Interview:Blackout

This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it. In particular, this article needs the rest of the behemoth...and to be cleaned up, add images.

On September 11, 2007, RyanGibsonStewart conducted an interview via conference call with Blackout writer Mark Sable and artist Jason Badower.

Ryan Stewart: So you two haven't actually talked yet.

Mark Sable: No, no, only online. So it's good to meet you, Jason!

Jason Badower: You too, you too, man. Thank you for such a great, fun script.

MS: Well, thank you for what you did with it. Everything I've told you online and in our emails has been really true. I've been really, really happy with it.

JB: Thanks. It's just one of those things that's the nature of our art--I look back on our stuff and think, "Oh, more time! More time!" But there's never more time, so it is what it is!

MS: Believe me, I look at this stuff the same way. You did a tremendous job, especially considering how short the deadline was.

JB: Yeah, and I just really did a bollocks up job of managing my time this time. I've done bigger jobs in shorter time, but this time just alluded me. And you can tell because of the number of photos I used rather than just drawing backgrounds. Ah well, it was fun!

MS: It's definitely been fun for me. I'm excited, and I'm kind of sad, actually, because at least for now it's over.

JB: I'm sure there'll be more opportunities, man. Given the feedback on the boards, which has been great for you. It's some of the best comments I'm getting from people--that it feels like an in-continuity story, about the tone of what you wrote. Hopefully the people in the production offices will sit up and pay attention to that.

MS: I hope so, and thank you. Anyway, sorry, Ryan.

JB: Oh yeah, Ryan!

RS: Oh no, that's fine! I had a feeling I was going to sit back and just listen to you two talk most of the time, and that's just fine with me! [all laugh] You talked about the deadlines. What exactly where the deadlines, and the logistics of getting your work done?

MS: To back up a little, and I mentioned some of this online, Jesse Alexander and Aron Coleite had gotten in touch with me. Months ago, Jesse asked me if I wanted to do something for Heroes. I of course said yes. And then a couple of months went by I didn't really know what to expect. Aron called me and basically said that it had to be a Suresh story, two parts, ten pages. It gave me a very basic outline. He told me where Suresh was as a character--basically on a Professor X journey to find funding and people to help him with his project. He said Suresh should find somebody who has the same disease, or at least what we think is the same disease as his sister's, but then manifests to be another power. So that's sort of the assignment I was given. And then they threw out a power or two--which I won't say because they may use it again--and then I threw out a couple. I threw out one that I thought was killer and would have worked perfectly, but then they told me, "Oh, we're actually using it." It's actually something for the fans to look forward to. I wish I could say more about it. But they're going to do a better job with it than I would. So from that point I got frustrated because I thought I had the best power and I couldn't use it. So I ran this one by them. The story had pretty much been similar for both powers. To me, it was definitely a story about somebody getting sick as a result of their power and having a power that cost other people something and having that choice, and Suresh being in a place to help them. They okayed my next draft--that was a one page treatment. From there, they were like, "Just go right to script." They gave me basically a week for each 5-page chapter. Then I handed that stuff directly in to Aron and Chuck Kim, another writer who works there. I didn't have any contact with Jason, so he can take it from there.

JB: Sure. My liaison is Frank Mastromauro. One of the great things about the script is that both parts came in at once. Normally, I'll just get the first half, like with The Death of Hana Gitelman. With War Buddies, I was getting one installment every week. So it was great to read the whole thing and say, "Okay. What are we going to plan out? What has to work across the entire thing?" One of the great things about having the whole script is when he pulls the mountain bike out of the car in the end, I think, "It's gotta be a car you can put a mountain bike into." So it's just a little detail like that if I had drawn a sedan in the first one, well how the hell is he going to get a mountain bike in there? So it was great having the whole script. I had about five days to draw the first one and about seven days to draw the second one. I also cut into myself on the first one, coming right off another project. Two gross errors of mismanagement: On the first page in the second panel, you see a picture of Hiro holding the sword and Claire running out of the fire, which Mark wrote in the script. Well, I drew big, poster-size images--I got so carried away! [laughs] And the second thing I did which I miscalculated was--and I've never done this before--I miscalculated the time zone difference between Melbourne and L.A., and I came in a day late. But Frank was really cool with that. So both parts at once--it was great!

RS: That's great you had the continuity. I remember in War Buddies there were some issues with watches, which you mentioned on your blog. I'm sure, as an artist, you're always making sure everything flows in a natural way, and that you're prepared from the beginning for something that might happen in the end.

JB: Yeah, it's one of those things where you're trying to come up with details, but you can never get them all, and there always stuff you miss. You go back and say, "Yeah, I could do that better." But hindsight's 20/20. And the funny thing is, until you see the script over the top of your artwork, you don't actually see the story. Like, I'm as surprised as anyone else when I go to the Heroes website and download it for the first time and see it all. And it's really exciting for me to see it all come together.

RS: Mark, did you see Jason's work before it was published online?

MS: I got to see it before everyone else, but actually it's funny. The first time I even heard that Jason was going to be the artist was actually from you, Ryan. You contacted me about the interview [back in the beginning of August], and I was quite impressed that you knew who the artist was going to be! [laughs] But then I was able to look up some of his stuff and I was happy with it. I could breath a sigh of relief because when you're doing noncreator on stuff, you never know who you might get stuck with. I obviously feel like I got the best of the best.

RS: And the Heroes community agrees with you--Jason was voted the best Heroes graphic novel artist by the 9th Wonders boards. Right, Jas?

JB: Yeah. I've never been more flattered by anything in my life. It knocked me out.

MS: And well-deserved, too.

JB: It was just one of those things that, in retrospect, I regret not chatting with Mark more about the script more. There were a lot of subtleties that, only now after I see it all down on paper, I can say, "Oh, I see what Mark was getting at now! Oh, I see what he was alluding to there!" There are a lot of subtleties to Mark's script that I now look at and go, "Oh, you know what? I wish I had picked up on that."

RS: Like what, for instance?

JB: I just read through the story and script again, and I was making little mental notes to myself. Like the way he had time passing through, and things about the characters--there were just some subtleties that I would have liked to have played with a bit, especially in, say, some performances. There's a line in the second half where the patient says, "I never put it together before." And I kind of see it now when it's all together with the dialogue and I go, "Ah, I think the patient's a little too..." I think I drew him overacting a little there. And just stuff that I'm looking at and seeing it actually lined up with the dialogue, normally I have a very consistent picture with that in my head. That's just one of those times that [I have a better perspective] when it stands together as a whole with ten pages. I think maybe I didn't need to go quite that far with his expression.

MS: Right. I'm going to take this time to point out that I think Jason is too much of a perfectionist. I mean, I think it translates great to the work, but you really have to look hard to find [something wrong with Jason's work]. I think any writer or any artist can go back and look at their work and find stuff that makes you cringe. I just want to emphasize that I think you did a fantastic job. I mean, just the fact that it took you so long to come up with something so minor [as the patient's expression] is a testament to that. As I said, I did get to see his art. I would get it sent from the Heroes guys. I got a couple of layout pages early on. The layouts looked really good, but they were thumbnails, so it's hard sometimes to tell. But basically, it looked good and it worked. It was interesting because this is something that never happens--I would get the art, but without the lettering. Then they sort of asked me to do the lettering corrects before I actually saw the lettering. It's very hard to try to figure out. When I look back at stuff I would do-over differently, it is sometimes hard to figure out how the letterer is going to fit it in, etc. It was good that I at least had the chance to edit. I think if I did it again, I would probably do with every comic: use less words. I do think it was nice to have a little bit [of time] to adjust things to Jason's storytelling, which I thought flowed very well.

JB: Yeah, I really dug that. Ryan, I remember you saying in an email or a comment on my blog that there was no line of dialogue on the final page of Part 1.

RS: Right. You mentioned on your blog that there was a line of dialogue that was added to the last panel of the first part, but I didn't see any, at least when I read the comic. There was a line in the first panel of the last page of Part 1, but nothing on the last panel. What was it you were talking about there?

JB: The line I've got is Suresh saying, "Welcome back to the land of the living."

MS: Oh, well here's what was interesting about that. That was actually the one last minute correct made. Like I said, I had to do my lettering corrections before the actual lettering was in. And then on a Friday (I think the Friday before that Monday) I got the proofs back that had the lettering. They weren't even really asking for me to do anything, they were just sort of saying, "Here are the proofs." When I looked at it, the "Welcome to the land of the living" line I wound up having to move. I don't want to blame the letterer, but I think it was supposed to be on the second page, [attributed to] the first patient.

RS: Right. It was the nurse who said that line to the adult patient, the guy with the goatee.

JB: Oh, right, right, right! Oh, wow!

MS: And I think I sort of went into a panic and sent an email over the weekend--and believe me, the Heroes guys work over the weekend. I was in a panic because if you were to put that line on the last page, it looks like he's dead, and he's maybe being brought back to life by the electricity. Hopefully this story's clear to everybody, but if it's not...Luckily, I think what I heard was that the first time it was released in PDF form, that line may have been on the last page, but then they corrected it later. So there may be some fans out there with a different variant that has that line in there differently.

JB: The limited edition version! [all laugh]

RS: Apparently! Very interesting! So the line is supposed to be from the nurse to the adult patient, not from Mohinder to the teenage patient.

MS: Correct, correct.

JB: Which is actually in your script direction, also. As the patient opens his eyes, he comes back to "the land of the living". But is it actually a line of dialogue?

MS: Oh, yeah...I don't know how that...

JB: On my version of the script there's no dialogue there. It just says, The patient's eyes open for the first time. The lights come back on and he returns to the land of the living." But it's not dialogue, it's just direction.

MS: That went in as dialogue, as part of a correct or...I knew it didn't need to be in that last scene, and I think I may have put it in that second page just to err on the side of clarity, which I try to do over everything else, though it may be to the detriment of the work. I know I was reading Jason's blog and I saw he's not a huge fan of sound effects. I'm really not either, and I look sometimes and think, for instance, do the scenes with the blackouts really need the shoonk sound effect? They may not. It was a tough call for me.

JB: I like what you did originally with the sound effect, the szzzt when the lights turn off. I thought that would work really well later on for the car. So you've got the szzzt sound as it goes black, and then the electrical discharge. I thought that would work really well with the car later on because a car can't go shoonk, but it can go szzzt.

MS: This may be the funniest conversation I've ever had. [all laugh] I wanted to have three distinctive sound effects: there's the shoonk for when the lights go off, there's a bzzz for when the emergency lights come on, and then the szzzt distinctly for when the teenage patient is using his electrical absorption ability. I wanted to distinguish it. I get these pages, and it was one of the nice things, even looking it over today--so much depends on the quality of the print. I get a jpeg, and then I print it out on my printer, and you really do lose stuff, as opposed to what the final thing was. Even, like, if you have the wrong amount of ink in your cartridge, it'll look a little darker, or maybe not be clear on certain things. I looked today, and just reading it on a nice screen today (today is the first day that the second part, chapter 50 is up), there are so many details that really weren't visible in my original printouts. For instance, on the very last panel, there's a picture of Suresh's dad on the back of Activating Evolution, and I just never noticed that. That's a nice little touch, but even in the panel above that, it was really hard for me to tell from my printouts that Jason didn't just put this little cabin in the woods, but there's a lake, and it's really well lit. It just didn't come across. As I go off on crazy tangents here and try to bring it back, with the blackout scenes, I wasn't going, "Are people going to 100% get this as a blackout?" Not even thinking, by the way, that the title is Blackout.

JB: It's one of those fascinating things, though. One of the beauties of comics is you never really see it until it's all done in print, so to speak. Even though you can kind of nurse it every step of the way, it's not until you see the whole book together--words, print, or web--that you really get to see how it looks. It's like bringing up this little baby in the dark, and eventually somebody turns on the light and you go, "Oh my God!" [laughs] It's a great surprise to see how everything kind of works and doesn't work. But you get better at your craft, and you solve more problems in the past that become easier to solve in the future.

MS: Yeah, I would agree with that 100%. Another thing: I'm looking at the shot now of that first blackout. To me the issue wasn't the coloring; I put in a big chunk of words that are blocking the window. If I got to go back, I don't know if all that narrative is necessary, or I don't know if I would have placed it there. But the letterer did a great job.

JB: To be honest, I was looking through the script direction and I was actually the one who backed you into that corner. That chunk of narrative is actually supposed to go in the previous panel. But I didn't give you enough space in the previous panel because I was hogging space drawing a big picture of Claire and Hiro! [laughs]

MS: You could go either way on that. You could say, "You didn't leave me enough space," or "I gave you way too many words for a panel."

JB: That's what I'm trying to say--it's neither right nor wrong, it's neither here nor there. I think it worked really well. I love that panel, and I think I wrote on my blog that I always love when the synchronicity of words works with panels and works with the visual. It's one of those things you can't do in film because it just looks so contrived, but in comics, it just works so well. It's one of those things that we can get away with that no other media can.

MS: Yeah, it's something I have a really fun time with, and one of the things that keeps me on my toes in comics. I'm always trying to get the word/image thing and the pacing down. Again, in that same panel, it was just supposed to be a cut from them talking to the narrative that says, "In the dark" just as the lights go out. In some way, it would have been perfect, but then again, maybe it would have been too on the nose.