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FLIGHT 3: Azad & Reagan Introduction
Azad’s stand out contribution to FLIGHT volume 3 is entitled “Polaris”. Azad I just read your FLIGHT story and I’m not sure what to say beyond “wow”. The story is amazing and I’ve never seen your art like this, what was the culmination of this story? It seems in part inspired by the New Orleans flooding though I’m unsure if the timing matches up with when you originally began this story. The timing with the New Orleans flood was totally coincidental. I was actually in the middle of colouring the entire flooding sequence when Katrina hit. I remember specifically colouring the panel with people standing on their roofs with "Help Us" signs, and then turning my head and seeing the EXACT image from a helicopter on the TV in my studio. It spooked me. A lot of the FLIGHT contributions fall into a storybook quality, as does yours, but it also feels like there’s something more to it. Perhaps a story told to you by a relative as a child, or maybe something more recent? People underestimate children in the publishing industry. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Too often, the entertainment manufactured for then is sanitized and dumped down to protect them, be it Edited Loony Toons cartoons, or rounded book corners. When I wrote my story, I wanted to write a children’s story in the spirit Oscar Wilde wrote "The Happy Prince" and Edward Gorey's "The Gashleycrumb Tinies". They make you laugh, they make you cry. They run the gamut of emotions, and I think that's healthy. Have you tried showing this story to a younger reader yet to gauge their interest? It really was quite a profound contribution to the anthology. I showed it to my nephew (whom the story is dedicated to), but the little ingrate flipped through it in three seconds and went back to his playstation. I'll convert him to comics yet, just wait and see!
It's tough. I have a thousand stories I want to tell. I have Lord of the Ring sized epics to tell! The reality is, I probably wont get to publish all the stories I want to. I don't currently have enough free time to do so. My goal is to be doing comics full time, so I have to make every attempt at grabbing the brass ring count. Flight was a no-brainer. Total creative freedom and an amazing platform surrounded by a talent roster unrivalled in this industry. Heck, I'm afraid it’s all downhill from here for me. Do you feel sometimes there’s a commercial side of the creator in you fighting to the surface? A part of you going “I know! Vampire monkey ninjas! It’s perfect!”. What's commercial these days? Zombies? Monkeys? Ninjas? I remember when Robert Kirkman put out The Walking Dead and it sold 2500 copies. When he released it, it wasn't "commercial" at all. But now there’s a top selling book at Marvel (albeit written by him) called Marvel Zombies. I don't think anything aside from Superheroes are "commercial" in this industry. If what you're asking me is whether I am interested in doing something outright fun and shallow, not really. I'd get bored fast. Don't get me wrong though. If someone offered me a million bucks, I'd happily grin and bear it. Somehow, life would go on, I’m sure. Wanting to work in comics fulltime, do you have any interest working for one of the big two or perhaps a company like Delacourt or Soleil? I have to admit, I don't really buy any Big Two comics except some from Vertigo. I don't have much interest in writing a Hawkeye series or some third tier DC Martian scub from the 70s. I'd probably sit there staring at the page trying to justify why anyone would bother using a bow and arrow this day and age. However, if the aforementioned million bucks comes into play in this scenario, I'd somehow find the way to get past my head scratching.
Sammy is the guy all the crappy things in life happen to. Murphy's Law personified. He's the guy in the urban legend that gets his kidneys stolen. He's the guy in folklore that is tricked by the devil. He's all of us on our worst hair day. And I hope he lives again soon. He was actually an old character I created for a farcical comic about a bumbling thief. I had done a mini comic back in grade 11 of his misadventures, but didn't return to the project until 1999. The industry was in a rut and for the first time in my adult life, I wasn’t collecting comics. I complained and griped, but in the end I decided to put up or shut up and do a book *I* wanted to read. So, I got to work, and the mini series Sammy: Tourist Trap was the result. I tend to write for an audience of one. The FLQ thing (for those that don't know, it’s the acronym for a Quebec separatist organization that terrorized Quebec back a million years ago. Sammy's closest confidant and priest is an ex-member) was a story device. Sammy was stuck in a funk. Having the priest admit to Sammy he was in the FLQ was his way of showing him that people change. Things change. The sun will rise tomorrow. In hindsight, it may have been a little too region specific, but I tend to write for an audience of one anyway, to my detriment I suspect. I had a teacher who was part of the guard called to police the streets during the FLQ attacks, at the time it was unlike anything anyone had experienced and was scary as hell. I thought it was a great inclusion, particularly for those unfamiliar. It never hurts to learn something from a good story. Did you apply for the Canadian graphic novel grant? Honestly, applying for a grant never came to mind. Although I was aware that the government here in Canada, unlike our brother to the south, offers grants to artists who apply for them to facilitate creating their work, I was not aware that they specifically would support a graphic novel. Knowing that now, it isn't an avenue I think I would have pursued. I have friends that have done so in the independent film industry and it's a real pain. I wouldn't want to be coerced into changing my work to win a grant. For example, they may come back and say there wasn't enough Canadian content. After being given total creative freedom from my publisher, I wouldn't want to deal with any commission about whether my work merited support from the government. Although, I remember not too long ago there was a furor over the government granting a ton of cash for someone to write a book of dumb blond jokes. I guess standards aren't so high. Currently you’re working on a mini-compilation to debut at San Diego, will this be a Sammy related project or more personal works? I have a couple of Sammy webcomics and pinups I'll be compiling for the con. They all stand on their own. A little intro in to the character. A Very Sammy Valentine will be in there, which I think is my favourite short story I've done for him.
Writing and drawing a project myself is where I feel I get the most satisfaction. Translating something that's in my head to paper is a tough thing to do, so when it turns out right, it's like winning the lottery every time. It's wonderful. On the flipside, I look forward to working with other artists. I wrote a short story for Penny Farthing Press last year for the Decoy anthology, Menagerie, which I found very enjoyable. It was a cool experience having someone else handle the art chores for once, and I think that's a role I'd be very comfortable with.... provided that the artist and I are in sync and the work produced is good. I briefly worked with B.Clay Moore on a project called Clean Living which is sort of in a holding pattern right now. But, working with him was great. Again, provided I like the work that's being submitted to me is good, I would be happy drawing someone else’s written work. For more Azad visit Guerrilla Comics.com.  Reagan Lodge
What was your art process for your FLIGHT contribution? What’s really striking about your story, aside from your pen skills that is, is the colour process. Was this a mix of paint and computer or all in one medium? Actually, this was all done in Photoshop. Originally I was determined to do it in gouache or watercolours, but due to the limited time and space I had to work on it, a digital medium was a better choice this time around. One comment I often get is how my digital stuff often resembles traditional media, which isn't something I intentionally set out to do, but I do treat "painting" in Photoshop much like I would regular paint on paper, mostly in how I use specific brushes for specific purposes and so on. So the end result sometimes has a pleasantly organic feel that kind of shows up by surprise. It does resemble a mix of watercolours and digital, but was just the colouring on the computer? You started with inked pages right? Some people look at me funny when I say this, but the entire thing was done on a computer without any scanned sketches at all. All the "inking" was done in Photoshop with the help of a Wacom tablet. Basically all I did was just slop around some flat black shadows and lines until I got what I wanted.
Wyit and Sidna are something that has been in my head from a few years ago. I think it was a good three or four years ago when I came up with the first idea that eventually evolved into Wyit and Sidna. It was a fairly simple painting of an early version of Borislav (a character who we'll see in a future volume), a single dark figure contrasted against a vast frozen forest and mountain range. That was the start of an extremely long process of narrowing down what I wanted to do with these vague ideas of characters and plot that I had. I got a lot of storytelling help from friends like Matt Rhodes and Doug TenNapel there, and eventually came up with what is now Wyit and Sidna. So, no, Wyit and Sidna are a little more than something I use when I need to tell a quick story. I do have a much, much larger story in the works, which I plan to be a full-length graphic novel in the future. But for now, I'm getting things started by introducing the characters through Flight by a small 'episode' for each volume possible, which has been a really great time for me. I’m guessing the story of how one came to serve the other is significant to the story you want to tell as well? Man, you're reading my mind like a Tijuana Bible. Yeah, there is a lot of stuff to be told throughout the story about what it means to serve. If it were being written by someone else, Wyit would just be a sort of background character or sidekick to Sidna; the anonymous big-eared awkward fox who carries the heroine's sword for her. That's fine, but the reason I wanted to make the story told with more emphasis on Wyit serving Sidna rather than Sidna being served by Wyit is because I think it resonates better with people that way. Everyone can relate to having to do some sort of chore or work for somebody else, not everyone can relate to being the powerful knight girl with rad sword skills.
For me, I spent most of my life in middle-school and high-school kind of feeling in the background while everyone else was more talented and popular, so it's easier for me to write about a character like Wyit because he's material I know from personal experience. Looking at your influences I’d have to say you’re drawn to the majestic. Not just magic and warriors but also characters with a greater sense of something beyond them. Something worth fighting for. Would you say this appeal rings true? It's a good thing you said that, because that's exactly what I try to convey with Wyit and Sidna's journey. One of my big things with this tale is that I want to tell a story that's more than just a series of fun events or cool pictures. This world I'm sharing through Flight is the product of so many dreams and daydreams I had as a kid yet had no idea how to share them, so when I set out to write this story over time, I wanted it to have some kind of message or meaning that people remember when they put it down. So to answer your question, yeah, the impression of characters with a sense of fighting for something greater than themselves would be very accurate, and I'm glad you got that vibe from it. To give a glimpse of the larger story behind what we see in my Flight 3 piece, the main conflict facing Wyit and Sidna is their tiny nation of scattered peoples being threatened by a much more powerful beast empire from across the eastern sea. But while the background of the story involves a lot of war and politics, the focus is primarily on Sidna's personal servant and squire - none other than Wyit. It's mainly about his struggles and personal conflict as a character while serving Sidna on this journey as she wages an utterly hopeless war to save her people from this huge enemy.
Sometimes, yeah, but it doesn't bother me. Right now I'm trying yet again to get into art school, but I'm not worried. Despite having little professional education, I learned an awful lot by simply teaching myself and listening to more experienced artists, as well as learned lots of stuff from my time working for Armor Holdings Inc. My boss Rod Dornsife has been an excellent on-the-job teacher for me, showing me the do's and don’ts of good visual communication in the corporate world. So I don't feel like I'm that out of place when I'm hanging around the rest of the Flight crowd. Still, I do want to go to school! The more experience, the better. Luckily you can always point your professors towards the bookstore to see your work now. Yep! That's one thing I'm definitely going to have fun with. The closest thing to having anything influenced by me being seen on a store shelf were a couple cover illustrations done by my friend Sean Rubin for Brian Jacques' Redwall audiobooks, which I gave Sean a couple small suggestions about painting clouds and stuff for. So whenever I went to a bookstore with friends, I'd pull one of the Redwall audiobooks off a shelf and say
Do you have an ultimate goal for your art career? Meaning, are you looking to breaking into animation, illustration, sequential art, storyboarding films, all of the above? At the moment, my main goal is to get into art school, so my original plans to go straight into visual development or sequential art are on the backburner for now. But aside from that, my big plan is to get a graphic novel published sometime in the next few years, and to continue doing stuff with Flight. For more Reagan visit Reagan Lodge.com. Introduction
 Interviews Conducted by Co-Editor in Chief, Jonathan Ellis. E-mail Us To Comment On This Article.  PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum. E-Mail Us - E-Mail Us To Comment On This Article. Flight Comics.com PopImage FLIGHT 2 Interviews Industrial Archive - Read past Industrial articles |
