An Interview with Juniper Crescent creator Steve Ince & Vogelein's present writer and artist Jane Irwin by Randy "Moonstonelover" Burtis ComicBoards Exclusive! My thanks to Steve Ince & Jane Irwin for taking the time to talk to me about their Independent works. Juniper Crescent Creator Steve Ince Q:Tell us a little about your current project, your online comic "Juniper Crescent". A: Juniper Crescent is a cartoon strip with over thirty different characters. Not all of them have made appearances yet, but they will do so over the coming months. There are some key characters who crop up more than the others, but sometimes only certain characters fit the particular ideas and they are the ones who will appear. Q: Can you spoil us on some of these upcoming character appearances and how that will impact the existing crew there? A: Not a problem. Coming up very soon will be a character called Mrs. Minton. She's a little old lady who has the effect of making everyone totally afraid of her - everyone except... Then there is Ric's teacher who also lives on the close. And not to far away (I hope) will be the appearance of Anabel, a teenage girl who will hopefully create a good dynamic with Dane and Joe, as well as some of the other characters. Q:You have had a previous strip printed in a paper, what advice do you have for trying to break into that area and get a strip published? What do newspapers look for? A: I don't think there's any advice I could give that would be generally applicable. I was very lucky in that I managed to get to see the editor of my local paper at the time and he rather liked what I was doing with the strip (called Toby). I think it was a case of local paper likes local contributors. Looking back on the strip now it makes me cringe. The drawing was weak, some of the humour was forced, but there was something there that I was able to build upon. The main thing I got from it was the discipline of working to a deadline. Six strips a week is still a lot of work even if the quality is dubious. Toby has since undergone a major re-vamp and is now one of the characters in Juniper Crescent. Q:Why do an online comic strip? A: It certainly wasn't my intention. I sent a few strips to someone at The Comic Reader website just for some feedback more than anything and the next thing they offered to run the strip. I was very flattered an my initial reaction was to decline the offer, but then after a little thinking I realised that the best thing for the strip would be exposure. So here I am doing an online strip. Q:What are some past projects you have done? A: Working full time for a video game developer doesn't give me very much time to develop many projects, but I have done a number of other things over the years. One of the things I like to do is abstract oil painting. It gives me a real buzz when something comes together and the ideas I've been working up in my head come good on the canvas. I've also had a number of attempts at super-hero based comic strips of one form or another. None of these have ever seen print for all sorts of reasons. I did a strip of my own called Shards which was due to appear in a fanzine anthology comic but then the comic stopped publication at the point where I'd built up the series to seven five-page episodes. I also did the artwork and lettering for the first issue of a comic called The Amazon which was never published due to "artistic differences". And there have been a number of other strips all suffering similar fates. Some I've worked on with others, some on my own. Q: Where do you draw inspiration for Juniper Crescent? How do you create your strip? A: I just wait for inspiration to pop into my head. It can be a conversation I've overheard on the bus, something someone did at work or something I've read in the paper for example. Sometimes when a strip idea presents itself, I write it down and it's immediately followed by another idea. I can end up with a whole string of them in one go. I usually leave them for a few weeks before returning to them to either improve them or weed out the weak ideas. When I come to draw them up I tend to use the computer for the panel borders and the lettering, print it out and then use a lightbox to draw the strip in blue pencil around the lettering but on a separate piece of paper. I then go over the blue pencil with a sharp 2B pencil, scan it into the computer, make the line very black in Photoshop and then merge it with the lettering. Colouring is done in Photoshop, too. Q: You also do other style of art, how does that help your creative process? A: It stops me becoming stale. It also means that I'm not becoming frustrated by only sticking to one area of creativity. Q: Why do you think cartoon animals, especially dogs and cats are so popular characters in comic strips? A:Animals can give us a different perspective on life. Some people prefer animals to other people. It's an interesting turnabout to see animals talking about everyday things when we really know that they can't. They're cuter than people. It could be all of the above or none. :) We have a lot of cats in the area where I live and they are a constant source of fascination to me. One thing in particular is that all of the cats come into our garden to drink from the garden pond, yet if we put out a dish of water from the tap they won't touch it. Cats have an aloofness that can make for an interesting perspective in a strip. Cats and dogs have very different behaviours and this is the basis of a good dynamic within a number of strips. Q:Do you have a site where people can view the strip and your other projects? A: My own site is:Juniper Crescent Juniper crescent also appears at:The Comic Reader Jane Irwin talks about VOGELEIN!! Q:Your present project is Vogelein, tell us about it? A: Vögelein is the story of a clockwork faerie come to life. She was completed and first wound in 1671, though it took her creator, Heinrich Uhrmacher, over thirty years to finish her. She remains "alive" as long as she is wound each day, and remembers everything she has ever seen or heard as long as she doesn’t wind down. If she does, she begins to lose her memories, starting with the most recent, and continuing to her earliest recollections – the longer she remains stopped, the more she loses. The story opens with the death of Vögelein’s Guardian, Jakob. Alone for the first time in fifty years, she must find someone to trust before she winds down. The story got its start as a collaboration between myself and a friend, Jeff Berndt. We originally planned a kind of creative digest full of Jeff’s short stories and poetry and my illustrations. Vögelein was one of the stories, but it wasn’t long before she outgrew the confines of her initial ten-page story. Jeff penned most of the first three issues, but when I took over as writer, I had to make some pretty sweeping changes to make it my own. Q:Where did that name come from? A: Jeff’s mother was born in Germany, and he grew up listening to her speak both German and English. When it came time to name our little Bavarian Faerie, I asked him if she’d had any pet names for him as a child. Jeff turned bright red and said "Sperlein" (Sperling), which means "little sparrow". That was close, but not quite, so we settled instead on "Vögelein", which means "little bird". Q:What audience are you focusing on for the book? A: Anyone who likes to read! Seriously, the story is pretty much PG-13 (there’s some death and scary stuff later on, but nothing that most kids can’t handle) but I’m finding out from the shows I attend that there are lots of little kids, specifically little girls, that are really attracted to the Faerie aspect. As personal policy, if I see a young (under 13) reader interested in buying the book, I make him/her go get the parents, and encourage the parents to leaf through the book and read it with their kids. I’m not in favor of censorship in any form, but I am all for letting parents know what their kids are buying, and for getting them to read together. Not surprisingly, all the parents I’ve spoken with have been in favor of this policy. Other than that, I’m aiming for a wide, mostly-all-ages audience – I think with a good story, you’ll build your own readership, and you don’t have to really market to anyone. I’ve always enjoyed "Comics for people who don’t read comics" and that’s the kind of book I want Vögelein to be. Q:Where did your inspiration come from to create those characters...and the plot line? A: Jeff and I had been working together creatively for a while -- we’d come up with a couple of 10-page comic stories and were working on others. Most of the ideas we had stemmed from finding the wonder in the everyday, the beauty between the cracks in the cement, the wide-eyed charge of coincidence too good to be true. We travelled Ireland together, Jeff and I, hitchhiking and meeting friends and circumstances so amazing that the people back home didn’t believe most of the stories. Standing on Maeve’s Cairn, or visiting Glen Alt in County Sligo is enough to change you forever. Each time we turned round, it seemed as though some amazing force was setting all the events in place like tumblers in a lock… and it was that kind of magic that we both tried to carry into the book. The Duskie (that rather unpleasant fellow you meet at the end of issue one) comes directly from that sense of wonder. He actually predates Vögelein by several months, getting his start in an oil painting. At Jeff’s request, we tried using them in a story together, and the rest, as they say, is history. I believe that the fair folk grow to look like their surroundings – water faerie, forest faerie, underground faerie – the Duskie is a faerie that has been forced to choke down coal smoke and car exhaust for five hundred years. He provides a yang to Vögelein’s yin – she’s a perfect, beautiful, artificial faerie; he’s a bedraggled, soul-tired true faerie. Q: What is in store in the future for the book? When will the next issue be out, where can you get it...? A: The first issue will be available in the January issue of Previews (Diamond Distribution’s monthly publication) for delivery to stores in March. Issue two will be arriving two months after that (March/May), and so on, in a bimonthly schedule. As for the future of the book, well, all I can say is that’s up to the readers. I have several more plot lines and tons of exciting characters I want to write about, but it all depends on readership. If people like the first five issues and want more, and there’s a strong enough reader base to justify it, I’ll keep going. I love painting the comic, but it really does eat up all the free time I’ve got! Q:If you could be a part of a mainline book which one would it be and why? A:Wow, tough question. Oddly, all my favorite books are done by just one person: Finder, Bone, SIP, Castle Waiting, Clan Apis, Jimmy Corrigan/ACME Novelty Library, Scary Godmother, Nausicaa, Ballads and Sagas, Thieves and Kings and of course everything Will Eisner’s ever done. I don’t really read many "mainline" books since Neil Gaiman ended Sandman… but if I had to pick I guess I’d want to be in on the staff of DC/Vertigo, pencilling for something like Books Of Magic, where I could draw all sorts of neat backgrounds and critters and such. Q: What do you think is a strength of independently published books, like yours? A: I think there are two best things about independent publishing. The first is that the author has complete freedom over what s/he wants to do with the character and doesn’t have to answer to the brass over marketing decisions. The best example of this is, of course, Dave Sim’s Cerebus, where he’s always done exactly what he wanted with the comic and if anyone (including the readers!) doesn’t like it, he tells them to go hang, as is his exclusive right. I think this keeps Indie books more honest and true to the creators’ original visions, and generally makes for far better reading. The other best thing about indie books is getting all the profits (such as they are), and still keeping all the rights to your character. I think the latter is the more important of the two, actually, since even if you work for a publisher, chances are pretty good you’re not going to be super rich and famous, unless you luck out and turn into the next Todd MacFarlane. Take for example Matt Wagner’s Grendel – the company that published Grendel went under, and took Grendel with it. Matt spent years working that book, slaving over it, putting his lifesblood into it. Company tanks, no more rights. It’s not so much that he lost money on it, but that he lost the ability to ever do anything with Grendel again. Fortunately, he’s been able to work some legalistic mojo and get back some of the rights, but it has taken literally years to do so, not to mention all the lawyers’ fees. Now, while my book will likely only break even, and probably isn’t due for movie rights or breakfast cereal or Underoos™ anytime soon, if the situation should arise, then I reap the profits, not some big company. Q: Do you believe in a real world of faeries? A: I’ve never seen a faerie myself, either here or in Ireland. I have, however, felt very strong presences in certain places and had the feeling that I was surrounded by things that were not human. There are many times in my life when I’m just too caught up in the mundanities of life to be really truly able to notice such things, but I think like anything else, it’s all about practice -- keeping an open mind and trying to take note of the vibes of a place. Resensitizing, if you will. Turn off your TV, go walk in the park. Spend less time on line and more in the woods. I think the Irish, Scottish and Manx have so many faerie stories because they as a people are closer to their earth, and their power to believe (or suspend belief) is stronger than ours through generations of practice. Belief is a powerful thing, and I am of the firm opinion that it has the power to shape not only our perception of reality, but reality itself. To be honest, I don’t have much faith in the "small-winged-toadstool-sitter" theory of faeries, but I do believe that the Tuatha De Dannan really existed at some point, and I do believe in spirits, and I think that the faerie fall somewhere in between – proud, noble beings that have their own rules and laws and beliefs. I think they’re more felt than seen, more intuited than known… perhaps they’ve gotten better at hiding themselves; perhaps we’ve gotten worse at spotting them. Well they aren't hard to find in your book and it looks like a great project for readers out there on our boards to look into. They can learn more about it at your official site Vogelein Website. If you want to talk about either project or the interview check out the Independents Message Board Vogelein and Juniper Crescent and all their characters and related materials are copyrighted and are used with the creators approval Vogelein Website. and Juniper Crescent Juniper Crescent respectively.