One publisher to start making waves and ripples in the comic community is Black Mask Studios. Launching with books like “Ballistic” and “12 Reasons to Die” from Ghostface Killah, the studio has had a pretty unapologetic early existence pushing some absolutely crazy/fun comics of a different variety.
To keep with their trend of publishing crazy/fun comics, one of their new books to debut later this year is Curt Pires and Chris Peterson’s “Mayday.” The story of Terrance Gattica, the successful writer/director of Glitterfuck Empire who finds himself in the midst of a battle to save life, existence and everything as we know it. Typical Hollywood liberal, am I right? With letters by Scotland’s own Colin Bell, I have rather high hopes for the dream team line-up of this book.
Here’s the press release:
Curt Pires and Chris Peterson to bring their latest creator owned masterpiece MAYDAY to BLACK MASK STUDIOS. Mayday is a journey from the acid drenched gutters of Los Angeles to the very outside of existence itself. A study in depravity and beauty and everything in between. MAYDAY debuts Dec 2014.
Read on as we chat with Pires about the project, its origins, and more.
Tell me about how this project came together. How did you and Chris hook up, and where did the idea for “Mayday” originate?
Curt Pires: Chris lives in the same city as me so we’ve been friends for a while. We’re almost always talking and shooting the shit so it made a lot of sense to work together. “Mayday” is actually a project I’ve wanted to make for years, but due to the transgressive and boundary pushing nature of it, could never find the right home for. I was introduced to Matt Pizzolo over at BMS by a mutual friend and it was immediately clear to me that he was a trailblazer, and that Black Mask was the home for “Mayday.”
Given that you and Chris have known each other for a while but “Mayday” is an older idea, how has working with Chris influenced you or changed things? What has the creative process been like?
CP: Chris breathed life into the book. I had the idea for “Mayday” but it didn’t really exist until Chris entered the fold. His character designs from the go felt so right. It’s like he was meant to draw the book all along.
How much can you talk about “Mayday” without spoiling anything? Beyond the press release, what can you tell me about the book?
CP: It’s about Terrance Gattica. He’s a young hotshot writer/director who wins an academy award for his debut film Glitterfuck Empire. He gets paid big money to write and develop his next project and spends all the money on drugs and prostitutes and self harm. In the midst of all this, he stumbles onto a plot to usher in the end of all reality as we know it. Basically the only person who can save the universe, reality, is this fuck up junkie writer. Fun.
I see this in your work a lot as a central recurring element, so given that it kicks off “Mayday” I must ask directly: what do you find so fascinating about debauchery?
CP: I write about what I know. I write about what I experience.
In this case it just happens to be getting fucked up and saving reality.
Something certainly prevalent in your work is going after culture and how we celebrate, with the “Mayday” preview seeming pretty biting already. What do you find are the differences or changes for you in approach in this from something like POP?
CP: “Mayday” is definitely a lot less serious than “POP.” There’s emotional weight to the characters and the situations, but there’s definitely more of an comedy angle. It does also dive deep into the mythology of Los Angeles, the hidden truth’s that lurk beneath the city, and the ghost of River Phoenix is everywhere.
It’s not that I think you’re not a funny guy, but I feel like you actively embracing humor as a central element of your work is relatively new (at least compared to the bleaker things you’ve done previously). How have you found getting that tone of humor right to make sure it’s yours?
Continued belowCP: I’ve always been interested in writing humour. One of my earliest influences when I was getting into writing was Apatow, so I think it’s in my DNA. I’m finally just doing projects where that humour element fits in without feeling jarring. Also, I’m just straight up learning to laugh at shit. Even when things are awful, you can find something to laugh about.
I know Harmony Korine and David Lynch are pretty big influences on you in general, but this definitely seemingly comes with from the teaser imagery Springbreakers/Wild at Heart vibe. Am I picking up correctly what you are putting down, or not so much this time?
CP: The debauchery inside the book certainly evokes Springbreakers, and the partnership between our leads Terrance and Kleio certainly brings to mind Wild at Heart, but I’m coming at it from a little different place this time around. The films of Shane Black and Tony Scott come to mind, Lynch’s Lost Highway (particularly the party scene) the first couple seasons of Tom Kapinos’ Californication, the loneliness of Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, the sexualized destruction of Oliver Stone’s rather messy Natural Born Killers.
I like that when you talk about influences you almost exclusively talk about films and what they do for you, but never really comics. Why do you suppose that is? Given what you said about finding a home for this book, where do you see yourself in the comics scene when making a book like this?
CP: I don’t know where I fit into the comics scene at this point. It doesn’t seem like very many people are making books like me at this point. It doesn’t seem like there’s lots of comics that really get me off the way they used to any more. So I guess at this point I’m just trying to build something new, trying to build the comic industry I want to exist in all it’s weird, beautiful, fucked up glory.
Mayday as a phrase implies the idea of an emergency, but I’d argue that the teaser predicts oncoming mayhem. Seeing as we’re definitely past that younger, more vulnerable “green” Pires and you’ve got some good work under your belt, how are you finding the task of creating and controlling the chaos now in this series?
CP: The title definitely comes into play and will make sense in a big way, but the comment about mayhem is very on point. A big thing about “Mayday” is it studies the way chaos can build and slowly simmer for years. The ways we can destroy ourselves slowly overtime, but also how chaos can be explosive. That’s the first issue: the slow simmer turning into a full blown explosion.
I know you have a habit of sneaking yourself into your books in different ways, certainly apparent in Theremin #4, but also in what I’ve seen of POP or LP. Where do you find yourself in this? Are you going to save the universe and reality for us, Curt?
CP: I guess I’ll just be honest and say that there’s something about a somewhat successful writer who ingests substances,has a penchant for self destruction, and the ability to save and alter reality that hits close to home. *WINK*
