Gasp! by Laura Axelrod

An Interview with Patrick Gabridge: Playwriting and Writing Books

(Laura Axelrod's note: This is the final segment of my interview with playwright and author Patrick Gabridge. See? I told you it was a mega-long interview. It was almost 4,000 words long. I'll post links to the various segments so you can revisit anything you might have missed.)

What do you like most about theater? What do you like most about writing books?

I love the collaborative nature of theater.  There's nothing more fun to me than spending the day in the rehearsal room, working on a script with talented actors, directors, and designers.  And then getting it in front of an audience, and seeing how the whole play transforms.  I like the whole process: auditions, rehearsal, tech, and performance.  The immediacy of theatre, the instantaneous feedback and give and take, thrills me.  I'm been working in theatre a long time, but I still feel the electric tingle when the lights go down and the actors start performing one of my plays, with an audience sitting all around me.

I like theater people, too--they're a social bunch and fun to hang around with.

With books, I like how completely absorbing the process is.  A novel requires so much discipline and mental strength, to sort of cram every element of the entire book into your head.  When writing a novel, the writer is responsible for everything--you're the designer, actors, director, and playwright, all rolled into one.  I like the challenge of it, though it also comes with freedom--I can call down tornadoes and destroy a city, or move characters all around the country in a bunch of different cities, or bury treasure deep in the woods.  All of which I could do on stage, but some of those things are easier in a book.  (I can have as big of a cast as I like.)   I'm still feeling my way, when it comes to writing novels, though with #4, I'm gaining confidence (and patience--the darn things are so long, 100,000 words--they take a LOT longer to write).

 Thanks for your time Pat!

Thanks for asking and for letting me share about my work and my process.

 

An Interview with Patrick Gabridge: On the Spiritual Life of His Characters

(Laura Axelrod's note: The topic of deity is an aspect of Pat Gabridge's work that I find intriguing. I wondered if he felt free to write about it, or if he encountered hostility about the subject. As always, the comments section is open, if you feel so inclined to contribute. There is one more segment that deals with theater and books.)

Both projects involve discussions of deity, in different terms. In “Tornado Siren,” Victoria Thomas doesn’t believe in God. Your play, “Fire on Earth,” deals with the Tyndale Bible. Do you find that to be a theme in your work? Are people open to discussions about it? Do people believe ever try and persuade you to believe the same things they do about it?

That's an interesting question.  I think it's a theme in some of my work, including my plays Reading the Mind of God (about astronomers Kepler and Tycho), and The Prisoner of St. Pierre (an historical one-act).  For Tornado Siren, I was interested in the idea of someone who initially saw reality as very fact-based with no room for the mystical, being confronted with things which clearly defied rational explanation.  She struggles with this throughout the book, but oddly, I think it's her relationship with Ben, it's love, that makes her willing to open herself to the possibility of the world ultimately being beyond her understanding, but not in a dogmatic way. 

In Fire on Earth, we have a direct examination of faith and the extremes to which it can be tested.  In some ways, Tydnale and his friends were the religious extremists of the day--rather than exploding themselves up as suicide bombers, they offered themselves up as martyrs.  I'm curious about the depth of faith required to offer one's life up to torture and death, as well as what it takes on the other side, also by people who feel they know God, to be willing to burn someone at the stake (a quite horrible death) in order to preserve their sense of order and power, but also using faith and God as a justification.  I think, in doing an historical piece, sometimes it's hard not to take sides with characters whom you grow to deeply love and admire over years of research.  I've struggled to keep a sense of balance in the Bishops, who were just so ruthless in their persecution of heretics/reformers.

I've had more discussions around faith and religion around Fire on Earth than I have with Tornado Siren (for obvious reasons).  I wouldn't say that people have tried to persuade or convert me.  I like hearing different points of view.  My writers' groups have had some very interesting discussions around Fire on Earth and the Catholic point of view and Thomas More, etc, in ways that very much helped me in shaping the play.  (For the record, I grew up Catholic.)

Can we look forward to more books from Pat Gabridge?

I hope so.  My agent is currently trying to find publishers for two of my novels, one a piece for adults (about a married couple of compulsive movers, whose marriage ends up on the rocks when one of them decides she doesn't want to move anymore), and a second book, a middle-grade novel for kids, about a granddaughter, her grandfather, and some buried treasure.  (Both deal with the topics of race and adoption, which are elements I explore in much of my work.)

I'm currently writing an historical novel about Robert Smalls, a black Civil War hero from Charleston and Beaufort, SC, who had some important adventures during the war (and after).  I'm about 2/3rds of the way through a rough draft, with hopes of finishing a rough version by autumn. 

Next: On Playwriting and Writing Books

An Interview with Patrick Gabridge: Conducting Research for Your Writing

(Laura Axelrod's note: In this interview segment, Pat Gabridge and I discuss his play, "Fire on Earth" and his book, "Tornado Siren." Readers of either piece will feel astonished at the amount of research Pat must have put into his work. In the next segment of our interview, Pat and I dive into a controversial topic and what I've identified as a theme in these two pieces.)

Both “Tornado Siren” and your play, “Fire on Earth” must have required an enormous amount of research. “Tornado Siren” was filled with weather-related geographical data. In “Fire on Earth,” your play about William Tyndale, you included Biblical quotes. What is your research process like? How long does it take for you to feel like you have a handle on your subject?

I like doing research for projects, and I've done several historical pieces (I'm currently writing my first historical novel).  "Tornado Siren" required a bunch of reading, though at the time when I was working on it, there wasn't nearly as much information available as there is now.  I spent months reading and researching, and I also traveled to Norman, Oklahoma, and toured the National Severe Storm Lab.  I went to a weather/storm conference in Iowa, and got to meet a bunch of meteorologists (some of whom read drafts of the book), and also got to know some storm chasers (including one who is also a physician, which was especially helpful).  I also spent a couple days driving, walking,and camping across some of the parts of Kansas that Victoria and Ben travel in the book, which was a blast.  I'd be walking along the side of the road, speaking notes into my little tape recorder.  I walked all around Smith Center (which doesn't fare so well in the book).  While I was writing, I always had a couple maps out, trying to get a sense of where the characters were going and what the land was like. 

For Fire on Earth, I spent a year reading historical material about William Tyndale and his friends, as well as his translations of the Bible and his other works.  That was just the start, to get me comfortable enough to start figuring out where to begin.  I've worked on this project for years and years, doing more reading along the way.  I even joined the William Tyndale Society and went to one of their annual conferences in San Diego, where I got to attend various workshops and hang out with Tyndale scholars and enthusiasts.  It's still hard to get the entire time period and Bible and literature all crammed into my head, but I do my best.  I have a pretty dog-eared copy of Tyndale's Bible, several other versions (including the King James), a concordance, and a Biblical thesaurus that is especially helpful.  Last year, as part of my fellowship with the Huntington Theater Company, I went back and completely overhauled the script, from top to bottom, restructured it, cut out characters, changed the title (it used to be "God's Voice)", all of which helped a LOT, but it also meant revisiting some of the research and finding new research.  The trick, though, is to not get bogged down in it, which can keep me from actually making progress on the script itself.

Next: On the Spiritual Life of His Characters

An Interview with Patrick Gabridge: The Genesis of 'Tornado Siren'

(Laura Axelrod's note: If you are a fan of Pat Gabridge's work, then there's no doubt you will find the next part of interest. Pat touches on his personal life, background, race, and needing a break from theater at one point. Oh yes, there's more coming from this eight-part interview)

So, let's talk about your book, "Tornado Siren." Can you tell us what it is about and how you came up with the idea for the story?

Tornado Siren is about a woman meteorologist who studies tornadoes and who, through some persistent detective work on her part, meets a man who claims to have an odd, mystical connection to tornadoes.  Basically, he claims to have been wandering the earth for centuries, from tornado to tornado.  Naturally, she thinks his story is full crap, but she's intensely drawn to him, partly because of some very strange things she's seen.  She ends up walking across Kansas with him, to prove whether his story is really true.  Along the way, they fall for each other.  Their relationship is tested by some very serious forces of nature.

It's a fun love story set on the Great Plains, with a paranormal twist thrown in.  It's about a lot of things, I think--it's a book that looks at the conflict between science and the mystical, and the urge to understand things that are very hard to explain.  It's also about two people with very different experiences and history, but who are both outsiders in their own ways, coming together.  It's also about race (Victoria is bi-racial).

I grew up in the Midwest, in Central Illinois, so tornadoes were part of our regular summer experience, and they always fascinated me.  My father was a scientist, and I went to MIT (I started in science before switching to writing and filmmaking) and married an engineer--so I totally understand and embrace the scientific mindset, but I'm also fascinated by events like tornadoes, which are part of nature, but also very hard to explain.  They carry with them such power and beauty and devastation, that it's easy to feel there's something more to them than mere rational facts.  I both like and squirm at the idea of events and occurrences beyond my comprehension.

 At the time I started writing Tornado Siren, I was taking a bit of a break from writing plays--I'd been running a theatre company in Denver for a while and had been very busy with theatre for years, but we'd moved to Kansas City for my wife's job.  This gave me a very quiet period to work on a novel--I was in a new city and didn't know a soul  (and I was close to tornado country).  I chose to write a first person narrative because I felt that, as a playwright, I was better suited to something where there was a definite voice involved.  Race was becoming more important to me as a subject, because my wife and I had adopted our daughter a few years earlier, and she's African American.  I wanted to create a character who was a strong woman of color who was also a scientist (there didn't seem to be many such stories out there).  As a white guy, I was wary of venturing into that territory, but as the father of someone who would grow up to be a black woman, I felt it was imperative to try.

“Tornado Siren” is a unique book. At first, readers may think it’s a mysterious stranger story. And it is, but then it’s also a road and love story. I thought its structure was interesting. Did you conceive it that way or did that happen in the writing process?

I had a sense of how the story would play out, but I think you're right that it has a couple different personalities, with one leading into the other.  That wasn't planned--it just sort of developed that way.  Hopefully it feels natural to the reader.

Next: Conducting Research for Your Writing

An Interview with Patrick Gabridge: Are There Too Many Playwrights?

(Laura Axelrod's note: Here comes that follow-up question. It deserved its own post. By no means is this the end of the interview. Our next segment will discuss Pat's novel, "Tornado Siren.")

I'm surprised by your comments. I've been out of the loop since 2007 or so, please bear with me. Is the thought that there are more plays than ever being written anecdotal, or are there statistics to back it up? You aren't the first person to say it, but I've never heard where the thought originates. After I quit theater, it seemed like a lot of others did as well... People I never thought would. So I'm wondering if there's a natural process in people entering and people exiting. Or playwrights who leave by default, who leave to write for television... That kind of thing.

Good question.  I suppose it's anecdotal.  But I think if you check around, you'll see that submissions to new play contests remain high, so plenty of people are still writing.  And I'm seeing a bunch of new play development organizations in New York and elsewhere, who list playwrights associated with them, and they're serious writers, with serious credits, and there are bunches of them.  Look at P73's list of writers.  There are 600 members of the Playwright Binge right now--that's a lot of writers who are actively submitting work.

I think there is, and always has been, a natural process of people leaving playwriting and people starting up.  People get tired of the rejection, lack of opportunity, etc., and change to something else.  You would think that since it's such a tough field and you can't make a living at it, that the numbers would eventually go down.  But I don't have a sense that that's true.  How many MFA playwriting programs are there now?  I just did a quick google search and found MFA/MA programs in playwriting at: Yale, Brown, UT, New School, Columbia, NYU, BU, Brooklyn College, Iowa, USC, UCLA, Pace, Florida State, Northwestern, SFSU, Carnegie Melon, Hunter College, Rutgers, Hollins, Arizona State, Cal Arts, Catholic University, Indiana, Smith, Southern Illinois, Texas State, Texas Tech, Univ. Arkansas, Univ. of Calgary, UCSD, Univ. of Hawaii, UNLV, Univ. of New Mexico, York Univ., Lesley, Adelphi.  (Oh, and here's a 2009 blog entry from Seth Abramson listing programs: http://sethabramson.blogspot.com/2009/12/playwritingdramaturgy-mfa-programs.html.  I haven't included every school that he lists. Some of the data is a little out of date, but you get the point.)

Holy crap.  35+ places graduating people with Master's Degrees associated with playwriting.  Even if each program only graduates 2-3 students per year, that's 70-100 new playwrights every year, who have some serious intention (we assume) of writing for the theatre.   Maybe there should be a requirement that they each have to start a new theatre company that produces only new work, upon graduation.  I think it's fair to posit that there are not 70-100 new professional production slots opening up each year in American theaters for new plays.  (Now I'm depressed.) 

Next: The Genesis of "Tornado Siren"

An Interview with Patrick Gabridge: Is There Too Much Theater?

(Laura Axelrod's note: This is a continuation of my interview with Patrick Gabridge. See? I told you it was long. Check out part one of the discussion, if you missed it. There are eight segments to this interview.  A follow-up question comes in the next segment.)

What was the most fun you've ever had in theatre? Tell us about it.

When I was helping start and run the Chameleon Stage theatre company in Denver in the mid 90s, that was awfully fun.  Lots of new challenges, as both a writer and producer.  But probably the most fun I ever had was working with Rough & Tumble on the production of Pieces of Whitey (back in 2005, at the Boston Center for the Arts).  The aspect of theatre that I enjoy the most is getting to be in the room with actors and the director, as we rehearse and make changes and shape a script into a production of something really interesting.  With Pieces of Whitey, I worked with Dan Milstein, the director, and Kristin Baker, the producer and one of the actors, for a couple months before we even started rehearsal.  Once rehearsal began, I was able to be there almost every day, and felt fully included in the ensemble (I did warm ups and exercises with them, the works).  Even as we neared production, I was involved with writing a grant to fund some moderated discussion groups, and fully participated in those, so I had an in-depth sense of how the audience was reacting to the show, both during and after the performances.

Working intensely with such extremely creative people is the kind of experience that keeps me coming back to theatre.  Though, unfortunately, I'd say it's also somewhat rare.  I'm always looking for ways to get that sort of thing to happen again.

I think the reason I was so anxious to talk to you is because I remembered how you headed up the playwright submission binge. Having quit theater in 2007, I spent the past few years writing in other forms. Over the past year, I started coming back to theater. First as an audience member and then as a writer. But I haven't sent anything out, not for fear of rejection. I guess I'm wondering if theater is worth getting involved with at this point. I've been reading how there is too much theater and too many playwrights. Do you agree with the assessment that there is too much theater, and also, what you would say to someone who is reluctant to send work out?

Hm.  Interesting questions.

Is there too much theater?  No.  Not the kind I want to see, anyway.  I'm interested in bold new work, in exciting companies producing plays that totally capture my attention, in the theater and out.  I want to see shows about fascinating characters, or plays with gorgeous language, or that just make me say wow.  Not so much to ask, is it?

Is theater worth getting involved with, as a writer?  That depends.  You can't make a living at it.  There are way too many playwrights writing plays, just in terms of available slots versus writers with scripts.  Way too many very talented playwrights for what's available.  Graduate MFA programs keep training more new playwrights.  It's much more difficult to get a full-length production now than it was 20 years ago.  I'm finding it harder than ever to get my full-length plays produced, even with a growing list of scripts that have been developed (and produced and published) and an ever-widening circle of theater contacts.  Companies are much worse at responding to submissions than they used to be--nowadays, I'd say more than 40% of submissions never get any sort of response, not even a rejection.  Agents don't seem to be looking for new clients.

On the other hand, if you like to write plays, and doing so is what makes you happy, you might as well write them.  And if you write them, you might as well send them out.  A play sitting in a drawer is half finished--it has no life until it's up on stage.  What's the point of starting and then not following through. 

I think about quitting all the time, because the lack of production opportunities for full-length plays is so darn frustrating.  I originally switched from screenwriting to playwriting because in writing for film, I couldn't get my work produced, so I couldn't learn the final things I needed to learn.  In theatre, I found much more opportunity to see my work staged and, as result, grow as a writer.  In the current climate, I'm not exactly sure how true that is anymore.  (The rise of YouTube and the internet is changing the equation in regard to reaching an audience with short films.)

But I stay in theater because I like working with theater people.  I love being in the room with actors and directors and designers.  Or even hanging out after a show or reading.  Many of my best friends are theater folk.  I like my fellow novelists and screenwriters a lot, but playwrights are really my kind of people.  (Which is why I do things like the Binge and sit on the StageSource board, etc.)

Building theater relationships definitely beats sending out scripts blind (more so now than ever).  And there's always the option of starting one's own company or self-producing.

Also on the plus side, I'd say it's easier than ever to get short plays produced.  There are tons of festivals out there, with lots of different styles and themes.

Interesting. Can you define what you mean by short plays?Fifteen-minute plays and shorter.  When I started writing plays, half-hour one-acts were short plays, but I don't think there's much of a market for half-hour one-acts anymore.  Ten-minute plays will continue to be popular for a while, because they're simple to stage, and a whole evening of them can often sell well at amateur and semi-pro theatres, because they can use large casts.

Next: Are There Too Many Playwrights?

An Interview with Patrick Gabridge, Playwright, Screenwriter, Author

(Laura Axelrod's note: I first came across Pat Gabridge back in 2003, when I was living in New York City. I don't remember how I learned about him. It was over the internet, I'm sure. Pat was involved with the Playwrights Submission Binge. I interviewed him for a playwriting column I had back in the day. He was based in Massachusetts, which I found intriguing. Back then, I believed all serious theater people lived in New York or Chicago. Sad to say, I'm only half-kidding about that.

Pat's extensive experience in theater helped me over the hump of that prejudice. Apparently it was possible to do theater anywhere. Who knew? Not me. When I left NYC because of health issues, I kept Pat's success in mind. I quit playwriting in 2007. After returning to playwriting in the fall of 2010, I thought of Pat again. I figured it was time for another email discussion on his books, plays and the state of American theater.

I'll post this long interview in 7 segments.)
 

What is the latest Patrick Gabridge news? What have you been up to recently?

What am I up to?

I'm always writing, of course.  Right now it's plays, a novel, an audio play, and even some short films.  I like variety. 

For theatre, I'm in the second year of a two year fellowship with the Huntington Theatre Company, which has been great.  I get to work with a lot of very smart people, see a bunch of shows, and get feedback on several full-length plays that I've been developing.  They gave me a reading of an historical play last August, that I'm still tweaking.  I just had a reading of another full-length play in DC with Madcap Players in January.  I've got a short play in the Boston Theatre Marathon, which is my favorite theatre event of the year--50 ten-minute plays, by 50 different writers, each produced by a different Boston-area theatre company, all in one day.

My novel, Tornado Siren, just came out as an e-book, which has been fun.  I'm glad that it's starting to find some new readers again.  I finally got an agent last year, and she's shopping around two novels, one for adults and one for kids.  I'm in the middle of the first draft of an historical novel set during the Civil War, one of those projects that I've kept hanging around for years and years, and I've finally gotten around to writing it.  It's in the extremely crappy first draft stage right now, but that's what it takes (that and patience).

 I go into the studio this Friday for a short audio play that the Huntington commissioned, as part of a set of site-specific audio plays that will be part of the Emerging America Festival (a collorbative effort between the Huntington, A.R.T., and the Institute for Contemporary Art).  I'm excited because it's with three actors who are a blast to work with, and a director/producer whom I like very much.  I did some radio theatre back when I had a company in Denver, and we always had a good time.  Radio work is a lot more relaxed than theatre or film.

 I haven't done much film for a while, but a local filmmaker approached me recently about maybe turning some of my short plays into short films.  So just in the past couple weeks, I've adapted a couple into screenplays.  It was fun to revisit these scripts and really see if I could translate them into a different medium.  It's all very preliminary, just for kicks, really, but I hope we end up making them.

That's about it.  Staying out of trouble.

Wow, you've got a lot going on. Fantastic. Is this the busiest you've been in your writing career? Do you find there's an ebb and flow to it all?

I'm busy, but I don't know if it's the busiest I've been.  (When I complain to my wife that I've never been so busy before, she tells me I have.)  In 2005, I had two full-length plays produced back to back, here in Boston, and I was heavily involved in both productions, and my first novel was about to come out--that was a pretty crazy time.  I definitely find there's a big ebb and flow to my writing career, and though I like having times where I can catch my breath, the doldrums can be tough to take.  I'm happiest when I'm working a lot.

Next up: Discussion about theater

More with Comic Writer Len Kody and Chicago: 1968

In Part Two, Len Kody discusses his work is Chicago: 1968, a weekly webcomic featured at Image/Shadowline. Jenny Frison andKurt Hathaway are also working with him on the project.

In Part One of my interview, Len talks about the art of comics, collaboration and Chicago: 1968. In Part Two, Len gave background on Chicago: 1968.

How did you Father react to your Grandfather's experiences?
That's a tough call.  My dad is more conservative than me.  But then, almost everyone to the right of Dennis Kucinich is more conservative than me.  He voted for Bush twice, then voted for Obama in '08.  And I'm certain he's got a few Clinton and Reagan votes in his closet, too.

My dad was no hippie.  Being the son of Chicago cop, he couldn't grow his hair any longer than a crew cut during his teenage years in the mid to late 60's, when long beards and flowing manes of seldom washed hair were all the rage in the counterculture.   Today, he has a mustache, if that just doesn't say it all.  But in '68 I hear he drove a yellow VW Beetle for a while, with a McCarthy flower stuck on the back.  Groovy.  Sounds like something I would have done.
 

Comic writer Len Kody on his latest project, 'Chicago: 1968'

In Part Two, Len Kody discusses his work is Chicago: 1968, a weekly webcomic featured at Image/Shadowline. Jenny Frison andKurt Hathaway are also working with him on the project.

In Part One of my interview, Len talks about the art of comics, collaboration and Chicago: 1968

Your Grandfather's experience at the '68 convention puts you in a unique position. How did that influence your decision to write this project? Did your Grandfather ever talk to you about his memories and feelings about the riots? 
My Grandfather was a storyteller.  That's for sure.  So my first exposure to the '68 convention was through his stories. 

My Grandfather's views on the entire peace movement of the 60's was tainted by his encounters with the protesters in '68.  Part of the Yippie code was to "freak out the squares" and to "shock the bourgeoisie."  Shock them they did.  My Grandfather, a man of simple, down-to-earth Midwestern values and a member of what Tom Brokaw called "the Greatest Generation," who were reared during the Great Depression and came of age in the thick of World War II, was deeply offended by the peace movement.

He passed in 2004.  Our last spirited discussions were about the Iraq War, which was just beginning in those days.  And that's when I first started typing the early drafts of what would eventually become "Chicago:1968."  At first I tried telling the story solely from the policemen's point-of-view.  But it slowly grew as I found it necessary to incorporate other perspectives into the narrative.   
 

Comic Writer Len Kody on collaboration, comics and 'Chicago: 1968'

Comic writer Len Kody creates content for movies, comic books, video games and other media. He created the Cisco Kid: Gunfire & Brimstone miniseries, published by Moonstone Books and Cisco Kid vs. Wyatt Earp.

His latest work is Chicago: 1968, a weekly webcomic featured at Image/Shadowline. Jenny Frison and Kurt Hathaway are also working with him on the project.

In part tne of my interview, Len talks about the art of comics, collaboration and Chicago: 1968.

What attracted you to comics? How did you decide that this is what you wanted to do with your life?
That's a really hard question to answer.  It's like trying to explain why I'm straight.

I believe that comics are linked to humankind's earliest forms of writing - cave paintings and hieroglyphics - in which visual symbols represented ideas.  The roman alphabet that most of the western world uses today represents sounds, which represent words, which represent ideas, so there's a greater distance between signifier and signified than there were in those ancient pictograms; we've sacrificed a purer, more visceral mode of written communication for the ease and precision of the standardized alphabet.

So, I think that everyone has an intrinsic attraction to comics, or to visual communication at the very least.  Certainly our culture has become more visual as the Internet has brought the means of producing and transmitting images to the masses.  Even before the age of the personal computer, the 1960's saw the proliferation of color television, which correlated with a change in the consciousness of those who grew up during that time - the "Baby Boomer" generation.  I don't suppose it's any coincidence that it was also during the 1960's when famous comics writer Stan Lee joined artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko to create the Marvel Universe of characters that spawned the summer blockbusters that've dominated the box office this entire decade.  At the same time, the 60's were the golden age of the underground comix movement when iconoclast cartoonists like R.Crumb and Spain Rodriguez were busily and brilliantly subverting every shred of American culture they could get their hands on.

Of course, I wasn't aware of any of this in the late summer of 1989.  I was 8 years-old and my mom had just bought me a copy of Marvel Tales #227 from the spinner rack at the local 7-Eleven - "When Iceman Attacks!"  As soon as my eyes hit those multi-colored, paneled pages, I decided, at that moment, that I wanted to be Spider-Man. 

A little later I set more realistic goals and decided that I wanted to spend my life making comics.       
 
  It is widely assumed that people who create comics are also artists. I see that you work alongside artists when creating different projects. What is that process like?
Writer-artist teams are actually pretty common in comics.  And almost all comics - regardless of whether they are created by a solo cartoonist, or by a small staff of editors, writers, pencilers, inkers, colorists and letterers - begin as a script.  As a comics writer, it's my job to write the comics script.

Comics scripts read a lot like hyper-detailed screenplays.  They are written in the present tense and they describe in very visual language everything an artist would need to know in order to draw the comic correctly, including descriptions of characters, settings, camera angles and action.  The action in comics is divided into pages, and those pages are further subdivided into panels.  So a comics script is basically a panel-by-panel description of the entire comic book. 

And the dialogue, too.  I also write the dialogue.

There's a certain magic to collaborating with an artist.  The first couple scripts are pretty verbose.  But once there's a trust and a unity of vision achieved, the cues are understood, and we start playing jazz and riffing off each other.  Collaboration is an alchemy where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  I'm very pleased with the rhythm my "Chicago:1968" artist - Jenny Frison - and I have fallen into.  
 

  How do you select the artists you work with?
I've done work-for-hire gigs where the publisher plays matchmaker between the writer and artist.  Otherwise, creative teams are put together like garage bands.  You post some ads, you mingle in the community, then two or more people agree to some terms, pool their skills, and start rockin' out.

Jenny Frison originally responded to an ad I posted looking for a colorist.  But I really liked the pencil and ink line work she has up on her website.  So I asked her if she wanted to work on this "Chicago:1968" webcomic with me.  I'm glad she agreed.  
 
  Tell us about your "Chicago 1968" webcomic.
"Chicago:1968" is a weekly webcomic that dramatically presents the historical events of 1968 in Chicago.  It's a web-based "docu-graphic novel," to borrow a description from your own "Project 1968," Laura.  It's a tragedy in the classic sense. 

It begins in January, '68, with the birth of Yippie! and the Tet Offensive.  Jenny and I are currently approaching the halfway point, with the assassination of Martin Luther King in April, and Bobby Kennedy in June.  Things culminate at the Democratic National Convention and the theater/violence in the streets of Chicago.

The plot follows four different sets of characters, most of whom are real people, each with a unique perspective and experience in Chicago in 1968.  What I think I do differently than most who've approached the topic before is that I do my best to fairly represent all the sides of this political drama.  In addition to following the exploits of Abbie Hoffman and his Yippies, or the earnest, young intellectuals of the Students for a Democratic Society and the Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, I also try to reach beyond the heretofore cardboard cutouts that've passed as characterization for the blue collar, working class Chicago Police, and Chicago's most iconic mayor, Hizzoner Richard J. Daley.

The tension that exists at the heart of the story is the tension that exists within my own soul.  I grew up in ethnic enclaves and savory neighborhoods of Chicago's bungalow belt.  And my grandfather and namesake, Capt. Leonard Kody of the Chicago Police, was actually on duty during the '68 DNC, standing in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel when the shit hit the fan on national TV.  My own politics, however, lean pretty far left.  I opposed the invasion of Iraq just as much as I would have likely opposed the Vietnam War 40+ years ago.  With the additional benefit of being a generation or two removed from the bitter divisions of that time (I was born near the end of 1980), I think I'm in a unique position to judge the virtues and the vices of both the protesters and the police. 

My aim is not to lionize the New Left, who, while on the side of righteousness, only succeeded in alienating constituencies, rather than building them, which may or may not have been directly responsible for electing Richard Nixon.  And, let's face it, a lot of them came to Chicago looking for a fight.  Nor is it my aim to apologize for Daley and his police.  History has judged them correctly; the violence of Convention Week has been described as a "police riot," and that just about sums it up.  But I think most rational people of any political stripe would agree with my contention that the Chicago Police are decent, hard working, family men who only wanted what's best for their city and their country.  They are the working class with nothing to gain and everything to lose from an ill-conceived Southeast Asian campaign against communism.  And most of them were New Deal Democrats who, up until 1968, voted for the Donkey in every election of their lives.  So I think it's worthwhile exploring their often overlooked narrative, as well.

Because "Chicago:1968" is not propaganda.  It's a quest for truth.  And the truth, as they say, lies somewhere in between.  

Tomorrow: Part Two of my interview with Len Kody

An interview with author Julius Lester

(Note: This interview originally appeared in November 2008 on Project 1968. It will mark the beginning of an in-depth look at the work of Julius Lester.)

 

Award-winning author Julius Lester became active in the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s. He worked in the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project and was also a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. He co-authored his first book with Pete Seeger in 1965: "The 12-String Guitar as Played by Leadbelly." His best-selling book, "Look Out, Whitey!" was published in 1968. It is largely regarded as the first book to give context to the Black Power Movement in America.

 

Since that time, Mr. Lester has published 43 books, ranging from fiction and folk tales, to non-fiction and children's books. He has taught at the New School for Social Research and the University of Massachusetts. Being Jewish and African-American, Mr. Lester has frequently written about the role of identity and history in both communities.

 

He has accumulated numerous awards and honors, including the Newbery Honor, Lewis Carroll Shelf Award and the Coretta Scott King Award. He was also awarded the Massachusetts State Professor of the Year for his work in education.