Superheroes and villains are constantly dying and coming back to life a few months later. We all just accept that as a fact of comics, but what if there was a real reason they came back in the story? What if there was a person doing the actual resurrection, but only doing it because he had to? In that case, meet Shaman.
From writer Ben Kahn and artist Bruno Hidalgo, “Shaman” tells the story of the man who brings back all those heroes and villains from the dead, whether they want to or not. With his sarcastic teenage daughter and a reluctant assistant in a former hero, Shaman battles hero and villain alike as he just tries to do his job. There’s magic, adventure, and lot of tricks.
Read on as we chat with Ben Kahn about “Shaman”, bringing back the hero/sidekick dynamic, making magic not be the answer, landing at Locust Moon press, how very colorful grey can be, and much more. “Shaman” is still available for preorder with the code JUL151468 and hits shops on October 14th.
For those that don’t know, what is “Shaman”?
Ben Kahn: “Shaman” is a post-meta supernatural adventure series combining urban fantasy and superheroes. Superheroes and villains are always coming back to life in comics, and in “Shaman”, it’s our hero, the titular Shaman, who actually brings them back. It’s written by myself and drawn by Bruno Hidalgo. I basically approached it as, “what are the most fun situations I can throw these poeple into and watch them react to it?”. It’s not that easy to be this mysterious badass when your teenage daughter is tagging along making fun of you every step of the way.
That was something I noticed, that as much as Shaman is the title character it’s also about his role as a father and LL’s journey to adulthood.
BK: Above all else, above the humor and craziness and necromancy, it’s ultimately the story of two things: the man Shaman is and the woman LL will become. When I think about the series, when I think about their past, it’s about how did Shaman become the man he is and what kind of woman is LL on the way to becoming. I really like the classic superhero/sidekick dynamic and it’s osmething that’s really fallen by the wayside. Batman and Hawkeye are kinda it. A big part of it was just me trying to revive this character dynamic that I love so much. I know you’ve got Batman and Robin and parental subtexts, so I figured let’s just that text. They say write what you know, so me a guy in my 20s, I obviously wrote about a 50 year old who’s a single father.
Makes sense!
BK: There’s no love interest. Shaman doesn’t have a love interest so the relationship between him and LL is the emotional heart of the book.
Your partner on “Shaman” is Bruno Hidalgo and he’s made it look just fantastic. How did the two of you hook up on this?
BK: We were connected by the publisher, Locust Moon Press. I was friends with those guys for a while. When I came to them with the book and showed I was serious about making it, we went through a stable of artists and Bruno just jumped out as being someone that could really elevate the material and give it a unique flair. Working with Bruno is always an adventure. What’s great about Bruno is that he makes me look so good. I give him the most simple scene descriptions because I know that nothing i come up with will be better than what comes out of his head. When we first started, I tried being more specific with how something looks and it was too constraining, so now when I’m writing scripts, I just say “a bar, a tattoo parlor” because I know he’s going to make it look amazing and nothing I imagined.
I like how throughout he played with the vanishing and Shaman’s cigarette smoke. He really played that up and used it inventively.
BK: I love the way the tattoos on LL all look. We actually did a stretch goal for the Kickstarter so every physical copy of the book is going to come with a tattoo sheet based off LL’s tattoos. That’s for the cosplayers out there.
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The way Bruno’s art evolved and grew and fit and shaped and molded the world was an absolute joy to watch, not even as a creator but as fan of good art. We had a colorist for the first issue, but the other four issues were colored by Bruno and he never stopped tweaking and coming up with new and cool ways of making the colors a part of the book’s identity. I like to say this is the pinkest comic you’ll see this side of “My Little Pony”. I fully embrace that and love it. Issue 4 he played around with very strong greens and pinks and whites that give that issue its own look. I flipped through the book and I loved just looking at the colors and how much they sell the tone of the world. I would never, ever print “Shaman” in black and white.
I’m fortunate as a writer to be working with an artist that can just pull off physical comedy. I started with a webcomic where I had video game sprites with no facial expressions, so all I had was dialogue to work with. It’s a joy to have a wonderful gamut of acting and emotions that I know he can put on and sell. My favorite jokes in the book are the ones that have no ones and rely just on the facial expressions that Bruno gives them.
With a story that involves magic there’s a trick of finding that right balance. Shaman knows magic and is powerful, but he can’t just solve all his problems with a snap of his fingers.
BK: Absolutely. That’s something that anybody writing a series, especially an action series, about magic should think about. To me, you already know Shaman is going to win in the end. His name’s on the book. He’s not going to die in issue 2. The question isn’t will he win, it’s how he’ll win and that has to be interesting.
The line I gave myself, in terms of pure flair and visuals, go big or go home. The sky was the limit. Do whatever crazy shit pops into my head. But the actual resolution, the actual win, has to be based creativity, trickery, wits, or scheming. Shaman and LL are both very theatrical people. It’s nice to write characters as theatrical as I am and not have to come up with a story reason to do some of the stuff they do.
One thing I didn’t get to in the first five issues is the actual explanation is how magic works in the world. The explanation I came up with is basically: magic is bullshit. It is literally the Universe saying it’s one thing, you saying it’s another, and you lie so well that the Universe believes you. Theatricality is power.
Let’s be honest, with any magician in a trench coat it’s pretty easy to spot who the inspiration for that was: John Constantine. The best part about that is always seeing who he’s going to screw over. What simple but brilliant trick is he going to have to win? That mentality is what I try to bring into the conflicts in “Shaman”. The magic can never be the end unto itself, it always just has to be the means for a much more human and relatable scheme.
There is that inspiration from Constantine, but “Shaman” is funny and lighthearted, but also very serious and human.
BK: I embrace the Constantine inspiration because the tone is so wildly different, so I don’t feel that anyone is going to look at the two books and see a ripoff. A lot of it just seeing that character type in a much more lighthearted situation. I don’t find grim and gritty realistic. It’s not realistic when characters are always serious all the time. I can’t go through four hours being serious, it’s really hard! If you do something long enough, it becomes normal and you just joke about it. With the humor, I wanted it to be big and bright and loud and in your face, but I didn’t want it to be farcical. I didn’t want it to be wacky comedy. I wanted it to come from the character’s reactions to their lives. I wanted to sell that human emotion and relatability. I wanted that to be the heart of the book.
Continued belowYou’ve already said that while he plays in the world of superheroes and villains, Shaman himself isn’t one. How does he fit in? How do those heroes and villains see him?
BK: There’s one very major superhero who Shaman has a long history with. A lot of the superhero community, even the ones that he brought back, don’t trust him. They don’t know why he does what he does. They don’t like that he brings villains back. They don’t like that they don’t know how to stop him or that he treats them with such disrespect. At the same time, this world’s equivalent to Superman has declared him off limtis. So somebody that Shaman has a history with is out there, in the hero community at least, telling people to back off and let him do what he does. On the villain side, they see it like, “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”. They’re dying and here’s a guy who’s bringing them back. As long he stays out of their way, they let him work. If Shaman is going to be this force of resurrection personified, I had to deal with that. I want to get it out the gate quickly what happens when he brings back a supervillain. What’s the morality of that? There is no clear cut answer. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer, I just think there’s an answer everybody has to justify what they want to do.
He seems to be doing his job, for whatever purpose it serves.
BK: As lighthearted as he is, Shaman is clearly willing to do bad things to get whatever he wants. There’s a line in issue five where he says, “You don’t exactly become a necromancer for the 401K”. It’s a fine balancing act when your hero isn’t that heroic.
That’s more true to life, too. Nothing is black and white. It’s all a little grey.
BK: Shaman is this grey, he operates between good and bad, but that doesn’t mean gritty and serious all the time. Turns out grey can be really colorful.
You’ve already mentioned a little bit about how you’ve known the guys at Locust Moon for awhile and “Shaman”’s been awhile coming, but share a little more of that history.
BK: I met them back before it was Locust Moon, when it was just a couple guys working at a comic shop, loving comics, and dreaming of what they were going to create. I was also working at that comic shop. I shared the Wednesday shift with Josh O’Neal for about six months. When they opened the store, I got a closer relationship to them. They’re just such great people. If you’re ever in Philly, check out this store. It’s a work of art. They’re really committed to the Philadelphia comic scene and fostering talent and helping people create the books that they want to create. Without Locust Moon, there is no “Shaman”. Plain and simple. I started this when I was 21 and had a script and nothing else. I had no idea how to find an artist. I had no idea how any of this worked. They’ve been there every step of the way, helping to get this book made. Again, without Locust Moon, no “Shaman”.
The first volume is hitting shops through Locust Moon and that’s pretty damn exciting, I’m sure.
BK: When I first put pen to paper, I dreamt of walking into a store and seeing a book I created on the shelf. This is my first graphic novel and I’ve been dreaming of doing this for years. Every part of this is incredible. The first review, the first interview, the first time the book appears in previews and there’s a preorder code. Every step of this is a milestone. To actually have it distributed by Diamond and in stores – I don’t have the words to describe it.
Assuming all goes well and that this first volume is well received, what other kind of stories are you wanting to tell in Shaman’s world?
BK: The first five issues was all about establishing the world and then giving you a real reason to care about the characters. The first especially was important to me that it be a done-in-one. Just to show what a typical adventure looks like. Now that those first five issues did the heavy lifting and world building and the mythology is there, I want to start delving into it. I want to get into how magic works, how other magicians and wizards feel about Shaman, getting into Shaman’s backstory and how he learned magic. After this first volume, it would basically be “Shaman vs the world of magic”. A lot of it I still want to put through a filter of craziness. I want to take Shaman into a world of magic that looks like an acid trip. I want Shaman to go to a magic night club.
Continued belowYou want to know the story I would make if I couldn’t make any more “Shaman” stories? Shaman vs Santa Claus. Especially me as a little Jewish kid who never got anything on Christmas! Oh boy, do I have some issues to work out. In my mind, it ends up devolving into a boxing match in the shopping mall.
So, that’s what’s in store for the future. It’s a creator-owned series, so I don’t know when there would be new “Shaman” stories. Bruno and I are working on a new comic that’s not “Shaman”. It’s a supernatural heist story and we’re working on that. “Shaman” is very near and dear to my heart and always will be. There’s a ton more stories to tell. If this is successful and the capital is there and Bruno and I are able to, I would love nothing more than to tell more “Shaman” stories. I think about Brian K Vaughn and Garth Ennis telling those 60 issue masterpieces. For some reason 60 is just this magic number that I have in my head. You get to 60, and that’s the dream.
Right now, I’m very happy with what these 5 issues represent. If not an ending, it’s a very good end point. But, man, I could write about these characters forever.
