SPOOKSHOW is an intelligent and sharply written story about espionage and afterlife created and published by Ray Fawkes. The first issue comes out in May. Why should you buy it? Why pursue comics at all when the industry is apparently dying, and there’s more people writing about comics on the web than buying the things? Why Ray Fawkes, when everyone knows that John Byrne refined comics to their absolute essence in 1991, and it’s been downhill ever since?

If you look at my website (http://www.pipersnow.com), you'll notice there's a little note on the sidebar, where I ask whether or not comics need to be saved, and then respond with an old Zen adage: "Chop wood, carry water." What I mean by this, is that I believe that all the talk about the state of the industry has its place, but it diminishes into irrelevance unless we produce good work. I've heard a lot about how these are difficult times for comics, and how launching a new book right now is not the best idea, financially speaking. In my opinion, if these are difficult times, then the best thing that could possibly happen is that every interesting, original idea that creators believe in sees its way into print. SPOOKSHOW is my wood and water. I hope the audience enjoys it.

This member of the audience certainly does. The first issue of SPOOKSHOW is very good indeed. Subtle character-based writing that takes you straight into the mind of Stefan Neumann, whose life of espionage ended in 1968…and continues more than three decades later when he’s resurrected, once more someone’s pawn in an international game of secrets and deceit.

SPOOKSHOW is basically a blend of most of my favorite fictional flavors wrapped up in one tasty package - espionage, ghosts, cryptography, and rebellion. It's been a long time coming, and I think I can safely say it came about because of a life-time addiction to strange, compelling stories, and a frequently irresistible urge to try and tell one right back.

"Chop wood, carry water" is the pragmatic stance you’ve arrived at. But how did you get there?

A powerful message I've picked up from a few different sources all through my life has always been: nobody's going to do it for you. If you want to wait to be discovered, the best you're going to get is Columbus-style discovery, i.e. colonization. Beyond that, when both the I-Ching and the Magic 8-ball tell you on the same day that going it alone will be a good idea, you don't question.

If you pay enough attention to the industry right now, and you listen to even the most casual conversations at trade shows, online, etc, you get such a dismal picture of anybody's chances of publishing that you have two choices: use your scripts for kindling or go out and do it on your own. To tell the truth, after I had a couple of truly ludicrous conversations (of the "we'd consider publishing your work, but you've never been published" variety), I figured I'd see if I could circumvent the bizarre courting rituals and just head straight into putting a book out there. Besides, those outfits the editors made me wear for the "special preliminary office visits" were starting to chafe.

What have you learned in becoming a creator and publisher? What's been easier than you expected? What's been the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge, honestly, has been watching my social life shrink to a little phosphorescent dot, television-off style, while I pound away at this thing around the clock. It is long and hard work, in no uncertain terms, and I can understand why some comic creators go a little strange.

I've learned so much on SPOOKSHOW so far, with hints of innumerable lessons ahead, that it hardly seems possible to tell it all. Suffice it to say, the most important lessons seem to be: An experienced printer is your best friend. Never, ever, ever eat your lunch within fifty feet of your artwork. And no amount of preparation can adequately steel you for a script-accurate demonstration of cursing in Russian.

Who are your role models and influences, as creators and self-publishers?

Aesthetically and creatively, nobody is a stronger influence on me than the Coen Brothers. Their films pretty much encourage a sort of warm, perfect-project feeling of bliss in me, and I am constantly pushed by their example. The fact that they can constantly put such brilliant work out among the uniformly bland product of their peers is truly an inspiration.

In comics, there are two creators I look to as real influences - Grant Morrison and Paul Grist. In either case, their storytelling is so powerful, so skilful, and so unusual that I find myself, at times, completely in awe. What can I say beyond that? Read SPOOKSHOW and you'll see that I'm hoping to join them on all three counts.

Is SPOOKSHOW a story with a definite conclusion, or does the initial storyline open up into an ongoing series?

SPOOKSHOW has a definite conclusion - the first volume of the book is 24 issues in length, and when that is done, the tale is told for most of the characters involved, and as a team CODENAME: SPOOKSHOW is finished. The intention, afterwards, is to follow with several shorter volumes that focus on the ongoing lives (or unlives) of some of the remaining characters.

Five years time. What will you be doing? Will it involve SPOOKSHOW still? Are there other self-published projects to come? Or will you be working on The Ultimate Nick Fury for Marvel, and falling out with Todd McFarlane when he writes a cyborg gorilla into your Spawn: Espionage miniseries? And who's in the SPOOKSHOW movie?

Five years time? Yeah, definitely SPOOKSHOW is still going to be involved. I think I can work with this one until I'm too old and senile to make out what I'm typing. Seriously, there's a world of stories that keep presenting themselves and unfolding in the context of this book, and I keep having to relegate them to the "maybe later" notebook. I really think that no matter what I'm doing, SPOOKSHOW will be dominating the center stage for me.

I do have plans for other self-published projects, but it's a matter of money. If I had what I needed to finance them, I'd actually be ready to go on two other books right now - but that's just not possible at this point. Five years from now? Yeah, ideally you'll be seeing all kinds of self-published works from me. I'd like to end up with a really wide repertoire, to tell the truth - I wouldn't mind seeing a raging debate about where my strengths as a writer lie. "Espionage! Romance! Sixgun Justice! Haiku Porno! Stop, you're all right!"

I can't say that I wouldn't take a job working for one of the big companies - I'm not the kind of person who considers that a character flaw, especially if it provides me with the funds to keep my own boat afloat. Quite the contrary, actually. I have a lot of respect for somebody who can turn good work out and slip it into the wide-release market, and still do their own thing on the side.

Ha! The SPOOKSHOW movie. Well, I did design the characters with certain actors in mind, to tell the truth. It helps to conceive of them visually. I'm not sure if it would enhance or diminish the book if I revealed who they were, though. I'd rather keep that a mystery.

What's your fascination with codes and cryptography, and what part does that play in SPOOKSHOW?

I am completely mesmerised by coded messages - I think the relatively simple synthetic ones we, as humans, create are our own small, distorted reflection of the secret speech of the universe around us. It's our own way of becoming inscrutable, whether for a directed purpose (i.e. advantage in warfare) or just childish play. Even plain speech is a sort of coded message, if you get into the details of semantics and psychology, and beyond that, there is the encrypted exchange of neurotransmitters that originate both the language and the physical sounding of the words.

The coded message is what SPOOKSHOW is all about. Plain and simple - everything that happens in the book both surrounds a message and is part of one. There are coded transmissions that appear throughout the series, both overtly (such as the encrypted text at the back of each chapter) and more subtly. The entire series is itself an encrypted message as well, but a rather entertaining one.

What is there in your personal history and family background that's shaped the story you’re telling?

My parents are both Eastern European immigrants, and so I grew up in a household that was powerfully touched by the cold war, in an indirect way. As a child, I travelled to Hungary, Yugoslavia, Germany - it left a strong impression on me, and I believe it led to a voracious urge to learn about the workings of the situation there in the latter half of the twentieth century, and what it meant. Tie that in with my aforementioned fascination with "secret speech" and you have everything that led to the genesis of SPOOKSHOW.

Ray Fawkes is a rarity. In a medium typified by production-line creativity, and writers and artists who only ever do the same old same<I{…./////:G!: iooioiioio………………… ABORT TRANSMISSION

SPOOKSHOW is published monthly by Piper Snow Studio. The pre-order form can be downloaded at http://www.pipersnow.com/downld – to get the first issue, ask for it, and let your retailer know the details.

http://www.pipersnow.com/downld - The Piper Snow Publishing homepage, the folks behind SPOOKSHOW.
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