Multiversity Comics Presents: Caanan Grall

For Zuda Comics fans, you’re almost certainly familiar with Caanan Grall’s exceptional title Celadore. It’s a brilliant title that features fierce imagination, tons of personality, and a cast of characters that is remarkably easy to root for. For those that haven’t read it, I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying it – so get on that.

I talked with Caanan this week about how he got into comics, his creative process, what it’s like to work with Zuda Comics, what he thought of their big changes, and a whole lot more. The guy isn’t just a great creator, he’s a great person too (plus, he reads MC – obviously he’s cool).

Check out the whole shebang after the jump, but just a note: for those that haven’t read Celadore and are waiting for the print version, this is spoiler laden.

Why did you decide to pursue a career in comics?

Caanan Grall: Hmm. I was 10 when my first solid delusion that I would make it in newspaper comic strips set in. So, it was a combination of drawing with pen and paper being a cheap way to entertain myself, it was something easy to spend time on in class without a teacher throwing a duster (eraser?) at me, and I also read somewhere that Charles Schulz made millions of dollars, and that would be great for buying me some chocolate milk.

What are your influences, both from a writing and illustration standpoint?

CG: My biggest influences remain my earliest. Peanuts, and Disney comics. Mainly Barks and Rosa. I read the heck out of Return to Plain Awful, and my parents had tons of Peanuts collections. The appeal of Peanuts, to me, is that it’s a very open comic strip. It’s kind of inviting, in that it gives you a little slice of life and requires you to draw your own conclusions as to whether it’s funny or not. Like a TV comedy without a laugh track, there was no talking down. Archie comics and Harvey comics were also quite appealing to me. I liked their rigid done-in-10 pages style. Great writing can come from restrictions like that. None of this “you have six issues to get one thing across” business.

When I discovered super hero comics, I used to spend all my spare time copying Jim Lee, and Todd McFarlane, etc. but soon got tired of being great at copying but terrible at drawing my own thing. If you found some work from me when I was 12 it’s better than what I can do now! Around the age of 15 – 18, I had to rebuild my style from the ground up, and at about this same time, simpler comic styles started appealing to me. From then up until, things that maybe blew my mind the most were Bone, Calvin & Hobbes, Roger Langridge’s Fred the Clown, and everything Doug TenNapel does.

Why did you decide to try your hand at Zuda? What was appealing about the way they were set up?

CG: Because they pay you for making your own stories, and all you have to do is win a little contest to do it!

Maybe that makes me some kind of sell-out, because there was money involved, but the big draw is more the ability to tell my story to the best of my ability. Working on too many things at once makes me a little crazy. I never could have done something with the scope of Celadore on my own webcomic site among trying to pay my rent and bills with paying gigs. I knew if I won, I wanted to release it on a four page a week schedule, because it solidified my focus, and for a long time there I was doing just Celadore, nothing else. And that was an awesome feeling. No-one other than Zuda could have given me that.

I also like the fact they were very upfront about the contracts (which, to my knowledge, is much more favourable than the standard syndicate contract I’d been clamoring for) and there was the challenge of their 3:4 layout. I love a challenge. I saw so many entries having 1 – 3 panels per screen, and thought to myself, you know what? I’m going to go NUTS on this layout. 10 panels ended up being my average, I think.

For those that haven’t read it, what is Celadore? Why should your average comic fan read it?

CG: Celadore is not a vampire comic. Please, if you can get past the first 8 screens and the “Buffy” thing, it turns into something else entirely. It’s an all ages title (10 and up, maybe, there is some blood and violence) with a lot of character-based comedy and some action/adventure, set in a world where an ancient Order of magical beings struggle with obscurity and the occasional monstrous remnant of eons past. Filtered through the eyes of two once-were-normal 11 year olds, of course.

How did you come up with the concept of Celadore, and while we’re on the subject, how did you come up with the name Celadore (besides the fact that a character shares the name)?

CG: I have my sketchbooks with me all the time. I remember I was in a breakfast diner with my then-girlfriend-now-wife having double bacon when I drew the first Celadore sketch. It just popped into my head, this story about a monster hunter waking up in a little girl’s body with the ghost of that girl following her around. Really, it’s a concept I probably could have got a lot more out of, but the more I considered the character of Celadore, the more the mythology grew around her. Celadore sounded French, so she became French, for example. The rest is kind of my philosophy that there are so many religions, myths, and legends in the world, but they’re all from a time before camera phones and youtube, that how are we to know how much truth is in ANY of it? I prefer to believe it’s all true. That instantly opens up my world to include everything I feel like putting in there. Greek mythology. Fairy stories. Excalibur. Genies. Irish children’s stories. Anything.

While there is a character named Celadore, the comic’s title of Celadore alludes more to the bridge she serves for Evelyn and Sam between the hidden world and the real world.

Tolkien once said “cellar door” was the most beautiful phrase in the English language, and if someone were to mash the words together into one, the resulting word would be evocative enough to plant a story in your head. That’s where the original sketch came from, and I guess it worked.

When you were writing Celadore from the beginning, how did you factor in the 60 frame “seasons” that Zuda uses into it? How much did that alter your plotting of the title?

CG: Originally, I just wanted to get Evie back into her body. That was the whole plot of season 1. For a whole day or two, I thought it would make an awesome novel, and there would have been so much more humour in it if I’d stuck with that, but when I locked my sights on to Zuda, it became quicker, punchier, and all the transitional scenes I would have had fun with got left behind. It became scene change after scene change, which makes the story seem very rushed, and maybe implies things like the van ride from Ness’s shop to the Sunset headquarters must have been too boring to include. Which is so not true.

I never thought I’d get a second season at all. Evelyn was always meant to end up with the Mark in that final scene, but everything after season 1 was just a vague notion. At one point the villains in chapter 2 would be a werewolf and a banshee (but the Timonys beat me to that on Night Owls.) All I really knew is I wanted to get away from vampires and the Buffy comparisons, and do a modern day genie story. Sometimes it seems everything from season 2 on was just so I could do that World Peace gag. I think that’s my favourite page.

I also loved the World Peace gag. I think one of the interesting things about the book is, while it starts off having this plot about monsters in the real world and the hunting of them through the Order, it really is about a family of characters at its core. How did you develop the main characters, and why is Sam the greatest character that has ever existed?

CG: I’ve always been a fan of character-based stories. If you develop your characters well enough, and make them interesting, you can throw them together and the plot will write itself, leaving more time to focus on where the characters end up emotionally. Celadore craves family. Ness craves family, because her real one threw her out of Faerie. Wax is on a path of redemption, because his actions destroyed his marriage to Cel, essentially his family. Evelyn lost her family, and is looking for a new one. Family is definitely at the heart of this story.

Sam and his mum provide that family of course. Sam is a very enthusiastic, naive character. Kinda self-assured. He’s the type of kid who wouldn’t hide the fact from his friends he reads comics, he’d just prefer not to have those friends. That’s Sam. He’s a total nerd, and he’s incredibly confident about it. I don’t know why that kind of character would strike a cord with comic readers. It’s a total mystery. ;o)

What interested you so much in the fantastical elements of the comic, specifically the idea of turning Sam into a genie? The rest of the concepts are around in comics from time to time, but the genie thing was genuinely surprising to me.

CG: I certainly don’t read everything out there, but I thought genies were generally missing from this collective unconscious that was focusing so much on zombies, vampires and werewolves. There are so many monsters out there! I used vampires in chapter 1 because they’re instantly recognisable, of course. But to have a nymph as a villain, and Rawhead n Bloody Bones, (who in traditional tales is a type of goblin who turns kids into jam stains), I thought wasn’t being done. And neither were modern genie stories. The last time I think I saw a decent modern genie story was in the Simpsons halloween special with the monkey paw. I don’t read everything, so maybe there are others out there I don’t know about? I don’t know.

We see Wax’s infinite storage bag early in chapter 1, and when I came up with the back story of how it works, and where it came from, the idea to have Sam become a genie was irresistible.

I had never heard of the “Rawhead n Bloody Bones” monster, but I can tell you that was one scary beast. Sam’s bit of going back in time as the genie and living through so many major events…was that part of your long term plan? How much fun did you have brainstorming that bit?

CG: The time travel was something I put in because I love the idea of time travel that changes nothing. What happened, happened, to quote a certain wacky TV show. If you read the backup stories on my blog, the ones I did during the competition when winning wasn’t even on my radar – particularly the Sam one, you see where he influenced his own life years before he met Celadore, by drawing a map to the healing berries for himself. Also, in chapter 2, Sam is wearing a “#1 great grandson” t-shirt, a present from his time traveling grandparent. It was always there in my mind, but I was never sure how I was going to write it in, until the genie idea surfaced.

In my mind, he tried to change things in the past, but either couldn’t, or found things ended up being his fault. I had to abandon a scene where we see Sam say ‘cool’ on a vintage newsreel and the word spreads like wildfire. An idea I totally stole from the movie, Pleasantville, by the way.

I remember that! I love it, that’s fantastic. I did read the backup stories, so it was cool to see that all come back together in the end.

You’ve taken these characters a long way, from the infancy stage in terms of their personalities and relationships, to the point that they are all three dimensional characters with dense interpersonal connections. Will we see more of them, and if so, when? The answers here should be “yes” and “soon”.

CG: I wish I could say both those things, but at this point, we just have to wait and see. I pitched three more chapters telling all about the origins of Cel, Wax, Ness, Jams, and why Christian wanted to kill Cel in the first place (the scenes with Evie walking around the empty rooms of the Sunset building gives you a clue why), while still forwarding the main narrative, (and revealing why Joseph is such a douche), but the official word is “let’s wait and see.”

So, when the book comes out, I will be pimping the heck out of that thing, because I have many stories left to tell and would love to do so. I have space at Fan Expo in Toronto, and at NYCC this year with a vast number of other Zuda talent, so I’ll be promoting the impending book like a crazy person.

Speaking of that, what exactly does the print comic cover? Is there going to be any bonus material in there? When can we expect that? QUESTIONS?! 🙂

CG: The book is out in October, which is great because I still need time to fix a lot of the colouring, and re-letter the first eight pages in my own handwriting for some added cohesion. There has typically been back up material in all the Zuda books so far, with character sketches and the like. Instead of that, I will be angling to get all my backup stories included instead. I’m in the process of re-drawing final, inked, coloured versions of those.

There is also a 4 page comic I did, using a 16 panel grid, that takes place in the 6 months between chapters 1 and 2. It’s all about Sam discovering the secret to his infinite storage bag, and how he uses it. I did it originally to promote chapter 2, but couldn’t release it, because to the powers that be at Zuda, they constituted new pages, not a promo.

With all those extra pages in the proper places, the story will read WAY better as a whole. It will also make it a 195 page book. :o|

That sounds fantastic, especially as a reader who did have questions about the infinite storage bag while he was reading it.

One of my favorite things about the book is how fun, bouncy and real feeling the dialogue was between the characters. How did you get that down, and how did you make sure it was coming out as fun and not just dialogue to push the plot forward?

CG: I’m not sure how that happened. I’m one of those creepy people at parties who kind of observes rather than participates. It’s possible that gives me a good ear for dialogue.

It sort of comes back to how I view Peanuts, and how you felt like you were watching slices of life. I like to invite people in with my dialogue and get them to pick up on the plot that way. It makes it easier to be surprising that way, as readers learn of new developments at the same time as the characters. Comic readers tend to be pretty smart. I don’t see any need to caption everything, or spell things out. When realisations come to the reader, and they can start piecing the puzzle together themselves, that ‘aha’ moment is way better than having a character state ‘So, we have to blah blah blah…’

Also, with hand lettering, using bolded inflections, varying speech bubbles, sizes of ‘font’, and crazy, loud yelling, allows you to use the visual look of the actual words and sentences to get across mood and emotion way better than computer lettering, and having the characters plainly state “I am angry”, can.

As you may know, Zuda Comics competitions are no longer happening. What’s your take on that? How did you feel about the process?

CG: Well, I didn’t see it coming, but I’m not entirely surprised. I remember hearing from someone, don’t remember who, that their initial budget completely forgot to account for series renewals, which may have been the first spanner in the works? I don’t know. (Remember, I know absolutely nothing, and this is all pretty much my own speculation! :o)

I think, there was a point where Zuda could have become the powerhouse it was meant to be. Where the audience would grow to the right sizes to null any kind of vote bias. It was balancing and it tipped the wrong way, probably about the time the Bombshells crew won. Something about being featured on myspace and a lot of people crying unfair. Of course it’s unfair. All’s fair in love for comics and war for comics! It was only ever going to work once, and good on the Bombshell crew for doing it. They played, they won, but rather than spirits remain friendly and having people go, “buh … buh … well I’m going to get mine on the front page of the NASA website! Yeah!” (for example), the general reactions meandered toward the path of negativity and I don’t think it ever recovered. I competed after them, and there was cheating and accusations in my month too. We even got civility reminders in our inboxes from Zuda to all contestants, telling us to play nice. It started a long time ago, and some months just got worse and worse.

I really look forward to seeing how Zuda will work from here on out. I do have a new 8 page concept sitting with them like now, like many others. I’m also interested for the future sake of Celadore, of course.

You’re obviously a fan of comics outside of your own. What have you been enjoying in particular recently?

CG: I read quite a LOT of the Zuda titles, with Night Owls being my favourite. Yeah, I’m not afraid to pick one. No political correctness here. Not to knock on anyone’s abilities on other comics, because there is GOLD in them that Zuda hills! – but the Night Owls appeals to my sensibilities the most. Is it the best art? Best writing? Doesn’t matter. I LIKE it the most. Simple as that. Bummed that it stopped, but what we got was spectacular.

And in no particular order, all these things make me happy I still read comics, The Muppet Show, Chew, Cul de Sac, The Bellybuttons, The Walking Dead, Invincible, Ultimate Spider-Man, Hunter’s Fortune, Beasts of Burden, Underground, I Kill Giants, Atomic Robo, Savage Dragon, The Good Neighbours, and that’s barely scratching the surface. I read a lot of comics. I also read science magazines. Science, kids! It’s your friend. Magazines, kids! They’re not on the internet. ;o)

Let’s say we’re in a theoretical world where every comic reality is our reality. What super power or character type are you? Please don’t say Rawhead n Bloody Bones…

CG: I guess I’d like shape-changing or invisibility. Something where I get to not be ‘me’ for a little while. I like a different perspective on things sometimes.

Given that you’re a huge Zuda supporter, you’re obviously a fan of Digital Comics. What do you think of the future of digital, and do you think it can ever overtake print as the dominant form of the medium?

CG: I don’t think print is going anywhere. I love print. A lot of people love print. A lot of people still don’t like buying things over the internet even. I think this model of comics beginning on the internet, then making the jump to print when popular enough, will be around for a while still. I’ve not tried an iPad. I don’t have an iPhone, but I read the first Walking Dead on my wife’s and it was the most ridiculous experience I’ve ever encountered. My hand was cramped, and those awesome splash pages lost all of their impact.

I think transitory comics, like monthlies that are great to read once, but then you wonder where you’re going to store it all, will benefit from switching to digital. Then maybe smaller titles without the big name characters won’t get cancelled after three issues anymore. And when they begin to be written and drawn specifically for the iPod/iPad/whatever, taking advantage of the different story beats, and the navigation process, they might start to catch on, and not be such an awkward reading experience.

So, I think digital will have its place, but print ain’t going anywhere just yet.

We have a regular feature at Multiversity where we try to cast the theoretical movie of our favorite comics. Who could you see cast in a Celadore movie? Note: I think it’d be an AWESOME movie.

CG: I think it would be too, ‘cos I could cram so many more jokes and funny moments into a movie script! ;o) For the kids it’d have to be unknowns, though when I saw Push, I thought Dakota Fanning would have made a pretty good Evie. For the small part of Celadore in her original body, I’d make Anna Torv from Fringe a brunette, and keeping with the hair dying theme, for Ness, I’d make “Australia’s own” Emily Browning (Lemony Snicket) blonde. Wax was loosely based on Mason from Dead Like Me, and for the villains…? Heroes’s Brea Grant for April May, Lost’s Mr Eko as the man with the sinister plan, Joseph, and I’d turn Adrien Brody bad as Christian. Rawhead would be a CGI nightmare, and voiced by Kevin from the Office, naturally.

Do you have any other projects going? What else can we expect from you in the future?

CG: I’m working on a comic series with Nicholas Doan of Zuda’s Pray for Death, about kid monsters that is close to ready to pitch. It’s drawn and lettered, I just need to colour it. Also, I’ve started a new website, occasionalcomics.com where I’m updating Max Overacts, a daily comic about a slightly delusional little boy who wants to be the next greatest actor.

Apart from that, I have tons of comic ideas all in various stages of plots, slight scripts and germs of ideas. Oh, and depending what Zuda is up to these days, maybe we’ll see my superhero story, Major Sun, someday soon. It’s Shazam meets Marmaduke. Seriously.