In this episode Annie Wu stops by to talk Kung Fu Rock N Roll Road Trips!

Topics include topping Black Canary, Kung Fu Rock N Roll Road Trip, Annie’s wardrobe and wishlist items, freedom, 80’s goth with modern electronic, the mystery demo for Black Canary that DC needs to release, using comics to tell a story, storyboarding vs sequential comics, the ultimate Black Canaryplaylist, and also what she’s reading.

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Transcription:

Kara: Welcome back to Comixology Conversations, coming to you not-live from New York Comic Con and the Comixology sponsored artist’s alley, and we are putting the alley back into alley here, with Slim, my co-host and Annie Wu.

Matt: Rock star legend.

Annie: Rock star legend, oh my gosh. Yes, we’re in a very cozy set up right now, enjoy it.

Matt: We’re in a literal alley. Black Canary.

Annie: Yes.

Matt: It’s taking the Internet by storm.

Annie: Is it? Is it really?

Matt: Everyone loves it, but you know, you had come from Venture Brothers, you’ve done other comic book work, but with Black Canary, did you have kind of the need to top Batgirl? Because Batgirl came out and-

Annie: The need to top Batgirl?

Matt: Batgirl came out and was the biggest thing ever.

Annie: That’s the best reason to take on a project is the need to one up something. No that wasn’t my incentive to jump onto Black Canary was mostly because when Brendan Fletcher, the writer, proposed working on, like he proposed the idea to me, pitched it to me. Immediately I already knew exactly what I wanted to do, what the look was going to be, what influences I was going to incorporate into the style. I love Batgirl, but it was the furthest thing to my mind. I wanted to make it my own thing. It’s a… The idea’s very, in my mind, visually independent from what’s going on in Batgirl.

Kara: With Black Canary, when I first heard the pitch that it was, what was it that you liked?

Matt: I think it was kung fu road trip was the-

Annie: Rock and-Kung fu rock and roll road trip.

Matt: There it is.

Annie: That’s a very important element of the story.

Kara: Right. It made so much sense to me. I was like, of course. Black Canary’s whole power is her voice. Why wouldn’t she be the singer in a rock band?

Annie: Right on. That seems to be the response that a lot of people have is, of course. While hitting their head, like, obviously, this makes total sense. Why hasn’t this existed before? That was my reaction too, when Brendan pitched it to me and it just seems like it, it clicks together so well that it seems almost effortless the ideas that come out of it, both visually and story-wise.

Kara: You look like a member of the band today. You’ve got your rock star jacket, your rock star hair.

Annie: Right, right. This is my armor for getting through Comic Con. Don’t mess with me, please, I haven’t had coffee yet. If I just put this on, maybe no one will mess with me.

Kara: So if we go into your wardrobe, will it just be everything that’s on the characters in the-

Annie: Oh my gosh, you would not believe some of the things that are in the reference folders for different characters and the books are just like wish list items that I can’t possibly afford or pull off. All the boots, basically, that Dina wears are things that I either own or desperately wish I could own. Everyone has a little bit of something that I can’t possibly afford.

Matt: How important is that kind of artistic freedom in a book, in that kind of collaboration with the writer for you to be able to kind of throw that stuff in and not have to worry about it?

Annie: It’s great, because we’re not only working with established characters but new characters as well, so being able to have the freedom to make both of these our own has been really great. I really like to have each character embody… I don’t know. I just want each character to feel like their own person, so everyone feels like, they dress themselves, or they didn’t dress themselves, you can actually tell that they’re not actually as comfortable as they would be wearing their own clothes. I feel like it makes the characters feel a little bit more lived-in, if that makes sense

Matt: Absolutely.

Kara: There are obviously a lot of musical influences in Black Canary just in terms of, there are so many scenes that take place on a stage or as part of the tour. Are there actual bands or musical influences in this world that influenced the look that you wanted to create in Black Canary as well?

Annie: Totally. In the original pitch it was, she’s in a rock band, but there’s so many different subgenres within that genre and each one has it’s own distinct flavor and look and that was directly going to influence what the book was going to, what not only the band was going to look like, but what the whole book was going to look like. That was one of the first things I tried to break down with Brendan was, what do they sound like, so I can decide what they look like. We ended up finding a lot of things in common between the two of us in terms of musical interests and just bits of rock history that we really like. We’re both lovers of Bowie and so we pulled different eras from his career and we eventually decided, I think, that Black Canary kind of sounds like a little bit of 80s Goth with a little modern electronic. Brendan’s an actual musician so he put together, he went to the studio, he put together a demo, he had one of his band mates sing as Dinah and he sent it to me, and I’m like, of course. I got it. I knew exactly how I needed to look and it really helped, finding that musical stuff in common really helped us get on the same page visually.

Matt: Has that demo ever been released online?

Annie: It hasn’t, but maybe y'all should bug DC about it. Throw some money their way.

Matt: That would be like the most amazing bonus feature ever for our book.

Annie: It exists, so it should exist worldwide as well.

Matt: Absolutely.

Kara: That’s awesome. That’s all I’m going to be thinking about the whole convention. I’ll just be thinking like, do I need to buy anything, no I need this demo.

Annie: Make some noise, right?

Matt: Is he here?

Annie: Brendan Fletcher? Yes he is. He does not have a table, but he will be floating between my table in artist’s alley and Babs Tarr who illustrates Batgirl and I believe Carl from Gotham Academy also has a table.

Matt: Very cool.

Annie: All his Fletcher-verse people. He’s going to be a butterfly between them.

Kara: The cool kids of Gotham.

Matt: Now, when you were going to school, I was doing my Internet research for this interview.

Annie: Google-ing.

Matt: I was Google-ing hard. Now we talked about music, music videos, you have showed some interest in doing music videos when you were in school?

Annie: This was like, very, I’m talking about, middle school almost. This initial, that looks cool, I should do that. Very early on, but then I lost track of, I didn’t… I did a little bit of video in college and then I didn’t pursue that so much, because I was so involved in illustration and messing around with design as well. I didn’t really pursue that, but my brain still kind of thinks that way. It plays out scenes to music and I find that in comics that really helps with pacing and… It helps creating this environment where someone can look at a page and know exactly how it needs to feel. Or forcing someone to slow down and take in certain moments, or speed up. Those are all things you can control with panels and page turns and sometimes setting that to music in your head helps control that a little bit.

Kara: Especially with a book this musical. I really do get that sense, especially during the concert scenes that there is that kind of pacing in that you are the cinematographer essentially.

Annie: Yeah, for sure. Some of that music video thinking does kick in every once and awhile in those moments.

Matt: When you were doing storyboards as an artist, how is that compared to doing like more elaborate sequential art for comic books? Is it as rewarding as an artist?

Annie: It’s different because, in storyboarding… Well you know in comics, the time is sort of implied and you have to do a lot of extra legwork to control how fast someone is reading, or to make time feel like it’s slowing down or speeding up or in real time, but in storyboarding and animation, that’s just real life. You don’t have to worry about that so much. A lot of the nuanced acting things, you have more control over that instead of trying to pinpoint what’s the best moment that I can pull from this scene to express in a panel.

Matt: It’s more of like a, it’s more of a finished product, really, and kind of like a forced finished product.

Annie: Sort of, yeah, but there’s pros and cons to both and so it’s fun to take a story or something and mess around in both forms and see how it plays out. It can feel very different.

Kara: You’ve been involved in some form of illustration or another for a while on a professional level, but at what point did you decide, this is what I love doing, this is what I want to do for my career?

Annie: I went to school at MICA, which is an art school in Baltimore, and the first year’s called Foundation Year, and that’s where you do a little bit of everything, and then the following year, that’s when you start pursuing your major. Foundation Year, I was trying all sorts of different stuff, but I still felt like illustration was the one for me, because that’s like the big umbrella career/department. There’s overlaps into design, which I was really interested in, and animation, which I was kind of curious about. It covers comics and editorial stuff, you know, magazines, or even fashion and so, because I’m kind of scatterbrained in my interests, I was like, whatever can cover all of that and give me the skills to pursue a bunch of different things, that’s the one for me. Since then I’ve been able to work in comics and animation and do stuff for magazines every now and then, so as long as I’m not bored I’m going to stick with that label. I’m cool with that.

Kara: It’s a good policy.

Annie: Yeah, right?

Kara: What would you say are some influences that are really important to you in terms of wanting to be an illustrator in the first place or in your comic style now?

Annie: I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. My parents, my mother is very artistic, and so she would encourage me to draw. Both my parents are very supportive. They never try to get me to have a real job, it was just like, yeah, she’s good at art, just go for it. We’ll send you to art school, we’ll help you out, that’s fine. I don’t know. It was just always, a compulsion.

Matt: It was always there?

Annie: Yeah. It’s hard when people are like, when did you realize, it’s just kind of happened. To the point where after high school, I was like, yeah obviously I’m going to go to art school. I don’t think I would thrive anywhere else, so I kind of have to go there. It’s been a long term thing.

Kara: When I found out that art school was a thing that parents actually sent their kids to, it blew my mind. This is so cool.

Annie: Right? For doodling? That’s crazy!

Matt: What do you have on your to read list, or what are you reading right now?

Annie: On my to read list, I recently read and I’m very late to the party, but I read Paul Pope’s Battling Boy, which is so beautiful and so much fun and so cool, and I believe there’s a second one out, right?

Matt: I’m not caught up on it.

Annie: I think there’s a second volume out, or a second graphic novel out, but I’m way behind on everything so I need to catch up. That was a recent excellent read.

Matt: Anything else?

Annie: Anything else? Oh my god.

Matt: I’m going to put you on the spot.

Annie: I know.

Matt: This could be the very first interview that we do where the creator doesn’t say Saga.

Annie: Oh. Because I caught up on that. That was the one I read right before Battling Boy.

Matt: So the streak continues.

Annie: Although I’m not completely caught up, but I think I read the first four trades, I think. Something like that, gosh.

Matt: It’s easy to get caught up on Saga, because we had just talked to Greg Capullo about the breaks, you know that kind of seasonal breaks that they take to allow for them to catch up and it’s easier to jump into.

Annie: It’s good for everyone. But yes, I love that, that’s an amazing, amazing series and I can’t wait to catch up on the rest. There’s a lot of Image stuff that I really enjoy and haven’t caught up on. Southern Bastards.

Matt: Amazing.

Annie: Yeah, great. I don’t think I, I think I need to finish the last few issues in the trade. The volume that just came out. I read the first few issues and I thought it was amazing and beautiful.

Matt: Dynamite.

Annie: Yeah, totally.

Kara: What should we be listening to while reading your comics?

Annie: Okay, this is going to be, you guys got to sit down, take a drink of water, because I’m going to have a really long list.

Kara: I’ve got a pen and paper, I’m ready.

Annie: I’m going to try to give you the bullet points, but it’s a lot of very strange influences. I kind of pull a little bit from rock history and pop music and even musical theater, it’s a little bit, I’m telling you my interests are very scattered. It’s a little bit of everything, it’s a melting pot.

I would recommend old school eighties goth stuff maybe. Some Bauhaus, some Susie Suh, Scissors of Mercy. The thing that, the demo that Brendan sent me, it sounded a little Scissors of Mercy, which I really dug. Then how about some Headwig and the Angry Inch? A little bit of everything. I actually made a playlist that people can probably find online if they look up “Black Canary Playlist.”

Matt: Oh very cool. Be able to link to it.

Annie: It’s stuff that’s influenced the art work or has been directly referenced by Brendan or myself in our discussions in bringing stuff to life. Or it’s just stuff that reminds me of a certain character to get me in the right mindset to draw them. It’s a lot. It’s a lot of stuff.

Kara: That’s awesome.

Matt: That’s very very…

Annie: And Bowie, of course. You guys, come on. It’s Bowie.

Matt: If not Bowie then just don’t even bother.

Annie: If not Bowie, then what?

Matt: That’s a question about life. You could posit that for anything. We appreciate you coming and chatting with us. We love Black Canary and we love your stuff.

Annie: Thank you.

Matt: We hope it runs forever.

Annie: Right, thanks guys.

(Source: SoundCloud / comiXology)