GOOD-BYE TO Y: PIA GUERRA

[MattBrady]

by Zack Smith

Our celebration of the final issue of Y: The Last Man continues today. Click here and here for our interview with writer and co-creator Brian K. Vaughan.

Pia Guerra was virtually unknown as an artist before Y’s release…but that quickly changed. Her work on the book, with its realistic designs, fast-paced action and expressive faces, defined the look of the “Unmanned World,” and brought her to wide acclaim from both fans and pros.

We caught up with Guerra literally as she was penciling the final pages of Y: The Last Man #60. Over the course of our talk, Guerra revealed how the book affected her as an artist and a person, the research required to bring Yorick’s world to life, and which cast member was based on a Gray’s Anatomy star.

Warning: As with our Brian K. Vaughan interviews, this discusses elements of Y’s final issues, so watch out for SPOILERS ahead.

Newsarama: Pia, what were you doing as an artist prior to working on Y?

Pia Guerra: Mostly independent comics but also spot illustration work for White Wolf and storyboards for commercials, whatever I could find to pay the rent. Just before Y came along I was penciling an issue of Heroes Anonymous for Bongo, and an independent super hero book called Apex that I don’t believe was published.

NRAMA: How did you come to be involved with the series?

PG: I met Heidi MacDonald in San Diego a few years before, and I started sending her samples. I tried out for a few Vertigo titles without any luck, and then Y came along. Brian apparently saw my Starman samples over at the DC offices and went, “Get this guy!” Heidi sent his proposal over to me, I loved it, sent in some sample pages, and we got a go-ahead a few months after that. Yay!

NRAMA: What appealed to you about the project?

PG: I think what impressed me most (was) there wasn’t an overt agenda involved. At the heart of the story is a guy, his monkey, his girl, all in a messed-up world. Often, you’ll run across last-man-on-Earth stories that are either sex farces or feminist treatises decrying how much better the world would be if women ran things.

Both are played out to death and not even remotely realistic or interesting, whereas Brian’s story primarily focused on the personal experience of such a scenario, the emotions, the harsh realities and even the humor. I was really drawn to that. It was like a classic disaster flick, and I was practically raised on those thanks to my mom’s obsession with the Towering Inferno and Airport series of films.

Plus, after talking with Brian, I learned we were both crazy Buffy fans, we loved that form of big, funny, often gut-wrenching storytelling with nail-biter cliffhangers, and here was a chance to do something like that.

NRAMA: Getting into the individual characters, did you have any particular inspirations you drew from in your designs?

PG: A few of the characters were modeled after real people, but others like Yorick and 355 simply presented themselves. I drew them and there they were as if they always existed.

Mann was modeled after Sandra Oh (or at least as close as I could get without getting sued). I had seen Last Night not long before, and loved her in that. Ciba was based on my sister Vicky. When we were kids she saw Space Camp and became obsessed with becoming an astronaut. She wrote to NASA and they sent her a box full of brochures and information books and posters, it was nuts. It only seemed appropriate that she got to be one in the book.

Natalya was based on my mom, who was on the Finnish national biathlon team in the 60s. Sonia was modeled after our friend Joanne, Margo after Steve Rolston’s girlfriend Sabina Ex Machina, and the reporter in Australia, “one of Amanpour’s girls,” after friend of the family Allison Snowden.

I was more reluctant to base characters on people I knew after one inadvertently resembled my landlady. At first, I didn’t think she’d mind, so I left it. And then her character got shot in the next issue. I’m still worried to this day that she’ll find out.

And then of course there’s Charlie, my cat. He’s who I think about when I draw Ampersand. There’s a surprising resemblance, actually.

NRAMA: Which character was the easiest to draw, and was the hardest? Did you have any favorites, or any that you wished you had a chance to draw more often?

PG: Ampersand was easiest. The hardest was Mann. Favorite was 355. The one I wished I could draw more of was 711 (from “Safeword”). She was like a nearly extinct tiger personified, there was a panel where she’s close to Yorick’s ear, and she’s staring out into the dark and her eyes were steady and ferocious and tired. I remember drawing that and thinking “Christ that nailed it, that energy, it’s all right there.” Felt very satisfying.

NRAMA: Given that you had to visualize a catastrophe-ridden Earth and then depict the next five years, what were some of the challenges you faced as an artist?

PG: The biggest challenge was to make it look as real as possible. Disaster movies are after all, only as good as their ability to suspend disbelief, and in the case of Y, that involved a lot of research.

If a scene was set in the White House or the Washington Monument, then it had to look like those places. There was no cheating like you sometimes get to do on other books. The fight scenes can’t be over the top, the “acting” of the characters can’t be too big. And then you have to be careful your reference isn’t too new. Clothes and cars or technology can’t go much beyond the summer of 2002. Little details like that can add up to whether or not a reader buys it.

And then, after hours of trying to find pictures of someplace like the grand staircase in the Palace D’Elysee without much success, what happens? A day after you send out pages, you turn on the TV and see Day of the Jackal playing and a perfect shot of that staircase that you could have just snapped straight off the screen with the digital camera sitting a few feet away.

That happened so often throughout the series: “Oh look, an issue of National Geographic highlighting that obscure neighborhood you drew last month.” That hurt.

NRAMA: Did you ever travel to some of the countries you had to illustrate for particular arcs? What type of research did you have to do for particular storylines?

PG: The only place I actively went to was Paris. A few years back Ian [Boothby, Guerra’s husband and Bongo Comics writer] and I were invited to a wonderful convention in northern Spain, and we allowed ourselves an extra week after the show to check out Barcelona and London.

Paris was right there, and I knew at the end of the series there would be a pivotal scene taking place at the Arc de Triomphe, so we put that on our itinerary. We spent the day in town, and I took hundreds of pictures. I didn’t know there was going to be so much of the last arc taking place in that city at the time, or I would have spent a few more days there to get more reference. Though that may not have been a good idea, since our brief visit ended up being so frustrating. Not the friendliest city, Paris.

For the rest, Google image search and Google Earth were more than helpful.

NRAMA: What in Brian’s scripts played to your strengths as an artist? What were the most challenging things to pull off?

PG: Brian is an incredibly generous writer in how he leaves a lot of panel description out. Some artists work well with a lot of direction but I prefer the bare bones. It’s less constricting, and I feel like I’m participating in the storytelling more when a writer trusts me to dress a scene or direct the action in a way that I think best fits the story.

For my part, I do my best not to upstage. It’s all about the story and we both go in knowing that. The challenges, of course, are the “talking head” scenes. Brian is always apologizing for those, and I don’t mind it too much, (but) it’s a little harder to make those scenes dynamic but I manage. I’m the ADD kid sometimes. I want to run around the yard with my ninjas and spaceships, and Brian wants to stay in his room and do homework. It’s very Bart and Lisa, now that I think about it.

NRAMA: Was there ever a moment reading a script where you were surprised and shocked by a plot point? Did you ever find yourself yelling at Brian, “How could you kill (XXXX)?”

PG: All the time, and especially with 355. Brian had said earlier he was on the fence about killing her off, and I really loved her character so I was always making these cases for her survival, like maybe he could write something Spartan-esque where it looks to Yorick like she died, but when she lives she stays away so Yorick can walk on his own…still pretty heart-rending, but no. And in the end it was still right. It made for a better story.

NRAMA: When you’re dealing with some of the more graphically apocalyptic elements of the storylines, such as the immediate effects of the plague or Yorick’s flashback to escaping his apartment in “Safeword,” did you ever find yourself having nightmares? I ask only because…well, I did, a couple of times.

PG: Good god yeah. The first couple of years, it happened quite often, and there would be times I would just be in a huge funk from working on more graphic scenes. You can’t help but go there; it’s the disaster movie thing again, letting our imagination run wild with what we would do in such a situation.

Maybe it’s also compounded with growing up under a nuclear threat. In the back of my mind, there’s this place that’s always prepared, waiting for a siren, plotting survival routes, packing a kit, devising ways to compete for resources. Can’t help it.

NRAMA: Speaking of “Safeword,” that arc featured more surreal, fantastic material than was typical for the series. What was it like doing that, and working on some of Yorick’s dreams and fantasies?

PG: Loved it. The page where Yorick passes out, 17 panels arranged in a visual haiku, that blew my mind and it was so much fun to work on. The whole arc was a fantastic break from format.

NRAMA: If you found yourself in the unmanned world, how do you think you would handle yourself?

PG: Well I was a Girl Guide and was raised by a very resourceful Finnish mother, so I think I’m pretty self-reliant. I can knit, crochet and sew, cook, hammer, communicate, delegate.

It’s been said the best way to survive disasters isn’t to hole up by yourself in a woodland cave wearing cammo, but to find a community in which you can contribute to the protection and survival of one another. I’d hook up with a bunch of like-minded types and start looking for ways to make such a community work.

NRAMA: What’s it been like, drawing the last pages of the last issue? Has the end really sunk in for you yet?

PG: Only just. It helped that the last issue packed such an emotional punch. There wasn’t any sudden finality involved, like boom, it’s over, go home. Instead, it’s a well-paced resolution, all ends tied up with a beautiful denouement.

It was like falling off a building with all the screaming and fear and landing on a massive fluffy pillow. Strange analogy, I know, but then the whole run has been overwhelming. I’m sure the real freak-outs won’t hit for another week or so.

NRAMA: What are you working on next? What are some of the types of stories you’d like to work on, and who are some creators you’d like to collaborate with?

PG: There is something really fun in the works, but no announcements until it’s all finalized. I’ve got my fingers crossed. In the meantime, there’s a neat short story lined up with Leah Moore that I’ll be illustrating. I’d also like to develop some of my own projects. Whatever comes next, my main priority is that it should be fun.

NRAMA: Looking back, how has Y changed your life? What’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to you as a result of drawing the book?

PG: How to answer that? I’ve met so many amazing people, experienced wonderful things, traveled to places I’d never thought I’d see, all because of this book. I think one of the nicest was finding out “Safeword” made Joss Whedon cry, the guy who made me bawl with his work I can’t even count how many times. That was so great.

NRAMA: Any words to the fans?

PG: THANK YOU! Seriously. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without you. Thank you.

Next on Y Week: It’s a special bonus round with Brian K. Vaughan as he talks Logan, Ex Machina and more. Then, José Marzan, Jr. talks about what it was like to ink all 60 issues of Y.

[Grievous]

Best of luck to her in her carrer and life,

I met her in Dublin last year and she drew me a lovely Lex luthor picture which i cherish,

Y the last man is great work for her to be part of,

kudos

[GCarbone]

Brian and Pia

Thanks for a great series.

G

[Driftwood]

Congrats to you and Brian, Pia. You've done a fantastic job on a fantastic series.

[longoc]

Just read the last issue. Y was what got me into comics when my friend let me borrow the first three trades. Thanks!

[Rockin' Rich]

Why are these interviews always a matter of "catching up with" someone?

I'd like to see that cliche, along with "attached to" and "art chores" retired, permanently.

Thank you.

This message has been brought to you by the Cranky Word Police.

[OM]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Rich

Why are these interviews always a matter of "catching up with" someone?

I'd like to see that cliche, along with "attached to" and "art chores" retired, permanently.

Thank you.

This message has been brought to you by the Cranky Word Police.

...Yawn.

...Ok, now that the Anal-Retentive trolling has been dealt with, I'd love to "catching up with" something about Pia's "art chores" that explains why she was one of the two best artists in the business that, because she was "attached to" Y:TLM is why the book succeeded beyong expectations: the sheer *realism* of her style. Only one other artist I can name right off has the same level of realistic detail to his style, and had Pia for some reason been unable to do the book, clearly only Steve Dillon could have provided the same quality *and* style Y required.

Oh, and ending a snotty message with "Thank you" or "Cheers!" is also cliche

[th1nk]

Just read the issue. I had a tear for Ampersand. And the last panel was 'effin amazing.

(Pia, Ian. If you somehow read this, Hi from Lloyd [the guy from the student doc last year])

brackets, lol

[PhoenixFacto]

Thank you Pia for all the heart wrench and fantastic moments of Y. issue 60 was fantastic and brought tears to my eyes at several points. I can't wait to see where your headed next.

[pta391]

With tears in my eyes having just finished the last issue, I say thanks to Pia and Brian. I have learned much during this series, and have taken many steps with Yorick, including losing my first love. I would not say I have finished the transition from Boy to Man yet, but I agree, that it takes that heartbreak to really make that transformation. Best wishes to all, creators and readers alike!

[OM]

...I've also just read the last issue. Very poetic, poignant ending to a long run that answers as many questions as it left unanswered. And if you read between the lines, there's a hint as to which of the two causes was actually determined to be the cause of the "Great Departure".

...And the flashbacks also betray one other thing about Y: even if the series has ended, there's no reason that Brian and Pia can't do the occasional one-shot showing us some of the events that occurred between issue gaps. No doubt there's a few Alter stories to be told, and that whole Daughters of the Amazon mess deserves at least a one-shot.

Bottom Line: If Brian and Pia ask why we'd want to see more of Yorick's world, just hold up all sixty issues and say "Y not?"

[Reagunn]

Y was one of those books, like Preacher, where any other artist, regardless of talent, wouldn't have worked.
In this age of the mighty writer, artists who aren't named Jim Lee tend to be forgotten.
Pia doesn't get enough credit for what is the best, consistent and integrative work by an illustrator in this decade.

[bayboywonder]

Thank you Pia and Thank you BKV -- I too, just read the last issue and I'm not ashamed to say I was pretty much sobbing like a little kid by the end. That last Ampersand scene hit me square in the gut. Thank you both for this 5 year journey, we are lucky to have been able to take it.

[JaredRules]

Ampersand

[Kiryu]

The last issue of Y was just so amazing and depressing and hopefully. Ampersand's final scenes shattered my soul.

[rwe1138]

I cannot envision any other artist working on this title. Thanx for everything, Pia.

[OM]

Originally Posted by JaredRules

Ampersand

...Yeah, but thing about it - what's the average lifespan of a capuchin? Lessee what Wikipedia says:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Adult male capuchins rarely take part in caring for the young. Within four years for females and eight years for males, juveniles become fully mature. In captivity, individuals have reached an age of 45 years, although life expectancy in nature is only 15 to 25 years.

...Ok, so since this is a science-based article that hasn't been raped by some brit schoolpunk - the genre-based articles are seriously plagued by that, as the Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost articles currently suffer from - that means that Ampersand, despite all the adventures, lived a *LOT* longer than the average capuchin.

And, from what we can see, Humanity was well-served by that longevity.

[mpdfuzz]

I have never, and still haven't, cried due to reading a comic book..... but damn if I didn't come close reading this.

This issue should be referenced in Websters for the word poignant.

Beautiful, bittersweet ending, happy, sad, pleasing all rolled into one.

Thank you so much for a wonderful series.

[Matticus]

Thanks to Guerra and Vaughn for Ampersand's final moments being ones of dignity and respect. Thank you for it not being a panel or two like the character wasn't important and moving on to something else. That scene was very touching, as was Yorick's "Yeah, me too" that was delivered to Yorick the 17th on the page previous to this scene.

Matt Strawbridge

[StevieCool]

I'm glad the 'Rama post "Has a comic ever made you cry" came out before this issue.

Really glad I'm not the only red-eyed person after reading this issue.

[BamaRainbow]

Originally Posted by rwe1138

I cannot envision any other artist working on this title. Thanx for everything, Pia.

No disrespect to Pia, but it's very easy to envision another artist working on the book.
Issues 16 & 17 were drawn by Paul Chadwick. Issues 21-23 were drawn by Goran Parlov. Issues 32-35, 40-42, 47, 48, 53 & 54 were drawn by Goran Sudžuka.
Pia's work was superb but those who stepped up and filled in for her shouldn't be forgotten. And I am looking forward to Pia's next work wherever it may be.

[razorwing77]

Originally Posted by Kiryu

The last issue of Y was just so amazing and depressing and hopefully. Ampersand's final scenes shattered my soul.

I agree. I won't forget those few pages for a long time.

[fluke182]

As many have said, this is probably the most singular run any artist has done on a book besides Steve Dillon on Preacher. You just couldn't do that last issue, or most any of the other issues, without Pia.

Loved issue 60, loved the series. Thank you for everything Pia.

[Ralph Mathieu]

Beautiful series, beautiful ending. Thanks to everyone who worked on Y.

[Ravengregory]

One of the best series ever!

Thanks Brian and Pia.