Talent Dialogue: Alex Grecian (Proof)

Proof has been one of our favorite new series since it first launched a couple of months back. Chronicling Big Foot's tenure as an agent of the F.B.I., it delights with its quirky knowledge and compelling cast of characters, and its stellar production puts it in league with some of the best. What once started as the topic of unassuming party conversation has since evolved into a meticulously considered universe and circumstance. There's a lot more substance to be found in this concept than one may initially consider, and Alex Grecian has certainly tapped in to the potential of the idea. He joins us now to cast a light on his hot new title and his thoughts behind its direction, as well as to share some insightful observations about comics in general. This one's a good read.

Tom Mattson (Newseed): Proof is off to a great start and, four issues in, seems to be well received and hinting at success. What’s the response been like from your perspective? Are things moving forward as you envisioned them?

Alex Grecian: The response we’re getting is extremely gratifying. Proof readers are really active all over the message boards, recommending the book to other readers. There’s been a lot of buzz, which is exciting. Retailers are slow to pick up on a new ongoing series by relative unknowns, but although our initial pre-orders were pretty much what we all expected them to be, our first issue ended up being the 24th highest-selling book for that month. I think the first three issues have sold out at the distributor level, so people are asking for the book and reordering it. There’s definitely a demand out there and we seem to be building steam as we roll along.

The trade release will help too probably. Everyone jumping aboard who missed out on the opening act.

We certainly hope so. Those first issues are hard to find now and we don’t want to leave anybody behind.

All of the ‘monsters’ that Proof and Ginger encounter throughout their adventures are ones people have actually claimed to have seen in real life, but whose existence has never been proven. Such creatures are also known as ‘cryptids.’ Why this emphasis, aside from the thrill of possibility? What is the series saying differently with this set-up than it would be if it were to include fabled or storybook monsters?

Well, Bill Willingham has fables pretty well covered.

Yes. He does.

The big deal for me is that Proof is a monster. It doesn’t make any sense to me to have him beat up other monsters every month. I think I’d run out of stories to tell after… Well, probably after the first month. How boring.

Proof’s really about the struggle for identity. He tries so hard to be as human as he can be, but he really wants to find other sasquatches so he can kind of relax. At this point, though, I don’t think he’d know how to be anything other than what he’s become.

By making sure his antagonists are other cryptids, we get to underscore Proof’s internal conflict. That also means that our book is set pretty much in the “real world,” which makes it much more challenging, but also a lot more fun to write. There are consequences to everything that you just don’t get as much of if there’s a lot of magic or science fiction involved. If somebody dies in Proof, there’s no way to bring him back. That makes things more exciting for me to write. If Proof were more fantasy-bound, it would be that much harder for me to keep it from being about the plot of the month, rather than character arcs.

What’s been the most exciting or surprising element so far this search for cryptids?

The biggest surprise for me is how many people really want to believe. It seems like almost everybody’s experienced something odd.

People become sophisticated about the world around them very quickly, though. I’m currently researching the Lewis and Clark expedition for an upcoming Proof story and the unsuccessful explorers who went out four years before Lewis and Clark were asked to find and bring back a unicorn from the Pacific Northwest.

These days, explorers would be looking for oil deposits, not unicorns. But they’d probably come back with stories about strange noises in the woods.

How much has that type of thing, and this research in general, changed your opinion of what we do or don’t know about the world out there?

The more I read about the science behind cryptozoology, the harder it is for me to think there’s room left in the American woodlands for a Bigfoot population. Of course, if there were a lot of sasquatches running around, Proof wouldn’t have such a hard time finding his family, so we wouldn’t have much of a book.

I’m pretty sure, though, that there are still things to discover. Every year, some new expedition finds small pockets of previously unknown animals. Our oceans are so woefully under-explored that there’s no reason to think that there aren’t krakens and maybe stranger things waiting for us out there.

The oceans terrify me. Strange that no one is exploiting that.

Well, believe it or not there is a plan in development to exploit your fear of oceans.

Do you struggle maintaining a balance between keeping the story character-driven and running wild with entertaining new ideas for cryptids to introduce?

I feel guilty every time I write a big block of pages that amount to a long conversation. If I had my way, though, every issue would be nothing but dialogue. Imagine if you could sit down with a 200-year-old Bigfoot and ask him anything…

Basically, though, Riley and I never wanted to do a “monster of the month” kind of book. For Proof to last as long as we want it to last, and for his character arc to be properly completed, I think readers need a strong group of characters they can really care about. So we absolutely want to keep people entertained, but every encounter with a monster has to change our characters or reveal more about them.

So really, you’re seeing the monsters as just a means of building the core characters, and having some fun along the way? And that’s where the emphasis will be – in developing a deep and relatable cast?

Oh, absolutely. Not that we want to produce a soap opera, but I’m not the kind of reader who picks up a comic book to see who Upper-Man is beating up this month. If I pick up a copy of Upper-Man, it’s because I like the cast of characters. I made up Upper-Man, if you couldn’t tell.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a good example, though, and one of the books I thought a lot about before pitching an ongoing series. I don’t much care who Spider-Man’s fighting, he’ll always win in the long run. But Bendis made me really care about the relationship between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. That’s a hard trick to pull off. I think that’s the key to a good series though.

The characters should always be the foundation of a series and your plots should be built on that foundation. If, as a writer, you can plug another character into your plot and have the outcome be the same, then you haven’t done your job well. Get back to who the characters are and see where that leads you.

So Proof and Ginger and Elvis and even the minor characters will have arcs and will grow and change as the series progresses. I’m sure they’ll surprise me. Watching the relationships between the three of them shift around is the most fun I’ve had on this series, so far.

How much can we expect the over-arching narrative of Proof’s search for his biological relatives pop up in each arc? Does this quietly linger in the background for a while, or will it often take center stage?

Kind of both. I’m writing Proof’s “origin story” right now and it’s going to fuel a lot of what happens in coming arcs, but Proof’s been around for a long time. Since the days when people thought there might be unicorns in the Pacific Northwest, as a matter of fact. We’re coming in near the end of his personal story. He’s been searching for a couple of centuries now and is largely jaded, but there’s that kernel of hope for him.

That’s what makes this series interesting for us to work on. It’s not infinite. There’s a reason that this point in time is important for Proof. There’s an end to this series and we’re working toward it. Proof will find the answers to his questions. He just may not like them.

Start as close to the end as you can, right? I imagine a lot of the fun for you comes in finding how new cryptids you come across can fit into the outline of where you see Proof going as a character.

Oh, yeah. Some of the cryptids show up when they do because of their importance in the larger picture. I’d have liked to get to the kraken much earlier than we’ll be able to, but we have to save that creature back because it’s instrumental in Proof’s evolution as a character and has a lot to do with the outcome of the entire series.

I really hate Scooby Doo plots. The gang runs into a mystery because their car stalls and they have to stay at the nearest convenient creepy motel. What are the odds? There needs to be something else going on to drive those things to happen.

Issue four kind of hints at why Nadine, the chupacabra, showed up when she did. There are definitely things going on behind the scenes for these characters. Not everyone is who or what you think he is and very little is random coincidence. There are reasons Proof encounters these things.

Between the ‘Pop-Up Video’-esque ‘Cryptoids,’ the bonus comic stories, and the articles covering the findings of real Big Foot researchers – Proof is a dense read and readers really get to invest some solid time into the comic for their three bucks. Criminal, Casanova, and a number of other creator-owned titles are up to the same things, yet most books still avoid such efforts. How important do you think these additional materials are to the over-all comic book product? What value do they bring aside from ‘bang for your buck?’

You just named a couple of my favorite current series.

I don’t think you should have to read any bonus material in order to enjoy a comic book. But aside from giving readers more value, I think the extra stuff in the back allows people to invest more time in the reading experience and makes them pay closer attention. Hopefully, our readership is able to feel more immersed in the series. We’re basically trying to hold readers’ attention just a little bit longer and make more of an impression on them.

I don’t think most comic book creators can spend the time necessary to put bonus material together. It takes a lot of time and effort or everybody would do it.

True, and I understand that. I don’t expect to see Marvel filling every Avengers issue with painstaking back matter. In some cases though, I think the extra material can be more than just an additional little impression. Take for example DMZ, which is a series I think could drastically benefit from some more involved extras. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good book, and if you’re not reading it you should be. It’s got a lot of interesting ideas and has characters I care about. It can be utterly enjoyed without a single page of bonus anything. But there’s this huge history and political nerd exploding inside me that’s dying for more from the series. The opportunities with DMZ in particular are huge. Detailed maps, political articles about the war, timelines of events, summaries of major battles and turns in the war – Every issue could be packed with these things. It’s too bad it’s a creator-owned book or I’d suggest something involving interns and under-paid media grads.

Where do I get one of those?

If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a second to emphasize how good DMZ is. Brian Wood’s one of the best writers working in comics and he was kind enough to help us get Proof in front of Image in the first place. I keep forgetting to thank him for that, so thank you, Brian.

Okay, please continue. I think DMZ is a perfect example of a title with hidden depths and history. It’s one book that would be enriched by extra material.

Yeah. Again, don’t get me wrong, I love DMZ and agree that Wood is one of the best writers out there. I hope people buy the hell out of his new Northlanders series. But do you see how there’s room for the extras to be more than just ‘extras,’ and instead an opportunity to speak in different voices than the comic form itself provides? Really bring something significant to the experience? It’s a lot of work, and not appropriate for many titles, but I just really haven’t seen anything that’s explored the space to its fullest potential yet. Books like yours are getting it there, but the breakthrough hasn’t arrived. In fairness, your story isn’t as overtly conducive to it but it sets a good example for those that may be. Anyway, have I asked a question here? Can you see my vision, and is it selfishly unreasonable?

Wow. No, I think I do see what you’re saying. It’s funny because this interview was delayed a little bit so that I could finish the back matter for issue six in time. And as I worked on the back matter, I realized that I’m bored with what we’ve been doing and it’s time to try something new.

The big question is whether back matter can support the kind of hypertext treatment I’d like to explore. There’s some interesting stuff I’ve been saving back for a rainy day that’ll be in issues seven and eight, but by issue nine, I think Proof will have evolved to the point where we’ll be able to dive into some different, maybe meatier, stuff. Hopefully I can figure out how to do that by the time we get there.

I’d agree that Proof may not be ideally suited to become the breakthrough back matter book, but you’re really sparking some ideas for me and kind of motivating me to get in gear. Back matter is still words and pictures, joined together, but there’s lots of room for experimentation because it’s not as if that section of the comic book page count has been thoroughly explored.

Warren Ellis and Brian Wood might be the guys to watch, if they decide to start sculpting comic book ephemera. It’s too bad Grant Morrison doesn’t do more creator-owned work.

I’ve got my eye on Wood. Ellis seems too busy playing in Marvel’s toybox right now. Of course there’s also you, as I like where the suggestion of ‘hypertext’ takes my brain. Anyway, getting back to Proof as a whole - There are probably quite a few people out there who aren’t remotely interested in super heroes, but that would find a story about Big Foot working for the government to be right in their range of enjoyable absurdity. Unfortunately most of those people will probably never pick up a comic book in their life. What is the industry doing wrong? What needs to change to make it more socially and culturally relevant than its current tiny position in the media jungle?

Man, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be way ahead of the game.

I think the boom in the trade market is probably helping a great deal. Comic books have a greater presence in bookstores as the graphic novel section continues to grow. And it’s not all Manga.

Personally, I’d like to see more mainstream authors writing comic books. A novelist could conceivably bring much of her readership with her. Do Orson Scott Card’s Iron Man trades get racked with his science fiction novels? Do his fans pick up his comics? I hope so. I’d particularly like to see more women reading comics, since they still make up the largest segment of the fiction-reading population. Has Harlequin thought about a line of original graphic novels?

I guess I don’t have any answers. Just questions.

Something that I believe is happening right now is that we’re seeing the emergence of a new collection of young innovative writers who are going to bring changes and mini-revolutions to the comic book landscape. People like Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Gerard Way -- you, and so forth. It’s the next step from what people like Bendis did ten or so years ago. Those boys brought a whole fresh level of realistic dialogue and human emotion to the table, and broke comics of a lot of bad habits. This new group is taking it a step further and bringing in this off-kilter zany intellectual culture and atmosphere that’s got a remarkably different flavor than most of what we’ve seen in the past. Comics feel different than they have before. What’s your opinion on this school of thought?

Well, aside from feeling awfully flattered (those other guys are writing some of the best stuff on the racks right now), I suspect those writers are influenced by a lot of the same things I am.

With the Internet and a zillion different cable stations available to most people, we’re all starting off with more knowledge and a broader range of interests than any previous generation. And that also means that new writers coming to comics have a broader range of influences. Bendis, Brubaker, Fraction and several others were obviously heavily influenced by crime fiction and noir films.

I think that’s all part of the cycle of comics and I think it’s exciting. The first significant comic book writers were all influenced by pulp magazines and early science fiction stories. The guys who came after them were influenced by those first guys and there was a less fresh feeling to a lot of the later Silver Age and early Bronze Age stuff. There’s a lot of good fun stuff, but very few people were pushing the envelope. They read comics and were influenced by comics. That continued well into the 1990s with writers breaking into comics because there was money in comics. They read comics then they wrote comics.

The fact that there isn’t as much money in comics anymore is sad in so many ways, but it may be one of the reasons there’s so much good stuff on the racks right now. This latest batch of writers loves comics and reads comics, but a lot of them never really thought they could make a living writing them. So they explored other options and learned to write other things and then either fell backward into comics careers or had a stable enough base in other media that they could pursue comics work.

I may be way off base here, but I think you’re bringing something back to the table when you’ve looked around outside this one industry and mastered other forms of writing. You’re not following a restrictive formula. You’re adapting the things you already know about telling stories and applying those things to comic book stories.

And I’d like to point out that all of the writers you’ve named are doing creator-owned material. We’re all in this because we want to be in this and we’re passionate about comic books.

You’re definitely on to something. I was just reading about one of the Atomic Robo creators skipping art school and going into aviation for like eight years before then getting bored and turning to comics. I suppose that isn’t writing, but it’s still outside perspective and evidence of passion. Fraction did marketing or PR or something along those lines before realizing he had too many outlandish interests to be wasted there, but certainly the time spent on other types of writing broadened and honed his skills. A lot of guys are slipping in from screen and television writing too. Do you think these new creators coming with their breadth of experience and forward-looking perspectives are going to appeal to, and bring in, a new type of comic audience? Will the market expand as its creator’s outlooks do?

It would be nice to think so. I’m pretty sure Gerard Way brought some of his fans to the comic shops, looking for Umbrella Academy. I don’t think that’s exactly what you mean, but there’s definitely potential to reach out to a broader readership. I genuinely don’t think that comics have the just-for-kids stigma they once did. It’s probably easier to get someone to try a comic book or graphic novel than it would have been a generation ago. Now the trick is in producing enough variety to keep people interested once they do find something they like.

Explain the intrinsic value of having a dinosaur in a narrative.

Dinosaurs are cool, man.

They are. You’re a pretty big movie fan too. Do you get the opportunity to make it to the theater much? What’s the best movie you’ve seen recently?

I’m a huge film buff and used to make it to the theater at least once a week, but since my son was born we don’t get out much. The last good film I saw in the theater was Ratatouille. Fortunately, I’ve got a pretty big DVD library. So lately I’ve watched Steve McQueen’s The Getaway, the Kevin Costner flick Mr. Brooks, Superbad, The Long Goodbye. I just rewatched the three Bourne films. That’s got to be the smartest action franchise in Hollywood. Of course, I also saw some of Good Luck Chuck on DVD recently, so it’s not all good.

I’m dying to see Cloverfield in the theater, though. I missed seeing No Country for Old Men and have to wait for DVD on that, so I think I need to find a babysitter.

Oh No Country was great man. They left out some bits from the end of the book, but the tone was just viciously perfect. If possible, try to watch it with no one around – it’s some desolate shit. I’ve missed Cloverfield too, which is frustrating because it seems the type of thing where a lot will be lost on the small-screen. There Will Be Blood is another I didn’t get a chance to see. And Atonement. I need Netflix or something. You’re right about the Bourne movies – they continued not disappointing, even though I kept somewhat expecting them to. I also just finished season four of The Wire, which was upsettingly good once again. Have you gotten into that one yet? Because damn.

I love The Wire. Haven’t seen season four yet, but I’ve heard it’s great. I’ve got that whole season and the last season of The Shield to look forward to on DVD. I love watching whole seasons of some series on DVD, over the course of maybe a week. I’m sure they work well as serials, but they’re so novelistic, structurally-speaking, that I’d much rather wait and watch them in big chunks than have them parsed out to me a week at a time.

Oh I could never watch The Wire spread out over the course of a television season. You’re absolutely right, it’s far too dense. I did watch the most recent season of The Shield while it was airing, and frankly it was a mistake. I won’t do the same with the final one. Anyway, before we let you go – are there any final thoughts you’d like to get out there? Where can we expect Proof to take us in the immediate future?

I’d urge anybody who hasn’t given Proof a try yet to pick up the first trade, in stores this May. It’s only 10 bucks, so we’re not making any money off of it. We just want people to be able to catch up to the series and see for themselves what the buzz is about.

Meanwhile, for those of you waiting to see Proof bust some heads, our second arc has everybody flying to Africa to save a baby dinosaur. Proof ends up in the jungle, fighting some very bad guys. After that, we’ve got some loose ends to tie up as Ginger returns to New York and finds out what that golem in leather pants was doing in the first issue. Then we’ll be exploring Proof’s past with the circus, back when he was called Gulliver. We’ll introduce Mi-Chen-Po and find out what happened to the woman Proof still pines for.

Oh, and there’ll be a steam-powered robot. Because robots are cool like dinosaurs.

But are robots cool with dinosaurs? Sympatico?

If robots and dinosaurs ever start working together, the human race is doomed.

Ha! Thanks a bunch Alex. You’ve got the right perspective.

Thank you.

Proof #5 from Image Comics reaches your local shop next week. Pick it up and see what the fuss is all about. Also be sure to check out the first trade paperback when it hits shelves this May to catch any issues you may have missed, like the one with the golem in leather pants. The experience is well worth the respectful ten dollar price tag, so pull a twenty and buy an extra for a friend. It's fun stuff and comics need more of it.

For more on Proof, see the following links:

Proof #1 in its entirety at Newsarama | Link

Grecian Interview with ComicMonsters | Link

Grecian Interview with Newsarama | Link

Grecian Interview with Comicon | Link