It Is A Circle Blog

When it comes to looking at the entire Hopeless comic story arc, I think Reverend Davies is probably the most complex and difficult character of the lot. He was in the story before I came to it – and all I knew at the outset was that he’s a Reverend, Owen’s father, and that they don’t have a good or close relationship. There was no sign of a Mrs Davies, so I added her to the mix, and she shows up in Inheritance – the story arc after the current one.

I’ve read a fair bit of Nathanial Hawthorn, so my notion of a New England reverend comes a lot from his writing – the Puritanism, the slightly gothic elements, all come from there. There’s a lot more to Reverend Emanuel Davies though. Anyone who has picked up the Annamarie free read will know that he started out an orphan himself, and not fervently religious, but very much wanting to make a positive difference. He’s actually a man of considerable moral backbone. He’s also increasingly bitter – an impossible and unexpressed romance soured his youth, the challenges of life on Hopeless have eroded his optimism. Inheritance sees him face a great deal of personal loss, and by the later stories, he’s become a very dark and troubled man, with some rather kick-ass consequences!

I don’t think the Rev approves of much. The world is a grim place for him and he just doesn’t know how to take delight in any of it. Misery is, perhaps, next to godliness for him. But even his Puritanism doesn’t give him much. I have the very strong feeling that in a different life, with different and greater opportunities, he’d have been a whole other person. Beneath the grumpy exterior, and the joyless outlook, is a desire to really make a difference. If he’d ever found much scope to do that, he might easily have been a hero. Inherently self sacrificing and actually quite brave, Reverend Davies is always quick to react in a crisis, never slow to face danger or to get his hands dirty.

Hopeless doesn’t give anyone much chance for clear cut fights between good and evil. It’s all about the shades of grey, the ambiguities, the choices we make. No character is wholly good or bad – they’re all flawed and human. Some are more driven by fear and greed than others, often these are the folk who do the worst things to each other. Reverend Davies is one of a handful of characters whose primary motive is the desire to do the right thing. However, his understanding of right is often at odds with Owen’s and he doesn’t approve of magic, which is going to make his relationship with Salamandra complex at the very least. Reverend Davies wants the world to be black and white, and it’s this desire for simplicity that, sometimes, pushes him towards doing terrible things.

Tom found Stephen Coffey through twitter, where his recent problems with facebook were under discussion. Stephen is the author of graphic novel THE SOCIETY FOR THE REMARKABLE SUICIDE which for some reason folk are assuming is all about encouraging people to kill themselves. Based on this irrational prejudice, his facebook page was closed down. We’d like to do out bit to help, because it was obvious from just a casual glance that there’s so much more going on here. So, what follows is an interview with Stephen about his work, and the reasons behind it.

Nimue: I’ve heard about your graphic novel through twitter, and that you’ve faced a lot of prejudice and misunderstanding over it. I think suicide is a thing that needs talking about. Can I ask what motivated you to start writing about the subject?

Stephen: Why did I write about the subject?  Well we’ve all had that moment, no matter how brief when we think about it, leaving… but we don’t do it.  I’ve had friends who have thought about it and then carried it through.  How simple would it have been to talk to someone before, to ask someone for five minutes to speak about their feelings.  I grew up in Dublin in the 80’s and Suicide was another 4 letter word.  It wasn’t talked about and if someone did it then it was hushed up.  A few years back I had the darkest time of my life and came close, and stopped myself shortly before it went too far.  Then one thing happened, I met someone who turned my life around and realised that if I had died I wouldn’t have had the beautiful experience that I’ve had since.  So the book grew from that.  The main problem has arisen from the title of the book and people believing that it is a manual for suicide, which it is not.  ANYONE who has read the script realises, that although there are graphic suicides in the book, the main theme is love, hope, and redemption.  I won’t give up on this book, threats, complaints, and being stopped from talking about it on social media sites won’t slow me down.

Nimue: Very glad to hear you aren’t bowing to pressure. I take it these are people who haven’t read the book then, who are just responding to the title and making assumptions?

Stephen: No, they haven’t read anything about the book.  The assumption is that the book will give rise to an increase of people killing themselves by their own hands, anyone who has read past the title knows differently.  I’m a very stubborn person, usually when someone says ‘You can’t do that’ it just makes me want to do it more. 

Nimue: I can relate to that! I have to wonder if these are in fact people with no close experience of actual suicide – because I feel strongly that any kind of talking about it is going to make people less likely to want to end their lives. Simply knowing you aren’t alone in feeling it makes so much difference. During one of my black periods, it was the words of survivors on the Samaritans website that got me through. I think what you are doing can only help people.

So, let’s talk more about the project – how do you balance the demands of art and words? 

Stephen: I wrote the script 3 years ago and it wasn’t until last year that an artist came on board that I felt 100% comfortable with.  Robert Carey is an artist on another book, less controversial, about a Ninja, that I wrote last year.  Robert has a very straight forward approach to life and his art is amazing, he’s also the first artist I’ve ever met who would tell me when something is wrong with anything I wrote, a very honest and highly talented artist who it is my honour to now call a friend.  Robert lives with another artist called Cormac Hughes, they live together with Robert’s Girlfriend, I should add.  Cormac is as laid back as they come, and his art is up there with Roberts.  They now share the art duties on the book and are both fierce when it comes to defending the book.  The balance in the book comes from just a simplistic story, the same as many a book, boy meets girl.  There are times that I think the two lads are looking into my brain as the script and art are a perfect union.  We now also have a very talented artist called Kevin Gio Logue who is colouring the book, one of the most talented and nicest people I’ve ever known.  Each of us, artist and write alike, know the story we’re telling and we know that it can do the only thing that will ever stop a suicide, start a conversation.  It is a responsibility that NONE of us take lightly.

Nimue: Sounds like you have an awesome team there. Does all of your work have this kind of drive and significance, or is this the first time you’ve wanted to tell a story that really does something?

Stephen: This is the first time that I’ve written something straight from the heart, it was hard to write and very hard to convince people that straying away from comedic and action storytelling was going to be worth it.  When I first told people that I was going to write a story about suicide and insisted that the title was going to be THE SOCIETY FOR THE REMARKABLE SUICIDE there were none who thought it was a good idea.  You have to know that before Society I was more known for writing the childrens book Rosemary Herbb and the Zodiac Ghosts, and a comedic superhero tale called Celtic Knights.  Even now people think that Society is a black comedy or some folly.  My next project is pure action comedy core, no real social or moral commentary, just explosions and great one liners.  Society was written from deep within that place in our souls that we often don’t show, for that fear of rejection. 

Nimue: That must make it harder to sell in some ways, stepping away from what you’re known for is never easy. Where can people find the graphic novel? Are there samples to view online? Where can we buy it?

Stephen: Yes, it makes it harder to sell, people know me for comedic books rather than this serious tone and story.  The amount of people that think The Society for the Remarkable Suicide is a black comedy or parody is unreal, I make sure to take time to correct this thought with them through conversation.  Stepping away from what I’m known for is never easy but I don’t want to be one of those writers that only writes the one genre, or one character, I’m just trying to do the best that I can with what I’ve got…
 
Due to recent complaints from people who have only read the TITLE of the book there are very few places that people can see the art of the book, but if you’re willing to host it I’m willing to share those images with your site. 
 
Financially I am stuck because bringing out a graphic novel on the cash (or lack of) that I have isn’t an option, so I’ll be bringing out the book to start in three parts, you can download a copy at my lulu store here  http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-society-for-the-remarkable-suicide-part-1/15244378  or you can email me at chrestfelt@hotmail.com and we can arrange to send you a copy.

Nimue: thanks for this, and I hope people get their heads out of their arses, and stop reacting based on what they imagine is true, and give your book the shelf space it deserves.

Some things happened yesterday – the details don’t really matter, but the result was a deep considering of what Hopeless and the webcomic are all about, what it’s for, why we are doing this. We get a lot of feedback via the comments, facebook and twitter. We know there are people out there who love what we do, how we do it, and that matters hugely to Tom and to me. It keeps us going.

Personal Demons is not high octane in your face action adventure stuff, it’s not the ultimate fight between good and evil. It’s a quirky little tale that bimbles along its own path, and apparently plenty of you are happy to mooch along for the ride. This is a source of ongoing joy to us.

What is Hopeless about? What is Copperage about? In terms of the narrative, what matters most are the choices people make. If you think about the Personal Demons story arc, back at the beginning, Salamandra was a feral, antisocial little wasname, setting fire to furniture, using her power to try and threaten and intimidate. People commenting on the webcomic had no idea whether she was the good guy or not. Where are her parents?  Did she do something to them? Is the girl with the ribbons real? Because if she isn’t, Salamandra has serious head problems. Lots of questions there, but as the story progresses, Sal’s nature begins to show in her actions. She’s not the feral creature she once was, and her evolving sense of self is very much what the story is about. It’s therefore about the kinds of options and choices we all have, as well.

In terms of the look, which is full of strange, Tom commented this morning how that’s about the way islanders have made this ‘normal’ they don’t pay attention to the creatures, it’s normal for them. People do this in all kinds of scenarios, as a form of self preservation. It’s amazing what people don’t see in regular life, so no surprise that they tune out the weirdness of Hopeless, or respond to its challenges by making shrines out of bottles and discarded items. Again, it’s the choices we make, the people we opt to be.

We guess there are things that resonate with people here – no doubt for as many different reasons as there are readers. We can tell from the feedback that plenty of folk find things on the island that work for them, and are intrigued by the story telling. Again, we’re very glad about this. Bit pointless making things up if you can’t share them in a meaningful way.

One of the things I’m really fussed about is resisting the temptation to tell stories that have already been told, by climbing into pre-determined story shapes. That’s why I’m wary of tales about ultimate fights and the destiny of the world – the more important the action, the more predictable it gets. I want to surprise people, and build narratives out of small, real, and unreal things, so that they relate to life, to being human. Small stories, full of big ideas, rather than big stories full of small ideas, which I find tedious.

This may have been a bit of an amble, but the thinking it through process, celebrating what Hopeless means to me and where I think the heart of it lies, has been well worth doing. And if someone offered me a million pounds to turn it into a big blockbuster of a thing full of kapow noises and shiny special effects, and getting rid of all that ponderous stuff… I’d say no. (No one did, that wasn’t what prompted it, but it helps to know these things.) I think about how J.K. Rowling turned down Spielberg when he wanted to do an American retelling of Harry Potter, and yeah, I like to think I’d have done that too.  As we think Neil Gaiman once said, “One should not have to burn one’s own baby” or something like that.

Followers of www.itisacircle.com will perhaps have picked up that the setting – Hopeless – is an island off the coast of Maine. This no doubt has a lot to do with Tom having spent most of his life in Maine. It was probably this detail that caused director Barry Dodd to get in touch with us and alert us to another island in the area.

Like Hopeless, Ragged Isle is somewhere off the coast of Maine – from the look of the episodes, it’s in Casco Bay. Windswept, wave battered and mist beset, the two islands have a lot in common. They’re both settings for strange, gothic narratives. So we went and had a look, as you do.

Ragged Isle is like a TV series only on youtube, new instalments coming out every Wednesday. It’s mysterious, creepy, definite shades of the supernatural, definite conspiracies, possible romance, lovely photography. We’re three episodes in and I’m definitely hooked. It makes me think of Twin Peaks – there’s no direct comparison aside from the combination of weird people and dead people, but it’s got a similar sort of atmosphere, anything could happen, reality could crumble at any moment, any human face might hide a monster. It’s creative, good story telling, good acting, I can’t look at it and say with certainty where the plot will go – it’s great viewing. I don’t watch regular TV anymore because it bores me senseless. Ragged Isle is everything I want TV to be – engaging, surprising, innovative, unpredictable. Huzzah!

I’m a huge fan of independent creativity and small producers. Mainstream ‘creativity’ seems to be increasingly driven by bean counters, people afraid of anything new that might lose them money, so afraid they’d rather flog any dead horse that used to make pay in the hopes it still will. Every time I venture out to see what’s happening in the world, I see increasing fear of innovation in mainstream places, I see what I’ve seen too many times before, and I am so hungry for something new. I would bet I’m not the only one. Which is why it’s so important to support creative ventures and people who dare to have a go. All kudos to Barry Dodd and his Ragged Isle team. They’re doing it for love of the thing, they deserve to all be able to make a good living from the work.

So if you enjoy the gothic strangeness of Hopeless Maine, check out the equally delightful strangeness of Ragged Isle, Maine. Tom and I wonder if this is our island a hundred years on, renamed. It’s strange watching the opening credits and seeing ‘our’ lighthouse, and the landscape that inspires Tom’s art, it’s also rather wonderful. There are so many stories to tell of uncanny islands shrouded in mist, places of mystery and darkly brooding menace. There are plenty of stories to tell that no one has ever told before. We raise a glass to Ragged Isle, and look forward to seeing where it goes next.

http://www.youtube.com/user/raggedisle

Annamarie Nightshade is one of the characters who existed in Hopeless long before I got involved. In earlier versions, she was an older woman, somewhat more raddled and not very endearing. That she is a witch made me want to explore her, so the process of going backwards into the history of the island became one of exploring her history. If you look out the ‘Annamarie’ free read online (or harass me to send you a pdf) you’ll get some sense of where she started out.

As Tom had written her, Annamarie’s speech style was more consistent with a loose woman than anything else – flirtatious in a slightly seedy way. She also seemed isolated, but seemed a natural mentor for young Salamandra. I started thinking about how other characters who are adults in our current timeline, must have been children together too – Reverend Davies, Durosimi and Melisandra O’Stoat, Frampton Jones and other adult figures who go by in the background, and feature in The Hopeless Vendetta. She’s the character who finds Salamandra right at the start of the webcomic, and who has recently provided insight into the strange events that have been plaguing the child.

Annamarie wasn’t an orphan, but her family kicked her out at a young age so she spent some years at the orphanage. The island’s resident witch – Jemima Kettle – took her on as an apprentice, which is here she learned her craft. She has a complicated love/hate relationship with both Reverend Davies and Durosimi O’Stoat. Melisandra and Doc Willoughby she just hates. It’s entirely mutual. Otherwise, most of her friends during her youth were workers at the house of ill repute, which explains some of her speech style. She’s mostly an easy going soul and if people give her no trouble, she affords them the same courtesy. However, she has a temper and isn’t a good person to cross.

As we’ve gone along, she’s evolved into a prettier person, and a younger one. She’s a melancholy figure – life does not treat Annamarie gently, but she muddles along as best she can. She doesn’t let life grind her down, and that takes a certain kind of courage, especially in a place like Hopeless.

As to what she was doing at that lonely, abandoned house when she found Salamandra… that’s a question to ponder. Anyone who has picked up on the links between The Hopeless Vendetta and the Personal Demons webcomic, may have put a few things together already. There’s a history that ties Annamarie to Salamandra, but that might not be entirely obvious just yet.

I hadn’t really encountered Edward Gorey before Tom introduced us. I like to imagine we were first presented to each other in the grimy kitchen of a party that had not turned out well. Surrounded by limp sandwiches and the mournful eyes of uneaten fish, we hesitated and didn’t shake hands. An awkward silence ensued, with a little foot shuffling and failure to make eye contact. In desperation, someone resorted to eating a sandwich, and instantly regretted it.

Mr Gorey’s unfortunate demise denied me this life shattering moment, but I like his stuff.

The influence on Tom clearly runs a lot deeper. There’s a mixture of grim comedy and absolute hopelessness in Gorey’s work. He also does creatures in a charming way, with quirky little rhymes. “The Kwongdzu has enormous claws. Its character is full of flaws.” Or “The Wambulus has floppy ears, with which to wipe away its tears.” A bit like Doctor Zeuss might have been had he spent each morning clubbing seal cubs.

Gorey revels in the gloom. An A to Z of children’s deaths? It’s called The Gashlycrumb Tinies. “B is for Basil, assaulted by bears.” “K is for Kate who was struck with an axe,” “D is for Desmond, thrown out of a sleigh” It’s poetic, gothic, a bit freaky and downright charming. Each death, or the moments before it lovingly depicted. As an art story teller, Gorey was one of tom’s first heroes.

Tom has mentioned several times the huge impact it’s had on him seeing original Edward Gorey pieces at an exhibit in Boston. The originals are tiny and full of detail, intense black and white pieces. It’s pen and ink, and while at a first glance I don’t think people would make immediate comparisons with Tom’s work, there are definite influences. The attention to detail, the focus on black and white – much more of an issue in the originals. Tom works in pencil, what you see online has been coloured, but the originals have more in common with Gorey. There’s also the odd humour and gothic sensibilities.

 What Tom appreciates most about Gorey is the gloom, the elegant Victorian depravity, satirised in the most surreal ways. The way he handles language is delightful and full of surprises.

I’ve found I can mimic his style on a good day. I’ve always been fascinated by authorial voices, and being able to do things ‘in the style of’. Gorey is an interesting challenge. I recently entered a flash fiction competition themed around his work, so when that’s all done and dusted, I’ll post the consequences here.

You can find more Gorey in Wikipedia – here which is as well because the blog isn’t letting me post images at the moment.

This post is both an expression of thanks, and the chance to try and return a favour, just a bit.

We don’t have money to spare on advertising www.itisacircle.com – so new people find the webcomic largely by word of mouth. No amount of getting up in public on the internet and going ‘read our comic, please’ has clout. The internet is full of people going ‘hey, look at my thing!’ so doing that is a lot like shouting in a very noisy room. Someone who isn’t us flagging the webcomic up as a cool thing is a whole different beasty. We are hugely grateful to the folk who are sufficiently inspired to do this.

One of the places that has been sending us a lot of readers, is a site called Tales of the Big Bad Wolf – http://talesofthebigbadwolf.com . It’s not a webcomic, but very much a fellow traveller – the free serialisation of an ongoing story, with new updates added on a weekly basis. As the title suggests, it’s fairy tale inspired, but with its own takes and twists on things. It’s nicely written, and very engaging. If you’ve not encountered it before, do go and check it out. There’s a story arc called ‘Unicorns walk amongst us’ and the current serialisation is based on Red Riding Hood. Enjoy!

There are a lot of characters who feature in the background of the webcomic www.itisacircle.com . Although it probably isn’t obvious to everyone else, most of the characters you see are not just ‘bit parts’ but complex folk in their own right, whose stories intertwine with Salamandra’s. Tom and I have been playing with the Hopeless setting for a lot of years now, such that the characters have lives of their own.

The first figure we introduced in the webcomic is The Blind Fisherman, so here’s some detail about who he is and where he fits.

Seth is the son of a fisherman, and at the time of the webcomic, both of his parents are dead. He has some very limited sight, but relies largely on intuition, which he has by the bucketload. He fishes, and does battle with monsters from the deep. Seth is a solitary man with few friends, but he does crop up in other narrative lines – not all of which are currently available.

In the prequel novella ‘New England Gothic’ Seth first appears as a child, which is our first insight into his friendship with Annamarie Nightshade. One day we will get copies of this out into the world. Seth features as an adult in ‘A Semblance of Truth’ – based on www.hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com and there currently is a plan afoot to bring that to you.

I like Seth. He’s named for Seth Davey, in a folk song my Gran used to sing to me when I was very small. Tom invented him – the art came first with this one, I provided words and explanations. He sprang into life for The Blind Fisherman story arc, I later added words to the art, and started trying to make sense of him as a figure. Tom is brilliant at making things up, explaining tends to fall to me. Why is he blind? How does he fish? What is the business with the monsters? Seth’s eyesight has been deteriorating since childhood, but his inner vision is sharp, he knows things by other means. He fights monsters purely by intuition. Which makes him a rather uncanny sort of figure. Even amongst the strange and eccentric populous of Hopeless, he sticks out as a loner and a misfit.

In The Blind Fisherman, Seth rescues a sea monster child. He’s a touch of compassion and humanity in the life of a creature who hasn’t experienced anything much like that before. As a consequence, the encounter with him is a pivotal moment that shapes who the creature becomes. I’ve no idea how much of that is obvious, so I’ll save it for another post.

I don’t think there’s much of an overt Barker influence showing up in www.itisacircle.com at the moment, but he’s one of those authors who got me when I was young, and who shaped how I think and create. He’s been a significant influence on Tom as well. So, while it might not be possible to point at features of Personal Demons and go ‘there he is!’ he’s still had an impact, in more subtle ways.

There are a number of things that inspire me about Barker’s writing. There’s so much diversity in his books – different kinds of people, and others, different kinds of sexuality and lifestyle. Things that look monstrous and aren’t, things that look monstrous and are, people who have their demons under the skin. Surface and actuality seldom relate in straightforward ways. I love that.

Then there’s the monsters themselves – weird, beautiful, enchanting, frightening. Clive Baker taught me how to love monsters. He taught me compassion for the things that live beyond the borders of normal. He gave me a kind of hunger that I still don’t know how to put into words.

There’s a unique kind of magic in Barker’s writing, a questing after the numinous. It’s like he’s always reaching for something bigger, something other that glows and carries a meaning none of us are quite ready for. But he’s reaching, and that makes me dare to try and do the same just occasionally.

For Tom, Clive Barker was the first taste of elegant horror, effortlessly walking the lines between horror and fantasy. I don’t think much deep analysis is called for to see how that approach plays out in his art work! Tom points out that Barker clearly loves his monsters, which is plain by the degree of attention and detail he lavishes on them, the way he lights them in his stories. When they are doing the most hideous possible things, there’s a subtext of celebration going on there. The monster can be the symbol for the outsider. Being someone who has always loved monsters, this way of looking at them was inevitably going to get Tom’s attention, and I think it’s coloured his thinking a tad.

I started writing fantasy fiction in my late teens. I was a gamer, which was part of the motivation, and I wanted to dream bigger, wilder, weirder things than my own experience would allow. Like most gamers, I started off with pieces set in gaming worlds. On the plus side, you have a shared reality to work with – which is also true in fan fics. On the downside the world belongs to someone else.

In my twenties I got into world building in a big way. I have a whole heap of fantasy fiction (written as Brynneth N Colvin) over at www.whiskeycreekpress.com A whole magical forest, epic history, strange creatures, wild people. It was this series that brought Tom into my life. It also taught me a thing. The further away you get from reality as people know it, the harder it gets to write. Either you end up spending all your time describing the details, or you end up skipping over them to focus on the story. So all that wonderful world building becomes either just background detail, or an incomprehensible distraction for the poor soul trying to read it.

If you’ve ever had a look at http://www.itisacircle.com you’ll note that the setting is full of details, including creatures. We don’t explain them, but you can see them and draw your own conclusions. Looking at the fantasy is so much easier than reading about it. This is why fantasy works so well for film and comics. When you have to do all the legwork with words whilst trying to keep the story moving, it’s very hard to explore all those details.

If I was going to try and write another fantasy epic, I’d be angling to do it with illustration. Art is the best way by a mile to bring fantasy to life, giving you all the glorious detail without needing half a ton of descriptions. Fantasy so often suffers from being derivate, depending on things we already know, pseudo-medieval settings, Tolkin-esk scenarios, the same monsters, the same landscapes. But with art in the mix we can go whole new places, quickly and easily.