ELLIOTT KALAN is the writer/creator of MANIAC OF NEW YORK, of which Volume Three: DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK debuts this coming Wednesday, January 18th.
COMIC UNIVERSE at 446 McDade Blvd in Folsom, PA 19033 is hosting a special new release event to celebrate MANIAC OF NEW YORK. Everyone purchasing a copy of Issue #1 will be entered into a raffle for an AfterShock hardcover collection or an Kalan-autographed copy of MONY III. All AfterShock back issues, sets and trade paperbacks will be on sale.
Elliott was kind enough to take time away from his busy schedule to answer questions related to MANIAC OF NEW YORK and other topics, This is Part Three of that interview . .
ELIOTT KALAN: Andrea's work on the book is so gorgeous and so scary and atmospheric and gross. I really lucked out getting him on this book. He brings such intensity and feeling to the pages, and such enthusiasm and excitement behind the scenes. It's a real inspiration to me when I'm writing to give him stuff that'll look cool for him to do, and always a charge when I get the pages back. It was Mike Marts’ (AfterShock Editor) idea to bring Andrea on, and I was pretty much instantly into it.
PCPODIUM: How much guidance / detail did you have to provide for him? What was your text to art process like?
KALAN: I usually don't provide too much detail to Andrea unless there's some kind of specific movie-type framing I'd like to go for.
At this point almost every issue starts with three horizontal panels, a format I love, and so I call that out specifically in the scripts. But often I'll describe something and then say "or something else, Andrea, if you think it'll be cooler". We're very simpatico in our thinking on the book.
Sometimes I'll send Andrea photo reference for things I have a specific look in mind for, and once I realized I hadn't sent him a reference for the school in Volume 2. I sent him a photo, but he'd already drawn the page -- and it looked just like the photo. He was two steps ahead of me!
Our process is pretty simple, though. I'll write the script, then Andrea will pencil and paint his pages, and then I'll go back and finesse the lettering, since often his art is saying things clearly enough that the words don't need to say them.
PCPODIUM: How does comics writing differ from your other writing? Easier, or more difficult?
KALAN: The main difference is the unique thing about comics, which is that it's a series of still images that can only hold so much information or action in them. Choosing the particular moments in time that will tell a story is both more thought-intensive and sometimes more fun than writing a script that will just play in real time.
Comic book writing has also given me some tools I can use for TV writing. Often if I'm having trouble keeping a scene for a show the right size or shape, I'll try to lay it out as a comics page. Having to choose the moments to highlight per panel helps me to focus on what's necessary for the scene and how to keep it moving quickly.
PCPODIUM: Are there any more comics works coming from you? Anything that you can share details on?
KALAN: Nothing to announce at the moment. I had an idea I'd really like to do with Andrea, but we're just starting to figure out where it might live. I'd love to do more comics work, but it's an ever-shifting field that I seem to drift in and out of.
PCPODIUM: How about anything else scripted by you that you can tell us about?
KALAN: It's a very different project, but I'd greatly appreciate it if people checked out the show I write for as my day job, an animated sitcom called HouseBroken that's on Fox/Hulu. I'm also working on a book for the University of Chicago Press called Joke Farming about how jokes work and how to write them. That probably won't be out until 2024, though. So mark your calendars!
KALAN: If you thought Gina and Zelda had finally defeated Maniac Harry by burning him to a crisp, YOU WERE RIGHT. BUT YOU WERE ALSO WRONG. There's a new Maniac with a new way of doing things, and she (she?!) is exactly who you don't want showing up at the fanciest event on the New York social calendar.
PCPODIUM: Why should readers be interested in this book?
KALAN: We're keeping both the gore and the satire of the series going strong, taking on real world topics through a lens coated in blood. Gina and Zelda, our stars and heroes, have changed a lot over the course of this series, and this volume is as much about the incredibly deep friendship that's grown between them as it is about heads getting cut off. Though there's plenty of those, too. And perhaps we're going to learn a little bit more about the origin of the Maniac...
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