“Overwhelming” is probably the most apt adjective to describe the San Diego Comic-Convention. (With “stinky” coming in a close second.) The convention is four-and-a-half day whirlwind of mind-melting pop-culture insanity. So, come prepared to figure out how you’ll juggle your time gawking at Hollywood stars and starlets in Hall H, taking pictures of cos-players, and hunting down con-exclusives.
But! Before you finalize your nerd-schedule for next week, make sure to set some time aside to give some love to the comic book-folk. (It is Comic-Con, after all.) To kick off the big show, your trusty friends at Pop Culture Zoo are pointing you in the right direction of a few snappy comic book folks that you should check out.
There’s a lot to envy about Ted Mathot. Not only does he work at Pixar as a storyboard supervisor, with WALL E, Ratatouille and The Incredibles on his resume, but, like some of his fellow office-mates, he also has enough leftover imagination to create comic books.
Mathot seems to have found a unique creative balance, telling stories of wide-screen, all-ages entertainment, as well as character-driven stories with healthy dose of grit and desolation.
In both Rose and Isabel and CORA (his newest story), Mathot mixes his clean, Disney-esque linework with darker inspirations to create harsh, realistic locations with very relatable humanity.
So, you’ll be sharing a booth with some of your Pixar co-workers (Derek Monster/ E-Ville Press). What’s up with that — aren’t you guys too busy making awesome movies to be putting out comics?
Haha. Yes, I’m definitely busy with Pixar work, but there’s always time to pursue personal creative projects. It’s not easy, but because it’s a labor of love, that passion is what drives it, and helps me to stay focused and get it done. Each year, Comic-Con is the deadline that Derek [Thompson] and I set for ourselves, so each year we know that the books have to be done by mid-June in order to go to print.
Pixar is obviously a hotbed for creativity — and with the overlap of the animation world and comic books — has there ever been any discussion about to creating an ‘official’ Pixar comic label? Would that be something that interests you?
I don’t know if there are any plans for “Pixar Comics”. If there were, I might be interested, but the thing I enjoy is complete creative freedom to do whatever I want in my books. On someone else’s label I could potentially lose that, which is the reason I do my own stuff in the first place.
What can you accomplish creatively in the medium of comics that you can’t in film? And vice versa?
My original goal 5 or 6 years ago was to do a short animated film, but after dabbling [with] it for a while I realized it would take several years at least to complete. At the time, some of the guys at Pixar were making and selling their own books and I became inspired by that. I realized that I could tell a huge story in comics much faster than a very short one in animation. The actual production of my first story Rose and Isabel, took about 6-8 months.
What books and swag will you guys be bringing to San Diego? And what can people stopping by your booth expect?
I’ll have my first story, Rose and Isabel, and the first two volumes of the sequel, called CORA. Derek will have two volumes of his creature design books, a storyboarding DVD he did for Gnomon, and original art.
Can you tell us about the world of ‘Cora’ and what’s in store for her in the concluding issue — without massive spoilers, obviously?
CORA is a sequel to the story that started in Rose and Isabel and takes place 18 years later in the American West (1888). Cora is the 18 year old daughter of Isabel Callaghan, whose sister Rose Callaghan has become estranged from the family. Her existence had been kept secret from Cora, until a strange man comes to the door looking for her. Cora, restless with her mundane life on the frontier, sets out on her own to find out more about her mysterious aunt Rose. Anyone who has read Rose and Isabel knows what a dangerous idea this is. Some of the inspiration for the story has come from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian“; people who have read those will have some idea of the tone of the story.
Part 2 of the CORA story will debut at Comic-Con. I estimate the story will be 6 parts once it’s all finished.
Both ‘Rose and Isabel’ and ‘CORA’ take place in the past – the Civil War/ Old West – a period not typically associated with strong female heroes. Is it a conscious effort to sort of play with the ‘traditional’ gender roles of gun-toting heroes?
Absolutely. I wanted to genre-bend a little bit and also do a story with female protagonists, something that was dramatic and character based. Women fought in the Civil War in support of their fathers, brothers, husbands or boyfriends as well as to contribute to the cause. Downplaying the sex-appeal was important, since I wanted the sisters to be viewed as characters, first and foremost. That’s not to say that a character with sex appeal can’t be interesting of course, but sometimes people see the covers of the books and say, ‘oh another chicks with guns story’, which is not my intention at all. I had the characters dress in men’s clothes (that were loose and not form-fitting) so the focus would be on who they are as people (as well as to be more historically accurate). This notion is going to change a bit in Cora, because for certain character(s), sexuality will play a role.
What’s the appeal of the Wild West and Civil War eras? Are there other backdrops you’re hoping to play with as a setting?
Rose and Isabel is actually a mash up of two ideas I had. The first was the warrior woman idea and the other was a family story set during the Civil War. As cliché as it sounds, I had a dream that led me to the story. It was about 5 characters (2 sisters and 3 brothers) leaving home together to fight in the war; (there was even a song that went with it but I don’t remember much of it). I thought ‘why not combine the two?’ and almost immediately it began to yield some great things. I chose also to have the story happen near the end of the war; I avoided the big battles such as Gettysburg and Antietam and focused on the lesser known Battle of the Wilderness (1864). There is an incredible amount of documentation on the war too; Gordon C. Rhea’s “Battle of the Wilderness” is 500 pages and covers events that took place over a two day span.
For Cora, I didn’t want to set it during what’s known as the “Wild West” because a lot of westerns take place then, to take advantage of all the colorful characters and events of the 1870’s. Some of Rose’s part in the story takes place at that time, but Cora’s story begins in the late 1880’s, after the wild west era had pretty much ended. I had come across a very well respected and popular essay called “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” by Frederick Jackson Turner (it was also known as the “Turner Thesis”) and it inspired me to have the story take place just before the frontier was officially “closed” (which happened right after the US census of 1890). There was something called “frontier anxiety” that the original settlers experienced during this time and I thought that would be interesting to explore. Themes of the book are finality and death, so it seemed to make sense.
Are you contributing to Afterworks 3? (Is there any word on when it will be released?)
I will be contributing to the new Afterworks book, as soon as I can find some time. I’m also taking on a sort of editor role for the book, so I’ve got to make sure I have a chunk of time to devote to that as well. We’re planning to have a big release of the book at next year’s Comic-Con.
Do you know what comic work you’ll be working on for next year?
For next year, I’ll be working on the CORA story (part 3), Afterworks, and a sketchbook for ComixBuro, which will be released in France in January. I’d like to get a nice hardcover version of the complete Rose and Isabel story out sometime soon, but I’m still looking for an American publisher for that (Akileos released a very nice hardcover version in France in 2007).
Would you ever want to see an animated feature made of ‘Rose and Isabel’ or ‘Cora’? (Why or why not?)
An animated version would be cool, but I’ve always seen Rose and Isabel as a live action film.
What are you looking forward to checking out at the convention?
I’m always looking for things that I can’t easily get at the local comic shop. There are always things I come across that I normally wouldn’t have seen or even known about. It requires some wandering around, which I don’t have a lot of time for, but sometimes friends come by and say ‘hey you’ve got to pick this up!’.
Ted Mathot and Derek Monster will be at Booth #1215!