About a week ago, I was given the opportunity to interview the creators of a comic currently on Kickstarter, called Mute. Here's the link to the Kickstarter, which you should definitely check out.
Mute was created by writer Frank Cvetkovic and artist Michael Lee Harris (@chinchillamode), who is a great member here on SG that I quite enjoy talking to. As such, I was very excited to be given the opportunity to talk with them and get a little more insight into this unique project.
ZAPHOD: How did Mute come about? Where did the initial idea come from and how has it developed from that idea into the comic it is today?
MICHAEL: Mute was Frank's brain child. He approached me with the idea and I agreed to it. He offered me cookies. Chocolate.
FRANK: The idea that sparked MUTE came from a ten-second ad I saw for an upcoming segment on the local news a couple years back. It was such a quick little detail, but it got stuck in my head and started growing. I never got a chance to see the actual news story, but immediately saw its storytelling potential and had to know how someone could find themselves in that kind of situation. So I started working my way backward, outlining a possible series of events. The story started to form bonds with other types of stories I had wanted to tell – a silent comic, a neo-noir chase comic – and, eventually, MUTE started to take shape.
Z: How long have the two of you been working together on comics?
M: We've been working together off and on for about 1o or so years. Wow... that's a long time...
F: Michael and I have known each other for close to a dozen years or so now. We met at the Columbus College of Art & Design back around 2002, I think, and, in the time since, worked on minicomics and whatnot together and did a lot of comic conventions. Once he moved to attend SCAD, we stopped collaborating for a while, just because of drastically different schedules, but other the past couple of years, I've been lettering several comics Michael has been drawing. And, when I made the decision to start working on MUTE, I immediately knew that Michael was my top pick of artists to work with.
Z: What are some of the biggest struggles when creating a creator owned comic?
F: Money, I suppose. Especially when you're the writer. There are artist page rates to pay, printing, shipping. A 48-page book like MUTE costs upwards of five or six thousand dollars to make. And if you don't have that kind of money, then you don't have a book. No matter how good it might be.
Z: Is this a character that you could see doing more with in the future or is this story entirely stand alone?
F: Yeah, MUTE is definitely a self-contained story. There will not be a sequel of any kind.
Z: Do you have any other projects you'd like to collaborate on in the future together?
M: Hmmm... good question, Frank letters a lot of comics I draw but I am open to illustrating his writing in the future.
F: I will continue to letter Michael's comics for the foreseeable future, but that's about it for the time being, I believe. I love his work and would love to write something else for him to draw at some point, I just have no idea what or when that will be right now.
Z: Where did you get the inspiration for the main character? Do you know someone in your life who is deaf?
F: No, I don't actually. I've known a lot of people with severe hearing loss issues, but no one I'm close to who was completely deaf. The inspiration for Adrian really came from wanting to do a silent comic and forcing myself to come up with a plausible reason for excluding spoken dialogue from the script. That's when I decided that if the main character can't hear, then the reader should not be able to read. And then it all just kind of fell into place.
Z: How is it working on a story with no dialogue? Does that create added pressure for you as an artist to convey the feel of the story without the words to aid the reader?
M: It was easier for me, actually and harder too. Word balloons present another obstacle to the composition of the page and can even dictate the positions of characters on the page. This story freed me up to really play with compositions. It was more difficult, in a sense, because my art was entirely carrying the story and have to be clearly understood.
Z: What are some of the biggest obstacles when writing a comic without dialogue?
F: Trying to find alternative ways for characters to communicate, both with each other and the reader. I was able to come up with some fairly easy workarounds with MUTE, such as a couple of brief text message conversations and a few instances of some very basic and easy interpret sign language.
Z: When submitting scripts to your artists, do you tend to do full script or rough outlines giving them more freedom to interpret the panel?
F: Full script. I like to break down the page, panel by panel, and give a brief description of how the scene should look or what a character should be doing or feeling. Once I've worked with an artist enough to know how they'll interpret my script, I'll drastically shorten panel descriptions. Also, I typically write action sequences in very broad strokes and just let the artist run with it.
Z: When you are creating a story, do you start with a start to finish outline or do you begin with an initial idea and then figure out what happens later?
F: Outline outline outline. Every comic I've ever written has started with an outline. Usually, I'll write six to ten sentences about the plot, each sentence representing a very basic story beat. Then, I'll go in and add five to ten details for each plot point. And so on and so forth until I have a full outline with character arcs, story beats, motivations, even a few lines of simple dialogue. Most of my finished outlines are between one and five pages, although, I've had a few that were so detailed that they ran over ten.
Z: What is your favorite genre to write in?
F: Dark comedy, almost bordering on tragedy. I love putting characters in horrible situations and writing things that make my friends laugh.
Z: How long have you been writing (for comics or otherwise) and what was your inspiration to start?
F: Pretty much all of my life? I've always loved to make up and tell stories. I used to write and draw comic strips and little picture books when I was a kid, which led to a lot of writing classes and short stories in high school. I didn't seriously start writing – or, at least, didn't think I could write something that other people would actually want to read – comic book scripts until around the early 2000s. But, once I started, I knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life.
Z: Do any of the characters you've created have any resemblance to people you know in real life?
M: Not really, I have friends who I sometimes use as models but the characters bear no actual resemblance to them other than physicality.
Z: Could you describe for me your drawing process? Do you use a computer or is it all on paper?
M: I work completely traditionally. I receive the script, do thumbnails, in this case I sent them to Frank for approval, then do pencils, again get feedback, then go on to inks. I scan them into the computer, clean up smudges and such, then send in finished files. Presto...I don't feel any particular way about digital versus traditional, its just easier for me to work traditionally.
Z: What do you have the hardest time drawing?
M: Cityscapes, and there are LOTS of them in this book. Thanks Frank.
Z: How long have you been drawing and what was your biggest inspiration to start?
M: I've been drawing all my life. My very first comic was a Captain Planet comic. I think cartoons as a kid were my biggest inspirations. That naturally led into comics.
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Thank you both so much for letting me be a part of this amazing project with this interview.
If you haven't, please take a moment to check out the Mute Kickstarter. This is an incredible and unique project which I would love to see fully funded and then some. There are a lot of amazing rewards. For just $50, you can get a character sketch commission of your choice by Michael Lee Harris. I encourage you all to check out their page. They just recently posted the first four pages of Mute so you can get an idea of just what a cool project this is.
