Comic Related - Consientious Sequentials

Stealing Back The Vote With Lukas Ketner

This month is Politics Theme Month for the comics podcasting community, and one of the elements of the show that unfortunately we did not get to share with our readers on the Related Recap, was an interview conducted with Steal Back Your Vote artist Lukas Ketner. Along with political cartoonists Ted Rall and Lloyd Dangle, he provided the artwork for the graphic voter guide, which was written by BBC journalist Greg Palast and American icon Robert Kennedy, Jr.

Technical difficulties kept us from being able to present Mr. Ketner's interview on the politics podcast, but I've pored over my notes and listened to the (badly damaged) audio files to come up with a fairly serviceable exchange for Conscientious Sequentials. It should be said that this is in no way the interview in its entirety, but it's what could be salvaged. The lesson here, kids, is always back up your recording devices!

Comic Related: By way of introductions, why don't you tell us how you first came to be involved with Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy's Steal Back Your Vote project?

Lukas Ketner: Well I'm not really sure where they first saw my work and when they first wanted to get me involved but it happened pretty quick: I got an e-mail from Brett Warnock at Top Shelf Comics. I think maybe Zach and Greg had talked to Brett about finding some people who might be into it and he in turn contacted me and wanted to see if it was cool if he hooked me up with those guys and I was like, “You bet!”

CR: And prior to this, the biggest thing I could find of yours was a portrait you did of Barack Obama...!

LK: [Laughs] Is that the one where he's coming out of the water? That one was actually for a local weekly here in Portland and they wanted to do an article on Portland being unconditionally in love with Barack Obama...and so they sent me a couple of Harlequin romance covers and said "Paint him like this!" And then after they put it up on their website I noticed that it just started popping up everywhere, both with and without permission....I didn't mind--all the sudden I had something that everybody was seeing so that was all the better for me.

CR: I remember looking at it at first and thinking that it was a Christ-image or something. Without context it's not nearly as clever!

LK: We'd go online and read all these blogs where people were like what are they trying to say? [Obama is] gay? And all this weird stuff that was never intended in the image in the first place and people were deriving all these weird meanings and none of them were bad. And we were like, “You don't get it, its' funny, it's like a romance novel cover!” Part of it is just funny to see people's reactions to something when there's no caption underneath the image to explain the humor of it, people just kind of come up with their own meaning for it. I've had a couple of illustrations like that where it's pretty clear when it appears above the article but as soon as I post it on my blog or something without any explanation I start getting all these confused responses and notes, like "What are you trying to say?" You know?

CR: Looking at the rest of the stuff in Steal Back Your Vote, you're certainly the most fully-rendered stylist in the batch, as opposed to the more strip-friendly styles of the other two artists involved.

LK: Right. I've always tried to go more the fully-rendered route with my stuff and I don't think that I've ever really tried to be a comic strip guy. I'm just not smart enough. I just don't have a sharp enough wit to come up with the amazing commentary and humor that guys like Rall and Dangle both do. I think for that reason I look up to those guys a lot. Stuff like The Far Side, Doonesbury and Calvin & Hobbes was what I loved growing up. I didn't get into comic shops much to get superheroes or Alan Moore stuff until I was a teenager and I discovered that stuff. Of course, by that point all the other illustrators I knew were like "Seriously dude? I read Dark Knight Returns when I was nine!"

CR: For this project, did you script those pages yourself or did that come from somebody else?

LK: No, I think that Greg Palast and either Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or maybe Zach [Roberts] had a hand in it too. I'm not really sure who wrote the final script but I know that the story itself came directly from Greg and then I think that somebody might have helped break it down into a script format. Or maybe Greg did it himself. They just told me they were going to send me scripts and then I got that and I just laid it out into comic book pages...which I'm good at, but I'm not good at actually scripting it myself.

CR: About how long did you spend on the pages for this title?

LK: There was an alternate cover that didn't end up getting used that you can see on the site, stealbackyourvote.com. That itself took me almost a week, that was a pretty in-depth painting.

CR: And that one got scrapped?

LK: I understand why they didn't use it. After a second look, it doesn't read very well as a loud, loud image--as the cover of not just a comic book, but something that's meant to look like a comic book to people who don't read comics. I'm happy they still show it on the site, because I think it's a cool illustration, but you really have to look at it for a while before you know what going on and that's not the kind of image that you want on the cover of something that you want people to come up and snatch it without knowing what's going on.

CR: What about the rest of the book?

LK: The comic pages took me about a day apiece, that's usual for me. The two illustrations that ended up being the front cover and the inside cover, those only took me--both of those took me less than a day to do and I kind of misunderstood with those images. I didn't know they were going to use those for the cover and the inside, I thought they were going to be used as spot illustrations somewhere farther into the book and I initially drew them pretty small....They're good, loud images. They work pretty well but if I'd known they were looking for an alternate cover I might have spent a little more time on them.

CR: Besides this, where else are you plying your craft these days?

LK: Witch Doctor was the first full length, single issue comic that I've ever done, and that was done with the writer Brandon Seifert....It was very much a two guys printing up a comic at Kinko's, and that's still how we do it. Actually, it's at Docu-Mart. We never really expect to make our money back on them. It's nice, just doing that has gotten us a lot of exposure to do other things. The crazy thing about Witch Doctor is that when Brandon and I first hooked up and started looking at other independent comics or independent creator that were successful we realized that the way to do it would be to just do a book by ourselves. To stop taking stacks of pages and stacks of pitches to comic book companies because thousands of people are doing that. What not a lot of people are doing is taking the time it takes to actually print up your own comic.

CR: So is that the model you're committed to?

LK: I'm not sure that we want to do that forever but for the time being we don't have any plans to pester any comic book companies to put our book out for us. We have two more issues that we have planned out and those will be published by ourselves. If somebody wants to express an interest to publish us, we're always looking out for that but I don't think we're ever going to get back to the point where we're just bringing around our stacks of paper to people. Also, nowadays the Internet is brilliant for comic book creators because you don't even need to print it up and send it to anybody anymore. You just put it on a website and direct people to it and if it's worth reading people read it and keep checking back for new material.

CR: Absolutely. That's the model for Steal Back Your Vote, and something I'm looking into myself for my first comic. Any closing thoughts?

LK: Be sure to keep an eye out for more Witch Doctor and on November 5 you can check out my Creepy Magazine story. It'll be the first Creepy Magazine story in years I'm told, and that'll be up on the MySpace Dark Horse Presents page on November 5...that'll be issue 16 of that. And keep a look out for motorcyclists because I do a lot of helmet designs and graphics for Icon Motorsports. Other than that, just keep an eye out for me in weeklies around the country; I'm constantly filling up my schedule with little spot illustrations here or there. And if you ever want to see what I've been up to you can check out my blog, it's at lukasketner.blogspot.com.

Russell Burlingame is a journalist and columnist living and working in New York City. In high school, Russell interviewed Elliot S. Maggin for a review of the Kingdom Come novelization, and since then has worked consistently in and around the comics industry. He interned for Wizard magazine, and has freelanced for Wizard and Newsarama, in addition to a number of non-comics publications, Russell is currently working on a graphic novel based on Cap'n Internet, the comic strip that ran in his college newspaper; and a graphic biography of folk singer Phil Ochs with artist Marion Vitus.

Currently, in addition to his freelance work and his comics projects, Russell writes a number of columns for ComicRelated, including Conscientious Sequentials, The Gold Exchange, What's Perhappenin', Closing Statements, Reflecting 'Pool and To See or Not To See. Russell also takes point on the Hot Shot of the Week feature.


		www.comicrelated.com
	Stealing Back The Vote With Lukas Ketner This month is Politics Theme Month for the comics podcasting community, and one of the elements of the show that unfortunately we did not get to share with our readers on the Related Recap, was an interview conducted with Steal Back Your Vote artist Lukas Ketner. Along with political cartoonists Ted Rall and Lloyd Dangle, he provided the artwork for the graphic voter guide, which was written by BBC journalist Greg Palast and American icon Robert Kennedy, Jr. Technical difficulties kept us from being able to present Mr. Ketner's interview on the politics podcast, but I've pored over my notes and listened to the (badly damaged) audio files to come up with a fairly serviceable exchange for Conscientious Sequentials. It should be said that this is in no way the interview in its entirety, but it's what could be salvaged. The lesson here, kids, is always back up your recording devices! Comic Related: By way of introductions, why don't you tell us how you first came to be involved with Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy's Steal Back Your Vote project? Lukas Ketner: Well I'm not really sure where they first saw my work and when they first wanted to get me involved but it happened pretty quick: I got an e-mail from Brett Warnock at Top Shelf Comics. I think maybe Zach and Greg had talked to Brett about finding some people who might be into it and he in turn contacted me and wanted to see if it was cool if he hooked me up with those guys and I was like, “You bet!” CR: And prior to this, the biggest thing I could find of yours was a portrait you did of Barack Obama...! LK: [Laughs] Is that the one where he's coming out of the water? That one was actually for a local weekly here in Portland and they wanted to do an article on Portland being unconditionally in love with Barack Obama...and so they sent me a couple of Harlequin romance covers and said "Paint him like this!" And then after they put it up on their website I noticed that it just started popping up everywhere, both with and without permission....I didn't mind--all the sudden I had something that everybody was seeing so that was all the better for me. CR: I remember looking at it at first and thinking that it was a Christ-image or something. Without context it's not nearly as clever! LK: We'd go online and read all these blogs where people were like what are they trying to say? [Obama is] gay? And all this weird stuff that was never intended in the image in the first place and people were deriving all these weird meanings and none of them were bad. And we were like, “You don't get it, its' funny, it's like a romance novel cover!” Part of it is just funny to see people's reactions to something when there's no caption underneath the image to explain the humor of it, people just kind of come up with their own meaning for it. I've had a couple of illustrations like that where it's pretty clear when it appears above the article but as soon as I post it on my blog or something without any explanation I start getting all these confused responses and notes, like "What are you trying to say?" You know? CR: Looking at the rest of the stuff in Steal Back Your Vote, you're certainly the most fully-rendered stylist in the batch, as opposed to the more strip-friendly styles of the other two artists involved. LK: Right. I've always tried to go more the fully-rendered route with my stuff and I don't think that I've ever really tried to be a comic strip guy. I'm just not smart enough. I just don't have a sharp enough wit to come up with the amazing commentary and humor that guys like Rall and Dangle both do. I think for that reason I look up to those guys a lot. Stuff like The Far Side, Doonesbury and Calvin & Hobbes was what I loved growing up. I didn't get into comic shops much to get superheroes or Alan Moore stuff until I was a teenager and I discovered that stuff. Of course, by that point all the other illustrators I knew were like "Seriously dude? I read Dark Knight Returns when I was nine!" CR: For this project, did you script those pages yourself or did that come from somebody else? LK: No, I think that Greg Palast and either Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or maybe Zach [Roberts] had a hand in it too. I'm not really sure who wrote the final script but I know that the story itself came directly from Greg and then I think that somebody might have helped break it down into a script format. Or maybe Greg did it himself. They just told me they were going to send me scripts and then I got that and I just laid it out into comic book pages...which I'm good at, but I'm not good at actually scripting it myself. CR: About how long did you spend on the pages for this title? LK: There was an alternate cover that didn't end up getting used that you can see on the site, stealbackyourvote.com. That itself took me almost a week, that was a pretty in-depth painting. CR: And that one got scrapped? LK: I understand why they didn't use it. After a second look, it doesn't read very well as a loud, loud image--as the cover of not just a comic book, but something that's meant to look like a comic book to people who don't read comics. I'm happy they still show it on the site, because I think it's a cool illustration, but you really have to look at it for a while before you know what going on and that's not the kind of image that you want on the cover of something that you want people to come up and snatch it without knowing what's going on. CR: What about the rest of the book? LK: The comic pages took me about a day apiece, that's usual for me. The two illustrations that ended up being the front cover and the inside cover, those only took me--both of those took me less than a day to do and I kind of misunderstood with those images. I didn't know they were going to use those for the cover and the inside, I thought they were going to be used as spot illustrations somewhere farther into the book and I initially drew them pretty small....They're good, loud images. They work pretty well but if I'd known they were looking for an alternate cover I might have spent a little more time on them. CR: Besides this, where else are you plying your craft these days? LK: Witch Doctor was the first full length, single issue comic that I've ever done, and that was done with the writer Brandon Seifert....It was very much a two guys printing up a comic at Kinko's, and that's still how we do it. Actually, it's at Docu-Mart. We never really expect to make our money back on them. It's nice, just doing that has gotten us a lot of exposure to do other things. The crazy thing about Witch Doctor is that when Brandon and I first hooked up and started looking at other independent comics or independent creator that were successful we realized that the way to do it would be to just do a book by ourselves. To stop taking stacks of pages and stacks of pitches to comic book companies because thousands of people are doing that. What not a lot of people are doing is taking the time it takes to actually print up your own comic. CR: So is that the model you're committed to? LK: I'm not sure that we want to do that forever but for the time being we don't have any plans to pester any comic book companies to put our book out for us. We have two more issues that we have planned out and those will be published by ourselves. If somebody wants to express an interest to publish us, we're always looking out for that but I don't think we're ever going to get back to the point where we're just bringing around our stacks of paper to people. Also, nowadays the Internet is brilliant for comic book creators because you don't even need to print it up and send it to anybody anymore. You just put it on a website and direct people to it and if it's worth reading people read it and keep checking back for new material. CR: Absolutely. That's the model for Steal Back Your Vote, and something I'm looking into myself for my first comic. Any closing thoughts? LK: Be sure to keep an eye out for more Witch Doctor and on November 5 you can check out my Creepy Magazine story. It'll be the first Creepy Magazine story in years I'm told, and that'll be up on the MySpace Dark Horse Presents page on November 5...that'll be issue 16 of that. And keep a look out for motorcyclists because I do a lot of helmet designs and graphics for Icon Motorsports. Other than that, just keep an eye out for me in weeklies around the country; I'm constantly filling up my schedule with little spot illustrations here or there. And if you ever want to see what I've been up to you can check out my blog, it's at lukasketner.blogspot.com. Russell Burlingame is a journalist and columnist living and working in New York City. In high school, Russell interviewed Elliot S. Maggin for a review of the Kingdom Come novelization, and since then has worked consistently in and around the comics industry. He interned for Wizard magazine, and has freelanced for Wizard and Newsarama, in addition to a number of non-comics publications, Russell is currently working on a graphic novel based on Cap'n Internet, the comic strip that ran in his college newspaper; and a graphic biography of folk singer Phil Ochs with artist Marion Vitus. Currently, in addition to his freelance work and his comics projects, Russell writes a number of columns for ComicRelated, including Conscientious Sequentials, The Gold Exchange, What's Perhappenin', Closing Statements, Reflecting 'Pool and To See or Not To See. Russell also takes point on the Hot Shot of the Week feature.
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