In this episode Charles Forsman gets revenge.
Topics include Sad Hulk, shearing pizza, Friends of Revenger, art appreciation, tall Wolverine, dumb violent books, the Grace Jones pitch, oyster riders, being in control, 80s movies, Ronda Rousey’s Road House Y E S, that Point Break chase scene, the magical world of alt comics, glow in the dark covers, and what he’s reading!
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Transcript:
Matt: Welcome back to the ComiXologist Conversations Podcast. Kara, welcome.
Kara: Thanks Matt.
Matt: We are in Artist Alley with a dear friend of ours. We talk about your book “Revenger” on the podcast almost every week. Welcome back.
Charles: I know. Hi. It’s a pleasure to be on here.
Kara: Thank you, Chuck Forsman.
Charles: Yeah. This is great. I listen to the show and whenever I hear my name I turn red, in my studio. It’s a pleasure to be red in front of you.
Matt: Makes it all the more enjoyable. Now, you have “Revenger” … We talked about on the show multiple times, but what’s your pitch? Let’s hear the pitch directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Charles: Okay. It’s basically like … I like to say it’s like the “Incredible Hulk” TV show from the 70s, where it’s a woman wandering a broken United States. There is a lot of exploited people out there being stepped on by rich people.
Matt: “The man”
Charles: The man. You know, the haves.
Matt: The one percent.
Charles: The one percent.
Kara: Sorry, you said the Hulk and now I just have the Sad Hulk music playing in my head.
Charles: Yeah. We should play that.
Matt: Then will get sued.
Charles: That would be awesome.
Matt: I’m not sure if the Amazon lawyers would approve of that.
Kara: Everyone go look up the Sad Hulk music right now and play it in the background.
Charles: Youtube, it’s easy. With “Revenger”, people call her phone number, leave her messages and she comes and helps out with extreme violence.
Matt: Yeah. Very extreme violence.
Charles: It’s basically a mashing up of my love of 80s action movies and the comic books of the time.
Matt: What are your main inspirations for the book? What are those 80s action movies that you probably have VHSs of?
Charles: The big one is “Cobra”. Stallone. I don’t know if you … For any big “Cobra” fans out there, I gave Revenger Cobretti’s car. It’s a 1950 Mercury Monterey. They both have the same wheels.
Matt: Nice. I didn’t even notice that.
Kara: You’re a failure of an 80s guy.
Matt: I am a big failure right now. I don’t think there’s been a scene where Revenger cuts a pizza with scissors, yet, but I think there should be.
Charles: I got to carve my own path.
Kara: That’s weird?
Matt: Yes, it is weird.
Kara: Oh, I do that.
Matt: You do that?
Kara: With kitchen shears.
Matt: Kitchen shears?
Kara: You use kitchen shears to cut pizza and it’s much easier than that rolly thing.
Matt: Kara, this podcast is over.
Kara: You just lift up an edge of the pizza, and you snip it with the kitchen shears.
Matt: Maybe you should watch “Cobra”.
Kara: Oh, do I have things in common with the protagonist?
Charles: You’ll be a fan. You’ll be a big fan after you watch that scene.
Matt: What else is on the list?
Charles: Let’s see. Comic books, I’ve been reading a lot of … Leading up to this, a lot of the 80s “Punisher”, especially with Klaus Janson, who’s been a big influence lately. He’s right over there somewhere.
Matt: Yeah. We passed by his table a hundred times today.
Charles: Yeah. He did a long run on “Daredevil” where he was basically batting clean up … People would just do layouts, or Miller would just write …
Matt: Then he would finish. He’s the one that I first started understanding inkers and what they do. I think his inks are the ones that I can pick out on every page. “Oh, that’s Klaus Janson on inks for that book.”
Charles: I especially love his use of Zip-a-Tone. Which is something I’ve been teaching myself how to do. In the old days, instead of making those dots, the patterns on the computer, they would actually cut them out with an exact-o-blade, and paste them on the board. I’ve been doing that for issue 6 of “Revenger”. He was famous. Klaus was very famous for doing that in the 80s. If you look at “Daredevil”, there’s a ton of that.
Matt: I remember buying a “What If” story, I think it was the final “What If” issue, and I think he drew it. The plot was Mr. Sinister has something to do with Gambit, and they finally figure out what it is. They open up this arc and it was comic books. It was like X-Men comics, so the final pages, Rogue, somber, looking at all their continuity in comic form. It was like a Twilight Zone episode.
Charles: That’s like every day in my house.
Matt: Yeah. That’s what I was going to talk about. You have a Friends of Revenger facebook page.
Charles: Yeah.
Matt: That I’m a part of.
Charles: I’m sorry.
Matt: No, it’s okay. I found a way to turn off notifications. What’s cool about it is, you talked about it a little bit in teaching yourself a different art style, but you’re a huge fan of comic books. You go to comic book shops in your travels and you find older runs of famous books and you’re posting about them. You have an excitement about it. You don’t see that a whole lot in the comic book industry. That was refreshing to me, to see you as a mega fan of comics, wanting to share that love. It was awesome.
Charles: Thanks. Yeah. I used to read mainly alternative comics since my twenties and up until recently, but I sort of did a 180 after living in that world. I just started to go back to the comics of my youth. Now, I’m obsessed with finding stuff from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, that I hadn’t even read. I’m enjoying coming back to those kinds of comics, and doing them my own sort of way. It’s been two years of diving in the bins.
Matt: It’s funny because the Wolverine was talked about. There’s a run on “Wolverine” with Mark, is it Texeira? How do you pronounce his last name?
Charles: Oh yeah. I’m not sure.
Matt: Nobody knows how to pronounce that guy’s name. His run on “Wolverine”, I really didn’t like it growing up.
Charles: Really?
Matt: I grew up reading “Wolverine” and I was like “Wow, why is Wolverine so tall and muscular? This is freaking me out.” Going back, I understand more about art and comic books, I was like “Wow, this is really great.” It’s interesting how those kinds of things age overtime, where when you’re growing up, like Sienkiewicz did a Wolverine graphic novel that I thought was just total trash, as a kid. I understand more about art, and you appreciate it differently.
Charles: There’s definitely something that happens when you get older that you can … I don’t know what it is. Maybe for men, we don’t mature until we’re like twenty five …
Matt: Thirty.
Charles: Thirty. Forty.
Kara: Never.
Charles: We’re just dummies. We don’t get it.
Kara: That’s interesting that you say there is all these old school and alternative comics that influence you. That’s actually what I thought when Matt first showed me “Revenger”. He kept being like “Kara, Revenger, you have to see Revenger.” Okay, okay. I’m like “What is this alt comic thing that Matt handed me? Doesn’t he like superheroes? What is happening!?” Then I read through it, and I was like “Oh my god.” What would you say was your … Where did you get the idea to kind of meld all of these things together?
Charles: Before I started this book, I was doing … I think I started to feel sort of stagnant. I did this book, “The End of The [Bleeping] World”, and I started a new project right after that. I was sort of working in the same mode. I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over again. I tend to be the kind of person who goes crazy. I get really bored I guess and I just want to change something up. Guys like Michel Fiffe, and Ben Marra … I’m good friends with him, by the way.
Matt: Name drop.
Charles: Ha!
Kara: This whole con is a name drop. I mean, come on.
Matt: Ever heard of Michel Fiffe?
Charles: Cobra, Night Business, you know. There doing that sort of thing. They love alternative comics and they love superhero comics. To me, it’s a great time to be alive, if I can say that.
Matt: You certainly can.
Charles: People our age, and even younger … There used to be more of an us versus them. If you’re into superheroes, or you’re into alternative comics, you’re like “I don’t like that other crap.” Now, I find myself loving everything and I’m letting myself be okay with it. That’s what “Revenger” is. It’s like “Yeah, I can do a violent dumb comic book if I want to.” Dumb in a good way.
Matt: Yeah.
Charles: It looks so different from the other stuff I’ve done, but I’m okay with that.
Matt: Have you been in contact with Grace Jones?
Charles: We have a meeting tomorrow. It’s a secret location.
Matt: It’s at Atomic Wings, down the street.
Kara: This is Matt’s pitch for this book.
Matt: That’s my pitch. We did a newsletter to a pretty big audience and I think the book I picked to pitch to this audience was “Revenger”. I gave them the Grace Jones pitch.
Charles: Nice.
Matt: Hopefully that really connects with people. Everyone loves Grace Jones.
Charles: She’s great. I just read her tour rider, it was published on the internet. She has to have buckets of oysters and a shucking knife. It says “Grace does her own shucking”.
Matt: What is she going on tour for? Does she sing?
Charles: Yeah.
Matt: Currently?
Charles: She was like a disco star. She still performs.
Matt: Really? Maybe that’s the key.
Kara: Going to do some Youtubing …
Matt: Hardcore Grace Jones Youtubing after this interview. What is it about the comic book art form that made you want to do your own thing?
Charles: Probably because I think … I have two older brothers. One of them is a filmmaker. One of them is a musician. I needed my own thing. I like to be alone. Conventions are tough to be at, there’s a lot of people. Seriously, I just like the control of comics. I always wanted to tell stories whether it was movies or whatever. Comics, I grew up reading them and I never stopped. I like having control over everything. I like doing everything. Designing the book, all the … Up until recently I’ve been self publishing …
Matt: Oily Comics.
Charles: Stapling, folding, cutting.
Matt: That’s a lot of work.
Charles:I love everything about it. I just like the control I think. I like that I can do everything and I don’t have to ask anyone permission. That sort of thing.
Kara: You have some really gorgeous pages next to you on this table. I know you mentioned earlier, before we started recording, that you ink your pages on actual paper and then digitally color. What’s that full process like for you?
Charles: My process is basically, I do very small thumbnails of each page, which are tiny two inch drawings that no one could really understand what they are. I’ll either do full pencils on a larger page, a piece of Bristol, and ink over that. I do all the lettering on the board too. I try and keep things as old fashioned as I can. I like to have everything done on the board, and then I scan that in, and I color, and then photoshop. That’s my basic process.
Matt: After that, you might have something to sell at cons, like original pages.
Charles: Which can help pay the rent when I’m … Who wants to buy a page?
Matt: What’s your all time favorite 80s movie?
Charles: All time favorite 80s movie. I don’t know. “Robocop” just popped into my head.
Matt: Yes. Actually just saw, If I could name drop for a moment, I follow Michel Fiffe on Twitter. He just did one of those Robocop drawings. Oh my god. I would buy a hundred if he did a Robocop comic book. It’s gorgeous.
Kara: I have not … I was going to answer this question too, I know this is not my interview but let’s all talk about 80s movies here. I only saw this movie once but it’s stuck in my brain forever. “Road House”.
Matt: Oh yeah.
Charles: Oh yeah.
Matt: Patrick Swayze got an apartment in that movie for like a hundred dollars a month and it was the most gorgeous … Above a barn. He had this view of a pond. He was living the life.
Kara: He was living the life.
Charles: What else do you need?
Kara: He’s just like kicking the S out of people.
Matt: In this universe … This is the worst, amazing tangent ever, they ship in bouncers. They’re so popular and so good, that they’re like renowned.
Charles: They’re like a sought after commodity, right?
Matt: They’re remaking it, did you hear the news?
Charles: No.
Matt: Breaking news, Ronda Rousey will be the Patrick Swayze character.
Charles: Oh man.
Kara: I can’t tell if you’re kidding.
Matt: That’s real, that’s not a troll.
Charles: Can I say another favorite movie is “Point Break”. Have you seen “Point Break”?
Matt: I actually have never seen “Point Break”.
Kara: I saw “Point Break”.
Charles: “Point Break”, oh my gosh. What’s the director’s name? She did …
Matt: Jim Cameron.
Charles: No. They were married. The director, she was married … She did the Iraq movie with Jeremy Renner.
Matt: We’ll get the intern on it. [Intern Note: It’s Kathryn Bigelow, you uneducated plebians, and she was the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director. GOD.]
Charles: All right. She’s a great … “Point Break is amazing”. My favorite scene is a foot chase scene through the city, which you have to see Matt because …
Matt: I’m going to add that to my queue.
Kara: What 80s movie do you like?
Matt: I mean, “Robocop” and “Road House” are literally the top, I think. That might be it.
Kara: Round it out with a third one.
Matt: What year did “Casino” come out? I think it was the 90s. “Casino” is one of my all time favorite movies.
Charles: That’s a good one.
Kara: So what we’re saying is that “Revenger” is up there with all of these, except as a comic book instead of the film, but the concept is there. I’m envisioning a “Revenger” cross over with “Road House”.
Matt: Maybe she happens upon that town?
Charles: Maybe Revenge House, we could call it?
Matt: The Double Deuce, she gets there. Again, going back to what Kara said before about alt comics, this probably would be the most accessible alt comic that we have, I think.
Charles: Sure. I’ll take it.
Matt: I think most people that read like we do, we have no concept of what an alt comic is, or anything like I discovered Copra way after the fact. I was like “Whoa, what is this Copra book? It’s only in one comic book shop? What is this world that I’m entering?” It’s so different to people but I think this is a good gateway into that world. Then they discover your other stuff, then they discover Copra, or whatever.
Charles: That’s the plan Matt. You outed my plan. That’s what I’m trying to do here.
Matt: That’s what you and Grace Jones cooked up in your private jet?
Charles: Yeah. The blueprints are on the wall in our private jet.
Matt: What do you read? What do you recommend to people that are listening, in your free time?
Charles: What am I going to recommend? Right now, I’m reading a book called “Ghost Rider”.
Matt: I’ve heard of him.
Charles: Specifically, the series that started in 1990 I think.
Matt: Is that the Texeira one?
Charles: Yeah. I recently dug out of the bins, from Texeira/Texeira issues of “Ghost Rider” with Danny Catch. Let me do a pitch. It’s basically like a 90s Spider-Man, but Spider-Man is Ghost Rider.
Matt: I remember distinctly that that first issue was a glow in the dark cover.
Charles: Oh yeah.
Matt: It had the weird foil.
Kara: Mmm, 90s.
Charles: There’s a lot of good covers in that series.
Matt: Those comics were interesting. The covers were so thick, because they put the work into that like glow in the dark, and the inside was flimsy paper.
Charles: Perfect. It was great. Can’t beat it.
Kara: It’s like the comic version of a hard cover.
Matt: It is, because of the cover. I love that run. I remember my brother was collecting that run. My brother used to get “Wolverine”, and that’s what got me into it. I started … So we have two copies of like “Wolverine” forty through seventy, and then he stopped.
Charles: That’s an example of a book I didn’t read then, like I was always kind of scared of it. It was a flaming skull guy. Kind of scared me. I read “Wolverine”, I was a “Wolverine” guy. Now, going back to it, it’s fun because it feels a little bad. Makes me feel twelve years old again.
Matt: I appreciate you taking the time out. Thankfully, the signing, we had to put a stop to it. Just put a pause on it so we could chat. It’ll probably go for another two hours after this.
Charles: I’m ready.
Matt: We appreciate you taking the time out, and best of luck to you.
Charles: Thanks guys.
Matt: Thank you.