A new one-shot currently live on Kickstarter, “Next Door” marks the first comic written by Comics Bookcase editor-in-chief and The Beat contributor Zack Quaintance. Illustrated by Pat Skott (“The Space-Wolf”) with coloring by Ellie Wright (“Songs for the Dead”), and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (“Engineward”), the comic tells the neo-noir tale of Chris and Liz, a young couple who move into an “up and coming neighborhood,” and find themselves at odds with the long-time residents, culminating in misunderstandings, fear, and violence. We spoke with Quaintance to get his take on gentrification, crowdfunding, and more.
Congratulations on making the leap from writing about comics to writing them. So tell us, how did “Next Door” come about? And what was it that led to this story in particular becoming your debut
Zack Quaintance: Thank you! “Next Door” came about after myself and Pat Skott, the artist on the book, were both put under shelter-in-place orders back in March. We’ve been friends for a while, and in lieu of being homebound, we decided to finally make a comic together. Our original plan was to make a short black-and-white crime comic, but the collaboration went well and soon we found ourselves with much more to say. That’s also what led to this becoming a debut for me. I’ve made some unpublished short comics in the past, with a lot of fits and starts, but the work on “Next Door” with Pat needed to be something longer that we would share.
You say on Kickstarter that the project was inspired by “living in six cities over 12 years.” Is it safe to say your experiences have been a lot more pleasant than what Chris and Liz go through?
ZQ: Oh yeah, 100 percent. I’ve moved all over the U.S., and I’ve had great experiences and not so great experiences — but nothing close to what Chris and Liz go through in this book, most of which is their own fault. What we’ve done in “Next Door” is exaggerate the feelings I’ve had to extremes. Without spoiling, I’ll say Chris and Liz move into a new neighborhood where they’re pushing long-time residents out. They’re privileged people who buy a renovated home, and when they arrive, they become paranoid and take extreme cautionary actions that eventually turn violent. The worst I’ve done when moving is being slow to introduce myself to my neighbor because I’ve assumed they won’t like me. (Laughs)
Are the characters based on anyone in particular, or were they inspired solely by your reflections about gentrification?
ZQ: They’re much more so the latter. Some of the things they say and do are culled from my life or from Pat’s life, but for the most part, Chris and Liz are composite representations of older Millennials who spent their 20s being hipsters and are now moving on, getting a house and looking toward middle age. That’s the foundation. From there, they’re largely shaped on my reflections about gentrification, being wholly consumed by microdramas while entirely missing the larger picture, as I think most folks complicit in gentrification tend to be.
Millennials do have it rough settling down though, and that complexity brings me to your description of the book as a neo-noir – it’s a unique decision, settling a noir story in suburbia, instead of an urban area. What would you say were the most influential noir stories?
ZQ: Our book is heavily steeped in California, with Pat living there now and me having just moved out of the state. California is the frontline of the housing crisis in this country, having dealt for a few years with what many states are just now having to tackle, and that’s where the neo-noir connection was drawn. I also recently read a great noir novel, In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, which is set in Los Angeles and subverts quite a few noir tropes. So, both of those things were an inspiration. While our book is not quite as aggressively subversive, part of what we ended up doing was trying to throw a set of thoroughly ordinary people very much of our time into a noir world, where they don’t really fair so well.
Continued belowYou and Pat composed the comic in lockdown, but how did Ellie Wright and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou come on board? And what do you feel do they bring to the project?
ZQ: We are so lucky to be working with both of them. What they’re adding to our book is absolutely incredible. They’re stars at what they do, and they’re both bringing expertise and technical layers to the book that’s really elevating the work that Pat and I have done.
As for how they came aboard, when we decided to Kickstart the book and get it colored, we made a list of colorists ranked by preferences. Without consulting each other, both Pat and I had Ellie at the top of our respective rankings. Her work is so adept at bringing warmth to scenes, which is really important for a story with as much domesticity as ours. We were thrilled that Ellie was equally as excited to join us after she saw Pat’s linework and read the script. With Hassan, I just think he’s the best letterer working today. He takes such skillful risks with his lettering on every page, always in service of the story. I’ve also long admired the work he does covering comics through his digital magazine PanelxPanel and his YouTube channel, Strip Panel Naked, and I wasn’t shy about telling him. I guess we got Hassan to work with us in part through effusive praise. (Laughs)
Well, that’s a good way to win someone over. What is running a Kickstarter like in general? Was it your first?
ZQ: Jeez, where to start! This is my first Kickstarter, and I’d long heard that running a Kickstarter is time consuming and intense. But that can’t be overstated. It’s essentially doing a second job in the background at all times for the duration of the campaign. There’s a layer to Kickstarter where no matter how well you’ve done, you can always do just a little bit better. As the writer of this book, most of my work is done, and so I feel like I owe it to the team to market and promote as hard as I can so as many people as possible see their incredible hard work.
Your first Kickstarter is also an incredible learning experience, especially for someone like me who for years has read press releases, interviewed creators, and written about other people’s comics. I went into this assuming I’d have an easy transition to marketing my own work, but talking about yourself and your creative vision is so much different than talking about someone else’s. I have a whole new respect for creators and marketing professionals within comics who promote books and promote them well. It’s a nuanced and difficult skill to develop.
Is there an added pressure in arranging additional rewards for backers?
ZQ: Oh yeah, for sure. There’s so much cool stuff you can do with rewards, and there are some really innovative rewards being offered out there. The pressure comes I think in wanting to make backers feel like they’re both getting value and truly supporting you and your project. In our case, I think we did a good job arranging additional rewards that are unique to our team and our book. One tier we setup gives people a chance to pick my brain about my experiences with transitioning to making comics as well as with breaking into comics journalism, both in setting up/expanding my own site and with working for Heidi MacDonald at The Beat. I think that’s the key, figuring out what you can offer that expands the experience of backing a comic as much as the backers of your project would like.
And maybe one day those backers will create comics themselves. One of your stretch goals is another comic set in the “Next Door” universe, with a yet-to-be announced artist: do you see the original comic itself as expanding beyond a one-shot?
ZQ: I’d love to expand this project. “Next Door” has a really clear beginning, middle, and end, but I’d like to take the sensibilities from the book and expand them to other characters and stories. The best comparison for this is “Ice Cream Man,” an anthology series that’s one of my favorite comics. Every issue starts fresh with new characters and sometimes even an entirely new genres. Sometimes you’re in suburbia, other times you’re in Mexico 200 years ago, but a shared sense of existential concern unifies all of the stories. I have some other projects I’d like to pursue after this Kickstarter, but I’d love to return to “Next Door” to take more aggressively ordinary people dealing with problems of our times, and exaggerate their situations to the nth degree.
Continued belowI should also note that if we do indeed hit our last stretch goal, the extra “Next Door” story is from the perspective of the couple’s dog, and I’d really love to make it happen!
My last question was intended to ask if the dog will be fine, funnily enough. I suppose you won’t spill the beans here, but is there anything else you’d like to tell us before we wrap up?
ZQ: You know, like I said above I’m still figuring out how to best promote my own work, so maybe this is a mistake to reveal…but “Next Door” is not the type of comic that kills the dog. Probably.
But I’ll end on this: running a comics Kickstarter is a challenging and demanding process, but there are so many folks in the Kickstarter comics community who are happy to help you succeed. The best parts of doing this — aside from working with my fantastic collaborators — have been the people who mentored and guided me before launch, as well as getting to know better the other creators who were launching first projects alongside me. It’s a hard thing to tackle, but at no point have I felt like I’m doing this alone.
Thanks for your time Zack.
The Kickstarter campaign for “Next Door” concludes on Friday, September 4, at 12 pm ET. You can find Quaintance at Comics Bookcase and The Beat, as well as Twitter and Instagram.
