Authorship in Comics: An Interview with "Rumble" Creator, John Arcudi
John Arcudi is a Philadelphia-based writer and creator who specializes in the graphic-novel medium. His award-winning career has spanned 30 years underneath major labels like Dark Horse and Image and his name has graced the pages of proudly-established titles like Mike Mignola’s “B.P.R.D.” as well as on his own original critically-celebrated works such as “A God Somewhere”, “The Creep”, and “Rumble”.
I was fortunate enough recently to speak with John about authorship as well as what his stories and characters mean to him. I began by quickly and apologetically explaining to him that my amateur interview setup consisted of a wheezy tape recorder placed next to my cell on speaker phone. With the inherent jankness of my recording equipment comically acknowledged by both of us, we were then well on our way to discussing: the differences between writing on an established property versus creator-owned projects; the nature of the loner character; the traditional hero quest narrative; individual writing disciplines; and what it’s like to collaborate with a talented artist. It was a great talk in which John generously offered valuable insight into the development and fruition of such beloved characters as: Captain Benjamin Daimio, (“B.P.R.D.”); Johann Krauss, (“B.P.R.D.”); Cogan (“Rumble”); Bobby, (“Rumble”); and Rathraq, (“Rumble”). My intention for the finished piece was that it would be useful for both long-devoted fans of his writing as well as those who have only recently discovered it.
You'll probably also notice all of the movie references I tried to shoehorn in!
SAM: So I literally just got done watching the video of the talk you gave for Villanova University.
JOHN: You know Tonci Zonjic told me that was up on YouTube and I was like “You’ve got to be shittin’ me!”
S: I’d love to hear more about it because it was all about “A God Somewhere”.
J: When [“A God Somewhere”] came out, critically everyone went fuckin’ bananas for it, sales-wise… eh... But [Villanova University] asked me to give a speech about what I was trying to do with “A God Somewhere”. I don’t really do that so much as I talk about some of the things I think that “A God Somewhere” might have given the reader… I didn’t really talk about the story so much as I talked about what the philosophical underpinnings of the story meant to me and what were some of the things I thought were missing from other stories that I’d read.
S: You had a great quote in there about characters and their impact on their world.
J: I talk about how most stories are about the rock and I want them to be about the pond.
S: Exactly! And I’m sure you still write using that ripples in the water mentality.
J: Rathraq is the rock and everyone else is the pond. I love doing that. I love telling stories where little things become big things.
S: Just a side note about that Villanova interview, I think you knew it was a ballsy move from the start to answer the first question of “How much do you like superhero comics?” and you go “I dunno… I don’t?”
J: Yeah it either captures your audience or alienates them.
S: You know I had to laugh because before I’d seen your Villanova interview I’d sent you that email asking if you liked Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” when what I meant was “Do you think this is a good text for young writers?” Well then I saw the interview and you’re saying stuff like “all these stories are just the same”. It didn’t sound like you thought the average book nowadays is paying direct homage to the timeless hero’s journey structure.
J: It’s not! Not now. At one time perhaps when we’re writing this shit down or before we monetize it. Maybe not so much a tribute, but its culture sort of has its central moral themes that find their way into central similar stories. But I also talk about how much I fuckin’ hate the chosen one. Yah know, like what the fuck is that? Like it robs people of free will and there’s just so much wrong with it.
S: So does The Big Lebowski standout to you as an “ordinary individual in an extraordinary situation” kinda story?
J: Oh those are the only type of stories that interest me. It’s the Big Sleep. Phillip Marlow- not such an ordinary guy, but he can’t fly, he wasn’t foretold in the stars that he’d be a private investigator in Los Angeles. And Big Lebowski just takes it one step further!
S: Right, right!
J: And I’m sorry if you’re a Harry Potter fan, but those books do nothing for me. Because you find out that this guy was destined to be here all along. I mean where’s the fuckin’ struggle, where’s the story? I certainly don’t need characters that I like. In fact I prefer stories where the characters aren’t particularly likeable.
S: So it’s all Chinatown for you then?
J: Yeah! Just tell me a fuckin’ story! Don’t tell me a fable! Don’t tell me a fairytale, unless it’s [Tarsem’s] The Fall! I don’t see why just telling a story isn’t enough for a lot of people, it doesn’t even have to have a message!
S: Write people stories.
J: Well it’s ridiculous to play down the complexity of the human spirit when you’re pretending to tell a complex story. In the words of our 22nd and 24th President, Grover Cleveland, “Fuck that!”
S: It’s not often that people quote Grover Cleveland in day-to-day conversation; not knowingly at least.
J: Well you gotta start somewhere right?
S: Yeah! Now I’ve heard and I personally believe that the best writing allows the author to forever know something about the characters and the story that the reader is not obligated to know, nor might they ever know.
J: Yeah that’s what I try to do all the time because I know that real writers do that. If I can create a world that has legitimacy for me, whatever that means, then I can make it a richer experience for the reader. There’s a lot of stuff in my writing that no one will ever know! No one will ever pick up on it, because it’s not meant to be a wink-wink nudge-nudge. If they get it, that’s fantastic but it’s not—
S: It’s not really a callback, an Easter egg, or a continuity grasp.
J: Right, I mean obviously I do those things too, but there’s a good portion of writing that I do that is used to help me feel the artist is seeing a sincere world… they’re really your first reader.
S: It was neat to read your script for “Lobster Johnson: The Forgotten Man” and see places where Peter Snejberg didn’t so much ignore your notes as he did embellish upon them. So that’s really cool, to me that’s the unique dialogue or negotiation between artist and author.
J: Yeah, which isn’t there when you’re a solo cartoonist. That cartoonist writes something and already knows his or her own limitations, whereas I’ll write something and I’ll just throw everything at the fuckin’ wall.
S: It sounds like you really enjoy the collaboration though.
J: I do tremendously. For me the collaboration is a huge, huge charge. I don’t know how much fun it is for the artist, but I think some artists really like working with me. For me at this point though, I’d rather have them writing their own scripts.
S: Really? But reading your scripts, you’re putting jokes in the writing that the final reader will never see! You’re actively making it more interesting for the artist to read. It’s not dry at all!
J: Well I certainly hope so, because it takes me fuckin’ forever to write the damn things. If I could be more dry, I’d probably make more money faster. But you gotta get your artist on your side, you gotta be co-conspirators in this. If you can’t get the artist on your side, you’re kinda fucked. But if you can poke the artist, make the artist laugh, I find that they’re like “Okay John, I’ll do what I can here.” That’s really where the collaboration will come in; the artist will do what’s possible for him or her… They will give you their best work.
S: That sounds like ideal teamwork: that you two are better than the sum of two halves. What about your own personal writing regimen though? Do you have a way to keep yourself disciplined?
J: When I first started writing comics my discipline was great and then about ten years ago it just went in the fuckin’ toilet! It was about the time TV Land started putting Mr. Ed on television twice a day! That’s an hour out of every day that I can’t work!
S: Wow! You’re kidding me!
J: No really! I think it was TV Land’s way of telling me that I couldn’t have television anymore. And that’s really what happened! Too bad streaming is more distracting than television ever was.
S: It really doesn’t help productivity. It also seems like you’re a huge art and music person.
J: Yeah, I’m not one of those guys who can listen to music while writing. I know lots of artists who can. But so much of my outlining takes place while I’m writing. I can’t be distracted even if I love all kinds of music as long as it’s good, which I know is not an objective statement. And I gotta tell you, Sam, there is no music in the world that is sweeter than silence.
S: God you really are a kindred spirit with Louis C.K.
J: Yeah well—
S: I’m sure you’ve heard his talk show interview where he says he’s worried this current generation has lost the imagination brought about by silence.
J: No, I actually haven’t heard that! But if you’re creative or imaginative in any way then you have to be aware of that idea.
S: So what works best for your writing?
J: I have a schedule that works really well for me: I get up early; I got to the gym or I walk along the river for about an hour or so; I come home around 930 or 10am; and then I work till about 4 or 5pm. So I get at least six hours of writing in a day and if I’m lucky I’ll take a day or two off each week. And then the rest of it is all my time.
S: I could really use that kind of focus.
J: I need to have fewer and fewer distractions otherwise I’ll distract myself. Not just to get work done, but to also get life fuckin’ done.
S: I hear that. I guess I’ve always felt like you have an affinity for writing out of place characters. And I mean that psychologically, spiritually, and physically. Where do you think it began in all of your writing though?
J: Probably with “The Creep” but maybe with my “Homicide” stuff. I think all of us have felt out of place at one time or another and a lot of us have felt out of place more often than that. I know I have. And comics are a visual medium, so a great way to play with a character like that is to make him or her look different than everyone else but they’re still the same as the others on the inside.
S: And Johann Krauss—
J: He’s an inhuman character who still wants to be human. In “The Universal Machine” I told this story how when he was alive he was a weird guy who was in love with a ghost. That’s what I wanted to concentrate on, while he was alive he was out of place, and now that he’s dead he’s still out of place. He never found his place in life or death!
S: Oh it’s a heartbreaking story with a frankly very emotional rejection scene!
J: And then when he goes back to his hometown and it’s been burned to the ground, he starts trailing his spirit behind the car… You see how much he’s lost.
S: Oh dude… that scene…
J: It’s those characters who are out of place. You know Bobby and Timah are out of place. Bobby wouldn’t have a best friend like Del if he wasn’t out of place. Cogan is out of place, he joined the Esu side. I don’t think people read my books and go “Oh it’s populated with oddballs”, because every day you could be walking down the street and everyone you pass could be feeling like he or she doesn’t belong.
S: Probably right.
J: So I’m not interested in stories of triumph, I’m interested in stories of failure.
S: I’m sure that also applies to “Rumble”.
J: When I get the chance I try to write my characters as human as possible. You know, think about Bobby, that guy killed Nusku who was about to kill everybody else, and that fucks with him! And that was where I thought that this book can still be funny… it can be exciting, it can be fantastic, I don’t think it can be scary anymore the way I originally intended… but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be humorous. Because that’s our lives! Everything is funny and everything is terrible!
S: I dunno, John. When I heard about what’s coming with Xotlaha’s revenge in the story’s third arc, I know that I got scared because I thought “Oh crap, this guy’s only got so many good guys in his story!”
J: Well okay well maybe I’m scary. But I’ve come to look at “Rumble” as not being as scary for horror comic fans as I’d originally intended.
S: As a reader, it feels like a tight story.
J: You know it went through several incarnations and I’ve been kicking that story around and pitching that story for years. But then when I met James Harren I said “Well, nobody’s gonna say no to James.” Although I did pitch it with some really good artists early on, but anyway once I had James I really thought I knew what the story was about. I think I’m staying pretty close to that, it’s a little less horror than I expected, but other than that it’s on the nose for what I first wanted.
S: And James is a creative contributor as well, correct?
J: Yeah, it’s not just me, James and I talked a lot about it before I even wrote my first script. He changed my idea on what it should be and it’s been a collaborative effort even since the plotting stuff early on. Not as much as I would like it to be because of deadlines, but still from the beginning.
S: And you’d said that you have some really hard and fast plot points coming up in the immediate arc, but that if James wanted to wedge in his own ideas after that, you’d be willing to make space for him.
J: Yeah absolutely! And I’d always hoped to give James a better idea of what writing is so that he can do his own stories. Ideally that would be on “Rumble”, but you know how that goes!
S: Cool! I know that I personally want James onboard for the long ride but it’s still really cool to hear you encouraging all forms of writing from him.
J: I think it’s more important, and you might call this self-destructive, but I think it’s most important that there be as many voices and visions in comics to enrich the medium. So the artists that I talk to, if they show any interest in writing, I’ll help them!
S: Jumping back to your scene where Bobby kills Nusku… that was something that really drew me to your writing. Bobby doesn’t have the capacity to think that killing a fire demon was cool; he’s just shook by it. It felt very real.
J: Yeah I don’t pretend to be as gifted as some of the best screenplay writers or filmmakers in general. At this point in my career if I can tell a story that has some kind of genuine complexity amongst all the silliness, that’s what I’m gonna try to do.
S: I heard in one of your interviews that the creation of Rathraq as a character came from you seeing another artist’s unrelated character sketch. I have to ask, was that Max Ernst’s Lop-Lop?
J: It wasn’t, no. It was just a comic artist who has since gone on to work in movies. He had a character in his sketchbook with these big blank ping-pong ball eyes and I just thought to myself “Who the fuck is this guy?” I don’t know where the scarecrow thing came from, but that was also part of the basis for the character.
S: Oh wow that’s actually much more serendipitous of a beginning than I thought it would be. You saw ping-pong ball eyes and a blank face and just started going off on your own. Very cool!
J: Yeah, well that’s not so unusual for the way a lot of creators work or think. They start small with an image or an idea or a kernel of an idea or even just a word.
S: I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but to me you’ve been a writer’s writer, or like the best session guitarist who also puts out his own stuff. It sounds challenging to step into an already-established property which arguably has more rules and constraints than a creator-owned property. I guess it’s your responsibility as the author to remain faithful to the existing material. I think you’re really respected for having that skill, but you’ve still remained under the radar in some respects.
J: Absolutely, and thank you. But I think it’s about expectations. If I had taken over writing for “Hellboy”, forget it! I would’ve been crucified for whatever I’d done! Sure Abe and Liz were pre-existing characters, but Johann had really only been written once. My challenge actually came with inserting a new character
S: So then what stands out to you as your best “B.P.R.D.” work?
J: I think “The Long Death” is the best “B.P.R.D.” story I’ve ever told.
S: Yeah you’ve mentioned it before as something which was very telling for your decision to enlist James Harren to “Rumble”.
J: It just comes together perfectly. Every fuckin’ element fell into place. And then James comes in and no one else could have done that.
S: I’m glad to hear you say that.
J: Yeah, you know you look at that scene on the phone where Johann sees the baptism of a child. [James] worked so fuckin’ hard on it and he nailed it, he absolutely nailed it! And it was important that he nails it because it’s a really significant centerpiece to the first issue which pays off not only in the first issue but also at the end of the series.
S: A memorable milestone for James and his artistic development.
J: It’s where I really felt like we had that special synergy.
S: I love that sketchbook drawing James did of Daimio as the were-jaguar with his arm around Daryl the Wendigo. It almost doesn’t even look like his current stuff!
J: Yeah he sent that to us afterward and we all agreed it had to go in the back of the book. Actually Mike Mignola saw that and said “Well it’s nice to know that they’re both okay and still friends.”
S: Yeah! No hard feelings!
J: Exactly! That was really funny! And that was a three issue story but it’s long enough to tell the story that needed to be told and it was wide enough to give it the scope that it deserved. I was really happy with that one.
S: As you should be! Well, thank you so much again for this chance to interview you and thanks for your wonderful contributions to the comics world!
J: Thanks.
In addition to the interview transcribed above, my talk with John Arcudi also warranted some very enjoyable but mostly irrelevant conversations about these films and television shows:
FILM
- A Canterbury Tale, Michael Powell (1944) -- John’s #1 recommended film currently.
- The Big Lebowski, The Coen Brothers (1998)
- The Colossus of New York, Eugene Lourie (1958)
- Chinatown, Roman Polanski (1974)
- Carol, Todd Haines (2015)
- Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder (1950)
- Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood (1992)
- The Fall, Tarsem (2006)
TELEVISION SERIES
- Mr. Ed, Sonia Chernus and Walter Brooks (1958)
- Louie, Louis C.K. (2010)
- Horace and Pete, Louis C.K. (2016)
And finally, John Arcudi issued many enthusiastic shout-outs to some of his favorite authors and artists:
- James Harren
- Dave Stewart
- Craig Thompson
- Art Spiegelman
- Pete Tomasi
- Simon Roy
- Max Fiumara
- Sebastian Fiumara
- Sergio Aragonés
- Will Eisner
“Rumble” Issue #13 hits shelves August 17 and “Dead Inside” Issue #1 (John’s new five-issue miniseries with artist Toni Fejzula) will arrive sometime in December. In the meantime check out John’s other existing titles like “The Creep”, “Major Bummer”, and “A God Somewhere”. You should also check out both of the previous TPBs for “Rumble” if you haven’t already, because they are truly some of the best things happening in comics today.
