Giant Days #26 Featured Interviews Previews 

John Allison Talks “Giant Days,” Shares an Exclusive Preview of #26

By | April 27th, 2017
Posted in Interviews, Previews | % Comments

“Giant Days” is a perennial favorite of the Multiversity staff. Seemingly every month, it makes our “Comics Should Be Cheap” column or is featured in “Saturday Morning Panels.” It also made our Best of 2016 list, locking in the #10 spot. It’s not hard to see why it is so popular: the book is a delight, warm and funny, full of great character moments, and an honest look at being a new adult. We share both an interview with writer and creator John Allison, as well as an exclusive first look at “Giant Days” #26, which comes out May 3.

What was the original impetus for “Giant Days,” and how did it distinguish itself from your other comics projects? Like, how did you decide you wanted to tell the stories of these characters outside of, say a “Bad Machinery” storyline?

John Allison: When I finished my webcomic “Scary Go Round” after seven years in 2009, I had a few spin-off series in mind. “Bad Machinery” was the main one — I had a cast, a thought-through premise, and an elevator pitch that made sense. Then I had a couple of others that felt like they had legs, but sounded quite thin if you described them to people. “Giant Days” was pretty much a character piece and nothing else, so I did the first issue all myself, to show a publisher what it actually was, but they passed. A couple of years later it continued to nag at me, so I did another two issues — one that created the shape of the series as it is now, and one that tested a few other things. I just found I enjoyed spending time with the characters, so I pitched it to [BOOM! Box Editor] Shannon Watters at BOOM! Studios.

After writing webcomics for so long, where you can basically have a story last as long as it needs to, do you approach writing single issue comics any differently?

JA: It’s forced me to be a lot more disciplined. Having grown up with U.S. comics, I recognized 22 pages as a story unit, and I would try to write to that length, but need to spill over into 24 or 28 or 30 pages to correct pacing, clarify a point, or better transition between scenes. Obviously, I can’t do that on “Giant Days.” But working on webcomics meant I had to deliver a story beat every day/page, which actually helped me a lot, because most modern singles aren’t that tight.

“Giant Days” does a fantastic job of providing a single issue story that usually ends with a tiny driver to future stories. How far ahead do you have these stories mapped out?

JA: I cook them up in six-month batches, and it’s fair to say that I don’t go into that process with a huge number of crystal clear ideas about what six stories I’m going to tell. This was only meant to be a six-issue limited series. But I’m keen not to write stories that take more than an issue (even though there are overarching subplots) because that’s what almost every single other comic does. My model for stories was “Groo The Wanderer.” Every issue of “Groo” was done in one.

Do you have an end in mind to “Giant Days” or will we be following these characters into their, I don’t know, late fifties?

JA: Nothing is certain in comics, as in life! I figure the end of the third year of university, the presumed end of their undergraduate studies, is the end of the series. Then, obviously, I’ll do a series set years later where Susan is a qualified doctor. One day an old friend comes in—and you won’t believe who it is! (I don’t think I can do that).

You’ve been writing Daisy, Susan, and Esther for a few years now. Do you feel like you learn new things about them as you go or are you working from some master, hundreds-paged bible you worked on for years before the series even started?

JA: Oh, boy. If you knew me, you’d know that the idea of a master 100-page bible, or indeed any character notes beyond a long-forgotten paragraph of text, gives me a lot of totally undeserved credit.

Continued below

The world of the comic has grown quite a bit from the start, to a cast that was a bit limited to a school and dorms, to families, outside friends, townies, and others. How much of that is dictated by the story you’ve thought up and how much of it is just “I’d like to see what happens when Esther has to talk to a crotchety old man”?

JA: The cast was very tight for the first six issues, because it had to be, as I had no expectation that anyone would continue to exist beyond that. Once we got extended to ongoing, I had to continue to inject fresh blood into the series; that was when a little world-building became necessary. “I’d like to see what happens when…” describes a very laid-back creative process that I do not recognize. I see all my series as a grid, and slowly I fill in squares on the grid. When the grid is full, I make it bigger in my head, and start filling in more. If this sounds frighteningly abstract, imagine working this way for nearly two decades!

How much of your own experience do you pull from for the lives of your three protagonists? Having not been college age, or a woman, in 2017, are there people you know that you lean on for details about that kind of life must be like? Or do you just kind of wing it?

JA: Obviously, I draw on my own life, and the lives of others, and things I read. A lot of it is just winging it! The main characters’ personalities are well-set in my head; I can run a scenario past them like a computer program, and see what the response would be. The ‘Holiday Special’ last year was an exercise in that approach.

You’ve been drawing your own comics for quite some time. How do you approach writing scripts for another artist? I’m particularly curious about any direction that you might give Lissa Treiman or Max Sarin about reaction shots, which “Giant Days” excels at.

JA: When I first had to write a script for an artist, which was “Giant Days” #1, I felt almost embarrassed to have to explain what a character was thinking and feeling. When I write a script for myself, it’s just dialogue and I “act” the emotions in my head as I draw. But for another artist, in every panel description I try to write what everyone is feeling, and both series artists have been particularly good at interpreting that.

Lissa and Max are hugely gifted at conveying that acting. I’ve learned so much myself as an artist from working with them. Lissa had the chops of a storyboard artist at the top of her field, and Max (now aided by Liz Fleming on inks) levels up with every issue in every direction. I’ve been spoiled.

Cover by Max Sarin
Written by John Allison
Pencilled by Max Sarin
Inked by Liz Fleming
Colored by Whitney Cogar
Lettered by Jim Campbell

Ed and McGraw’s home has become a no-go zone with the addition of Dean Thompson, and the impending visit of his girlfriend Posy is anticipated with a mixture of morbid curiosity and dread.


Benjamin Birdie

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