Charles Soule + Alberto Alburquerque | Letter 44

In this episode Charles Soule + Alberto Alburquerque discuss BIG STUFF happening in Letter 44.

Topics include bringing Letter 44 to other locations, both creators meeting just for the second time and how that impacts the creation process, faking liking each other, preferring the album format, allowing for a lead time, big time crap happening right now, how two creators plan the end, OTOMO, “this is not pop culture, this is culture,” and what they’re reading!

Links:

Transcription:

Matt: We’re in France. Once again we have two legends in my view. We are as the posh HQ bar of the Mercure which has become our recording spot. We have Charles Soule, welcome to the show.

Charles: Merci beaucoup.

Matt: ..and Alberto Alburquerque from Letter 44 fame. Letter 44 is a book that I talk about all the time on the show. It’s very cool to talk to both of you. We’re in France, Letter 44, for those that don’t know, is the previous president left a note for the incoming president and let him know that we have discovered aliens. Now it’s your job to take care of it. We sent a ship out to investigate and they found something, so good luck.  Now the book…

Charles: Very nicely pitched.

Matt: Thank you. The book, which I love, but it’s a whole different environment. You have a book, we’re in France, we’re in Angouleme, which is a beautiful city, beautiful convention but it’s translated. What’s that experience like for both of you to have it in another language and a whole other audience discovering it?

Charles: It’s been amazing particularly because the French audiences seem to look at it, or the French readership just based on the interviews that I’ve done. I’ve done a lot over the week which has been great. This is the best one, by far. They seem to focus on slightly different things. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the political side, and particularly how I’m portraying America as America fits into the world, as a globe as a whole. Which, if you think about it makes perfect sense because French readers don’t see America the way American readers do.

Mostly it’s been extremely gratifying. This book, we’ve been working on it for 3 years more or less, a little over 3 years. To have it recognized in this way after 3 years of focused, steady work on it, and for the American market. Angouleme is a huge deal. It’s just unbelievable. I’m very honored and that’s really the word. It’s not really proud, I’m honored to be here. How about you, Alberto?

Alberto: It’s amazing. For me it’s the rule to have my works in another language, because I’m Spanish and I work for French companies and American companies. This time is like the first time that people really pay attention, probably.

Matt: Not the last, not the last.

Alberto: Hopefully. It’s nice, it was unexpected completely. We’ve been selected for the prize, for the main prize for the convention.

Yes, two prizes so it’s big. It’s overwhelming sometimes, but it’s pretty cool.

Matt: I think something that’s lost on people that read, they kind of maybe assume that the creators that make books are just seeing each other all the time, they’re high-fiving in the streets. But this is literally the second time you guys have met in person at this convention.

What’s that dynamic like where you’re probably talking all the time on e-mail, using Dropbox or whatever, but that’s got to create some kind of new energy. For the first time you’re in the same room, you can talk about ideas in person. That’s got to be different.

Charles: Yes, the first time we met was basically right when issue 1 was coming out. Sorry, I’m going to leave this all in because it’s part of the ambiance of Angouleme.

We were talking about, yes, so the first time we met.

Alberto: It was New York.

Charles: It was New York Comic Con 3 years ago where we were, the book had just started. Now to meet up again after many issues out, after the book has become what it’s become and to meet in a place where it’s been honored in this way. Again, it’s pretty wild. Fortunately we still like each other. It’s been a really fun week with Alberto.

Alberto: He’s getting sick of me, which I totally understand.

Charles: It’s fun. You know what’s nice? I’d like to think that I have good relationships with all the artists I work with. We get on really well, which is at least, unless you’re faking it, it’s possible.

Alberto: You’ll never know.

Charles: Good actor. It’s been really fun.

Alberto: He’s been good to me.

Charles: That’s a big compliment.

Matt: With the bande dessinée format we talked about earlier how the culture’s used to an album-sized book, like a collected work. For me being an ignorant American to the culture, it’s been rejuvenating walking through the halls and seeing these hard covers of books I don’t know what it’s about, but it looks great. How do you view that album structure for a book? Is that something that appeals to you in a different way than the serialized format? Would you ever want to take like four months off and only do that and have it out as a completed work?

That’s how you’ve worked basically until Letter 44, right? That’s most of the work you’ve done.

Alberto: Yes, most of my previous work has been [foreign language 00:05:08]. I’ve been working almost 10 years doing French comic books. They are all hard cover and they come once a year. It’s something that, French people are used to that. That’s the way they see things. Actually, I’ve just seen the French edition. They’ve changed the format. They’ve made it hard cover. They’ve changed the cover. They didn’t use the holofoil. They adapt everything to their own style so it’s familiar, and at the same time still cool.

For me, as an artist, I don’t really care that much about the final format as far as seeing my work printed respectfully. French people respect material artists in a very, very strong way.

Matt: How about you shifting from a BD to a monthly deadline. What was that shift like?

Alberto: That’s hard. I’ve always wanted to work in comic books so I knew that my work should be, my rhythm should be one page a day. I always same at that. Not always got it, but I’m trying. It’s true that French comic books is great training because it will allow you to learn how to organize yourself in time. It gives you a nice, comfort zone where you can even be lazy at times. That completely disappears with American comic books.

Twenty-two pages every month is…

Matt: The grind. That was one of my other topics was the sidebar issues that you’ve put in where you have one issue where it shifts from the main narrative, investigates the characters that are in the book. Was that part of that like, we’ll get a different artist in like a sidebar issue to maybe have a lead time on the next few arcs?

Charles: Yes, I think that early on, whenever any new creative series comes out or independent series, however you want to say it, you just never know how long it’s going to go. The truth is that most will be done by 10 issues at most. That’s just the way it is. But fortunately it became pretty clear to Oni early on that this was a series that looked like it could go the distance. I knew from the beginning how long it would be roughly. That’s locked in now to issue 35, as I think we’ve talked about before. Issue 35 will end the series.

I knew that 35 would be the end by around issue, shortly into the second arc. We started making plans even then to find ways to make sure that Alberto could be the artist on all of it. You look at these runs like Preacher, or Sandman’s a bad example, of course now I’m spacing some of the others. Scalped is another example of these long, really beautiful stories that have a consistence team on them. They, I think they mean something. It’s important, right, if you can have a consistent creative team because what Alberto can bring.

We don’t, I’m bouncing around a little bit, but we don’t really, we don’t have to throw a lot of notes back and forth anymore. It’s really just, we certainly look at everything and talk about stuff. But he’s been working on it so long.

Alberto: It’s been 3 years.

Charles: Yes, so there’s a shorthand to it which, if it were a new artist on these big arcs it would be a very different feel and very different type of work. To answer the question you actually asked, yes, the initial issues, the multiples of 7 issues, 7, 14, 21, where we look at the backstory of the astronauts along with a skip month usually after each one in which the trade comes out most of the time, we’re designed to give Alberto a chance to take a breath and relax a little bit.

Alberto: Thank God.

Charles: Yes, before we jump back in.

Matt: It’s interesting looking back on those arcs like Preacher that had the same artist, or Scalped, and I think Secret Wars is now a good example of it. Looking back on the collective form you never remember if any of them were late. Or if there was a period of time where people were annoyed that it didn’t come out. Nobody ever remembers that, too. They just remember that collected work.

Alberto: I hope it’s the case.

Matt: With the case of ending relatively soon, I think the most recent issue finally started big gears turning with one of the main characters reintroducing himself in a matter of speaking.

Charles: Yes, in a pretty big way.

Matt: How is it rewarding for you guys knowing that that was happening probably for so long, to actually see people like, jaw drop now that some real crap is happening in a big way?

Charles: Yes, I think Alberto’s experience is probably a little different from mine because I knew these things were going to happen for years. Whereas, the way that I delivered the material to Alberto is that I write this book in arc of the times. I’ll write 6 issues all at once. I give that to Oni, I give it to Alberto all at once. They read the trade in script form at the same time. It’s the same way that everybody is kind of reading the drawn art in the volumes.

Oni doesn’t know, nobody knows, so if I were hit by a bus in the street, which totally doesn’t happen, nobody knows how this series will end. Those surprises hit you almost as hard, which is fun.

Alberto: I only know things 6 months in advance. Right now I’m only on issue 27.

Charles: Yes, you’ve read up to issue 27.

Alberto: I read up to that point. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I know what’s going on in the art, which is pretty amazing.

Charles: You’ve seen nothing yet.

Alberto: But I can only imagine what’s coming next. It’s pretty exciting.

Matt: How often do you, if you deliver in a chunk format, do you ever change your mind 3 issues in. Let’s say Alberto’s on issue 3 of that trade, are you ever like, well let’s change, I’ve changed my mind, I’ve thought about it. Let’s go an adjust something?

Charles: I don’t because I really work hard to structure everything. There is a lot of planning and work that goes in before I start writing scripts. That work is done before I give them the 6. Now every now and then I’ll do little fiddling changes to explain something better or to adjust. But it’s pretty rare that I’ll go in and do major surgery because it’s sort of…

Alberto: Every time you need to make changes, you say okay, these issues are all final, these are all done. This one, be careful because there are some changes that may happen so don’t start a layout, making layouts or anything yet because there may be some major changes.

Matt: With the ending of the series, how do you think about that because you’ve been working on a project for so long? Do you ever think about okay, should we plan our next thing? Should we plan it down the line that we work on something else? What’s that dynamic like? You’ve been working on something for years, and then it just ends.

Charles: We’ve actually been talking about it a bunch this week. There’s still a year’s worth of work for Alberto for sure. For me, I will probably deliver the last scripts around May. But then…

Matt: Is that going to be in like a briefcase with a handcuff on your wrist into the Oni office?

Charles: Yes, maybe. But then I will, it’s not like I’m done with the book at that point because I’ll be looking over what Alberto does. I’ll be doing lettering passes. Then I would guess, I would think the last trade issue, like volume 6, will probably come out around the fall of September 2017. This is going to be part of our lives for a while yet. We’ve talked about a bunch of stuff for coming up. I don’t know where we’ll land or what we’ll do, or if Alberto, he might be too big. He’ll probably leave the project right before the end.

Alberto: I will get fat or something?

Charles: Yes, that’s exactly it, you’ll be too fat to draw. You’re hand won’t be able to hold a pencil anymore.

Alberto: All this for me is like, I don’t want to think too much about it. Exciting to know what’s going to happen. Sad about it finishing, and really scary because I don’t know what’s coming next. I’ve been kind of work, regular work for almost 4 years now.

Matt: It’s harder for an artist, too. You’re not able to draw 10 books a month.

Alberto: That’s the thing. I can multitask up to one point. I’ve been able to do another 4 issue mini-series for Dark Horse. But that’s two multi-books a month and that’s crazy.

Charles: It almost killed you, right? It almost killed you.

Alberto: Yes, and you too, so I don’t want to experience that again. It’s scary.

Matt: During the convention I’ve been doing interviews by the Glenat booth. I think there was a Katsuhiro Otomo signing. That place just went legitimate bonkers. It’s fascinating for me as again, an ignorant American. I’ve read Akira, but it’s so hard to read because for someone that went to digital reader, you can’t get that digitally yet. It’s in that realm of oddball licensing that it hasn’t had that mainstream acceptance yet.

But here it’s almost like, probably everyone in here has read and loved Akira in a manner of speaking. It’s interesting and I think you guys had met. Did you have a moment where you met Otomo?

Alberto: We did, we took a picture with him.

Charles: We didn’t have drinks for 5 hours or anything like that.

Alberto: Yes, we did, come on.

Charles: Of course, absolutely, he’s our best friend now. That’s one of the nice things about conventions in general, and this one because they bring in these legends. If you get lucky, maybe you get to rub elbows with a legend.

Matt: And going through, I think there’s an exhibit, kind of art gallery-esque where the motorcycles are there. I was walking around and it’s just, it’s fascinating how different this convention is to American ones. There was someone drawing on one of those blown up screens. There’s just this crowd of people sitting, watching. I saw two lovers just nestled together watching this art being created. I was like wow, this is so very different and enjoyable.

Alberto: That was me yesterday. I have to do that like the part about drawing on a big screen. The lovers, that wasn’t me. It’s weird, it’s weird.

Matt: Do you see the differences between different countries and the conventions? Whereas, whether it be an American convention where it’s very pop culture based. And Angouleme, it just seems like everyone in town, they’re not all from here, but everyone reads and it’s just the norm.

Alberto: I found it Emerald City comic con and New York Comic Con, those are closer probably to the ones that we have in Spain which are more probably business oriented. There are a lot of cos plays. We were talking about that before with Charles that we haven’t seen that many cos plays around.

Charles: We saw two people. We were walking along the street last night and there were two people dressed all in black with like pale light faces and makeup. Or maybe not makeup. See that’s the thing, we don’t know. There were no mirrors around. So I assumed they were friends of vampires, and we barely escaped with our lives. Alberto thinks they were cos players, I don’t know. He has no romance in his soul.

Alberto: Not really, I’ve seen them all. But yes, there are some differences for sure. Like, perception probably about the whole culture. This is not pop culture, this is just culture. This is not that, there’s no TV people, there are no movies. It’s about comic books.

Matt: It’s a good refresh for having been to New York cons. When I was walking around yesterday I just spent a few hours just taking it all in. It felt like I was in an alternate universe where the very first publisher was an Oni, or an Image. Then it all just grew from there.

Charles: I agree. It’s clearly, it’s still commercial, right? People are here to sell books and so on. But it really just feels more of a celebration of the medium than some. You know, that’s not really even fair because I think American conventions are as well. It comes at it from a different angle and it’s a little hard to put into specific words, even though that’s technically my job is to put things into specific words.

Because I don’t want to, the words I want to use are it comes from a pure place, or less about how much can your issue sell for, things like that.

Alberto: I think it goes for the artist style, we were talking about that with Ivan probably the other day. That people come over and want to see the artist. Want to find the guy who’s creating what’s making people have a good time. The artist in the American shows is that way. People go to meet the artist so they can have a moment with them.

I think this is closer to that, even though of course, there’s the business side of it. Just like an independent time for foreign rights, for editors to meet people, for editors to buy rights to meet other artists, to meet new products. That part is always there.

Charles: Conventions are the best, I love them all.

Matt: No matter where they are. Now, there’s a ton of BD at this convention. If you had to choose whether it be bande dessinée or anything recently that you’ve read, what would you recommend to the folks listening today?

Charles: Alberto has more of a read on the bande dessinée field than I do because you’re in it more than I am. But we did go, we had a few days in Paris before we came down to Angouleme where we got to hang out. We walked through a couple bande dessinée stores and I saw this and went, ah, that’s cool.

Superman, Wonder Woman photo just popped up. Anyway, I saw this book and I don’t know what it’s place is in the bande dessinée sort of landscape, if it’s important, if it’s well-known, I don’t know. But it just caught my eye and it was called Margot. From what I could tell, I only skimmed it, but it looked like it was about these three or four, this team of French race car driver women in what looked like the 60s driving really cool convertible European sports cars just zooming around having adventures. It looked really fun. I guess that’s what I’d recommend.

Matt: What about you?

Alberto: Not me, different tastes. I really love the work of so many artists and writers here. I was showing Charles the other day Long John Silver by Xavier Dorison and Mathieu Lauffray. This incredibly talented artist with this great writer and they make a story about Long John Silver. It’s amazing art, engaging story. It happens a lot. Alex Alice, he’s also a great artist. He does it all. I think his last book is le Château des étoiles, the Castle in the stars, something like that.

Charles: I think that’s a selection officiale.

Alberto: Like with us.

Matt: Good choice, you’re in good company. He’s in good company, that guy’s in good company.

Alberto: Of course, if you don’t know French comic books, you should probably go to the classic like Moebius which are fun and cool.

Matt: The first one that I read probably last year which was easy because there was no words was Un océan d'amour which was like a widescreen format book which I think you can get here in like a rare sardine tin because that’s part of the story. You open the tin and the book is inside. I appreciate you guys taking the time out. I love the book. I hope people pick it up either in French or in English.

Charles: There’s a Spanish edition, too. Whatever your pleasure.

Matt: Or Spanish, anyway you can get it, get it. Thanks guys very much.

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