Lille Comics Festival 2008:Interview with Frazer Irving

A - Bonjour, je m'appelle Frazer!
Q - Err...we're actually Spanish.
A - Hola. I was in Avilés recently. Loved it...Spanish red wine, good. French red wine, yeah. Ok, go on.

Q - I'd like to talk a bit about the latest project you're working on at the moment.
A - I'm working on a project called Gutsville. It's an Image book, and because the writer and I are creating it ourselves, there is no editorial intervention, which means we're dealing with topics like racism, drugs, sex… All the things that a lot of mainstream comics are very scared of. And I'm exploring, you know. But it's also a very emotionally draining comic, so it's being delayed, like every Image comic-book. It's being delayed by many months but eventually it will work out. Do you want me to tell you what it is about?

Q - Sure
A - Okay. A hundred and fifty years ago, a boat of people including slaves was on its route to Australia when it was swallowed by what they think it's a huge whale. Now the people survived inside the stomach of this whale. And the story picks up in the modern day, 150 years later, and the inhabitants of this city, called Gutsville, struggle to reconcile their existence with this extremely oppressive regime of religion and values. And at the center is our hero, an artist in a world where art is not accepted, where survival is the only impetus. "Impetus", you know the word?

Q - Yep.
A - Good, good, good. I've just discovered that word. And it's six issues and it's...I don't know what else to say about it...

Q - Well, when you when were talking about the setting, I couldn't help but think a bit about Limbotown.
A - It kind of even looks the same. They have very puritanical trademark hats. But whereas Limbotown is just like a sidenote, a suggestion, Gutsville is like an essay, it's like a novel. We're exploring parallel storytelling, where you have three stories going on at once, and they will merge. And they will all affect each other. A lot like novels do or like modern tv shows like Lost or Heroes. What else can I say about Gutsville? It's awesome! And when it's finished, everyone must read it! We want to do comics for people who don't read comics, for people who maybe are tired of or not interested in shallow material like the superhero stuff, which is aimed to a juvenile audience on a whole. I wanna draw stuff which affects real people, which affects the world, you know. Every artist has a voice, a burning urge to spit something back into the universe. And this is the only way to do it. It's nice to draw superheroes punching things, but I've got something to say about the world, you know. And this is my voice.

Q - Are you using the same style you used for Klarion? This kind of colours and exaggerated gestures?
A - No. Klarion was effectively...it was like Disney, cartoony, but it was twisted. Gutsville cannot have that, it has to...do you want me to show it? Although the recording doesn't show it. So everyone listening or reading… to see it you have to buy it!

(Pause in the interview while he rummages through his bag and takes out the first three issues of Gutsville. Then he hands them to me and notices I'm holding the Spanish edition of the Robin issues with Klarion in them)

A - Cool, you got my comics! Europeans are excellent! I go to America and they say "Can I have a drawing?" "Of what?" and they go "What do you draw?" All around Europe they bring the comics, and they have translated versions which I never have. They never send me my comics that are being translated. It makes me so angry! In Avilés someone showed me the Klarion book and I was like "Whoa", it's translated! And he just gave it to me. Now I have both. The reason I wanted the Klarion book is because, you see, they actually pay royalties on the foreign editions. So if the Seven Soldiers series book sells, I'm going to get a small bit of it. But I cannot judge whether my work is more popular than someone else's, so when I see my own book I'm like "Ok, if it sells like 3 copies, it means I suck but if it sells 3 million, I rock."

Q- In that case we've got a problem in Spain because there are no sales figures available for anyone. They're top secret.
A- I can understand that. I think that in our business, specially in America, everyone, editors, publishers and the readers are obsessed with sales figures. It's like, "well, this comic book only sold 33k, whereas the previous month it sold 33.5k. Ohh, this comic-book is getting worse". It's like...no, it's an anomaly. And it's not always the sales figures that go into readers' hands. It's what retailers order from the publisher. And they're so obsessed with numbers that they actually judge a book. Readers will actually judge a book. Not all readers, but some readers will judge a book by how many it sells... I wanna smack them on the head! If you like it, it's good. If you don't like it, it sucks. Who cares what anyone else thinks, man?!

Q- Any example of such a comic?
A- Oh, any Image comic. People say "Hah, Image comics only sell so and so. They're not very good". No! Actually Image comics are brilliant, but they're very hard to publicize because the Internet and the community think in terms of numbers. They tell other people it's not very good because it doesn't sell and then they follow, like sheep. I know it sounds cruel but I've been part of that community and I've read some guy doing a review online of one of my comics and write: "Dude, it only shold 30k." And someone replied "Glad you told me that, I won't bother." I mean, what's that got to do with anything?! Read it! I mean, the solution to this I think is in the Internet, so you can try before you buy. Something like i-Tunes, where you can listen to a fraction of a song. I think that would solve a lot of this, because then people would try a book and, if they liked it, then they'd buy the collection. But this is not an idea that's popular with my employers. They don't want to give anything away for free, which I think it's counterproductive. Even drug dealers give away the first sample for free! We should definitely do that with comics...

Q- You talked before about editorial intervention. Mentioned Image gives you more freedom because you don't have to deal with that. Have you ever had anything censored by an editor or had to redraw something that he or she didn't like?
A- The only time was... The only time I've ever been told to redraw something… And it's great because normally editors give freedom to do what I want, and I hope they do this because they realize they get better results. Not because they're just scared or whatever...

(Takes the Robin comic and turns the pages until the end of the first episode, then he holds it up for us to see)

The original version of this page had Robin rising up from the ground and his head was there, right? And they said, well it looks like Robin is giving Klarion a blowjob... And I was like...aye...I didn't think it was that obvious but ok, fine, so I changed it. His face as well is like...well! (Laughs) I like to have some fun with the artwork and there are jokes that go in. Most editors don't read the scripts. I had my IM comic...In the script there was a scene with a woman smoking a cigarette, so I drew it. And then the editor says "We have no smoking in our comics", as if it was my fault! And I was like "No, it was in the script, but you didn't read it, so it's your fault, not mine" Other than that, I think that if editors are displeased with my work or want to censor it, their action is just not to hire me again and not to censor the comic itself,which is probably too much hard work. They don't want to waste time with me redrawing things.

Q- How was it working with Grant Morrison?
A- Grant's great! He's got an organic way of working where, and no one told me this, he writes the script but he leaves it vague and he wants the artist to kind of digest and process the script and spit out something new on the page. And I didn't notice until issue 3, then it was fine. Klarion has a thing about his face like make-up. That was my idea and Grant changed the script to kind of reflect it in some comments. There's a line where these kids are like they like Klarion more than the head of their gang. And the evil pervert who controls them makes some joke about how the girls like him because he's got those Goth eyes. That was Grant reacting to my artwork, which is great. I would love to get to work with him again, because now I know that I can contribute more and be a force within the story. But nobody told me at the time.
And then, the very first issue I did, I sent thumbnails sketches of 22 pages to the editor, which was unfinished, rough art. Apparently, these were passed around the entire crew and Grant saw it. But he didn't know these were rough. He thought they were finished pencils. Someone accidentally sent me his reply, which said something like "let me know when Frazer has fixed this art, because this work is substandard". I was heartbroken because I thought he was talking about the final artwork, which I'd sent off by this point, and it wasn't about a year later that I realized this was a miscommunication! The politics and the bureaucracy can be really annoying sometimes. So stupid! Why can't we all just get along and have fun and draw comics, listen to music?! I'm a hippy, really... A hippy with absolutely no hair!