ANDI WATSON ON GLISTER

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

Glister's a peculiar girl, and she knows it.

Created by Eisner and Harvey-nominated cartoonist Andi Watson, Glister Butterworth debuts in her own monthly series from Image fittingly titled Glister this August. The young Ms. Butterworth is a magnet for the weird and unusual, attracting ghost writers back from the dead in her inaugural adventure. Subtitled "Glister and the Haunted Teapot', the first issue is about a ghost that Glister discovers in a very old tea-pot. The ghost is that of long dead novelist who is chained to the earth with the burning desire to finishing his one great novel. But it's easier said than done, as it's quite an epic novel and one that might lead Glister chained to be his secretary for life.

Andi Watson is a familiar face in the comics scene, best-known for his work on Breakfast After Noon, Slow News Day and the recent Love Fights. Watson rose to prominence back in 1995 with the long-running monthly series Skeleton Key from SLG Publishing. After the completion of Skeleton Key, Watson developed a more European style of illustration while still keeping the manga-esque pacing of his previous work, as first seen in Geisha and in full effect with the recent Breakfast Afternoon. Glister is an idea that has been with Watson for sometime, building up in his sketchbooks while he's worked on other projects, as an archive of what Watson describes as " all kinds of stories, the fantastic and genre-inflected ones" that he's been wanting to tell for some time.

Newsarama:: Glister is named after your lead character, Glister Butterworth. What makes Glister … 'Glister'?

Andi Watson: The name implies a magical sparkle and Glister is a magnet for odd occurrences. There're all kinds of reasons why this might be, her getting out of the bed on the wrong side, clocks striking thirteen when she was born, her sneezing in a mirror showroom when she was three and breaking every single looking glass. There's no one cause, but lots of different ones.

NRAMA: Is Glister aware of the strange occurrences that surround her?

AW: Yes, but it's part of her everyday life so she doesn't view it as strange or unusual in any way.

NRAMA: In the first issue, Glister discovers an old tea pot containing a ghost of a long dead novelist. Can you tell us more about that?

AW:Yeah, she comes into possession of a tea pot and finds there's the ghost of the novelist Phillip Bulwark-Stratton living in there. He's a fusty Victorian type who's dismayed that there's a literary prize named after him for the worst ending to a novel. His reputation is tarnished, he's gone unread for decades and he's out to write his great unfinished novel, "Albert Buckle", to try and recoup his standing in the literary canon. He can't pick up a pen so enlists Glister as his ammenuensis. Being a polite person she agrees to help out but it's one of those Victorian doorstop novels that never seems to end as well as the lead character Albert Buckle suffering all kinds of trials. Bulwark-Stratton is kind of a mix of Henry James, Bulwer-Lytton, and Thomas Hardy. Anyway, Glister sees no end to the chore that's taking over her life and tries various ways of getting out of it. That's the crux of the haunted teapot, but there's also a twist at the end in true ghost story style.

NRAMA: You've sent along the a five page sampler of the first issue, and it struck me just how much fun you seem to be having here. Is this something you've been waiting to do for awhile?

AW: Yeah, I've tried working on a couple of other things, an OGN of the story I did for Nerve.com earlier this year, amongst others, and kept coming back to Glister. It's a sure sign that it's an itch worth scratching. I've been reading picture books, and children's books for five years, since my daughter was born...in fact longer than that because I was reading to her while she was still in the womb. I was reading Mr. Cool to the bump!

NRAMA: [laughs]

AW: So I've acquired a taste for this kind of thing, I really wanted to do an all-ages story again, something a bit more Skeleton Key-esque. A place where all my genre-ish ideas and fairy-tale inspired stories that have been lurking in the corners of my notebooks for a while will find a home. And also I've been re-appreciating children's book illustrators, Quentin Blake and the like, that's inspired me to find a new style, a different approach to drawing after I got a bit bogged-down during work on Little Star. I lost a bit of interest in using the brush and wanted a more immediate way to draw, that would keep the energy of my sketch books but still work as comics.

So, yeah, I would like to be working on Glister for a long time to come. It'll be great to give my kid something of mine she can read too, something that doesn't involve boring grown-ups [laughs]

NRAMA: As a special bonus, you're doing an all-new Skeleton Key story as a back-up. What's it like to revisit Tam and Kitsune?

AW: Good, y'know, the characters are so affable its a joy. I did a short Skeleton Key three-pager for the SLG anniversary book and had fun writing those guys. They're a great double act, triple act even if you include Mr. Raccoon.

NRAMA: And before the Skeleton Key fans jump us, what's the back-up story about?

AW: It involves Tamsin, Kitty, Mr. R. and...sumo wrestlers. What’s not to like?

NRAMA: Glister is advertised as a 64 pages and bi-monthly. Not to discount your output, but that's a lot for any cartoonist. What's your secret?

AW: Oh, it's a combination of my out-of-control mocha habit and "bullpen" of poorly paid Oompa-Loompa assistants.

Nah, the book is digest sized so the pages aren't as dense. If I was cranking out 14 panel, 4 tier pages like in Slow News Day then it would be a short cut to a nervous breakdown, as it is, four panel pages aren't quite as exhausting. It's a matter of getting into the groove and settling into two pages a day, no excuses. It's actually easier than doing 24 pages of Love Fights monthly. And I'm plain enjoying working this way and on these stories, which makes it feel even less like "work". I even get to throw in the occasional double page spread, which for me, feels like a decadent luxury.


NRAMA: Each issue will be digest-sized and self-contained. In our previous conversations you even used the term "satisfying chunk", something coined by Heidi MacDonald to refer to stories that are self-contained and have enough for a reader to be satisfied with it on its own. What led you to this conclusion, to do the stories in this format?

AW: Hmm, well, I guess "satisfying chunk" is all a matter of opinion. Three pages can be enough, or four hundred, it just depends on the type of story and how well it's told. So, tossing the "chunk" aside, I wanted to have enough space to tell at least one story/issue and it be dense enough to dip in and out, to be good value for the reader, yet still be out regularly. That's part of why the stories are self-contained, they're complete in and of themselves, yet they'll have a spine so will have a life beyond the Wednesday they first come out. It's a bit of an experiment to see if there's an audience for this format. There's no talk of collections because they'll be neat little books in and of themselves, self-contained but with Glister as the focus. An attractive object as well as a good read, a format designed to appeal to the direct market.

NRAMA: Are you doing any conventions or special appearances this year ?

AW: I'll be at the Birmingham International Comics show in the UK 13th-14th October. Also, I have the Clubbing book from Minx coming out in July. The Paris collection from SLG in August and a new digest sized edition of Slow News Day from the same publisher also in August.

[Zukiki]

Looks interesting...wonder what the cost will be =P
Deffinetly looking forward to the Paris paperback, as I missed that the first time around.

[ChrisArrant]

As it says on the cover, each issue will be $5.99.

[CitC]

I really like the look of this. I hope it does well.

[Jed Saxon]

I'm sooo looking forward to this. Andi Watson is awesome, be it Geisha (the first thing I read that was done by him), Slow News Day, Love Fights, Skeleton Key, Paris, Dumped, Little Star or Breakfast After Noon or the dozens of short stories. Heck, I even liked his Namor.
The only thing I didn't really like was Samurai Jam.

[EMeadow]

Its funny.

I love Andi Watson's stuff. Paris was great. Slow News Day was phenomenal. And anything he put out from Oni was just top notch material.

This on the other hand.......its just not speaking to me.

Different tastes for different folks I guess.

He'll no doubt have my money on his next project!

[Odjn Ouen]

Looks good I'm in.

[CitC]

I just re-read the article and I was impressed with the references to traditional children's literature artists. Kids are so open to new art styles - there is no one style that all kids are drawn to. This is diiferent than my experience with mainstream comic readers.

To me, there is a strong connection between children's books and all ages comics.