Tuesday 12 June 2012

Rising Tension In A Closed Environment

Cerebus #114 (September 1988)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
DAVE SIM:
(from an interview in The Comics Journal #184, February 1996)
Going back to the seminal point again, where you say, "Okay, I am starting a new book. What's going to be mixed into this equation, what's going to be taken out, what am I wanting to emphasize?" And really, the only kind of book coming out at the time that I saw as having the tone I wanted Jaka's Story to have was Love & Rockets - me looking at Love & Rockets, and saying "This is not really my kind of thing. But I'd really like to try this kind of thing." Like, "If I was to do this kind of thing, what kind of thing would I do?" And that was pretty close to the seminal point. "Yeah. I do want to do a human drama story. I do want to do a very limited cast. And no extraneous characters coming in for the most part. And just this rising tension in this very closed environment, just watching these people under a microscope."

2 comments:

adampasz said...

Interesting. I remember reading both books as they were coming out, but I never made the connection.

At was at this point that Cerebus became a bit tough read as a monthly comic. But Jaka's Story sure made a great graphic novel!

Eric Hoffman said...

One of my all-time favorite covers.