel My Dead Girlfriend. This new book presented in the Manga format takes a fun look at the undead. The main character, Finny Bleak, has had a pretty rough time since he entered high school. His parents have recently died but that hasnt stopped them from giving him advice and the monsters that are in his high school, literally monsters, wont get off his ass just because hes a bit too normal. Finny finds salvation in the form of the alluring Jenny Wraith but the fact that shes dead and hes alive is keeping them apart. Well that never stopped two high schoolers from getting together before.
Wight has worked in animation for ten years doing character designs for cartoons such as Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman Beyond and many more. But this year seems to be the year of the Wight because besides My Dead Girlfriend he is also collaborating with Geoff Johns on some DC Comics and Michael Chabon on the comic book version of The Escapist. I got a chance to talk with Wight from his home in Pennsylvania.
Check out the official website for My Dead Girlfriend
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Eric Wight: Right now Im working on a proposal for another book series.
DRE: Something totally new?
Eric: Yeah, its a different book series that Ive just started to introduce to publishers. Its not a Manga like My Dead Girlfriend. Its actually a young adult prose, like the Harry Potter series.
DRE: Was this something someone asked you to do?
Eric: No after My Dead Girlfriend, a lot of publishers were excited about possibly doing something with me and this is a project Ive been kicking around for a while. So now seemed like a good time to dust it off and get it ready to take to publishers.
DRE: Have you written a prose book before?
Eric: No. Its an exciting challenge because My Dead Girlfriend was the first book I had ever written on my own but I was able to sort of rely on my artwork to tell the story. Whereas with the prose theres some illustration but its not what propels the narrative so theres nothing for me to hide behind. Its really exciting and challenging and frustrating all at the same time. Im really enjoying the process.
DRE: When you say some illustration, you mean like one every chapter break or so?
Eric: Exactly, like a young adult novel would have for different chapter breaks or whatever.
DRE: Youre a guy who obviously gets a lot of exposure, was My Dead Girlfriend, besides being a story you really wanted to tell, also a way to capitalize on that exposure before it went away?
Eric: For me, its just the ability to go out and get paid to make books. I dont try to worry too much about whether or not its going to sell a whole lot of books but certainly thats always a hope. My Dead Girlfriend is selling phenomenally well and I could never have expected that success. I think Tokyopop said its their fastest selling book. Its already gone into a second printing and were talking to several big movie studios about a film adaptation and the book only came out at the beginning of February. So this is all pretty surreal. But the idea of being able to just wake up and create and get paid for it is really exciting. Working with Tokyopop is a great experience and that market is phenomenal with very loyal Manga and graphic novel readers. So this is a way to expand my reach with the stories I want to tell.
DRE: Do you look at your book as a Manga?
Eric: I refer to it as a Manga because the format is really the same as the other books that Tokyopop is putting out. But I think any story with sequential storytelling is a graphic novel so you can call it a Manga. I dont get too lost in those terms. I know that some people are very like No, its not a Manga because its not drawn by a Japanese artist or whatever. To me those names are pretty interchangeable. I think there are elements that are taken from Manga, like the page format and the pacing is a lot different from the superhero work Ive done. But its all graphic novels to me.
DRE: So My Dead Girlfriend happened because Tokyopop approached you, right?
Eric: Yeah, they had approached me because of my work on The OC. Julie Taylor, my editor, was a big fan of the show and thought it would be interesting to do a book with me. My own graphic novel was something that I always wanted to do but I had been so busy and the right opportunity hadnt really presented itself. Then Tokyopop came along and offered me this great opportunity so it was a lot of fun to dive in there and do my own book.
DRE: How do you like shrinking the pages to fit the Manga format and doing it in black and white?
Eric: It definitely poses its own challenges. I worked at about half the size I normally work at for the superhero comic books. I think it works really well for the style that I created for this book. I tried to keep it a little more cartoony, almost more of an animation approach. Sometimes it was a little constricting to try to do things in such a small size but other times I think those challenges help you make interesting decisions.
DRE: Did you know the structure of the book before you started?
Eric: Yeah, I had a basic concept of how I wanted to do it. Tokyopop tends to structure their books in chapters so I plotted it out in that regards, almost mathematically. I took the Alan Moore approach. Hes very systematic about how he plots his stories and depending on what hes writing, it has a different formula. I took that same approach to this and looked at the different chapters and was able to plug in the different scenes per chapter. That made it easier to figure it out, rather than just sitting down and trying to write a 140-page book. Since I took it one little step at a time, it made it easier to formulate.
DRE: Since you do so much TV and animation work were you ever worried about spending time on a book that wasnt guaranteed in a lot of ways?
Eric: Yeah, it was a tough decision because I knew it would be a big pay cut but you hope that in the long term it pays off and leads to bigger and better things. Its almost like making a personal investment. I really had to put all the other things I was working on, on hold. Fortunately things were light with The OC at the time, but there were a couple of points where I was juggling a few different things. For five months I put everything else on hold and just focused on this book and it pretty much consumed my life morning, noon, and night. Sometimes I was working 30-plus hours straight without a break just to get this book done on time. But we managed to get it pulled off and in stores in time for Valentines Day.
DRE: Was it always meant to go out for Valentines Day?
Eric: Yeah, I thought it would be a fun idea to get it out for then. The obvious choice would be to get it out for Halloween but I thought that this is the anti-Valentines Day book. Its very romantic, but at the same time it has a little bit of a Goth edge to it.
DRE: Were you ever into Goth comics?
Eric: No, thats the funny part. The best way to describe it is that Im very Ben Sherman. I have a preppier, somewhat clean-cut look to me. Ive always been a big Tim Burton fan but I never really read Emily Strange or Lenore or any of those other books. But the idea came from wanting to do a story about a boy with a ghost. I was at the mall, observing kids and I heard what kids were saying these days. I was over by Hot Topic and I was so taken with what the kids were wearing and all the music that I felt like an old man there. But it was cool to see these kids and how they have their own statement. I thought it would be neat to take that and turn them into monster kids and create their own type of fashion that you might find at a Hot Topic, the nonconformists who have become the conformists.
DRE: This is probably my fault, but I thought this My Dead Girlfriend was only one book so I kept waiting for you to introduce the dead girlfriend [laughs].
Eric: Tokyopop likes their books to be structured in large cliffhangers. I tried to circumvent that a little bit with trying to resolve the main story and then set up the next volume. Sometimes youre left completely wondering whats going to happen next; because it takes so long between volumes. It will probably be a year between each book, so readers are unfortunately left hanging until next Valentines Day.
DRE: Do you feel like youve streamlined the process of these books?
Eric: Yeah. It was a huge learning curve, because Ive never done anything this large before. Because of all of my television work, I was only able to work on small projects like eight and 12 page assignments so this is my first massive undertaking. I think when all is said and done, its 190 pages with probably 140 pages of book and then all the bonus material. I learned a ton about figuring out ways to better streamline the process and organize my approach. It is a three part series so as Im planning the final two volumes I feel that I have a much clearer roadmap of what I need to accomplish.
DRE: Was doing this book more satisfying than working on all those cartoons?
Eric: Absolutely. The idea that I could tell a story and have a finished product was one of the best feelings in the world. Its one thing when youre like creating all the files and youre drawing your heart out and youre working towards a goal. But when I took my kids to Barnes & Noble and we saw the cardboard marquee with the books, it was the best feeling in the world. One of the frustrating things about creating animated series is that many of them dont get made. So to have a book, thats actually a finished project is pretty exciting.
DRE: Youve gotten to work with some pretty great writers like Geoff Johns and Michael Chabon. Did you talk to these guys about doing your own book not that I know if you and Chabon are friends?
Eric: No, actually Michael and I are friends. I talked with him a little bit about it. Were not super close friends, but we exchange emails and he gave a lot of encouragement. I sent him some stuff early on and he was very supportive of it. The people I got blurbs from are all friends of mine. Brad Meltzer was incredibly supportive. Allan Heinberg came in early in the process and really helped me hone the script. Geoff was wonderfully supportive and really went out of his way to promote it on his website. Its a great little community of friends that I have who are willing to go out there and help me like that.
DRE: As a comic artist, you were probably the outcast in high school so is the book in anyway autobiographical? [laughs]
Eric: [laughs] I actually wasnt as much as an outcast as Finny was. I actually would say I was moderately popular. I didnt have any desire to hang out with the elitist popular kids but I was friendly with them. I had a really great high school experience but I certainly knew a lot of kids that did not have a good experience. I think there was a period in middle school when I had to adjust more since I was coming out of Catholic school and going to public school. But certainly a lot of the themes throughout the book are pretty relatable for most kids whether theyre popular or not with things like the struggle of adolescence and not quite fitting into your own skin and the awkwardness of puberty. The romance aspect of it was inspired a lot by when I met my wife. Not that anything is exactly what happened but you tap into those emotions and try to write scenes from that place of innocence and that specialness from the first time meeting someone like that.
DRE: Theres also a strong idea of acceptance of death. Finnys parents even died.
Eric: I think death is something that haunts all of us. Its something that Ive wrestled with. There seems to be a growing obsession with death among teens so I thought maybe I could figure out my own point of view on this. That was the point I was making in the book, that you spend so much time worrying about it that you forget to live. That may have been what I was doing for awhile. I was so worried about getting hurt or making mistakes that you start second guessing yourself and dont experience life as you could.
DRE: Was there any philosopher or philosophy that you referenced?
Eric: No, I didnt really get to existential about it. I just tried to take it from my own point of view and my own place of logic and how I could accept death. You dont really have a choice about whether or not you can accept it, so you might as well just roll with it. This is a world where death is almost downplayed because everyone becomes ghosts or monsters or whatever else. But well learn as the story continues that death does have a price, that its not as much fun and games as it appears.
DRE: Was religion part of your thinking going into this book?
Eric: I dont know if there were conscious religious decisions. I was raised very strict Catholic growing up so it is an underlying theme. Not just religion, but culturally I paralleled having a large ghost family with having a large Italian family. Theres a certain influence of other religions such as Buddhism. But nothing really specific though theres a sense of a higher power, like agonistic being an underlying theme. The one thing I tried to avoid was to be too preachy or too specific towards one religion but I think its hard to avoid those larger concepts.
DRE: Finny implies an Irish ethnicity to the character, was that supposed to be in there?
Eric: Well Wight is Scottish. My dad was from Edinburgh. The Isle of Wight is where its derived from. We used to joke that we owned it. The name Finny, actually came from the book A Separate Peace, which was a favorite book of mine growing up and is another book that is a poignant exploration of youth trying to figure out their past. It had a really strong effect on me. I cant always explain how different character names happen; they just pop into my head.
DRE: What age group do you think that this is appropriate for?
Eric: Being a parent myself, I wanted to play it a little safe. I even wanted to rate the book from 12 or 13 and up even though I think a nine or a ten year old would be fine with reading it. I think that it probably echoes more clearly with kids who are late middle school and up. Many of us can reconnect with what it was like to be that age and deal with those problems.
DRE: I read some interview where you said you were hoping to create clothing that could go in Hot Topic.
Eric: I would love to. Thats the hope. Its hard to launch a lot with just the first book. But now that it is a success, well be able to take it to licensors and try to create a line of clothing for Hot Topic. I think the big licensing show is in June and Im going to try and shop it there. It would be really cool to see kids walking around with little polo shirt with skulls on them and iron crosses that look like bats and some of the other stuff thats in the book.
DRE: What licensing thing are you dying to do besides clothing?
Eric: I would say toys like urban vinyl or action figures of some kind. That would be the cats meow for me. Clothes are cool, but to have those characters on your shelf, either as toys or maquettes would be really rad.
DRE: Did you do the character designs for the book before you started?
Eric: Yeah, I took an animation approach where I designed some of the main characters and then I wrote the script. After I did that I went in and started designing the other characters and then took those characters and drew them into the story. I tend to sketch things out before I dive right into the pages. There were a few times where I didnt have time and just had to draw the characters right on the page. But for the most part I came up with designs of the supporting cast, the Deadbeats and the Glindas, ahead of time.
DRE: Had you created characters from scratch before?
Eric: Yeah prior to The OC, I had worked in animation for almost ten years as a character designer. Ive done quite a bit of character development for animated series for Buffy and Austin Powers and Terminator 3. But I had also developed some of my own shows. My Dead Girlfriend actually originated from a project I had pitched Cartoon Network. It was one of those situations where I just went in and threw a couple of ideas at the wall. Sometimes you do that to see if theres anything they like and then you take that and develop it further. This is one that they thought might be cool for a holiday special, but they had a couple other monster shows and it wasnt something that necessarily fit right into their schedule. Literally two weeks later Tokyopop called and wanted to do a book.
DRE: Could you tell me more about this Austin Powers cartoon you worked on?
Eric: Well Im not privy to what exactly went down. But we were producing it, I think, for HBO and we were about three episodes in. Some of the writers were from The Simpsons and the scripts were really funny. I think Mike Myers was concerned that character was being completely overexposed, which I know is completely ironic considering at the time I got laid off I was driving down the 405 and there was a big poster for Austin Powers selling Heineken or something. But its a shame it didnt work out because it was a really fun project.
DRE: So it was between the second and third movie?
Eric: Yeah. The second movie had just come out and it opened to such enormous numbers that we thought we were golden. Then a week later were packing our office up. It was a very surreal experience.
DRE: I read about something youre working on called The Velvet Crush.
Eric: The Velvet Crush is a graphic novel project Im currently developing. I was supposed to do it before My Dead Girlfriend. Im actually developing it now as a film franchise. So hopefully there will be more to talk about that book in the next few months.
DRE: When I was doing my research on what you are doing now, I have never seen so many people be so excited about working on Mon-El. Geoff Johns is a guy whos known to do cool things with lame characters. But the first time you heard it, were you like Mon-El?
Eric: No, Geoff and I share a passion for quirky, Silver Age characters. Hes not one of the great or most notable characters in the DC Universe but its always fun to play in that sandbox. To work with Geoff was the bigger excitement and Mr. Richard Donner, whos no slouch himself. Drawing those old characters is just such a thrill for me.
DRE: What Silver Age character would you be interested in working on in the future?
Eric: I think everyone has their Batman project they would like to do. I have a project that Ive been kicking around that I would love to do. Id love to do something with Captain Marvel. I was more of a DC boy growing up. As I got older, I really started to latch onto the Marvel stuff and I would love to someday take a crack at Spider-Man or Fantastic Four. But Im also really content with doing my own thing now.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Wight has worked in animation for ten years doing character designs for cartoons such as Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman Beyond and many more. But this year seems to be the year of the Wight because besides My Dead Girlfriend he is also collaborating with Geoff Johns on some DC Comics and Michael Chabon on the comic book version of The Escapist. I got a chance to talk with Wight from his home in Pennsylvania.
Check out the official website for My Dead Girlfriend
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Eric Wight: Right now Im working on a proposal for another book series.
DRE: Something totally new?
Eric: Yeah, its a different book series that Ive just started to introduce to publishers. Its not a Manga like My Dead Girlfriend. Its actually a young adult prose, like the Harry Potter series.
DRE: Was this something someone asked you to do?
Eric: No after My Dead Girlfriend, a lot of publishers were excited about possibly doing something with me and this is a project Ive been kicking around for a while. So now seemed like a good time to dust it off and get it ready to take to publishers.
DRE: Have you written a prose book before?
Eric: No. Its an exciting challenge because My Dead Girlfriend was the first book I had ever written on my own but I was able to sort of rely on my artwork to tell the story. Whereas with the prose theres some illustration but its not what propels the narrative so theres nothing for me to hide behind. Its really exciting and challenging and frustrating all at the same time. Im really enjoying the process.
DRE: When you say some illustration, you mean like one every chapter break or so?
Eric: Exactly, like a young adult novel would have for different chapter breaks or whatever.
DRE: Youre a guy who obviously gets a lot of exposure, was My Dead Girlfriend, besides being a story you really wanted to tell, also a way to capitalize on that exposure before it went away?
Eric: For me, its just the ability to go out and get paid to make books. I dont try to worry too much about whether or not its going to sell a whole lot of books but certainly thats always a hope. My Dead Girlfriend is selling phenomenally well and I could never have expected that success. I think Tokyopop said its their fastest selling book. Its already gone into a second printing and were talking to several big movie studios about a film adaptation and the book only came out at the beginning of February. So this is all pretty surreal. But the idea of being able to just wake up and create and get paid for it is really exciting. Working with Tokyopop is a great experience and that market is phenomenal with very loyal Manga and graphic novel readers. So this is a way to expand my reach with the stories I want to tell.
DRE: Do you look at your book as a Manga?
Eric: I refer to it as a Manga because the format is really the same as the other books that Tokyopop is putting out. But I think any story with sequential storytelling is a graphic novel so you can call it a Manga. I dont get too lost in those terms. I know that some people are very like No, its not a Manga because its not drawn by a Japanese artist or whatever. To me those names are pretty interchangeable. I think there are elements that are taken from Manga, like the page format and the pacing is a lot different from the superhero work Ive done. But its all graphic novels to me.
DRE: So My Dead Girlfriend happened because Tokyopop approached you, right?
Eric: Yeah, they had approached me because of my work on The OC. Julie Taylor, my editor, was a big fan of the show and thought it would be interesting to do a book with me. My own graphic novel was something that I always wanted to do but I had been so busy and the right opportunity hadnt really presented itself. Then Tokyopop came along and offered me this great opportunity so it was a lot of fun to dive in there and do my own book.
DRE: How do you like shrinking the pages to fit the Manga format and doing it in black and white?
Eric: It definitely poses its own challenges. I worked at about half the size I normally work at for the superhero comic books. I think it works really well for the style that I created for this book. I tried to keep it a little more cartoony, almost more of an animation approach. Sometimes it was a little constricting to try to do things in such a small size but other times I think those challenges help you make interesting decisions.
DRE: Did you know the structure of the book before you started?
Eric: Yeah, I had a basic concept of how I wanted to do it. Tokyopop tends to structure their books in chapters so I plotted it out in that regards, almost mathematically. I took the Alan Moore approach. Hes very systematic about how he plots his stories and depending on what hes writing, it has a different formula. I took that same approach to this and looked at the different chapters and was able to plug in the different scenes per chapter. That made it easier to figure it out, rather than just sitting down and trying to write a 140-page book. Since I took it one little step at a time, it made it easier to formulate.
DRE: Since you do so much TV and animation work were you ever worried about spending time on a book that wasnt guaranteed in a lot of ways?
Eric: Yeah, it was a tough decision because I knew it would be a big pay cut but you hope that in the long term it pays off and leads to bigger and better things. Its almost like making a personal investment. I really had to put all the other things I was working on, on hold. Fortunately things were light with The OC at the time, but there were a couple of points where I was juggling a few different things. For five months I put everything else on hold and just focused on this book and it pretty much consumed my life morning, noon, and night. Sometimes I was working 30-plus hours straight without a break just to get this book done on time. But we managed to get it pulled off and in stores in time for Valentines Day.
DRE: Was it always meant to go out for Valentines Day?
Eric: Yeah, I thought it would be a fun idea to get it out for then. The obvious choice would be to get it out for Halloween but I thought that this is the anti-Valentines Day book. Its very romantic, but at the same time it has a little bit of a Goth edge to it.
DRE: Were you ever into Goth comics?
Eric: No, thats the funny part. The best way to describe it is that Im very Ben Sherman. I have a preppier, somewhat clean-cut look to me. Ive always been a big Tim Burton fan but I never really read Emily Strange or Lenore or any of those other books. But the idea came from wanting to do a story about a boy with a ghost. I was at the mall, observing kids and I heard what kids were saying these days. I was over by Hot Topic and I was so taken with what the kids were wearing and all the music that I felt like an old man there. But it was cool to see these kids and how they have their own statement. I thought it would be neat to take that and turn them into monster kids and create their own type of fashion that you might find at a Hot Topic, the nonconformists who have become the conformists.
DRE: This is probably my fault, but I thought this My Dead Girlfriend was only one book so I kept waiting for you to introduce the dead girlfriend [laughs].
Eric: Tokyopop likes their books to be structured in large cliffhangers. I tried to circumvent that a little bit with trying to resolve the main story and then set up the next volume. Sometimes youre left completely wondering whats going to happen next; because it takes so long between volumes. It will probably be a year between each book, so readers are unfortunately left hanging until next Valentines Day.
DRE: Do you feel like youve streamlined the process of these books?
Eric: Yeah. It was a huge learning curve, because Ive never done anything this large before. Because of all of my television work, I was only able to work on small projects like eight and 12 page assignments so this is my first massive undertaking. I think when all is said and done, its 190 pages with probably 140 pages of book and then all the bonus material. I learned a ton about figuring out ways to better streamline the process and organize my approach. It is a three part series so as Im planning the final two volumes I feel that I have a much clearer roadmap of what I need to accomplish.
DRE: Was doing this book more satisfying than working on all those cartoons?
Eric: Absolutely. The idea that I could tell a story and have a finished product was one of the best feelings in the world. Its one thing when youre like creating all the files and youre drawing your heart out and youre working towards a goal. But when I took my kids to Barnes & Noble and we saw the cardboard marquee with the books, it was the best feeling in the world. One of the frustrating things about creating animated series is that many of them dont get made. So to have a book, thats actually a finished project is pretty exciting.
DRE: Youve gotten to work with some pretty great writers like Geoff Johns and Michael Chabon. Did you talk to these guys about doing your own book not that I know if you and Chabon are friends?
Eric: No, actually Michael and I are friends. I talked with him a little bit about it. Were not super close friends, but we exchange emails and he gave a lot of encouragement. I sent him some stuff early on and he was very supportive of it. The people I got blurbs from are all friends of mine. Brad Meltzer was incredibly supportive. Allan Heinberg came in early in the process and really helped me hone the script. Geoff was wonderfully supportive and really went out of his way to promote it on his website. Its a great little community of friends that I have who are willing to go out there and help me like that.
DRE: As a comic artist, you were probably the outcast in high school so is the book in anyway autobiographical? [laughs]
Eric: [laughs] I actually wasnt as much as an outcast as Finny was. I actually would say I was moderately popular. I didnt have any desire to hang out with the elitist popular kids but I was friendly with them. I had a really great high school experience but I certainly knew a lot of kids that did not have a good experience. I think there was a period in middle school when I had to adjust more since I was coming out of Catholic school and going to public school. But certainly a lot of the themes throughout the book are pretty relatable for most kids whether theyre popular or not with things like the struggle of adolescence and not quite fitting into your own skin and the awkwardness of puberty. The romance aspect of it was inspired a lot by when I met my wife. Not that anything is exactly what happened but you tap into those emotions and try to write scenes from that place of innocence and that specialness from the first time meeting someone like that.
DRE: Theres also a strong idea of acceptance of death. Finnys parents even died.
Eric: I think death is something that haunts all of us. Its something that Ive wrestled with. There seems to be a growing obsession with death among teens so I thought maybe I could figure out my own point of view on this. That was the point I was making in the book, that you spend so much time worrying about it that you forget to live. That may have been what I was doing for awhile. I was so worried about getting hurt or making mistakes that you start second guessing yourself and dont experience life as you could.
DRE: Was there any philosopher or philosophy that you referenced?
Eric: No, I didnt really get to existential about it. I just tried to take it from my own point of view and my own place of logic and how I could accept death. You dont really have a choice about whether or not you can accept it, so you might as well just roll with it. This is a world where death is almost downplayed because everyone becomes ghosts or monsters or whatever else. But well learn as the story continues that death does have a price, that its not as much fun and games as it appears.
DRE: Was religion part of your thinking going into this book?
Eric: I dont know if there were conscious religious decisions. I was raised very strict Catholic growing up so it is an underlying theme. Not just religion, but culturally I paralleled having a large ghost family with having a large Italian family. Theres a certain influence of other religions such as Buddhism. But nothing really specific though theres a sense of a higher power, like agonistic being an underlying theme. The one thing I tried to avoid was to be too preachy or too specific towards one religion but I think its hard to avoid those larger concepts.
DRE: Finny implies an Irish ethnicity to the character, was that supposed to be in there?
Eric: Well Wight is Scottish. My dad was from Edinburgh. The Isle of Wight is where its derived from. We used to joke that we owned it. The name Finny, actually came from the book A Separate Peace, which was a favorite book of mine growing up and is another book that is a poignant exploration of youth trying to figure out their past. It had a really strong effect on me. I cant always explain how different character names happen; they just pop into my head.
DRE: What age group do you think that this is appropriate for?
Eric: Being a parent myself, I wanted to play it a little safe. I even wanted to rate the book from 12 or 13 and up even though I think a nine or a ten year old would be fine with reading it. I think that it probably echoes more clearly with kids who are late middle school and up. Many of us can reconnect with what it was like to be that age and deal with those problems.
DRE: I read some interview where you said you were hoping to create clothing that could go in Hot Topic.
Eric: I would love to. Thats the hope. Its hard to launch a lot with just the first book. But now that it is a success, well be able to take it to licensors and try to create a line of clothing for Hot Topic. I think the big licensing show is in June and Im going to try and shop it there. It would be really cool to see kids walking around with little polo shirt with skulls on them and iron crosses that look like bats and some of the other stuff thats in the book.
DRE: What licensing thing are you dying to do besides clothing?
Eric: I would say toys like urban vinyl or action figures of some kind. That would be the cats meow for me. Clothes are cool, but to have those characters on your shelf, either as toys or maquettes would be really rad.
DRE: Did you do the character designs for the book before you started?
Eric: Yeah, I took an animation approach where I designed some of the main characters and then I wrote the script. After I did that I went in and started designing the other characters and then took those characters and drew them into the story. I tend to sketch things out before I dive right into the pages. There were a few times where I didnt have time and just had to draw the characters right on the page. But for the most part I came up with designs of the supporting cast, the Deadbeats and the Glindas, ahead of time.
DRE: Had you created characters from scratch before?
Eric: Yeah prior to The OC, I had worked in animation for almost ten years as a character designer. Ive done quite a bit of character development for animated series for Buffy and Austin Powers and Terminator 3. But I had also developed some of my own shows. My Dead Girlfriend actually originated from a project I had pitched Cartoon Network. It was one of those situations where I just went in and threw a couple of ideas at the wall. Sometimes you do that to see if theres anything they like and then you take that and develop it further. This is one that they thought might be cool for a holiday special, but they had a couple other monster shows and it wasnt something that necessarily fit right into their schedule. Literally two weeks later Tokyopop called and wanted to do a book.
DRE: Could you tell me more about this Austin Powers cartoon you worked on?
Eric: Well Im not privy to what exactly went down. But we were producing it, I think, for HBO and we were about three episodes in. Some of the writers were from The Simpsons and the scripts were really funny. I think Mike Myers was concerned that character was being completely overexposed, which I know is completely ironic considering at the time I got laid off I was driving down the 405 and there was a big poster for Austin Powers selling Heineken or something. But its a shame it didnt work out because it was a really fun project.
DRE: So it was between the second and third movie?
Eric: Yeah. The second movie had just come out and it opened to such enormous numbers that we thought we were golden. Then a week later were packing our office up. It was a very surreal experience.
DRE: I read about something youre working on called The Velvet Crush.
Eric: The Velvet Crush is a graphic novel project Im currently developing. I was supposed to do it before My Dead Girlfriend. Im actually developing it now as a film franchise. So hopefully there will be more to talk about that book in the next few months.
DRE: When I was doing my research on what you are doing now, I have never seen so many people be so excited about working on Mon-El. Geoff Johns is a guy whos known to do cool things with lame characters. But the first time you heard it, were you like Mon-El?
Eric: No, Geoff and I share a passion for quirky, Silver Age characters. Hes not one of the great or most notable characters in the DC Universe but its always fun to play in that sandbox. To work with Geoff was the bigger excitement and Mr. Richard Donner, whos no slouch himself. Drawing those old characters is just such a thrill for me.
DRE: What Silver Age character would you be interested in working on in the future?
Eric: I think everyone has their Batman project they would like to do. I have a project that Ive been kicking around that I would love to do. Id love to do something with Captain Marvel. I was more of a DC boy growing up. As I got older, I really started to latch onto the Marvel stuff and I would love to someday take a crack at Spider-Man or Fantastic Four. But Im also really content with doing my own thing now.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
zoetica:
Due to his ghost cartooning for Adam Brodys character on The OC, Eric Wight has a higher profile than most of his fellow artists. Now hes parlayed that fame into the excellent new graphic novel My Dead Girlfriend. This new book presented in the Manga format...
fitzsimmons:
Cool interview. Might have to pick that up.