INTERVIEW: Trailing The Northwest Passage
Interview Conducted by Jonathan Ellis

Scott Chantler has had a successful art career working in animation and commercial illustration. Creating works for such clients as Coca-Cola, Nike, The Gap and many others. But it was with the Oni Press graphic novel Days Like This that Scott made his splash into the world of sequential art. Penned by J. Torres, Days Like This tells the story of a rising girl group set in the early 60's. Torres and Chantler teamed together once more for the graphic novel Scandalous, focusing on the dark side of gossip during the McCarthy era in Hollywood. Scott became known for the crisp lines and retro feel of his work but his next book goes a little further back then the days of sweet pop music and Kennedy's in the White House. About 200 years further back.

In stores this June, Oni Press and Scott Chantler bring to you the two-fisted pulp adventure, Northwest Passage. Set in Rupert's Land in 1755 the story follows famed adventurer, Charles Lord as he and a small band of survivors flee into the wilderness after a gang of French mercenaries ambush England's Fort Newcastle. Charles's only hope for survival is to unite the various people of the land and of his past against this new threat.

We recently spoke with Scott about his first solo graphic novel series, the forthcoming Northwest Passage. Provided is a 6 page preview featuring for the first time anywhere, the final toned Art which will be appearing in Volume 1.

Before comics fans first saw your art you had worked in animation, what was it like moving from the one field to illustrating graphic novels? Not only is that a different approach to storytelling to deal with but also larger page counts then most new comers are used to.

I've actually made my living for most of my career doing illustration for magazines and advertising and such. Animation is an occasional sideline, sort of like comics are.

There isn't actually that much difference in the storytelling approach. Comics have fewer rules than film does, and of course in comics it's necessary to arrange the frames spatially, but both tell stories visually so there's a lot that the two mediums share. I sometimes wish that comic book artists treated their work more like animation, to be honest...with emphasis on good direction and design, and well "acted" performances by the characters. A lot of comic book art is pretty stiff.

The page count of graphic novels has never intimidated me. I prefer the longer format, both as a reader and a creator. I know there are a lot of people who feel otherwise, but I think one of the best things to ever happen to comics is the break away from the restraining monthly format. While I appreciate the efficiency of writers who are able to tell a story in a slim 22 pages, too often it's to the detriment of pace and any real sense of development.

One of the things I'm really trying to achieve with Northwest Passage is the pace and feel of a novel, not of a collected comic book series or a movie on paper. I fear it may move a little slow for a lot of regular comic book readers, but folks who are accustomed to historical novels and such should feel right at home.

You're completely right about the stiffness of certain artists, I think one of the hindrances of superhero books is that many 'hot' artists will draw the exact same body type for different characters then use the costumes to distinguish their identity instead of giving the characters their own distinctions.

I hate to pick on superhero books, because there has been and continue to be some really terrific artists working in that genre. But you're right, there's a shorthand that has developed over the years that seems to exclude things like facial expressions and any body movement other than flying, punching, and standing around heroically. Captions and word balloons end up doing the lion's share of the work in terms of communicating characters' emotions, which just isn't right in such a visual medium.

There's a soap opera element to superheroes that seems like it's being ignored to some extent. A lot of the most popular books just look like a bunch of mannequins standing around with their fists clenched, even when they're just talking. You shouldn't have to be tipping buildings over every other page to get some drama into the story, and the best superhero artists know that.

On the whole, though, I think that indie artists are so much better at getting their characters to perform. My two all-time favourite comics artists are Will Eisner and Jeff Smith. Both are masters of storytelling composition and design, but the most important thing is that their characters are really alive. They emote, and not just in the faces. I'd be happy to achieve a third of what either them were able to in their work.

You bring up the mention of historical novels, as reference material from the time period of Northwest Passage seems scarce, what materials did you use to research the time and how did you handle hurdles like dialect or expressions from that period?

Actually, reference material from that era is plentiful. The Hudson's Bay Company archived seemingly every scrap of paper in its history... ledgers, logbooks, diaries, personal letters, you name it, and it all still exists. Writing comics, though, you rarely have the time to spend digging in primary sources like that. I read some of the original material that seemed relevant to what I was doing, but mostly I relied on Peter C. Newman's books Company of Adventurers and Caesars of the Wilderness. They're the first two volumes of his exhaustive history of the HBC. Great reads, and packed with information. There's also a visual companion, called Empire of the Bay, which came in very handy for visual reference, which was scarcer.

As far as dialogue goes, I tried to just keep it simple. Upper class characters speak in full, well-enunciated sentences, while the more working class among them drop letters here and there, etc. Of course, you try to eliminate any modern slang. I found some good references for period slang... God knows how accurate they are, and I try to use them sparingly, but they bring a bit of colour and a sense of authenticity to things.

Up till now your work has largely featured dramas, was Northwest Passage the action story that was just itching to get out?

Well, Northwest Passage has its share of character drama, too. But yeah, after finishing Scandalous, which was a hundred pages of people talking on the phone, I thought that it would be nice if my next project involved some running and jumping.

Mostly what inspired Northwest Passage, though, was my desire not to be forever known as "that guy who draws comics about the 1950s". I love doing period pieces, and while my style lends itself to that kind of mid-century Americana, I don't want my career in comics defined quite so narrowly.

Did you find that books like Scandalous and Days Like This were well representative of your artistic style or did you find you fit your style specifically to fit the demands of those books?

Scandalous and Days both suited my style perfectly. "Retro" is what I do, and why J. Torres chose me for those projects. J. has a real knack for matching artists with projects, and has discovered a lot of really good people.

I do, though, try to approach each book a little differently. Even Days and Scandalous are slightly different. In Days, I was dealing with pure nostalgia, from a young person's perspective, so I tried to keep things as simple as possible. That included not only the design of the characters and settings, but also the design of the scenes themselves... I tried to keep the "camera" angles at eye level most the time, for instance, and make whichever character was the emotional centre of the scene evident. Scandalous, on the other hand, was a very grown-up tale about fairly complicated issues. I needed faces that, while cartoony, were believably the faces of adults with some serious problems in their lives. And I wanted the "camera" to behave like a paparazzi photographer... always looking at the scene from around a corner, behind a tree, under a car, etc., completely different from Days.

With Northwest Passage I'm doing something different again, as the story demands, but it's still within the boundaries of my style, which is a sort of classic illustration look. I wanted to approach it like one of those historical tales that would always be the third or fourth story in each issue of Two-Fisted Tales. So, you see, I really can't escape the 1950s, even when I try...

What events inspired this story? Most Canadians are familiar with stories about certain forts during wartime.

The fictional Fort Newcastle of the story was inspired by the real-life York Factory, which changed hands between the English and the French seven or eight times over the course of its history. A lot of people really don't appreciate how much blood was spilled in attempts to control, or regain control, of the fur trade.

The title Northwest Passage seems to imply a little something more then a retaking of Fort Newcastle, exactly how important is this fort to Rupert's Land? What does Fort Newcastle look over?

Fort Newcastle is the nerve centre of trade on Hudson's Bay, and is where the Hudson's Bay Company's overseas governor resides. So it's a vitally important source of English commerce.

As for the title, it refers to a lot of different things. It's what the protagonist, Charles Lord, had been searching for during his days as an explorer, so there's an extent to which it suggests searching for something and not finding it, an idea that extends to almost all of the other characters in the book.

I also really wanted to use the word "northwest" in the title as something of an inside joke. During the Mountie craze of the 1950s, it seemed like any comic book or pulp stories set in Canada would never refer to Canada by name... it was always the "northwest". It seemed like US publishers didn't want anyone to know that these stories were set in (gasp!) a foreign country. Given that an American publisher is putting out my book, I thought it appropriate to make that reference.

There's an old NFB film titled "Has Anybody Here Seen Canada? (A History Of Canadian Movies 1939-1953)" which is based on the days when Hollywood was churning out Mountie flicks but no one had really ever been to Canada so when it came to making the sets/designing the movie someone would yell out "Has Anybody Here Seen Canada?" Often one person might stand and say "I Have" and so they'd ask "What's it look like" the reply often being "Lots of Trees". Also The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were originally called the Northwest Territories Mounted Police so that may have a bearing as well.

That sounds hilarious. I read an essay by Pierre Berton while researching this that had a similar sort of theme. At least they were right... there are lots of trees.

Do you feel there are any distinct differences between the English and the men of Rupert's Land?

Well, one of my goals in writing this was to try to capture something of what makes Canadians Canadian. Near the beginning of the story, Charles says something to the effect that when he goes back to England, he's not sure he'll recognize it. Part of the story is my attempt to fictionalize the moment at which these folks stopped being English, Scottish, American, or what have you, and started thinking of Rupert's Land as home. There's a certain sense of brotherhood that can only come to those who live in a harsh landscape, which I think is a big part of it.

You've mentioned that Charles Lord is an amalgam of influences, are there any that have a particularly strong influence in the character? Sam Steele? Joseph Brant?

I guess I was thinking mostly of the classic early explorers like Radisson and Grossiers, who were French, but who switched allegiances back and forth so many times that sometimes they didn't even know who they were working for. I wanted someone of mythic stature like that, who had seen the really adventurous years, but who was now stuck in the decades during which exploration took something of a back seat to trade concerns.

I was also thinking of later people like the great cartographer David Thompson, and Alexander Mackenzie, who was the first white man to cross North America by land. Both were Company employees who were not content simply with day-to-day operations at the forts. They found reasons to get out there, fill in those empty spaces on the maps, and do great things.

How many issues will Northwest Passage comprise?

The initial story will fill three volumes, each about 75 pages. We were originally going to do it as one long book, but I'm glad we broke it into smaller bits. There are some "cliff-hanger" moments that can be better taken advantage of in a serialized format. Beyond that, we'll see. If sales dictate that we keep going, we'll keep going.

Did the success of Chester Brown's Louis Riel have any bearing on this project?

I have to admit that I haven't actually read Louis Riel yet, though I'm hoping to pick up the hardcover this convention season. While the idea for Northwest Passage was percolating in my head long before I was aware of Chester Brown's book, its success is certainly inspiring. Perhaps the gang at Oni Press had it in mind when they green lit my book, I don't know.

Louis Riel comes up a lot when people mention Northwest Passage, and while it's clear that there's nothing else really to compare it to in terms of its Canadian content, I want to make clear to everyone that my book is historical fiction, and adventure-oriented, not a straight-forward history like Riel, which I can practically guarantee doesn't contain a single knife fight.

The stolen prize, the gathering together of the old crew, the big score... Do you feel Northwest Passage has elements of a heist flick in its story or might those elements be a fair too subtle?

I'd never thought about it, but now that you mention it, it does sound like a heist story or sorts, doesn't it? I've always thought of it more in terms of mythology, like a Canadian Robin Hood and his Merry Men, or a Canadian King Arthur and his Round Table. In fact, the genesis of the story was an attempt to give Canadian history the kind of proper romantic mythology that it deserves. I started with the question that if Europe romanticizes its history with knights and castles, and the US romanticizes its history with six-guns and saloons, what would the Canadian version be?

Are there any family ties or ancestry on your part that may have inspired this story?

Not that I know of. My family's been in Canada a long time, but not quite that long, I don't think.

Will Northwest Passage be your primary project for the time being or are there any other books on the horizon as well?

I'm going to be contributing a story to B. Clay Moore's planned Hawaiian Dick anthology, though I'm not sure exactly when that's going to happen. I've got a couple of other things lined up, including a graphic novel with writer Neil Kleid, and another book with J. Torres, but they won't be until after I finish this first arc of Northwest Passage, which I really want to focus on for the time being. It's kind of a dream project, not to mention my first real pro writing gig, so I'm putting some love into it.

Who knows what else might come up, though? I'd really like to do more work in comics, but my style is often something of a tough sell to editors. Oni, of course, relishes anything that's off the beaten path, and I'm lucky they are around, or I probably wouldn't be doing comics at all. I feel that if I'm ever going to be welcomed at DC or any of the bigger companies, though, I'm going to need a hit. Maybe Northwest Passage will be it. Even if it isn't, though, you won't have heard the last of me.

Northwest Passage Volume 1 hits stores this June from Oni Press with 72 Pages in Black & White with Tones for $ 5.95 U.S. Pre-Order from your local comics retailer with the Diamond Order Code: APR05 3048. For more on Scott be sure to visit Scott Chantler.com.

 

Jonathan Ellis is Co-Editor in Chief of PopImage.com


PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum.


Industrial Archive - Read past Industrial articles