Saturdays At The Hy-Vee: An Interview With Jeremy Smith

by tonydoug wright

Candle Light Press artist Jeremy Smith may not be a well-known name in the world of comic book art, but that's a shame, because he is truly one of the most impressive artists in the business. Smith has been a long time collaborator with John Ira Thomas, and the two have produced some great graphic novels such as Zoo Force and Shades and Angels. Both graphic novels feature Smith’s intricately designed panels that are true works of awe-inspiring art. There seems to be no limit to what Smith can do to a page because he can bring the most beautiful dreams to life and he can also make the most dangerous nightmares a reality.

Jeremy Smith was a good sport to answer some of my questions via e-mail. As always I appreciate the time and effort from the crew at Candle Light Press. Thanks.

Jeremy, I understand you are currently working on the next issue of Zoo Force titled BBQ. What will you be working on after you are finished with Zoo Force: BBQ?

Well, the way we've been pacing it around here is that I do a Shades & Angels book, then I give my mind a welcome change of mood and pace by doing a Zoo Force book...it's a little like reading War and Peace and then flipping on the TV to pro wrestling. Not that one is any more worthwhile than the other, just that they are utterly, refreshingly different. So after Zoo Force: BBQ (which is a tentative title at the moment) I will get to work on the third (and final) volume of The Fairer Sex. But first, in between, I am moving from Iowa City (current CLP HQ) to Portland, Oregon. So be patient with the next (The Fairer Sex) volume.

Since you are moving to Oregon, have you and John Ira Thomas worked out a way to collaborate on future projects?

By astral projection. No, seriously, in the age of the internet and all, there's no reason we can't keep doing things pretty much the way we have all along. John is so far ahead of me in that he wrote most of the scripts for these books years ago (that shows the relative speeds of our work... drawing these huge books takes a LOOOONG time) and I just have to catch up. We have already begun to get a taste of what it will be like to work apart, because John just this month actually moved out of CLP HQ to another house here in Iowa City. So, where I used to see him almost every day, now I just see him on Saturday (our unofficial CLP workday). We'll use FTP and email and stuff to shuttle files back and forth. I will miss meeting Carter and John at the Hy-Vee every Saturday morning for breakfast before we get started on projects. But maybe we can do that by webcam conferencing or something, haha.

I have been impressed with your artwork for the Zoo Force and Shades & Angels series because your artwork places a great deal of emphasis on major and minor details. How long does it take you to work on a page?

Well, thanks, glad you like it...as for the length of time each page takes, that varies wildly, partly because I do not do a page from start to finish in one go. For the Shades & Angels books I pencil the entire book (usually, for us, around 130 pages or so), get it nice and tight, and this takes a couple of months at least (if I didn't have to work a full-time job in the "real" world, this would probably go much faster). Then I go all the way back to page one and ink, ink, ink... another 2 or 3 months at least. Then I scan the pages one by one, clean them up one by one on the computer, and finish them one by one with a graphics program. Y'know, add lighting effects and gradients and whatnot: another couple months usually. The art in Shades & Angels is much more involved and serious, so I spend a lot longer on each book, about a year. Zoo Force, on the other hand, can be just as detailed but with the varied media I can break it into smaller sections that I can knock out pretty quick. I'd say a Zoo Force book takes about half as long, six months or so. So, to come back to your actual question, I would have to pretend someone gave me the assignment of doing one page from start to finish. Two or three days, I'd guess. With eating and sleeping added in there.

Your artwork is a nice compliment to John Ira Thomas' writing. How did you two meet?

Well, back in 1994, John Ira Thomas and a couple of other people were trying their hand at starting a comic book company here in Iowa City. I heard through a friend that these folks were taking "auditions", y'know, portfolio reviews of artists to maybe draw for them. I had never really drawn comics before, but always wanted to, so I threw together a folio and went to what I later found out was John's grad student office in Schaeffer Hall (classics and history building at the U of Iowa). I guess they were impressed (John later told me I was the only one who showed up, ha! Guess I had a purty good chance, huh?) and we started working together. Not long after, this company of theirs burned up on the launchpad and John and I found ourselves the lone survivors. We soon found Carter Allen and Mike Ayers through our mutual love for comics, and formed what we called The Crop Circle Comics Guild which was like a club, a support group for feisty local independents like ourselves. As time went by, various people joined and left Crop Circle, but the core four or so of us remained and in 1996 morphed into Candle Light Press (Mike Ayers actually started it, but he abdicated and John and I took it over).

John and I have been working together now for over a decade. The magic that makes it work is that he writes "to" the artist, asks them what they want to draw, and leaves a lot of the details to them. John Ira as you know, concentrates on his dialogue, but I would have to say that about 80% percent of what you actually see on the page is the artist freely interpreting John's basic story structure. He occasionally specifies, y'know, a certain costume, prop or location, and sometimes provides minimal stage directions, but once the script is in my hands, John trusts me to make it something else, make it they way I want visually. We talk back and forth, shape the story together. As I understand it, this is a rare situation in the comics field. I would have to adapt quite a bit to work with another writer.

I wish I could say we met when we rounded a corner, collided with one another and yelled, "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" "Yeah, well, you got your peanut butter in--" well, y'know. But the way it really happened was cool enough.

You have done extremely well with the artistic freedom that you have been given. Is there a page or panel in particular that stands out as one of your best efforts?

Well, in volume 2 of The Fairer Sex, if I had to pick one, it would probably be [pages] 18 & 19, where Night Angel tells Johnny Mycenae about his female trouble. This is a really shining example of how John Ira's work blends with my own. As you know, John's characters like to talk. A lot. All that excellent dialogue with little or no stage direction....so it is up to me to make the characters do something, fidget with something, gesture and interact with their environment. The script said Night Angel and Johnny were in the park across from Molly's orphanage, so I thought it would be a nice touch to have them use the playground equipment as a set. Johnny's moment on the swing provides a rhythm, and then an abrupt stop...followed by comic relief. Johnny is probably my favorite character, too, by the way.

A close second would be the scene where the Madonna is slowly walking through the aftermath, shooting possible survivors, and her big ol' diamond-plate metal clog lands right in front of Tyson's face. I like the pacing and mood in that one. Another bit of the script I wasn't sure I could do justice, but it works. I'll have to see about making a pair of those shoes for real; Halloween is only six months away, y'know!

In Zoo Force: Bean & Nothingness, I am partial to the double-page spread of the Greek vases Pythagoras travels through to get to Hades.

I'm a big fan of comic books and I am also a huge fan of music. What tunes have you been enjoying lately?

I don't keep up much on newer stuff. Lessee.... I am a huge Talking Heads fanatic...anything David Bowie....actually, while drawing the entire sequence in Fairer Sex 2 where Fred and Dan find that room downstairs I listened to Annie Lennox Bare....Gorillaz...Beck Guerro (thanks Carter!), ELO. John Ira usually makes me mix CD's that have anything from Tom Jones to Old 97's to Blue Man Group to Neko Case to Nick Lowe to The Kinks to John Hiatt... you name it, whatever gives us that Freedom City vibe. Actually, at the moment, while working on the Captain Cat car chase scene for the next Zoo Force book, I have been listening to a CD John actually made for Carter which features a bunch of weird and fantastic covers of James Bond songs and score music. Very slick. Also the soundtracks from The Life Aquatic and Brokeback Mountain and a movie called CQ.

If you are interested in checking out Jeremy Smith’s works from Candle Light Press then visit their site at www.candlightpress.com.