Questionable Comics is a series where Dan Hill surveys professionals from every corner of the comics industry about their methods and experience. This week Dan spoke to two people who are very close to us at Loser City (one of whom co-publishes our site, even). Up first is Alex Paknadel, a dear friend of Loser City who broke out last year with his Boom series Arcadia and its follow-up Turncoat and will soon be seen on Titan’s Assassin’s Creed adaptation.
What current projects are you working on?
The Assassin’s Creed comic for Titan and a bunch of inchoate projects that will hopefully see the light of day.
Use one word to describe how you work.
Anxiously.
What’s your workspace like?
My workspace is also my bedroom, so I have zero sleep hygiene. I wake up in there, do my day job and then write comics in the evening. It’s pretty monastic, albeit with a few more empty pizza boxes.
What do you listen to when you work?
Movie scores mainly. If I’m writing drama then it’ll be James Horner’s score for House Of Sand And Fog or Howard Shore’s score for Dead Ringers. Anything else and John Williams suits me fine.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
I was outlining one of my clever-clever poststructuralist pillow fart ideas to Andy Diggle a few years back and he hushed me, put his hand on my shoulder and said “Alex, just tell me a fucking story.”
Best advice ever. Changed my life.
How do you get into writing mode?
I don’t. I finish work and I have to switch gears pretty much immediately, so it’s just a case of running the faucet until the stream of conceptual gunk turns clear.
Full script or Marvel Method?
Full script with room for interpretation. If I insisted on slavish fidelity to the script then my books would be 22 pages of head shots. I always make it clear upfront that my scripts are napkin notes rather than architectural plans, you know?
A page from Turncoat, Alex’s Boom series with Artyom Trakhanov
What’s the one thing you wish you could improve about your work?
Structure. I think I have pretty good ideas by and large, but the spine’s a little crooked sometimes. I really envy writers who approach their scripts like engineers.
When’s the best time to work?
In my experience? The golden hour when neither you nor the baby is screaming.
Who do you consider to be inspirational creators in your field (classic and modern)?
For so many reasons; Francois Schuiten, Benoit Peeters, Grant Morrison, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Steve Gerber, Alan Moore, Joe Keatinge, Leila Del Duca, Adam P. Knave, D.J. Kirkbride, Si Spurrier, Michel Fiffe, Christopher Sebela, Curt Pires, Alison Sampson, Marissa Louise, Tula Lotay, John Lees, Ryan K. Lindsay, Nick Brokenshire, Alex Di Campi, Colin Bell, Iain Laurie, Lela Gwenn, Seth, Carla Speed McNeil, Sean Phillips, Andy Diggle, Matt Rosenberg, Michael Moreci, David Walker, Declan Shalvey, Jordie Bellaire, Greg Rucka, Brett Lewis, James Robinson, Rachael Smith, Adam Cadwell, Rachael Stott, Jose Munoz, Jerome Charyn, Francois Boucq, Brandon Graham, Lando, Grim Wilkins, Will Kirkby, Artyom Trakhanov, Christopher Priest, David Mazzucchelli, Hannah Berry, Jeremy Bastian, Gail Simone.
Danny Djeljosevic needs no introduction but we’ll give him one anyway. He co-founded Loser City and has been writing the excellent Big Fucking Hammer webcomic with Diana Naneva and Joe Hunter on art.
What current projects are you working on?
I’m about to finish up the first half of Big Fucking Hammer (#5 is being drawn, I gotta start writing #6 soon). I’ve also got a one-shot cyberpunk thing I’m cooking up with artist Brett Marcus Cook that’s going to be dope as fuck. There are a couple nearly finished comics I gotta color and letter too, but I don’t have time for anything so they’re on the back burner for now.
Other than that, I got pitches and shit I can’t talk about.
Use one word to describe how you work.
Lackadaisical.
What’s your workspace like?
A newish model iMac on an Ikea desk cluttered with writing implements, sticky notes, little anime statues, LEGO minifigs, and Disney pins. Writing gets done in my bedroom or on the go via Google Docs wherever I’ve got internet access.
What do you listen to when you work?
Spotify 90% of the time. I’ve got playlists devoted to whatever I’m writing. Sometimes, if my brain is being fussy, I’ll put on instrumentals (jazz, classical, soundtracks, furious shit like Lightning Bolt) or Japanese indie rock — anything that doesn’t force me to listen to words. Hip-hop is so lyric-heavy that sometimes it’s hard for me to write to it because I just want to listen to the words. If I’m lettering or coloring, I might get a podcast poppin’.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Marissa Louise told me a thing about the importance of treating your creative career like a second full-time job. That made a lot of sense to me. The one I’ve gotten the most mileage out of and passed on to others the most came from Adam Warren, who told me to find collaborators on DeviantArt by looking at who your favorite artists are following.
How do you get into writing mode?
Lately I’ve been cracking open other comics to get into comic scripting mode. Whatever’s nearby — anything to get my mind thinking in terms of panels and balloons. It doesn’t have to be a relevant work but maybe that could help — I’d be afraid of accidentally ripping off a similar comic myself.
A sequence from Diana Naneva and Danny Djeljosevic’s fantastic webcomic Big Fucking Hammer (colors by Joe Hunter)
Full script or Marvel Method?
Full script, sometimes with thumbnail sketches too. I invite all collaborators to deviate wherever they want, though. Haven’t done Marvel Method but it sounds pretty ideal at this point. Overly tight scripting has a tendency to choke the art.
What’s the one thing you wish you could improve about your work?
Besides “how often it gets done and comes out”? Lately I’ve been struggling with employing high concepts — like, should I use this crazy idea for a climactic set piece, or is that going to overpower the intimacy of my story? Comics have no budget (creatively speaking), but that doesn’t mean you have to pull out all the stops at every single opportunity.
When’s the best time to work?
ALL THE TIME.
Who do you consider to be inspirational creators in your field (classic and modern)?
Grant Morrison, Katsuhiro Otomo, British people, Frank Miller, Rumiko Takahashi, ONE, Jack Kirby, Fletcher Hanks, Akira Toriyama, Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Matt Fraction, William Gibson, Mary Shelly, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Noah Baumbach, those Justice League International guys combined into one person, Q Hayashida, Shintaro Kago, Brandon Graham, Mark Waid, Joe Casey, Paul Pope, Michel Fiffe, Shirow Masamune, Headgear, Kanye West.
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