Monday, August 16, 2010
Working On //Misery City//
//Max Murray, damned detective of the paranormal, roams the streets of Misery City, where even Hell is just another suburb. Femme fatales, lurking horrors and gloomy nightmares cast their shadows on Max's nightlife.//
All these can be just an infinite blabla if our hero Max couldn't become something like a real personality. It was needed to find for him the proper behaviour, the right psychosis and everyday obsessions. Starting with Max, seemed very easy to let myself sink into the stereotypes that follow the noir-like protagonists. It would be mistaken to create a fearless one sided hero, that solves the one case after the other 'n' bangs every night a different woman.
I think, a small flashback about Max's stories is proper at the moment. Max was born as a character that would fit into those horror-noir-detective stories, where he could be also an observant of the paranormal. Something like a spying eye on stories that happen next to us and stay forever secret. Who could know, if a vampire from outer space was that low profile neighbor that was receiving his newspaper always at night? Could you think that he lost his spaceship and he wanted Max to search for it?
Max's adventures had to be more strange and less predictable. Max would be tortured by femmes fatales but in fact his course would be drawn by a woman that he is in love.
This must have been unfulfilled love and so on. His personality has a touch of sadness and misery, much alike the feeling that Misery City must give to its citizens. So, his love for Pakita isn't easily achievable, but Max, has the will to try and be for her, what other men couldn't be. He wants to be her protector, her guide and lover. On the other hand Pakita doesn't look so much spiritual let's say about her decisions on matters of love. Pakita has also a very earthly appearance, a fact which made it difficult for me to find the right expressions for describing her normal beauty. Poets write hymns about the out-of-this-world appearance of small aphrodites etc. Pakita is something different and Max is absolutely in love with her archetypical, primitive female goddess-like form. Trying to find the right words for expressing Max's thoughts, I had as a helpful companion the works of Marquis de Sade. His way of describing the multiple expressions of the human passions was more than inspiring. To say the truth I feel like a thief, for occasionaly stealing his style and putting it into Max's mouth. So, Max is not uneducated, nor ignorant of the women's sexuality. I wanted for him to be poetic in his way of describing people and sentiments. Sometimes ofcourse dirty and cynical, but for sure a bit more sophisticated in the ways of love.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Blackline Interviews MISERY CITY writer K.I. Zachopoulos
Give us a little bit of background about yourself. Previous accomplishments in comics and elsewhere, aspirations, short annecdotes.
I was born in Greece but I tried to make myself familiar with the culture and tradition of other countries. My studies are on the field of social anthropology, which science really gave me the opportunity to broaden my horizons and give a second chance on every aspect of everyday life. Beeing a good observant, also means that you possibly can be a good story gatherer and probably an adequate story teller. I started as a writer of short stories and I managed to publish my first novel "Mon Alix", by a really open-minded Greek publisher. During the long way of writing and correcting, I also started to write some scenarios for short comic stories. This moment, except for Misery City, I work on my second book. I would be very happy if in the future, my books, could be also published abroad.
I wrote scenarios for horror, action, erotic, social stories and so on. Some of them were published, in magazines and one(Mr. Universe) as a one-shot comic book. A lot of them, ofcourse, never saw the light and they still lurk in the shadowy drawers of my library room.
How did you and Vassilis Gogtzilas get together to make Misery City?
Many years ago, I saw one story that he published in Greece and I was amazed by the quality of his lines and his non-mainstream style. At once, I tried to find him and I gave him some stories of mine. Gradually we started working on many projects. Misery City was one of them. It is a piece of work that has a long history for the two of us. The first material and raw ideas had to grow ripe and give a fruit(Hehe!) of good aesthetic, that during the long procedure of making, Ιt would be for us a whole new world to explore.
What was your creative relationship like with Vassilis working on Misery City?
What do you love most about writing, comics or otherwise?
Who or what are your writing influences?
Are you working on anything else at the moment?
What did you get out of writing Misery City that you didn't have before?
What's your writing process like?
Did Vassilis's unique art style affect your writing, or was it independent of the art?
Which characters or plot points did you create?
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Why do you think your writing fits the Misery City story?
Finally is there anything coming up in further Misery City stories, or other projects you want people to know about?
regards
kostas
Read the interview in Blackline Comics internet site
Mon Alix reviewed by Athens Voice
Check Athens Voice