We chat with the artist about the relationship between dying worlds and comics.
Welcome to Creator Corner, our recurring interview series in which we chat with the coolest and most thought-provoking creators in the industry. In this entry, we're conversing with Julian Hanshaw about Space Junk.
A world is dying. Rockets carry the populace to the safety of space and other planets, which are hopefully dying slower. Two youngsters remain behind in Space Junk, written and illustrated by Julian Hanshaw. Faith and Hoshi wander the landscape one last time, not so much searching for purpose but finding meaning despite their best efforts.
Space Junk is a painfully relatable sci-fi plunge into the existential, gorgeously illustrated with a deft hand. Julian Hanshaw loves his dying world and the kids who refuse to go. The book oozes emotion while pulling the reader along at a breakneck pace.
Considering how much of me I found in Space Junk, I was eager to chat with Hanshaw about his latest comic, published by Top Shelf Productions. We discuss his time in animation, what comics can do that other mediums cannot, and how Space Junk evolved from its original pitch.
Julian Hanshaw and the Original Space Junk Pitch
Brad: You pitched Space Junk some time ago to Top Shelf, and they passed. After some time noodling on the idea, what did you alter or realize that eventually got them to the greenlight?
Julian Hanshaw: I think it was the fleshing out of the characters and refining the landscape. Hoshi had been with the story from its inception. A volatile self tattooing child. He was absolutely locked in. As was Esme the emotional support chicken. But after Chris had rightly declined, then Faith just arrived. Don't ask me from where but her inclusion just solidified the whole story. They now felt like a little tribe. Small and tight. I really don't like the Spice Girl approach to a lot of comic book gangs. Each with their own cookie cutter identity. And it all seems more forced the larger the 'gang'.
Once Faith had the piece of Space Junk on her head and Hoshi's little surprise (with his leg) the idea of being a stay behind evolved and became the central crux to the story. It became a series of dominos. Each addition moving the story forward and suddenly I had a piece to re-approach Chris with that had its roots in the original but had absolutely become a bolder and better tale.
Brad: What remains in the current comic that was in that original pitch?
Julian Hanshaw: Hoshi and Esme really. That was my start point. But behind them, is the Space Junk. Inspired by my visits to White Sands Missile Range New Mexico, The Boneyard Tucson and a Army firing range near me in the UK. That is the essence.
Brad: How did Space Junk evolve differently from previous projects?
Julian Hanshaw: It was with me for a long time. My last book Free Pass happened quickly. In comic terms anyway. Space Junk was around after Cloud Hotel. But Free Pass felt very zeitgeisty and I wanted to get that out. So Space Junk drifted into the background but was always there, winking at me. I don't think the process of forming the ideas were particularly different from Tim Ginger or Cloud Hotel, meaning I tend to build the story in increments, being sketches of pivotal moments and laying down and listening to brown noise whilst letting scenes play out in my mind. That's something I do a lot. Something an old tutor at art school advised I do. I find the evolution of a story for me, is like playing that game with the sliding tiles. You keep clacking the tiles around till the picture eventually appears.
Brad: You once told AiPT, "Every object has a memory." This resonated very much with us. We look around our apartment and see all the stuff we've acquired over time. Mostly, everything we see resonates with a memory for us, but the object itself has a memory outside of us. Or a life outside of us. Can you talk about why this particular element of Space Junk resonated with you?
Julian Hanshaw: I guess I'm just getting more sentimental as I get older. Like looking at a house being bulldozed and seeing the wallpaper on an exposed wall. I think about the stories that wall paper could tell and the fact I'm seeing wallpaper outside is ratherjarring. I feel sad for the exposed wallpaper. Seeing objects where they don't belong. An old Walkman in a hedge. How did you get there? And as I walked around White Sands looking at the rockets or the mothballed planes in the Boneyard I was struck by the dormant potential and need for these things to return to the skies. Where they belong. To continue their journeys. A yearning for travel. The memories of a B52 still dreaming of those abandoned runways in the pacific.
How Animation Informed Julian Hanshaw and Space Junk
Brad: You've spent some time in the world of animation. What from that world finds itself in comics?
Julian Hanshaw: A tricky one. Firstly...don't just storyboard the story. I'm afraid I think some people are almost storyboarding their comic with one eye on Netflix. I think that discipline finds itself in comics. Discipline and isolation. I worked in a number ofstudios as an animator/director. There you have a team around you. When I was a student at the National Film and Television School in the UK I animated and coloured everything myself. You have to be self-sufficient and motived. My 1st year film was hand drawn, shot under a rostrum camera and I hand painted each Cel. My last two were all still hand drawn but coloured on a computer, however I spent months and months, often 60+ hrs a week, making a twelve-minute animation. So I have that muscle memory to undertake an 18 month comic project.
Brad: What do comics do that animation cannot? What does animation do that comics cannot?
Julian Hanshaw: For me, pacing in comics is something you don't (often) see. The ability to slow the story down. Playing with time. A page of panels with just the sun passing over a ketchup bottle on a table. Something I played with in my first Top Shelf Book Tim Ginger. The process and production cost of animation pretty much negates that ability to dwell. There will be moments of it in certain kinds of animation, sure, but in a book you can climb down through the gears a lot easier.
I think the only thing it can do better, is grab people's attention easier in a market of shrinking attention spans. Comics simply can't compete with the delivery system of watching content on a bus on your phone. There should and has to be a place for books, but an animation is just easier to consume. And to be honest, most animation around at the moment is just rubbish
Brad: How would you describe your brand of science fiction?
Julian Hanshaw: Lofi sci-fi. Like a squawking, spluttering old laptop in a second hand shop window.
Where Julian Hanshaw Would Shelve Space Junk
Brad: What other science fiction stories would Space Junk sit next to on a shelf? Comics, movies, TV, whatever.
Julian Hanshaw: Now that it's finished, with my animation head on, I think it would sit nicely as a short next to other animations in 'Love, Death and Robots'.
Brad: Are there influences upon Space Junk? Are those influences different from your other works?
Julian Hanshaw: I think the influences are kind of similar to Tim Ginger and Cloud Hotel. Those being a sense of alienation and something odd, just on the peripheral. And those influences are shot through 3 different ages. Tim Ginger 60+. Cloud Hotel 9-11yrs. And Space Junk early teens. The overriding influence that hangs over them all is J G Ballard. The only book that is different is Free Pass. There the story is seen through two twenty year olds. But the actual story was influenced more by 'real life', things I was reading about and a societal change I was seeing playing out at breakneck speed .
Brad: How personal of a connection do you have to your stories? Do they linger with you for a long time, or do you discard them once they're out in the world?
Julian Hanshaw: They all linger. For different reasons. There is a time when I deliver the book to Top Shelf, and then I tend to not dwell on it. I think I'm too tired and exhausted having spent too long with the book. So it's a nice mental break. And then the book arrives, usually a few months before release and everything comes back to me. It's then, once I have it in my hands, that the world and characters settle with me. Like I accept them back in having banished them for a while. And then fromthere on out I'll often think about the books. Both happy and critical thoughts. As a natural pessimist, the latter is easily achieved at a higher rate.
コメント