JIM OTTAVIANI ON LEVITATION AND WIRE MOTHERS

[MattBrady]

In July, the market is being flooded with original graphic novels about science.

Well – sorta.

Acclaimed creator James Ottaviani will be releasing both Wire Mothers and Levitation that month, published by his own G.T. Labs. One recounts one scientist’s attempts to study and quantify love, while the other…well, let’s just say Penn & Teller would be proud of the skewering magic takes in the name of science.

We spoke with Ottaviani for more about the volumes.

Newsarama: Jim, while we could give the soundbite-y version of the two graphic novels you have coming out in July, that would probably be a disservice, so to start off, would you mind giving our readers the quick pitch for each?

Jim Ottaviani: (laughs) Oh, man…this is hard! Well, for Wire Mothers, the pitch is that there was a time not so terribly long ago when scientists didn’t think that love was real– you know, “We’ve got the word, but is there any such thing as love? Isn’t it just attachment? Isn’t it just the desire for food, warmth…whatever it is?”

And one guy, Harry Harlow, said, “You know, I’m dead certain that love exists, and that it matters. And I’m going to set about to prove this, because all the advice that scientists are giving to parents these days – don’t hug your kids, don’t kiss your kids, be very cool and distant – I think that’s nonsense.” And he was able to prove that love exists – not only is it learned, but that it matters to all sorts of creatures, from monkeys on up to humans.

Levitation is best described by a quote from Scientific American in 1897 that I put in the front of the book, which explains how there’s been very little written explaining stage illusions – how these illusions bring together performance, psychology and science to achieve their effects. That’s the book – it’s the story of one of the most famous illusions ever performed, and the science and evolution of that illusion.

NRAMA: Regarding Wire Mothers – how’d you first become aware of Harlow’s work, and why did you decide to tell this story?

JO: I don’t know! (laughs) I remember I read a book on Harlow, but I don’t know why I was reading it – my background is not in psychology or biology. But at some point I probably saw the picture of a baby rhesus monkey clinging to a horrific-looking wire mother-surrogate, and thought, “What a tremendous visual that is! There must be a story sitting behind that experiment!” And as it turned out, there was.

NRAMA: I was really surprised there hadn’t been a movie on Harlow before, because he comes off as such a complex character in the book…

JO: You’re right — I’m surprised too, but then again I’ve been surprised that there haven’t been any movies about a number of things – people ask me all the time about the Hedy Lamarr story in my first book, Dignifying Science – fabulously beautiful woman escapes war-torn Europe and an arms dealer husband and eventually makes intercontinental ballistic missile guidance possible. And she’s a major movie star! I don’t know if that’s what audiences are up for in a movie…kidding!…but I know it’s something I want to see!



And I guess the same is true of Harlow – this scientist in cold, emotionally distant times, what we think of as the 1950s. This was when the American façade was the perfect home life, the nuclear family, all this business. He has troubles with his personal life, and yet, through his work life, demonstrates one of the most important mysteries about life as a whole: Is there such a thing as love?

NRAMA: How long did it take you to do all the research? There are a ton of great books and articles in the bibliography…

JO: How long…gosh. I came up with the whole idea of doing this series on scientists when I was working on my Niels Bohr book, Suspended Language, in 2002. And as things have come up, I’ve found new material to work on…so it’s probably been a couple of years on a steady diet of Harry Harlow and behaviorism. In a practical sense, these books take years to gestate, research, write and get out to the public once I’ve been able to hook up with an artist who’s good for the story.

NRAMA: How’d you find Dylan for the art? She has a style that really reminds me of Steve Lieber…

JO: It’s funny you should say that, because she’s based in the Portland area, where Steve also lives…I’d seen her webcomics and her work in the Flight anthology, along with her illustration work. She’s adopted a lush, full-black style for the book, and it’s not a lot like the web work she’s done. She chose a slightly different style, and I think your comparison to Steve is a good one. I didn’t ask her to do it in any particular style, so when the first sketches showed up, I hadn’t art-directed them in any way – and they were great! She chose wisely (laughs). She was always spot-on with the story, and spot-on with the mood. I was extremely pleased when she said yes to the project, and I’m extremely pleased with the finished work.



NRAMA: Janine, who worked on the second book, also did a great job.

JO: Yeah, and it’s a completely different style and story. It’s a turn-of-the-century tale, done in a very classic illustration style, because you want it to have this elegant look with the mysticism, and the velvet drapery, and this sense of magic in the background. She was a natural choice for Levitation. You’ve read through the book, and you see we shift styles for a few pages –

NRAMA: I was surprised it was the same artist.

JO: It is! She can cartoon with the best of them. She can do it. It’s easier for her, actually, to paint than it is for her to cartoon, though. She’s equally adept at both, but her natural style is this very classic, painterly type of look. Working with her was – I’ve been lucky, my whole career, to work with fabulous artists who place the needs of the story first– so we’re on the same page, no pun intended, and they understand what I want and then add a great deal to it, making it both what I thought I wanted and then making it something even better. Janine is no exception.

NRAMA: You’ve been very consistent with these books, putting them out on a regular basis while also keeping up with your day job. What kind of schedule do you keep?



JO: (laughs) I don’t sleep as much as I’d like to, or read as much as I’d like to, or anything like that! I’m only now starting to watch Season Two of Battlestar Galactica, you know? As sort of a reward if I get enough pages done in an evening... I have a stack of books I’d like to read for pleasure that’s a mile high, and I’m sitting in my office right now with the research for my next few graphic novels that’s also a mile high! So…I don’t know, don’t feel sorry for me; I like making comics, so it’s not really much of a burden! Especially the reading and research part. I guess I learned good study habits at some point! There’s an Italian review of Suspended in Language, and I ran it through BabelFish…I love this line that came through in the translation: “When others sleep writes.” That sums it up. It’s almost poetry. Makes it seem so romantic, you know?

NRAMA: What made you try to do these two books at once?

JO: It was actually a matter of scheduling – I finished the script for Levitation in 2005, but Janine’s schedule didn’t clear up until this past year. I didn’t want to shift horses in midstream – apologies for that awful metaphor – and I think she was worth the wait. The original plan was for that book to come out in 2006, and Wire Mothers to come out in 2007, but it’s sort of a happy accident that they both came out at the same time.

It takes me a long time to understand the story well enough that I can find the right artist for it. Even if I could afford to hire any artist I could dream of…well, I can’t! But even if I could, any given artist isn’t always the best choice for a particular story, and I don’t always know who is the best choice until I’ve done the book, let it cool for a while, and gone back to it. I always draw the stories myself in a very crude form, to have an idea of what it should look like, and it’s only after I see my awful, awful scratchings that I know what or who to look for. In these cases, Dylan was my first choice, and Janine was my first choice, so I got very lucky.



NRAMA: Have your books ever found their way into schools? They seem like they would be great educational texts.

JO: They have – I just sent a large shipment of Suspended in Language to a high school. They’ll be using it in their class in the coming year. The books are used from grade schools on to college-level classes, but I have to say I don’t consider them primary texts. When I speak at classes – I was at an engineering class at the University of Michigan just a few weeks ago – I explain that the main purpose of all the books that I’ve done, first and foremost, is to entertain. And a really close second is to at least expose readers who wouldn’t otherwise approach certain types of material, to these people I write about.

I’ll give you an example from my own life – Persepolis. That’s a story I would have been unlikely to encounter through the library, bookstores, or movies, or podcasts or whatever. It’s because I was personally interested in comics, in that form, that I read Persepolis. I learned a ton because of that book – a 14-year-old Iranian girl’s story. But that’s not something I would have encountered had it not been for comics. I hope I can do the same for other people with my books.

NRAMA: The impression I get from reading your books is similar to watching a film like Kinsey or A Beautiful Mind if it had actually been accurate…it makes me want to go out and recreate your research, find out more about your subjects.

JO: That’s a wonderful compliment, so thank you! Other than someone saying, “Hey, I’d like to give you a zillion dollars,” which has never happened, someone saying, “I looked at the references you worked from, and I looked up those books,” is the highest compliment to me. That means the story connected with you to an extent that you wanted to know more about the story, that you wanted to go out and learn more. So thanks!

NRAMA: You’re welcome! What’s next for you?

JO: Right now, I’m in the middle of three books for other people…It’s been quite a fall-winter-spring so far. I’ve got two books in progress, and I’m not sure whether the first one is being drawn yet. The two books are for First Second, and the first is a full biography of Richard Feynman, who you were introduced to in comics form Two-Fisted Science. This is a full-length graphic novel, like my recent books.

I’m working on another book about the famous trio of primate researchers – Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, and Biruté Galdikas. The script for Feynman is finished, and I’m 3/4 of the way finished with the primate researcher book. And after that, I’m going to the moon with a young adult book focused on the space race, ending with the Apollo 11 landing. The focus is not on the famous astronauts like Neal Armstrong, though – it’s about the people who don’t get to leave earth, the engineers, the people back home. It’s been a whole lot of fun to research. I just love it.

That’ll slow down the G.T. Labs output for a while – but since G.T. Labs basically just me anyway, most of the world won’t notice whose imprint is on the spine. But I’ll be back to my own imprint. There’s a lot of great stories out there with a science angle to them, and I want to get to them. There’s dozens I haven’t touched on yet. I’m going to be staying up too late for a long time!

[CitC]

I love well done science comics. Fallout by J.Ottaviani (and others) was really good, and Clan Apis (by Jay Hosler) are two really good examples.

[Jason Seaver]

Well, I'm on both of these. They look like great stories.

[Not From Around]

I have yet to have the chance to read any of these, but they always look very interesting!

[grayhulk76]

Just handed in my order for both of these 2 GNs, this week. I enjoyed Ottaviani's Bone Sharps very much and hope to do the same with these 2 works.

I enjoy how he has the sense to see the magic that can exist in stories that are biographies of actual historical characters, especialy in the science fields.

Kind of the Christopher Nolan of graphic novel storytelling, except these are more nonfiction graphic novel works, as opposed to fictional "graphic novels." A genre all of its own.

good stuff.