Craig Collins – Comic Writer – Interview

Q1. What inspired your passion for writing comics who has been there supporting you from the beginning?

I’ve always been into comics in one way or another, be it as the only kid in Tasmania well versed in the Broons and Oor Wullie, Ninja Turtles at a later point then X-Men as a 14 year old. But it was when I was at University and discovered Watchmen, Invisibles, Sandman, Transmetropolitan and all the usual suspects that I saw how cerebral and mature comics could be, and understood that comics are a medium and not a genre. I pretty much went mad about good comics from there on….

 

My wife was very much into comics long before I met her, and she’s amazingly supportive from when I started entertaining the idea. She’s kind enough to laugh at the funny strips but tell me when a joke is crappy, helps develop ideas and pushes me on to bigger and better things. She’s also wonderfully tolerant of all manner of preposterous ideas, endless ridiculous questions and one-person vox-pop surveys on dumb or hideous subject matter.

 

Q2. Have you always aspired to be writer, or did you ever dream of following a different path?

I’d always looked for one sort of creative outlet or another, but when I got interested in comics and then began writing them I knew I’d found what I really wanted to do. I get a huge amount of enjoyment and satisfaction out of writing comics, so creatively it’s exactly what I want to be doing. Then seeing the final result on the page when a collaborating artist works their magic and one of us letters it up, that’s always really exciting.

 

Q3. How do you feel about your industry today?

I can’t say a great deal about the large scale mainstream comics industry. Though it would seem to me some great comics being made by some particularly talented artists and innovative writers, people who can do new things with old toys. The challenge ahead for the larger publishers is maintaining interest and moving quickly enough to properly embrace changing technology. Now that digital readers are growing up, the way a lot of people read comics will inevitably change over time and they have to respond to that. Probably the printed comic won’t disappear altogether, but the numbers are ever-dwindling. Similarly they need to keep readers interested in their comics and characters and gain new ones, simply knocking out a mediocre film every so often won’t do. Quality is key, good films drawing people towards consistently good comics. At the end of the day they need to be profitable, and nobody’s going to buy anything that’s crap. But I’m sure there’s a whole lot more to be added to that debate…

For the more independent end of things – I think the printed comic will always have a place in the heart of it, because it’s on such a smaller scale the tangible item is that much more special. When it’s a comic from a tiny print run of some great cartoonist’s labor of love, it’s a really cool thing to have.

Combine that with decent print-on-demand services, and the ability to get your work online in folios, blogs and PDFs and such, and it seems to me to be a really healthy time for indie and underground comics. There’s loads of room for all kinds of different types of stories and styles of art. There are now means and opportunities to spread the word about comics, collaborate and promote things that make it so much easier than it must have been back …whenever.  I’ve had comics in anthologies from the US, Australia, Poland, Belgium – just from getting talking to people online. It makes for a really vital and active scene.

 

Q4. Where do you see yourself five years from now?

I like to try to write different kinds of comics, so there’s a few different things that would be fantastic to achieve.  Getting to do my own series for one of the big boys like Dark Horse of DC Vertigo or the great halls of 2000AD would be incredible, though I probably share that ambition with every fellow fleshy human out there. More than anything else though I’d love to be writing long format graphic novels and getting them published. I think that’s the real goal, essentially writing the sort of comics you would want to read and with some luck having others read and enjoy them. If the likes of Fantagraphics gave me a thumbs up, my brain would explode at them.

On the other hand, if I didn’t make that much more progress than I currently have I’d still be having a really good time. The artists I’ve work with are have diverse styles but are uniformly awesome, so I hope they go on to attain the success they’re after too.

 

Q5. Is there any work you are currently working on that you would like to tell us about?

There’s a number of short strips in development with my Roachwell collaborator Iain Laurie, which when pulled together will make for a sort of cousin to Roachwell, not a sequel but more of an extension of some of the themes and ideas floating about in it. It promises to be unnerving and bamboozling for all concerned. I’ll be sending more comics to that filthy national treasure the Viz the over the coming months. I’ve also just had an invitation to write a comic for a really cool website which is very exciting, but I’ll not say more on that just yet in case I jinx it. Beyond that I’m trying to somewhat set aside all the shorter stuff, great fun as it is, and work on longer format comics with maybe a bit more substance and resonance.

 

Q6. Who have you always dreamt of working with/for and why? How would you go about accomplishing this?

I’ve mentioned above some of the publishers it would be amazing to work with, I think an element of it is the value it would make you feel your work had achieved. Not monetary that is, but the fact that these are publishers who put out comics by writers and artists who’s stuff you love and admire and find influential. So to be in the same stable, I guess you could say to yourself “I’m really doing good stuff”.

 

In terms of collaborating artists to work with, I could ring off a list of well known and not so well known names but we’d be here all day. There are some truly brilliant artists out there in small press and underground comics who I’d love to do some comics with – I won’t name names as it’ll look like I’m trying to publicly romance them. But you can only really fire an email to them and say hello, and hope they like what you do and have the time to collaborate, and be cool about it if they say no!

As for how to achieve any of this….

 

Q7. As you are starting out in your career, what steps do you plan on taking to reach your goal?

I think it’s important to be both as prolific as you can be, and also make sure the work you’re producing is the best you can do. Whatever it may be it should be the funniest jokes, the most compelling drama you can achieve.

 

So that’s what I’m trying to do. With self-publishing and the small press and also webcomics, you can make your work that much more visible. You can engage with a wider comics community, try and have your comics in quality anthologies and reviewed by your peers. So you can be producing a lot of great work, in a tangible comic form or on a site, which you can show to editors when you approach them. I think it shows you’re committed and serious, and that you love what you’re doing. And if you’ve built a good reputation along the way, with collaborators who’ve enjoyed working with you and other creatives who like your comics, that can’t possibly hurt.

That’s more or less the plan. With luck-clogged arteries, I’ll maybe get there.

 

Q8. Have you found that as you are starting out in your career, there are aspects that have taken you completely by surprise? If so, what are they?

The administrative effort involved in making comics can be pretty hefty! You can sit all day writing scripts and notes, but actually making things happen can take a lot of time for a writer. Not that it’s necessarily a burden, and batting emails back and forth with an artist on a comic you’re collaborating can be great fun. But you can find yourself endlessly strafing message boards, firing mails back and forth to different people, resizing and reformatting pages to submit to different places, looking for new anthologies that are taking off, any number of other things. I try to do a lot of this sort of promotional work to free up the artist’s time, but occasionally you’ll realise you’ve been banging the keyboard to smithereens all day and none of it’s been on writing comics. But that’s how it goes!

 

Q9. What is the greatest thing about working in your industry? And what would you change if you had the opportunity?

The vibrancy of the indie comics is exceptional. The richness and variety in ideas and styles is so impressive, there are less limitations on what can be done so it’s really just blooming creativity out there. A lot of it done with great passion and tremendous skill. That’s the greatest thing, and it means there’s something for everyone. In fact, there’s a feast of it.

 

What would I change? I don’t know, it’s not really for me to say how things should work or what people should be producing. It would be great if “mainstream” comics and “indie” comics were less polarized, and there was more scope for indie comic writers and cartoonists to take their work to a larger audience with strong support rather than going it alone. And it’d be nice if there were a few less crappy webcomics out there. That’s a personal dislike really, it just seems there’s a lot of exhausted snark dressed as comedy or “panel 3, insert video game reference” gags sloshing around. It makes it difficult for people to find the good stuff, and it’s goddamn lazy.

 

Q10. If you could have asked anyone for advice when you were starting out.

Who would you have liked to ask?

What would you have liked to ask?

What would be your answer now?

 

There are a lot of really talented people out there producing their own comics or pulling together anthologies, or putting loads of great work on their blogs. Guys like Rob Miller, Curt Sibling, Dan White, Lord Hurk… loads and loads more. From a practical point of view it would have been useful at an earlier stage to learn more about how they’ve gone about getting their comics moving. To pick their comic-brains and learn from their experience.

 

From more of a writer point of view I’d like to chew over some thoughts with writers who’s work I admire. Not so much to ask about writing techniques, more to ask about how they keep their ideas fresh and energetic, how they keep their creative brains switched on. How they’ve maintained their enthusiasm when they hit different obstacles, how they look at their own work as they write it and judge what’s going right and wrong. I’m thinking of people like Grant Morrison or Michael Kupperman, guys who’s work seems to be electrified with cool or funny ideas. I saw Pat Mills give a talk at the Dundee Literary festival last summer, and it was inspiring to see a guy who’s been writing for decades and is pivotal figure in British comics speak with such enthusiasm and still be bursting with bizarre and demented ideas.

My answer on these questions now… I could probably offer a bit of practical advice to my younger past-self on setting up a good looking blog and messing about with html, how to letter to an acceptable standard and go down the print on demand road, how to get your stuff out there more. But there’s always more to learn on that front.

As for the notion of keeping your comics fresh and exciting… that’s a meaty topic and I expect a lot of writers have a lot to say on that. For my part, I try not to be influenced by any particular thing too much, I don’t want to approach writing comics by just writing something that’s a bit like this thing I like and a bit like that thing I like. You end up with “Jungle Robocop” or something equally terrible. You have to ask yourself if you could be doing something more original or are being a bit lazy…

I take a lot of inspiration out of day to day conversations with friends and the interesting things that get churned up by that. I just try and read, watch TV and keep up with the news and current events and so on like anybody else does, and let that stuff stew in the brainbox and see what I come up with. Alan Grant gave me a good piece of advice which was to “sit down with your stuff and try to come up with more outlandish punchlines”. A good point, especially in the context of doing weird comedy, and I took to also mean push your ideas a bit more, don’t always settle for the obvious conclusion. I like to do odd things and pranks in comics, one type of comic dressed as another or combine incongruous things. Which I suppose is how I arrived at “Abu Hamza vs. Gregor Samsa”. So from my point of view, it’s good to give some thought as to how you approach writing in general. At least, most of the time…

 

Q11. From your experience in the arts, what advice could you offer people looking to get to where you are today?

Well, I’ll answer this as if advising someone who’s right on the starting blocks…

If you haven’t, get out of the cave and go brave the harsh weather and dangerous beasts outside! By which I mean get out there and meet people, find collaborators and artists who’ll work with you, other writers to talk ideas with, and other people who enjoy comics as a craft and an entertainment. Online too – email people and tell them you like their stuff. Get talking to folks. Show people your work and get their comments and thoughts. That way you can get some idea of if your hilarious character is indeed that, or actually miserable crap that provokes a scowl of loathing where you thought a laugh might go. Feedback is useful and take criticism on the chin.

All of that will help you get things happening and you’ll see completed pages of comics you wrote – which is amazing. Work hard to be a good writer, constantly strive to improve in every area of your work. And whether it’s a Napoleonic-era romantic melodrama or a three panel cock joke, it should be better than your last one or it should probably go in the bin.

Above all be reasonable and decent. If you want to collaborate with people, create comics and be part of a wider community, be respectful and honest toward people and maintain a good reputation. If you promise to send someone a script – send them one. Answer people when they email you. Remember that working on your script isn’t the only things on an artist’s mind. Don’t strop and sulk in public. As in many walks of life the golden rule is: Don’t be a dick.

Q12. What courses/classes would you recommend someone take if they want to be a *writer* in the creative industry?

I’m sure there’s any number of courses and classes on creative writing and so on you could take which would be useful. Whether you can translate those into good stories and good comics is up to you. I’ve never taken one. I’d recommend reading and writing as much as you can, in a diverse manner too, and try to find your own voice.

 

Q13. How many years were you fighting to get to where you are today?

And what was that time in your life like?

Ha! I’m still fighting, fighting like a wounded jackal! But when I think back to a good few years back when I first started writing comics, my head was in the clouds. I came up with grand ideas, plotted out huge arcs and so on. Not that there’s anything wrong with that as such – but I didn’t have the slightest notion of the actually getting comics made, and existed in my own little isolated scripting bubble.

 

It took a few years to get a clue, which largely came about when I met Jamie Grant of Hope Street Studios and people of the wider Glasgow / Edinburgh comics scene. It’s through that I had gained a decent idea of how to enter into collaboration and get your work seen more. So before that I was working away diligently scripting, but in a largely unproductive fashion with somewhat nebulous goals.

 

Q14. From your experience so far, what have you found to be most challenging? And how are you dealing with it?

 

Time management is a challenge, for everyone really. I’m a pretty busy guy with a full time job, a young family and a ton of stuff I need to get done at the best of times. So it can be difficult to find the time to work on comics, and you never have enough of it! It’s an ongoing battle but I think the only way to approach it is to try and use what time you’ve set aside as productively as possible. Get positive, concrete things done and make real progress. That’s what I try to do, anyway. You have to be self-disciplined, or you’ll just dick about all night on Twitter and Youtube.

 

Q15. Share with us your proudest moment in your career so far?

Getting a strip in the Viz was an achievement I was really pleased with. While that first strip I has in was a pretty ridiculous gag and just a little three panel number at that, it was great to suddenly be included in such a celebrated institution of a mag. For me it was crazy to think that for about a month my wee joke was in every comic shop, newsagents and supermarket up and down the country. Also there’s the fact that someone is willing to pay you for something you’ve done – which goes some way to reassure you that maybe you are pretty decent at this writing comics thing.

So while that first strip I had in was kind of ludicrous, it was also lean and mean and did everything intended in three little panels, and was beautifully drawn by Dave Alexander. I was committed to cracking the Viz and getting something in, and was confident one day I’d do it. Then all of a sudden I did!

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