Interview | Stephan Franck

During C2E2, Kara and Matt sat down with (stood up, wrangled, it’s all the same) with some great COMIXOLOGY SUBMIT creators to talk about their books, their process, and what they read themselves. Since these interviews were done on the fly and in the heat of the con, we also transcribed these interviews. Some parts of the interview have been abridged for maximum hilarity. Enjoy our interview with Silver’s Stephan Franck!

Kara:  Here we are, C2E2, Kara and Matt, Kzam and Slim.

Matt:  We’re here.

Kara:  We’re alive.

Matt:  We’ve made it.

Kara:  We’re talking to Stephan Franck, creator of “Silver”, which is, I’ve got to say, one of my favorite comics right now, hands down.

Stephan Franck:  Thank you so much. That’s very awesome.

Kara:  I read this book before Matt did. My pitch to him for it was “Ocean’s 11” meets “Dracula”, but like the original Dracula book. It has that dark feel to it. Where did this idea come from?

Stephan:  First let me say that is the perfect pitch, because when I have like two seconds, I’ll say it’s Ocean’s 11 in Dracula’s castle.

Stephan:  You’re right on with this. The idea, for me, came from two different sets of fascinations that I had as a kid. One was, (I grew up in France) we had this show called the Midnight Cinema with a lot of the black and white movies from the ‘20s, '30s, and '40s. It went from monster movies to gangster movies to vampires, and masterpieces like Fritz Lang would also be movies.

It all merged together for me in this world of mystery and imagination, all in black and white. That was a tale back when the world was bigger and more mysterious. Back before Google Earth, you know. That’s a fascination I had. I always loved Dracula, Miklos in particular and that universe. Conman and vampires I’ve always wanted to mash and reconnect with that imaginary world.

I thought that con man and vampires thematically have a lot in common because they are both predatory creatures, kind of soulless creatures whether it’s literally or metaphorically. They also live in the outskirts of society, they don’t engage in living and life in this productive way that you and I do. They are very different kind of creatures.

To have this con man who is a predator in a way but really is a good guy trying to be bad. He’s been living or not living his life a certain way. then you pit him against vampires, the true undead, the true soulless, and that leads to complete re examination of how he’s been living his life. This is where the idea for this book is coming from.

Kara:  Why black and white? This is a black and white book.

Stephan:  Yeah, to me it really captures the feel of the period. Again, it is the black and white movies that I saw as a kid, and that captured my imagination in a different way that I thought was really appropriate for this story.

Matt:  Some of the shading on the pages reminded me of the older printing style. You know, the dot coloring. Was that another thing that you wanted to hearken back to? The printed page, it does look great.

Stephan:  Thank you so much. Yeah. Because from the comic side, this also hearkens back to; there is I’d say, a certain Silver Age vibe to it. There are a lot of Kirby references and Steranko and stuff. Also, to me a lot of Milton Kenneth. If I can drop those names in my stuff. You know what I mean,

Stephan:  …you know the great adventure strips of the 1940s. Will Eisner is my greatest hero ever, comics wise. That was also my way to reconnect with that stuff.

Matt:  Yeah, “A Contract with God”. I read it. I have not read it until I was 23 years old. I never experienced a book like that.

Stephan:  Extremely strong.

Matt: Straight up. Now, for you. You were writing it and drawing it. I’ve read books like that before, and I think some artist like it. Because they get to format everything their own way. Now, is that your preference at that point? How do you see that kind of style together?

Stephan:  Yeah. It’s interesting. Because I’ve been drawing and writing professionally for a long time. Never the two at the same time. Because in some jobs, you really need to draw. I use to be an animator. A 2D animator. Worked on movies like The Iron Giant for instance. I use to draw a lot. When it was doing that. I didn’t get to write that stuff.

Meanwhile, I was at Disney for a long time. I did a lot of story and writing a lot of stuff. You would not see my drawings. This is really a way to, this is my baby. I get actually to do the two things that I love the most. Which is writing and drawing. And it kind of merges into this one language for me.

Kara:  One of the really cool moments earlier in the book is when there is the reveal of the skull. With the canine teeth. [laughs] Was that an image that was really strong in your mind?

Stephan:  Yes. It’s funny you should say that. Because the way I write, it’s like I have images that kind of come to me. When I wake up in the morning, or I’ll take my shower. Then I see that, “Oh it would be really cool.”

Kara:  [laughs]

Stephan:  It’s like this image. Then it takes a while for it. I live with it for a while. Then it takes a while for it to percolate and find its place in the story, you know. Originally, in the original version, that scene was taking place in an empty movie theater, where they would meet, and Chaplin, The Kid was playing. Because it is a foreshadowing, the kid is going to come in the story as well. And then I thought it would be more fun to do it in the bar, and I condensed a bunch of beats and stuff, but yeah, it was always this skull, because the thing with this is we are inside the Bram Stoker universe which means that you are not in the world where Dracula is a brand name and you can just go to the Halloween store and get a Dracula, it’s like people who know that name it’s just like it’s a person.

We have this characters which inhabit this universe but they are not aware of it because all this stuff is secret. Slowly, you need to bring them into the awareness that there is this other world under the world.

It’s really fun to see those characters become aware of that and react to it in their own way, especially conmen, because they are only kind of people who always think that they are in on the joke and then there is even a bigger joke that they don’t know about. This is fun.

Kate:  How did you go about designing the look for the characters in the story?

Stephan:  To be honest with you, it came sort of naturally. I didn’t really intellectualize it; I just went with what I felt. I have done a lot of story development for animation, Disney and other places. When you do that you create stories and you do storyboards and you create sequences and moments before you–actually there is any official design.

It’s like you let the designs sort of emerge organically out of the story so they are not really decided they kind just happen as you try to as an emergence of the moments if you will. This is what I did for this.

What I try to do however is, I learn this from animation because in the animation, 2D animation, now it’s not the same as CG of course because you have assets and everyone is always working with the same models.

But in 2D animation you have hundreds of people drawing the same characters. If you really look frame by frame you will see that they never look the same, nobody draws them the same way. There is enough ionic signature shapes and big broad statements in those designs that there is no way you can mistake The Little Mermaid for somebody else.

Kate:  Right.

Stephan:  That’s why I try to do though when I design the characters is that I find some iconic signature elements in those designs that…especially it’s even more important with women characters, because with male characters, you are able to exaggerate a lot of stuff to make the character very easily identifiable.

When you have a large female cast…drawing is a language, it’s not reality. It’s very hard to draw female character and capture the essence of something that is feminine. There is only so many ways you can do it and very easily…

When you look at a lot of great comic artists and you will find that if you change the hair a lot of their female faces tend to look the same. We only have so many bag of tricks, I know my limitations and especially later in the story issue four, five, especially starting at five, a lot more women characters coming into the story and already important in a role.

It was very important for me to find way to, whether I had a good drawing there or bad drawing there, to make sure those characters really had an identity and were unique.

Matt:  With being an animation on The Iron Giant on Disney, in my head it feels like this can be a vacation for you like not drawing the same over and over again in animation style and then shifting different panels, different people. What’s that transition like being in total strict animation writing and then doing your own thing, whatever you want?

Stephan:  That’s right, the way I would put it that, when you are working in an animated movie you spending a lot of somebody else’s money.

Stephan:  Needless to say they are going to have a lot to say about it.

Matt:  Yeah.

Stephan:  Animation is really an art in collaborating with people that; your executives that are in charge, their ass is in the sling if the movie is bad.

Also all the artists, the director and the way I look at directing is: everybody that you are working with is there to create a performance. Everybody has the same fear which is to be lead into a bad performance and make a fool out of themselves.

What you need to do is recreate a very safe space where people know that they can try things and do things and nobody is going to make fun of them, nobody is going to hang them out to dry, nobody is going to say “Hey why did you do it this way?”

People feel free to create. When I do my own stuff, nobody sees it until I’m happy with it so it’s the ultimate safe place where I can try as many crazy things as I want. I can be fearless, and I feel very safe doing it.

Matt:  You don’t have to worry.

Kara:  Do you have a favorite character in “Silver”?

Stephan:  It’s hard because I love all of them and they all have their moments. I obviously love Finn, he’s the main character, I love that he’s a scoundrel and I was saying that he’s a good guy trying to be a bad guy, trying very hard. But you reveal very quickly that he can’t be a bad guy.

My favorite moment so far of all the moments is when you meet Finn, and he’s cornered by the cops in the kitchen and the cops are coming in and the kid won’t shut up, and you’re like “OK he’s a bad guy” but how bad is he? Is he going to kill the kid? What is he going to do? There’s only one thing I can do! I got to play along.

Stephan:  Right there you know where his limit is. You know that he’s that good guy trying to be bad, but he can’t really be bad. I love him. I love all the other guys. There’s a really fun moment in Issue Four is really Hamilton’s issue, there’s a really fun moment there.

Sledge is fun entirely. What I love about her, it is very important for me because I have two daughters, and there’s no way I wanted Sledge to be a bimbo with a sword. She’s a real character. By the way, I gave her a katana way before there was Michonne.

I just need to say that. It’s true though, it’s the same kind of character where there’s a real person there with qualities and flaws and issues and fears and insecurities. She has some great moments coming up.

I love Mullens as a father figure. I love father figures. But he—I can’t say too much. All of the characters, as you go through the story; everybody has his moments or her moments.

There’s this bad guy, she’s really THE evil bad person of the piece which is Lillian, who comes in in issue four. You get a glimpse. Really, you’re going to see in issue five, she’s really awesome. I love all those characters.

Matt:  Actually, that was our last question. The pitch for the book, Kara hit it on the head, has sold me completely on it. I hadn’t read it yet and I hope this podcast brings more people to read it because it’s great. We appreciate using comiXology Submit, that helps people find the book.

Stephan:  No problem. It’s my pleasure. It’s a great platform. We were part of the first wave of books on it. I just remember getting the email when Submit came on, and I had the files ready and [claps] “Press Send”! Yeah, it’s been great.

Matt:  What more can you ask for? Well, I hope everyone buys it. Thanks again.

Stephan:  Thank you. Thank you so much.

Kara:  Thank you.

Matt:  Thanks again.

(Source: SoundCloud / comiXology)