A Sleeping Giant of Comics

David Yurkovich

by Marcia Allass

I often see writers making high-flown claims about how they are doing 'something new' with superheroes and how a 'new spin is just what the genre needs'. Unfortunately, I find very few who have genuinely succeeded in that aim, rather than simply dipping into the already stagnant pools of 'grim and gritty', 'deconstruction' and 'genre-mocking humour'.

David Yurkovich makes no such bluster about what the superhero genre 'needs', and yet he quite simply puts out some of the freshest and best-written books dealing with the superhero ideal that I have ever seen. Yurkovich is a writer/artist who self-publishes his work via his Sleeping Giant Comics imprint. While he first received a Xeric Award for his comic Death By Chocolate, he has recently been concentrating on the original graphic novel format with the release of last year's The Broccoli Agenda, the upcoming SHoP (Super Heroes Of Philadelphia) and another in the works for October. Three OGNs in the space of a year plus other works in development is no small achievement, especially when one considers the amount of lipservice paid to the OGN format elsewhere and the relatively small follow-through. Quite simply, while other folks are still talking about these things, Yurkovich is already doing them, and without any outside assistance.

His books unerringly combine the fantastic elements of the superhero genre with crime and mystery, yet whilst also retaining the humanity and attention to characterisation that one would expect from the best slice-of-life fiction. While there is a thread of absurdism running through the titles, this only serves to bring into relief the very human nature of his protagonists and their emotional turmoil.

To put it simply, David Yurkovich is putting out books that are unique in style, presentation and content. You will find nothing else like it on the shelves. When folks ask me what I think the 'cutting edge' of comics is, Yurkovich's name is one of the first that springs to mind.

Sequential Tart: The primary thing that jumps out from your books at first glance is your artistic style, which is extremely distinctive. Is this a conscious effort to reflect the writing, or is it your natural way of viewing and portraying the world?

David Yurkovich: It’s a conscious effort to differentiate myself from a lot of mainstream artists whose influences are so apparent that their work becomes more imitation than innovation. Early in my self-publishing venture, I was influenced by artists like Ted McKeever and Mike Mignola, but I never tried to emulate their styles. I don’t want to be referred to as "the next Ted McKeever." The industry already has a Ted McKeever, and no one will ever do his style as well as he does.

I find it terribly depressing to look at young artists’ portfolios at comic conventions. Too often, they’re merely imitating their favorite Image artist, or doing full-page pin-ups with wildly exaggerated signatures on each. There needs to be an understanding of many elements when drawing comics, the first and most critical of which is basic drawing. It also helps to know a bit about perspective, pacing, and camera angle to name a few — but many artists trying to break in ignore the basic elements or try to mask them beneath speed lines and muscles that do not exist in human anatomy. It doesn’t work.

ST: Your new book, The SHoP, continues the story of Philadelphia’s own super-hero team that you started in your series of one shot stories under the title Threshold. Why the change of name for both the book and the superhero team?

DY: I’d wanted to change the name to something a bit more memorable ... something that would at least be noticeable and was more closely related to the characters within the series. I knew I’d be putting the series on hiatus soon so that I could undertake The Broccoli Agenda (TBA).

Also during this time, Avatar began publishing an anthology, also called Threshold. After seeing their version of the title, I became soured on the name. I mean, the super-hero Threshold series I was doing was about people with extraordinary powers who seldom used those powers and who encountered bizarre, sometimes comical individuals and situations. I’m not sure what Avatar’s Threshold was about. I did, however, glance at one issue of the series in a local shop. It featured drawings of a woman being f**ked by some type of beast. That sort of thing sours your desire to continue a story line with the same title even if the stories and target audiences are worlds apart.

ST: Tell us a little about the ideas behind The SHoP and what brings you back to these characters after a hiatus.

DY: It was the hiatus that brought me back. I really like the characters in The SHoP and missed drawing them and chronicling their adventures. The SHoP gave me an opportunity to do a larger story, a more personal story. I was able to cram a lot of characterization into the book. I think one CBG reviewer said there was as much characterization in The SHoP one-shot as there would be in about a year’s worth of an average ongoing comic series.

The idea behind The SHoP is that we are in a world in which super-hero teams are contracted to protect cities who might require such services. New York, Los Angeles, and larger metropolitan cities have such teams in place. The teams are created and managed by Los Angeles organization called The Establishment. But it’s not all goody-gumdrops; The Establishment is orchestrating super-villain attacks to coerce unprotected cities into hiring a super team for protection. Philadelphia has remained the only city to use an independent super-hero team — Threshold. However, following a debacle that leaves an innocent child dead, the mayor disbands the team officially and hires The Establishment to bring it a team, dubbed the Super-Heroes of Philadelphia (SHoP). Even though the members of Threshold are brought on board, the super-hero game in Philadelphia radically changes with the Establishment — and some new team members — calling the shots. The story delves into the concepts of big business, trust, betrayal, and individualism. It’s a 64-page self-contained tale and, while dark in nature, I think it is a positive and accurate reflection of "realistic" modern-age super-heroes.

ST: Now that The SHoP is out, do you have any plans to collect the earlier Threshold issues into a TPB?

DY: At this point, no. With limited funds, I’m very much more interested in continuing to produce new material. At some point, I’d like to collect The Stamp Collector (from the second Threshold mini), add a few new pages, and release it as a 64-page bookshelf one-shot as a sort of 'SHoP, the early years' item. We’ll see.

ST: All of your books so far have touched on the superhero genre in entirely fresh and idiosyncratic ways. What makes you keep exploring this theme?

DY: In comics, as in film and literature, there is a tendency to believe that "it’s all been done before." And, to a great extent that’s true. I did not invent the super-hero concept, nor am I the first to try to integrate humor and drama into a super-hero series. Therein lies the challenge — to produce something that, although based in iconic escapism, is still fresh and — hopefully — entertaining.

DC has experimented with this to a great extent. The most radical example of this is, perhaps, was The Death Of Superman. However, that was not so much a case of being innovative as it was masterminding a gimmick. Obviously, Superman was not going to remain dead when all was said and done; and in that regard, it was a gimmick to increase sales. However, I think such a ploy traps the editorial staff and writers with regard to topping their previous "big shocker." I mean, what’s more terrifying for the hero than meeting his/her death? But remove that terror by killing the hero and having the hero return and ... well, what’s left?

I think The Death of Superman may have also hurt the comics industry insofar as it brought people to the shops who had no intention of pursuing comics as a viable hobby or entertainment form. It worked tremendously for retailers but it was more or less a short-term shot of adrenaline. However, it was a decision made to perhaps jump start a stalled industry. I think that the bigger companies, certainly a company like DC that is backed by Time-Warner, could and should do more to promote comics. Comic book-based trailers at the beginning of theatrical releases, ads in magazines outside of comics, giveaways at schools are but a few examples of promotion that could be done to attract outsiders to this clique we call comics.

ST: You have experimented with different panel layouts in your work. How does your approach differ when comparing the 3 panel per page layout of The Broccoli Agenda and the 8 panel per page layout of The SHoP?

DY: The approach and end result are worlds apart. Greg [McElhatton] at i-comics described it by saying that if TBA was a wide-screen movie then The SHoP was the TV-special, or words to that effect. I think that’s a very accurate description inasmuch as I approach the comic page very much as a story board artist approaches a film script.

Technically, the 3-panel grid requires a lot more detail. You simply can’t skimp on details when each panel encompasses 1/3 of the page. Overall, the 3-panel grid was more exhausting to me than the 8-panel grid. I doubt that I’ll do another story of length using the 3-panel grid.

ST: Do you deliberately try to stay away from the traditional 9 panel per page layout?

DY: Initially, I relied on the 9-panel grid a lot, due in part to my admiration of Ditko and also because I see the grid as quite challenging. The grid is, by design, a rather static way of telling a story. However, it’s the stagnation of the grid that makes it fun and challenging. The grid forces me to be creative in my story telling, to try various angles and approaches while remaining within the structure. The first Death By Chocolate (DBC), for example, used the 9-panel grid heavily, as did the first Threshold mini. Sometime later, I began experimenting more and more with the 8-panel grid. In preparing the layouts for The Stamp Collector, it became apparent that 8-panels would more effectively balance the idea of a story-within-a-story, which it did.

ST: You seem to prefer a very structured, consistent and formal panel layout for each book over the varying panels layouts of most books today. Why?

DY: Two words: anal retentive. I prefer order over chaos. I prefer neatness over disorganization. And I’m still finding my own voice in comics, both in the writing and illustrating. When I look at a story like Nico-Teen, which was completed in the summer of 1997, I’m surprised at the looseness of the art. I think that in many places it is rather sloppy. Yet at the time I created it, I thought it was quite solid. Over time, I think we develop and hone or vision toward what is our ultimate idea of perfection in whatever we are doing, be it comic books, auto mechanics, or oral surgery, for example. I’m looking at my work more critically and it is very easy to spot technical errors in the earlier projects. More than that, I see a change in art style from the earlier work. I think I attempted a lot of things that I wasn’t able to execute as fully and confidently as I can today. There’s still plenty of room for growth, but I think the growth is occurring more and more, slowly but steadily.

ST: The cover paintings for your own books and the rear covers for The Waiting Place are beautifully rendered. Would you like to do a fully painted book one day, or do you prefer the strictures of the monochrome spectrum?

DY: I did a short 4-page story for Jason Asala’s Poe in the first Poe Color Special. It was a lot of fun and someday I will self-publish a fully rendered story of my own characters. But my first fully-rendered project is going to be a children’s book. Incidentally, I don’t paint. Can’t hold a paint brush to save my life. My cover art is rendered in Prismacolor colored pencils.

ST: I noticed particularly after reading The Broccoli Agenda that you had seamlessly pulled together characters and concepts both from Threshold and Death By Chocolate into the new work. Did you conceive these individual series as part of a larger universe right from the start?

DY: I do a lot of spontaneous writing. Nearly everything I’ve written has been done spontaneously. Following first drafts, I do some tweaking and rewriting. In the case of TBA, there was a lot of rewriting, particularly with regard to the story’s ending. Yet I’ve always held and maintained the idea that all of the characters in the various series can (and often do) intermingle with one another. I really liked the Marvel universe circa 1960s in which it would be typical to see the Fantastic Four jetting off on an adventure and seeing Spider-Man swinging across the skyline on his own adventure. Of course, the Marvel universe has since become so crowded that it would be the exception not to see something of that nature occur.

There is an even larger universe that abounds in the worlds of The SHoP and DBC. I like to tap into and focus on a few characters at a time rather than force too many stereotyped characters into any one project. I think that a story is stronger if it has a few solid characters versus many undeveloped ones. Seeing an undeveloped character on the page makes a reader ask, "Who are you, and why should I care?" The audience must care, or at least be intrigued enough to continue reading.

ST: Where do you come up with the concepts and names for your extremely individual superheroes and villains eg. Monterey Jack, The Milk Maid, Nicto-Teen and Multigrain?

DY: All the good names have been taken! I usually choose names that sound absurd. The more absurd the concept, the more likely I am to try and develop it. I generally try to find a name that has a certain odd appeal to me, such as Milk Maid or Midnight Manicurist, and develop it from there. I suppose it’s kind of a backward approach to character development, but it’s what works for me. In Altercations, I’m going to be developing a lot of new characters and super-hero teams. That’s really where the fun is. Seeing what I can do imaginatively and creatively in a genre that has already been saturated beyond belief.

ST: Speaking of which, your books often have a theme of food in one way or another. Death By Chocolate, The Broccoli Agenda…even in Threshold and The SHoP, food, foody-villains and discussions about food play a high-profile part in the daily lives of the superhero team. Your main characters in both TBA and DBC even have their lives blighted or otherwise fundamentally changed due to foodstuffs. Do you have issues that we should know about? (grins)

DY: What ... what are you implying? (Hides Twinkee wrapper under keyboard).

I like doing food themes. It’s a theme that hasn’t been used to much in comics. It has nothing to do with my eating disorder. (Wipes chocolate sauce from lips; discards container).

A couple of other DBC stories are still in development including The Curse of the Golden Pineapple and The Chocolate Bikini. There is a short SHoP story in development in which the Red Silhouette and Malevolence go to an Indian/Mexican restaurant and become very ill (based on a true story, unfortunately).

So, there are plenty more food stories — not that I have issues with food. (Consumes entire pizza; cleanses self with impromptu peanut butter/Spam soap.)

ST: You seem to have an affinity for writing alienated characters who are unable to fit into society either through their appearance or personal obsessions - as overtly weird as some of your characters may get, they are still immensely human. Is this a direction based on personal experience?

DY: I think most of us have had to deal with alienation at some point in our life and I’m certainly no exception. It’s easy to write/create a character who is alienated due to bizarre circumstances (e.g., broccoli growing out top of one’s head). The challenge is to then take that character and make the reader overlook the oddity - to force the reader to feel empathy or even sympathy for this twisted little 2-dimensional character is the real challenge and it’s one that I enjoy.

ST: Death By Chocolate earned you a Xeric Award to assist with its initial publication. How much of a boost did you find that the Xeric grant gave both yourself and your work?

DY: The Xeric Award was a tremendous boost to my confidence and enthusiasm. It was also a great surprise. I’d been working on DBC as simply a 9 or 10 page short story that I thought might one day find its way into the pages of Dark Horse Presents. About the same time I’d gotten my rejection letter from Dark Horse, I happened to learn of the Xeric Foundation thanks to Maria Lapham (Stray Bullets). I expanded the DBC story to 32 pages, applied for the grant, and was caught quite off-guard when the acceptance letter arrived in the mail a few months later.

ST: You provide the layouts for Sean McKeever’s scripts on The Waiting Place, while Mike Norton finishes the art. What does this entail and how does working in a team differ from creating your own stories on the page?

DY: It’s a lot different. I’m kind of like a guest at the Hotel McKeever. TWP is Sean’s baby and he’s a good parent. Sean cares a great deal about his scripts and the overall look and pacing of the book. I work from his typed scripts; he breaks everything down page-by-page and has now begun supplying panel-to-panel text descriptions. When doing my own work, I almost never work from a script as much of what I’m doing is working really fast to jot the story ideas and visuals onto paper simultaneously; thus, I’ll go minimalist on my scripts until the art pages are completely finished.

I always do my layouts in pen as it forces me to get them right the first time (usually). For TWP, I do the layouts which are rough sketches from which Mike uses as a guide when doing his penciling/inking. I do tighter layouts for TWP than I do for my own projects because I know that if I’m in a hurry, I can always just draw some generic shot and fix it when I’m penciling/inking; can’t really do that when the layouts need to be used by others.

I had a chance to see some of Mike’s Badger art at last year’s Mid-Ohio-Con. Mike is a terrific artist and I often wonder why I’m on TWP at all. I also do the back covers on the series. It’s interesting in that Mike and I are stylistically polar opposites, but I think we mesh very well together overall.

ST: Have you ever considered trying to get your work published by a larger company or do you prefer to have complete control over every stage of the publishing experience?

DY: I did several pitches to the major companies in the past, but haven’t pitched anything in several years. I’m planning on doing a proposal for DC/Vertigo to bring back the Doom Patrol either as a mini or an ongoing. The problem is simply finding time to get everything done. One day I will do a story that involves Time; I think it would be very therapeutic, actually.

ST: How can readers purchase your books if they can’t find them in the local store?

Visit my web site or visit www.funebooks.com

Most of the books are still in print, however, the first DBC and the first two Threshold minis are more or less sold out. Sean is hosting my Web site for a variety of reasons; he also designed the site and is one heck of a good Web page designer. Fun-e-Books.com is a great new online source for alternative comics. They have products by a variety of publishers and I recommend them highly for those looking for something unusual.

ST: Are you planning on attending any conventions this year?

DY: Small Press Expo, Bethesda, MD (fall) and Mid-Ohio-Con, Columbus, OH (Thanksgiving weekend)

ST: Can you let us in on what future projects you’re currently working on and the estimated shipping dates?

DY: In October 2000, I’ll be releasing a 48-page one-shot called Haunted, it’s is a collection of short stories that I’m illustrating. The main story in this volume is The Monkey’s Paw, a classic tale of horror written in 1902 by W. W. Jacobs. If you’re not familiar with this tale, you’ll be surprised upon reading it just how heavily its been referred to by contemporary writers and film makers. The art for The Monkey’s Paw is being rendered entirely in colored pencil. I’m using a 2-panel grid and not placing text on the illustrations (text will accompany illustrations on opposing pages). It is more akin to a picture book than a traditional comic book, but there will also be more traditional comic book layouts in the other stories including some unusual takes on Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star and The Lord’s Prayer ( each done in 15-panel grids).

I’m going to begin illustrating a children’s book in early-to-mid July entitled Chad’s Best Day Ever in which our protagonist, the always curious, always bouncy dog Chad, receives a very special present in the form of a cat named Jasper - a very rambunctious kitty.

Following/during that time, I’ll be working on Altercations: A History of 20th Century Super-Hero Activity in the United States. It is exactly as it sounds - an overview of U.S. history as told through the eyes of the super-heroes and villains of the era. The overall project will exceed 100 pages when all is said and done.

ST: What is your ultimate ambition in regard to comics?

DY: I’d like to remain alternative, but gain a few more mainstream readers. I’d like to eventually find time to do a few proposals for some of the major companies. However, I plan on staying true to my beliefs as a writer and artist. Would I ever consider doing a Thing versus Hulk story? Hell yes, but I’d want to make it different and not just the all-too-common and predictable slug fest. I’d like to continue to grow and develop as a writer and an artist. I always approach my next project by looking at my previous projects and picking at them critically. I want to continue to improve. When I stop making progress, it’s time to call it a day.

Sleeping Giant Comics
The Waiting Place online
Funebooks.com

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