BECKY CLOONAN ON MINIS

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

Set to debut at New York City's MoCCA convention this June 23rd & 24, Becky Cloonan's Minis marks a look at the little seen early days of the formidable cartoonist of such series as DEMO, East Coast Rising and American Vergin.

Becky Cloonan has quickly rose in comics circles from her 2003 debut with Brian Wood on Channel Zero: Jennie One to work for both the biggest superhero comics publisher (DC Comics) and the biggest American manga publisher (TOKYOPOP). With works with these publishers might seem at odds with one another, Cloonan's ability to work in both worlds symbolizes a new breed of cartoonists whose childhood was steeped in both traditional American superhero comics and imported manga from Asia.

Collecting her work from 2000 – 2002, Minis provides a unique glimpse at the raw talent and overflowing ideas of a then-would be cartoonist who was just coming to terms with her influences and her on unique direction in comics. This graphic novel collects pin-ups and short stories that appeared in various minicomics and zines released over the course of these two years, and is a treat fro both the fans of Cloonan's work and those new to her work who enjoy personal and occasionally visceral stories told from a future comics superstar.

Newsarama: First off Becky, can you give us a rundown of what exactly Minis will contain, for the Cloonan completists out there?

Becky Cloonan: As the title suggests it's a collection of old mini comics I had made during 2000 to 2002, mostly before I started working professionally as a comic artist. I couldn't include all of my mini comics from the time because the book would have tipped the scales at 300 pages! I pared it down to 160, which includes several comics and a handful of illustrations from the time. It's not all of them, but I think it's a good look at what I did before I broke into the comic industry.

"Breaking into" the industry always sounds to me like a felony or something, like breaking and entering! Hah, but I guess that's what I did. Thank goodness nobody caught me!

NRAMA: Speaking of your criminal comic deeds "breaking in", can you pin down for us the specific moment where you realized you were "in", and what your feelings were?

BC:: I guess it was summer of 2005 when I quit doing commercial illustration to pay rent and started making a living off making comic books! Tokyopop had picked up East Coast Rising and I had just been hired on as artist for Vertigo's American Virgin. It was a little weird for my hobby to be turned into my career, but that's what I was trying to do in the first place, but I don't think I had much feeling change except "I'm so happy that I never have to storyboard a commercial again!" I guess that's when I realized I was a professional artist too, that I was doing it for a living.

NRAMA: Like you said, this book covers your early years before your first professional comics work, 2003's Channel Zero: Jennie One with Brian Wood. Foremost in those years was the series of 1 page comics you did called Social Unrest. Looking back, can you tell us what you were aiming for with those pieces?

BC: When I was growing up I read a lot of Uncanny X-Men, Silver Surfer and manga like Ranma ½, so naturally I was always trying for these epic-length 30-volume stories. A friend and I even ground out a 400 page inter-galactic gladiatorial comic one high school summer (not included in Minis). When I went to college in 1998 I started to re-think how I approached comics, since at that point I hadn't actually finished anything I started. I decided (with all the logic I had at the time) that the only way I would ever finish a comic was if it was one page long, thus was born Social Unrest. I'd usually draw them in my humanities classes and they never made too much sense, but I was finishing comics and that was what I was really proud of.

I was also experimenting with composition and layouts and balancing black and white on these pages, but that only made the comic make less and less sense! After a while there was no real need to continue it after I graduated to five page comics and the Social Unrest story just pittered out. Pittering out is kind of depressing sounding, but that's what happened. I always meant to give this comic some closure but it just sort of stopped. No "final episode" or "season finale" or anything. I just stopped making it, I guess you could say I outgrew it.

NRAMA: So no movie adaptation? Guess not…

The book sports a painted cover, which is a departure from what most people expect from you. Can you tell us about the cover?

BC: Well, I wanted all of the art from the book to be from the time the comics were made (2000-2002) and for the most part I stuck to that. In 2000 I used to have a lot more free time than I do now, and so I used to paint a lot more than I do now! It's a little sad that I haven't painted in almost a year! When I had a full time job I wanted to do art in my free time but now that I do art as my full time job I do other things in my free time? Which is nice also, but one day I hope to get back to paints. I would love that actually.

The cover was done with acrylic and varnish on some type of cardboard, and it was all scratched and dusty when I took it out of the portfolio. I never took very good care of my art I guess, so the cover has this weird look to it. I picked this particular image as because it was fairly interesting to look at and had a strong design and striking image to it. It's also pretty dark, which represents my soul at the time! [laughs]

As for the back cover, it's made of two different paintings: one in acrylic and one in watercolor, the latter I did as a still-life tutorial for a friend to help him build his portfolio for college and the former was the view from the back window of our old apartment in Queens.

NRAMA: You're self-publishing this book, in a time where you could've easily gotten another publisher to jump at the chance to work with you. Why'd you go the self-publishing route for this?

BC:You make finding a publisher sound easy, but these comics aren't exactly my best work! [laughs]

NRAMA: Well not easy for everyone, but you're Becky Cloonan. It says so right here in my notes. [laughs]

BC: [laughs] Since all of my mini comics were self-published I figured I would just self publish this one too, it only makes sense. Plus I love having absolute control over everything so I can nit-pick all the details. It's a lot of money upfront though, so I only printed a thousand copies to start, but I'm gonna work it and try to sell out by SPX! I was actually thinking of getting distribution for the second printing or something, I don't know! Honestly I'm too busy to keep this up for long and I didn't really think this through all the way, I just kinda jumped into it! "I should publish a graphic novel." Yeah.

NRAMA: Minis is scheduled to debut at MoCCA. Out of all the cons and places you could do it, why is MoCCA special to you?

BC: Mocca is on my birthday! It's like a double-whammy! Plus it kicks off summer convention season for me, so I figure why not start at the top? I'm sharing a table with Vanessa Satone and Vasilis Lolos so it will be a lot of fun.

NRAMA: For people that can't make it to MoCCA, how can they go about getting a copy?

BC: I'll be at half a dozen conventions this year, and after that I'll put it for sale on my website. I'd also like to get it into some comic stores, we'll see! I might even find a publisher! [laughs]

I wasn't sure what the interest would be in a book like this, I just felt it was something I'd like to see done so I did it. When I make this comic available online I'll definitely be posting about it, so anyone who wants one should be able to find one.

NRAMA: Will you be doing appearances at any other conventions, store signings or the like?

BC: I was just at at Jim Hanley's Universe on June 6th for a signing with Rob G, Rick Spears, Vasilis Lolos and Brandon Graham! After that is Mocca, SDCC, TCAF in Toronto and probably SPX if I get a table. That's about all the conventions I can handle in one year. I keep telling myself I'm going to cut down on them because all the travel stresses me out, but it never works.

NRAMA: If you'll let me be a fan for a moment.. you've done some amazing illustrations for band fliers over the years. Any chance we might see a collection of that someday?

BC: You know I thought about it as I rummaged through all of my old junk! I actually started an archive of the high-resolution files on my computer for future use, so... yeah! I thought of putting it in with Minis but it was too distraction from the rest of the comics. It's definitely on my mind, just not anytime this year!

NRAMA: From the look of it you're really busy, doing the monthly American Virgin at Vertigo and doing the second volume of East Coast
Rising at TOKYOPOP. But if every Newsarama.com reader buys a copy of
Minis this summer, could we look forward to a poster book in 2008?

BC: Every reader? Hey, you guys wanna help him out on that? [laughs]

If all of you buy a copy then I'll be making that poster book come 2008! Hell, the flyers probably read easier than all of my old comics anyway! And Chris, as far as workload is concerned, maybe you can come over and help me scan! I'll pay you in Fed Ex boxes, for some reason I have a million of them.

NRAMA: And I've heard talk of a special comic for San Diego Comic-Con this year. I talked with Rafael Grampa previously, and we've seen word on various blogs. Can you give us a run-down of what to expect?

BC: Oh yeah! I'm really excited about this. Every year I try and make a new mini comic! Last year Vasilis Lolos and I collaborated on Nebuli, and this year we are teaming up with Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba and Rafael Grampa on s a 40 page "biographical" comic! Since we are all from different countries, we decided to make it silent so that it doesn't have to be translated; there are no words so it can be enjoyed by anyone. Even the title, 5, isn't a word- it's a number.

I'm very excited to work with all of them, Vasilis and I have collaborated before but I've been waiting for a long time to work with Fabio and Gabriel! Grampa I've only been introduced to this year and he's amazing. We are sharing a booth at San Diego, it will probably explode by the end of the convention from all the awesome comic power we've been cooking up! We'll be at the Image compound so we won't be too hard to find: The girl, the Greek and the Guris! I hope to see you all there!

[jubilee]

Becky Cloonan is awesome, ill pick this up

[johnchrist]

Becky Cloonan is hands down my absolute favorite artist. Heh, I sound exactly like the fan-boy I appeared to be when meeting her at the APE 2006 and I've never acted that way with any celebrity I've met.
I guess the main reason for that is because it was her stuff (along with Brian Wood) that not only got me to read comics again but also inspired me to start writing and drawing them (for which she owes all of you an apology).
As I learned from reading her blog, "Comics is Life!"

[skeletorjr]

Horror fans out there should pick up the Dracula adaptation she did with Gary Reed for Puffin books, it's beautiful. Very Paul Pope-ish. Not to say that she doesn' t have a style uniquely her own, but it's reminiscent of Pope's work.

[JLApe]

A comic with a 3 Inches of Blood reference! I'm all over it. METAL!
More importantly, a girl who loves comics and metal...Miss Cloonan, you have a new stalker -- I mean fan.

[Joe Willy]

It would be worth the trip to San Diego just to buy "5."