Interviews 

Multiversity Comics Presents: Mark Sable

By | September 21st, 2011
Posted in Interviews | % Comments

Today on Multiversity Comics Presents, we talk to “Graveyard of Empires” writer Mark Sable. Mark’s a busy guy, with “Graveyard” in full swing, his Image Comics book “Fearless” getting collected in November, and his Kickstart Comics OGN “Decoy” coming in November as well. Not only is he releasing a lot, but they’re all damn good, as Mark is an up-and-coming talent.

Check out the interview after the jump, as we talk about all of his books, getting into comics, and more.

Also, issue #3 of “Graveyard” comes next week, and if you want to pre-order “Fearless” or “Decoy,” their Diamond order codes are SEP110399 and SEP111131 respectively.

Between your education and your work history, you have a pretty impressive background. Yet you’ve picked a path in which comics are where you bring your writing to life. Have you always wanted to work in comics? What is it about comics that you find attractive?

Mark Sable: Have I always wanted work in comics? Yes Did I think it was something that was realistic? Not until recently. Even when I worked up the nerve to try and embark on a professional writing career, I gravitated towards screenwriting. I’ve been told the odds of making it as a screenwriter are lower than those becoming a Major League baseball player, but even that seemed a more realistic goal than comics.

I found a home in comics, particularly of the creator-owned variety, because now my works winds up out there with my unadulterated vision rendered more beautifully, quickly and permanently than it would in, say, film. No other medium I’ve worked in has offered me the creative freedom that comics have – I’ve been able to write everything from sorority satires to zombie war comics to midget Westerns with little or no creative interference. Because writing is such a solitary profession, though, the most rewarding part of my experience has been the collaboration I’ve enjoyed with my artists. In almost every case what they’ve drawn is better than what I imagined.

That’s something that many creators reference as to their favorite aspect of comics – the idea that anything you can imagine can be brought to life and you won’t have to worry about budget or anything of that sort. It’s a pretty amazing thing.

MS: It’s not so much the budget as what the budget demands. Movies have just about caught up with comics in terms of visual effects, but when you are spending hundreds of millions of dollars the pressure to deliver profit means a person vision is the last thing on anyone’s minds.

Speaking of the artists you’re collaborating with, on the three books that are on the road map for you right now (your current Image Comics book Graveyard of Empires, the upcoming collected release of Fearless through Image, and your Kickstart Comics OGN Decoy), you’ve worked with the superb talents of Paul Azeceta, PJ Holden and Andy Macdonald. What is it that the three of them as individuals bring to the table, and what qualities do you look for in artistic collaborators in general?

MS: In general, I’m always trying to find artists who have a strong sense of style, but never let that get in the way of good storytelling.

All the artists I’m working with now have both those qualities. As for what they possess individually…

PJ’s work is the hardest to comment on. When I worked on FEARLESS with him 4 years ago, I don’t think I was able to fully appreciate his talent as much as I might be able to now. Looking back, I love what he does with perspective in FEARLESS, how he plays with the relationship between the characters, the reader and their/our perception of space. I think it reflects a real boldness in his approach to comics. His costume design is the best I’ve had for any character, especially considering how uncertain co-writer David Roth and I were about what we wanted. He a great amount of patience and goodwill.

Continued below

Page 14 from Decoy by Andy Macdonald

I’ve known and admired Andy for a long time, ever since he drew Ivan Brandon and Miles Gunter’s groundbreaking NYC Mech. He draws great robots, as he did in both Mech and in Terminator, but I think I’ve finally nailed WHY he draw great robots. His work is detailed yet dynamic. It’s intricate without being weighted down by realism. What’s scary is how fast he can do that kind of work without the quality suffering. I tried to let him really run wild with DECOY, going light on the notes, and whether or not he had fun drawing the book, it certainly reads to me like he did.

Paul is the most easygoing guy I know, and yet I feel we’re having an incredibly intense collaboration on GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES. Early on, he insisted on a level of involvement that artists rarely want, and I think most writers would be afraid to give. We both did research, and we go back and forth over not just every page, but every panel to make sure that each beat of the story rings true. It’s a slower process, resulting in a lot more rewriting, but I could not be more proud of the end result. He’s making me a better writer, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he started writing his own stories soon.

Going back to your path into comics – how difficult have you found it to break into comics, and what advice do you have for those looking to break in today?

MS: It wasn’t easy, but looking back I got a lot of help and breaks that not everyone gets, so I don’t want to complain about it.

Everyone’s path is different into comics, and what worked for me not might work for anyone else, especially because the publishing landscape is shifting so rapidly right now. That said, I actually write a blog for Script Journal that deals with that (and writing for comics in general).

Essentially, I advocate breaking in by finding an artist and making comics. Easier said than done, I know. But whether you hit a home run and publish through someone like Image, or have a webcomic, or self-publish…the worst case scenario is you still wind up with a comic rather than a pitch or script that sits on your hard drive.

The book that is coming out monthly for you right now is Graveyard of Empires with the aforementioned Paul Azaceta. It’s a fantastic blend of modern war story with the supernatural twist of zombies. You’ve said that this book is a bit of a passion project – when did you first develop this idea, and how did you decide to marry the idea of war with the undead?

MS: It’s an idea I’ve had for a very long time, although it’s changed shape. Originally, it was set in Iraq right after the invasion. A group of Marines who were supposed to be guarding the “Museum of Heretical Antiquities” let the HP Lovecraft’s Necronomicon get stolen. As penance, they had to track it down, only to find it was being used as it was in the Evil Dead movies to re-animate insurgents.

The spark I guess came from connecting the Necronomicon – which was supposedly written by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred and the Modern Middle East. I’m probably more of a Lovecraft guy than a zombie guy, and I’m fascinated by war in general and modern warfare in particular. I’ve said this before, but it blows my mind there are little or no war comics given the medium’s history, and the fact we’re in at least two wars right now.

Part of the other reason it’s a passion project is Paul, who I’ve been dying to work with since GROUNDED. You’d have to ask him why out of all the ideas I’ve run by him this one caught his attention, but I know that part of what got him excited was the shift from Iraq to Afghanistan. I forget whose idea that was, I just remember it making more sense as that one war wound down and the other started to heat up. The change of place also necessitated a change in the origin of the zombies. Without giving anything away, it’s less supernatural, which I think fits the tone better.

Continued below

I have to admit, I jumped into the book knowing little to nothing about it, and by the last page reveal of the zombies in the first issue, I was just excited to read a war comic, especially one set in Afghanistan. I think part of the reason why you don’t see war books these days is that people are looking for escapism from entertainment, and war is too scary and real for most anymore.

MS: I don’t know. Given how dark mainstream comics have gotten, in terms of violence and rape, I’m not sure if that’s it. I think that’s how publishers think. Or…at least they are afraid to offend anything with something that might be the least bit political.

That said, because this is a war that is still up in the air and there are still plenty of soldiers in Afghanistan, did you put a lot of research into representing this conflict and its players in accurate ways? Did you feel an onus on you to be thorough with that?

MS: Paul and I did a tremendous amount of research, more than on anything I’ve worked on before. We went beyond reading books or watching documentaries, although we did plenty of that. I spoke to journalists and military and intelligence personnel that served in Afghanistan. It’s because of the latter that I do feel an onus.

I’m not going to get everything right, because there’s only so much anyone get right without actually serving. And there were also some conscious decisions to do some things that might not be entirely accurate because it made for a better story. For example, a combat outpost would have more Marines than Alamo does in the book, but to do add more characters would have made the book unmanageable.

That said, I’ve had the privilege of speaking to a lot of veterans who felt we really captured a good deal of the experience of being there, which has been gratifying beyond words. No word from the zombies or The Taliban yet, though.

As a storyteller, how difficult is it to maintain a proper balance between the horror elements and the human elements? After all, you don’t want to garner claims of favoritism towards the living from the zombie community.

MS: Ha! I think that’s been one of the harder parts in writing the book. We took a risk with the first issue by having, essentially, 30 pages of a straight war comic with a zombie twist. Paul and I were very careful to mention that it was a hybrid horror/war book in the solicitations, initial press etc. We knew we were giving away the “twist” ending, but we didn’t want to misrepresent the book, and I didn’t think there was such a thing a secret in comics anymore. So my big fear when we started was that zombie fans would feel cheated.

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised when readers responded so well to the human element. Well, most readers…there was definitely some critics that were unhappy with the zombie twist. I’m not saying everyone has to love zombie comics, but it drives me nuts every time I hear “oh, not another zombie comic”. And I get that zombies have gotten a bit overexposed, but…imagine if every review of a superhero comic began that way?

In any event, then issue 2 came out, which is about 50/50 horror/war. I was worried we might lose the war comic fans we picked up, but thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case.

The zombies aren’t there because, as some seem to think, I thought it would help sell the book or get a movie deal. If anything, the small amount of backlash we got proves that the time for jumping on the zombie bandwagon has passed. I have a ton of respect for the genre, particularly what George Romero, Robert Kirkman/Tony Moor/Charlie Adlard and Max Brooks have accomplished. But the zombies are here for plot and thematic reasons that couldn’t be taken out without taking out what we are trying to say.

Continued below

For example, it’s hard to conceive of any earthly circumstance that would get Marines and Taliban who were killing each other one day to work together the next (although, as I write this, our government is reaching out to elements of the Taliban as part of the withdrawal strategy in Afghanistan). More to the point, there’s something I came across during my research called “insurgent math”. The idea is that if you kill one terrorist, you run the risk of creating 10 more by angering his family and friends. If you kill an insurgent in a place where the dead are rising, he can then bite 10 of your fellow Marines. Zombies are not just walking dead in Graveyard, they are walking metaphors, without which the human drama doesn’t have the same meaning. And that doesn’t even touch on what the title implies…

Speaking of the title, Afghanistan is known as the Graveyard of Empires because of the fact that no empire in history has ever successfully occupied the area. But…what else made that title so perfect for the book?

MS: Well, without giving too much away – Afghanistan was invaded by the Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union to name a few. Think of all the war dead. If the dead were coming back to life, where is the LAST place in the world you’d want to be. Taliban Zombies were only the beginning…

You know, I feel like an idiot for that not being obvious to me before…

Before we jump into your other books, I’ve got another more general question for you. So far, you’ve worked on mini-series and OGN’s only – no ongoings. Why is that? Just your preference for writing style, or just what has fit your ideas, or something else?

MS: It’s been opportunity more than anything else.

For creator owned work, it’s hard enough to launch a mini in this publishing climate. As a writer I’d love to do an ongoing creator owned book – and I’m speaking with a past collaborator about doing something on the web. But with the caliber of talent I’ve worked with, it’s not fair or even feasible to ask them for more of a commitment than I have. Saying yes to creator-owned work means saying no to higher paying work-for-hire jobs. I can write mutiple projects at once, there’s only a handful of artists who can do because drawing is more labor intensive and took more time.

Because of that, and because I trained to be a screenwriter, I tend to think of ideas with a beginning, middle and end. With the books that I’ve had that have been successful to the point they could have built an audience to be ongoings I wouldn’t want to do a sequel just to do a sequel. With GRAVEYARD, there’s actually a very specific idea I have for a sequel, and with RIFT RAIDERS, the OGN I did for Kickstart, there’s at least an outline for a trilogy…but again, it becomes up to the collaborators and publisher.

With my work for the big two…it’s interesting because with both Teen Titans: Cold Case and my Cyborg: Rage Against The Machine stories, they were originally supposed to be arcs in the Teen Titans ongoing. I was also supposed to have written more Supergirl issues than I did, and I still have a commissioned but unplublished arcE”For the Supergirl who has everything” story that was a riff on the classic Alan Moore Superman tale. I don’t know to what extent I was in consideration to take those titles over after Geoff Johns and Joe Kelly left. There are some other examples with other publishers, but to be honest…I’m not sure I was ready back then, not in a way that I feel I am now. I’d love to do an ongoing, and if the right opportunity presents itself maybe I’ll stop being though of as the mini/OGN guy.

Any idea why those Teen Titans arcs ended up getting split out to mini-series, or was that just one of those things that happen with the Big Two?

Continued below

MS: It’s funny, at the time I’d get really frustrated when I’d write stories that didn’t see print. I realize now that it’s really common for that to happen. Marvel and DC have always been good about paying me for the work, and I was really fortunate that the Titans stuff saw print eventually. The only thing that frustrates me now is that as I become more successful (as do the artists I worked with) and it becomes more lucrative to print previously unpublished work, I look back and cringe. I rarely re-read my own work..I’m constantly trying to generate new material and make it better.

That happens to some extent with creator-owned work that’s re-released. Again, I’m thrilled that FEARLESS is being re-released

Back to your original question – Teen Titans: Cold Case – I was told at the time it was put on the shelf for continuity reasons. Of course, there were REAL continuity issues to deal with 4 years later – half the characters were dead or in some way not on the team, and it was heavily tied in to Identity Crisis and One Year Later. The art was already drawn so I had to try and make it work with just changes to the dialogue and narration. I actually enjoyed the challenge.

And…it’s not something I talk about a lot but that book was really about Tim Drake dealing with his father’s death in Identity Crisis. I don’t know that was something I was equipped to write about back then. When years later I was told it was finally being printed, I had just lost my own father, and I think I was able to bring something to that book I couldn’t have when I first pitched it as a Teen Titans vs.The Flash’s Rogues Gallery story. I was really happy DC gave me the chance not only tell the story and have my name associated with Sean Gordon Murphy’s art, but to give me the chance to express something really personal, in what I hope was an entertaining way..

With Cyborg…that was actually the case of DC getting excited about the story and giving me the chance toe expand it. I think Vic Stone is one of the most underrated characters in comics, and it shocked me he never had a series, let alone a mini-series. I’m not sure I did him justice, although I certainly tried. I’m happy that my friend James Robinson, and now Geoff Johns, included him in the Justice League, because I think he should be one of their big guns.

I think Cyborg is also an example of how my work-for-hire informs my creator-owned witing and vice versa. You can see some seeds of GRAVEYARD and even DECOY in CYBORG. I wanted to tell a story about the plight of disabled veterans in DCU, and how they must feel limping around when Cyborg has an entirely new body made of Molybdenum steel. I’ve also been fascinated by the increasing use of robotics in warfare, and my research into that is part of what led me to write DECOY. DECOY, in fact, was a “Life Model Decoy” pitch in one incarnation. Which…if there’s a point to all this I think it’s that, if there’s good story, it some how finds a way to get published, sometimes in ways that work out better than how you originally intended.

You brought up Fearless, and I know it’s an older title that is representative of a different time for you, but is it exciting to see a collection of it get a bit of push from Image? What have you learned about your own writing style since you worked on that project?

MS: I’m very excited about FEARLESS finally be collected. I’m really proud that I got to facilitate artist PJ Holden’s and co-writer David Roth’s American Comics debuts. It one of three books I get asked for the most because they are hard to get, so I’m glad fans who missed out on the singles will get a chance to check it out this time around.

Continued below

There’s a lot that I’ve learned since writing FEARLESS, too many to list to be interesting. I think the biggest and most relevant lesson is learning to trust my own writing. I brought David Roth on board after I came up with the concept because I thought my weakness at the time was story structure. It’s still the thing I struggle with most, and FEARLESS is definitely much stronger in that area because of David’s contribution.

I’m still open to working with other writers (although it’s harder…two people have to agree, or at least agree to disagree on EVERYTHING). And I think I write better with an editor or someone who unofficially acts in that capacity (as Paul and I do for each other on GRAVEYARD). But when I was starting out I had a compulsive need for every artistic decision to be validated by someone else, which I’d like to think I’m over.

There’s a temptation, as there was with TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE, to go back and make changes. It’s especially tempting with FEARLESS because, without going into details, there’s been Hollywood interest and we’ve been working on a treatment. As we do, we can’t come up with ways that we could make the story better.

But the changes were necessary with Teen Titans because the book needed to understandable to readers who weren’t familiar with continuity from two years ago. Whereas FEARLESS…I could see myself going George Lucas nuts, but it wouldn’t just be the work I was messing with, it would be asking more from my collaborators than is fair.

You have another new project set for release next month in the form of your Kickstart Comics graphic novel “Decoy” with artist Andy Macdonald. What can you tell us about this book? What can we expect from it?

MS: DECOY is an OGN from Kickstart, where I did RIFT RAIDERS, my teen time travel adventure. It’s a sci-fi/espionage tale, that, while somewhat darker than RIFT RAIDERS, hopefully has that book’s sense of fun that book did. GRAVEYARD is a lot of things, but I’m not sure “fun” best describes it.

The premise behind DECOY involves a man who survives a terrorist attack only to learn he’s a robot. Not just any robot, a robot duplicate for Agent Zekiel Dax, the world’s greatest spy. Instead of Agent Dax using his Decoy out in the field, he uses him at home.

The Decoy is designed to protect Agent Dax’s family both physically and emotionally. Meanwhile, Agent Dax is out having fun being a super-spy, gambling, womanizing and whatever else Kickstart will let me get away with. The Decoy is overly cautious. Agent Dax is a daredevil. The Decoy is programmed to the perfect husband and father. Agent Dax is a douchebag.

Once the Decoy becomes self-aware, it causes a disruption in both their lives. The Decoy has to question whether his feelings for his family are real. He has to question whether he’s real. Agent Dax doesn’t have any question – a self-aware Decoy is no good to him, and he wants him eliminated.

But when their family is threatened by not one but two terror organizations, these two physically identical men with polar opposite personalities have to try to work together to save them.

Like RIFT RAIDERS, DECOY a book I’m incredibly proud of, primarily because of the art. RIFT RAIDERS was drawn by Julian Totino Tedesco, who drew UNTHINKABLE, and I think grew leaps and bounds in between. Andy MacDonald is best known for Terminator and NYC Mech, and there’s noone better at drawing robots.

RIFT RAIDERS was really well received by those that read it, I think because it had that same sense of fun that GROUNDED did, and that maybe I moved away from with some of my darker work, whether it was HAZED, TWO-FACE: YEAR ONE or even GRAVEYARD. It’s not that I don’t like doing lighter stuff, but it’s hard to build and audience and avoid being typecast. I think readers and editors would prefer I concentrate on one genre or tone, when I like to challenge myself by mixing it up.

Continued below

While I hope DECOY will kind of bridge the gap between those people who like GROUNDED and GRAVEYARD, it faces a similar problem to RIFT RAIDERS. Despite having books in Walmart, Kickstart doesn’t have the distribution and marketing infrastructure that Image has, let alone the Big Two. So, while along with RIFT RAIDERS it’s a book that best represents what I’m capable of, it’s hard to get the word out there about it.

Speaking of those distribution problems, how did you decide to bring Decoy to Kickstart? Why them instead of Image or some other publisher?

MS: I wouldn’t call them distribution “problems”. In fact, one of the most underreported stories in comics is how Kickstart has made inroads into Walmart. The Big Two haven’t even done it. We’ve all been saying for years that comics have to be places other than specialty shops (although I believe now more than ever it’s important to support the direct market). I think it’s an important step towards growing the comics fanbase beyond its current demographic.

That said, Kickstart is new to the direct market and came in at a difficult time. I’m hoping that readers and retailers will give our books a try, especially as the new OGNs like DECOY are now priced at $8.99 for 88 pages…which is a much better deal than 4 20 page floppies at $3.99. The price point, the idea of self-contained books where you don’t need years of continuity to understand them and hopefully the stories themselves have made for what I think are two of my most accessible books.

Reaching first time comic readers was part of the appeal of working with Kickstart. And without getting into the specifics of their deal, there were economic reasons for doing so as well. Image offers you complete creative control and rights ownership, but no page rate, and you need to be your own editor. That latter is great training for working in any aspect of comics, but anything that’s not writing takes away from my writing.

Ultimately, it comes down to the particular project. If I’ve got a high-concept, all ages/PG-13 self-contained story like DECOY or RIFT RAIDERS that I think works well with Kickstart, I’ll take it to them. I know before I even pitch something I’m not going to have to change much to fit the tone of their line, so there’s never an issue of having to censor myself.

With something that’s edgier like GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES, where Paul and I have a very specific vision that needs proteting…it’s hard to imagine anyplace other than Image taking a risk on it. It’s not an overtly political book, certainly not a partisan one…but it’s been surprising to me how conservative most publishers are when it comes to dealing with the war in Afghanistan.

So far, you’ve worked a little with DC, but mostly with Image and Kickstart. Would you prefer to work with the more creatively free pubs due to your very clear ideas for your comics, or is there a part of you clamoring to tell more Big Two stories?

MS: It will sound greedy, but I want to do both. I have some very clear and ambitious story ideas for both Marvel and DC that I’m hoping I’ll have the chance now that I have more experience and exposure as a creator. But I’ve always loved creating my own work, and can’t imagine not doing so.

That brings up a good question: let’s say you had carte blanche to work on any non creator-owned book you wanted to. What book/character would you work on and who would your artistic collaborator be?

MS: This is own of the few questions I can’t really answer. Because chances are, someone is either writing or pitching for that book or characters and I don’t want to be campaigning publicly for someone else’s job. I don’t think what I have in mind as dream projects exist right now, but if someone is in some stage of pitching something similar it creates a sticky mess for all involved.

Talking about potential collaborators is also a bit hard because while I have a long list, I’m inevitably going to leave someone out. I will mention a few artists who have caught my eye recently, though.

Continued below

Phil Noto has been doing some incredibly cool work on Tumblr. Particularly his Marvel characters set in the periods they were created.

Kalman Andrasofszky has been on a mad tear with his covers for DC’s Men of War, Viktor Kalvachev has impressed me his Image book, Blue Estate, where he’s not only doing the covers but tying together the work of multiple artists in a way I’ve never seen before

Tomm Coker (art) and Daniel Freedman (colors) do my other favorite Image comic, Undying Love. It feels good to be a part of the latest wave of new books with them (and others I’m no doubt forgetting and thus alienating).

And this will sound kiss ass…but I’m thrilled any time I can continue to collaborate with artists who worked with me before. I don’t think there’s any bigger compliment for me than an artist coming back for more.

Oh man, all of those artists are great, but Phil Noto is an absolute champ. His Tumblr page should be checked daily by everyone who loves comics. I’d love to see the two of you collaborate.

Do you have any other projects you have coming up that we haven’t touched on? What else is coming up for you?

MS: Well, as I write this, I’m finishing up the final script for GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES and writing my next OGN for Kickstart, which is a take on a post-apocalyptic world I don’t think we’ve seen before. There’s at least one Marvel story I wrote in the pipeline. And Salgood Sam (with whom I collaborated on a story for Tori Amos Comic Book Tattoo) have been working on a webcomic for a while that I hope will see the light of day sooner or later.

That’s a nice amount of work for me…enough so I don’t HAVE to take on new projects, but not so much that I can’t take on the right ones if they come along.


David Harper

EMAIL | ARTICLES