Carpe Noctem Interviews, Vol 3

by Carnell, Thom

  - Henrich Heine, Lutetia

  The comic industry is in trouble. Sales are down. The once lumbering behemoth Marvel teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. DC has become a poster child for lost creative opportunities and the only thing in their stable that’s keeping anyone’s interest is its Vertigo line. Small start-up companies come and go faster than anyone can keep track. And meanwhile, that fat, retarded leech Diamond Distribution sits sucking off the cream from all of these companies like Jabba the Hut with a bad case of the munchies.

  Meanwhile, there is one company whose sales are increasing with every release. Their market share grows incrementally each and every day. Their characters creep more and more into the comic audience’s common parlance and they’ve begun to be looked at by the Big Boys in an attempt to find ways to duplicate their success. This company is Chaos! Comics and its success can be directly linked to one man, its creator, Brian Pulido. For it has been Brian’s vision all along that has shepherded Chaos! to the heights of commercial success that they now enjoy. His characters, among whom Evil Ernie, Lady Death, Purgatori, and Chastity are the most well known, each share the vision of their creator and each makes no excuses for who they are.

  I first met Brian at WonderCon in Oakland, California and was immediately struck by his unbridled enthusiasm for his company’s product. At the Chaos! Booth, he exuded such a level of glee, as he sat greeting the long line of fans, that it became downright contagious. Amazed, I stood there and watched him look each and every person who had waited in line straight in the eye and infect them with his zealous fervor. It was an impressive thing to watch. A creator coming face to face with his creation’s fans and loving every minute of it. Later, I overheard a group of young boys who were sitting by a concessions stand sorting out their day’s booty. As they picked through their haul, one held up a Lady Death comic that Brian had signed and said, “This is so cool. Didja see? I talked to Brian Pulido and he really listened to what I had to say about Lady Death and what direction I thought her character should go.” The other boys nodded knowingly, each showing an obvious appreciation for the man and his work. And that, in a nutshell, is what makes Brian and the Mighty Chaos! such a force to be reckoned with – they care. I mean, they really care! They care what their fans think. They care about how they’re perceived in the marketplace. They care about their characters...and that kind of caring is contagious.

  ~*~

  Right out of the gate, let me get a little background not only on you but also on Chaos! Comics and how you all got pulled together.

  I’ll give you a little background on Chaos! Comics. I was publishing the Evil Ernie series through Malibu and we were negotiating for the comic to be in full color. Nine tenths of the way through the negotiations, they dropped us and we didn’t have anywhere to turn. So, I spoke to my wife and said, “Hey, can we parlay whatever money we have and publish comic books?” We didn’t know a damn thing about publishing comic books, but it was this creative desperation to express myself, and we went color. The first comic came out in June of ‘93. Now, we’re celebrating our fifth year anniversary, cut to five years later.

  Were you shocked at the audience’s response? I mean, obviously you felt that you had a good product.

  I felt that we had something there, but the response over time, that five years... Five years later, we’re committed to where darkness dwells. A hundred and fifty companies have come and gone and we still prevail. It’s surprising.

  The popularity of some of the characters, not only Evil Ernie but Lady Death, and I remember back at a recent Dragon*Con in Atlanta, I saw you standing next to a girl who had dressed herself in complete Purgatori garb...

  Which is not a mean feat. It’s not as if Purgatori is a, what we call, “salad eatin’ bitch.” She’s a fierce woman and this six foot dominatrix decked head to toe showed up as Purgatori was incredible. I hope you got to see the woman who showed up as Lady Death.

  No...

  Oh my god! This woman was like six foot two in her stocking feet. She came in with the white contacts, white skin. She was a dominatrix in real life. Even I’m talking to her, and I’m her damn creator, and she’s completely dismissive. She was a total dominant.

  How does that make you feel? How does that sit with you when you come up with an idea in your office and suddenly there it is in the flesh in front of you?

  For me, it’s pretty trippy because I wonder if there is a difference between the reality that occurs inside my brain and the reality that is being displayed in front of me. It’s a pretty neat demonstration of the power of a thought given life and the power of how these characters communicate with people. It is clear that the average Chaos! reader is not a casual reader. I mean, this is a little more than comic books. This is a lifestyle. It’s amazing.

  As far as you go, you came to the Malibu deal with some background in, not only writing, but I’m assuming from your success, some business acumen?

  No prior business...

  Right on! [laughs]

  I was the guy who was going to work harder than everybody. I worked in the film business. I’m a graduate of NYU Film. I worked in the film business as an assistant director for six - seven years. A couple of the ways that I approach things to this day would be to get a sense of the pool that I’m entering, understand what the rules of engagement are, and proceed powerfully and ask for everything. Then, people sometimes say yes and sometimes say no and where the dust lies is where things occur. So, I had no prior experience to be a comic book publisher. I didn’t know what film was. I didn’t know that there was a thing called CMYK. I didn’t know a thing about it. In fact, probably two and a half months before Evil Ernie: The Resurrection #1, our first comic, was published, I sort of woke up one day and went, “Doh, we have to put it in color.” It was a real “from the ground up” operation.

  So, as you were in NYU, was that a situation where “ultimately, I want to direct,” or were you going there to learn scriptwriting?

  My interest, then and now, is to be a complete filmmaker. So, I like writing, producing, directing... There’s a lot of real tantalizing aspects to making movies. I dig ‘em all.

  Just to get some more background on you, who are some of writers that you look up to?

  It’s pretty funny, I’ll admit to you, I don’t regularly read. The authors who have struck me are obscure. Guys like James Blish who wrote Black Easter, John Christopher who’s an English writer who focused on catastrophic novels, apocalyptic novels, end of the world scenarios, and then from there Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend is a real big deal for me and still is to this day.

  I hear Warner just dropped the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Ridley Scott version of I Am Legend. I just read the trades two days ago and I heard that Rob Bowman, the guy who directed the X-Files movie, is resurrecting it.

  Really? Right on...I love that book. That’s the book. I find more of my influences are in the movies, following filmmakers get me excited in the stories that they create. Martin Scorcese is a big one. George Romero. The movies of Kathryn Bigelow. I think Boogie Nights was one of the best movies in the last five years.

  That’s interesting because a lot of the look of the Chaos! Stuff you’re producing, even though it’s a comic book, it has this cinematic, kinetic feel to it.

  Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. I would also say that I draw, personally and creatively, from all kinds of stuff. When I get a project together, I may have a little kernel of an idea and then I’m pouring over the visuals. It’s kind of interesting because I’ve decided a couple of weeks ago that I am going to become again a student of story. Now I’m delving more into the mechanics of telling a story from a beginner’s mind point of view as if I didn’t know a damn thing.

  Speaking of which, have you read Robert McKee’s Story?

  Yeah, I’m devouring it right now.

  Geez, you and me both.

  I got only about fifty pages into that, and here I am a ten year professional writer, and I said, “OK
, I am very clear that I don’t know a damn thing. I’m totally cool with it. This guy’s inspiring me.” I’m on a tear, a massive tear.

  The thing is that, reading this book, I’ve been having the same sort of epiphany that I had when, years ago, I read Musashi’s Go Rin No Sho or Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Every single word is another gate that gets thrown open.

  Agreed. Another real important author in my life would be Joseph Campbell [who wrote] Hero of a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth. The last book that I remember having a massive impact, for me, was literally The Power of Myth and within six months Chaos! was launched. I know those books were a part of it. I loved that. Here’s another obscure reading. I read a lot of Deepak Chopra.

  Since you’re working in a comic medium, what artists, aside from Chaos! artists of course, are you looking at who take your breath away?

  Fine Art artists, I’m a real lover of pop art. I’m a fan of super realistic art. I was a Fine Arts minor. Anytime I go into any city, the first thing I do is head to a museum. I’m a big Keith Haring fan. I’m very proud to say that I have a Keith Haring original that I got in 1980. As far as the comic art is concerned, we have Mike Deodato on Lady Death and he’s incredible. I’ve actually employed a lot of the guys I really groove on, but there are guys that I adore who I’ve never worked with, guys like Simon Bisley. This guy Joe Madureira who is doing Battlechasers, he’s just cool. His stuff is neat, some peculiar super hero/manga hybrid. That’s exciting. As far as visionary creators, Go Nagai, the guy who created Cutey Honey and Devilman. I wouldn’t call him an influence, but he’s a guy who I always want to see what he’s up to. Ralph Mcguire, the conceptualist who did some of the conceptual work for Blade Runner. Syd Mead, the futurist. You can tell my bandwidth is really wide. I’m looking everywhere. I have a voracious appetite for this stuff. I don’t quite have the one hero outside of Joseph Campbell. I just think this guy is a groove. You can read his stuff and it’s a good way to live a life. I’m all over the place with what I look at.

  Now you mentioned the Go Nagai stuff. Do you watch a lot of anime? Is that something that interests you?

  Yeah. I’ve been very lucky. I was into Hong Kong action in ‘86. I got into anime right as Akira hit stateside. As a kid, I liked Battle for the Planets what have you, but I got into the anime and the manga instantaneously. You betcha... I groove on all of it. The whole range. Everything from Giant Robo to Overfiend to Vampire Hunter D to A-KO 51.

  Have you seen Ninja Scroll?

  Oh, yeah... That’s totally cool, totally insane - super-amped, hyper-kinetic, jacked-up stuff - incredible.

  We could probably talk about that stuff for the next hour or so...

  I have a real voracious appetite. I’ll groove on Hong Kong action, anime, Italian horror... I can’t get enough of anything, so it’s a pretty big appetite for entertainment.

  I’m curious to get your thoughts on this. There are those out there who have all but pronounced the horror genre as dead...

  Ah, fuck ‘em.

  [laughs] ...since so much of what Chaos! is doing is rooted in that sensibility.

  My answer to is, “I don’t know. Look at our sales. If anything, Chaos! is going up this year twenty-five per cent. We sell more than ever.” The horror genre dead, that’s a pretty broad statement. I don’t know. Artistically? Commercially? I tend to think that a lot of people flap their wings in the air and say anything and expect people to listen to it and I invite them to do that. While they spend their time flapping their wings and judging the world, judging the carcass, I’m just going to spend my time building it, creating it, and defining it. So, I would say, “No. It’s very much alive. It’s well.” In fact, I would say that I think we’re going to have a new era. I think we’re going to see a new era of popularity of horror in all media. A real prevailing trend is going to be the brutal, but sympathetic monster.

  It’s even bleeding down into the new Joe Dante Small Soldiers film. The monster looking guys are the heroes. It harkens back to Barker’s Nightbreed.

  Unequivocally. Absolutely. And it harkens back to Frankenstein. I would say that those people are silly and I wouldn’t take them seriously.

  I think there was a slump because of all the over exposure with the slasher films on the late seventies/early eighties. There was this over saturation and it took people a while to cleanse their palate.

  People talk about things like cycles, even a concept like cause and effect. I don’t subscribe to that notion at all. I mean, cycle of what? There’s nothing, in a temporal sense, that’s the same. It always comes down to, and here’s your Robert McKee quote, “If the story is good, it will play.” So, if the story’s not good, it’s not going to play regardless of genre. I would say horrific entertainment is more alive than ever. If the success of horrific entertainment is defined by a popular motion picture, that’s one thing, but if the success of a popular horrific entertainment is defined by books sales, it’s immense. Comic book sales? Hey, the mighty Chaos! will be three per cent of the market selling where darkness dwells. It’s not too shabby on one product line. Sure, I could “defend” it for days, but I say to the nay-sayers, “You spend your time doing that. I’ll spend my time making it.”

  You mentioned Chaos! and their sales being higher than ever...

  Not higher than ever, but our sales, overall in volume, are going up.

  The comic industry enjoyed a great...

  We had a great run.

  Yeah, it was a great time in the mid-eighties and there was this slump. However, it seemed as if as the rest of the industry was going into this slump, Chaos! hit the market and you were on the rise...

  Here’s my response to this. The comics industry currently on the whole is down. Chaos! sales on the whole are up. We’re putting out four or five books. The guys in front of us and the guys behind us, they’re making ten or eleven comics. We’re not doing that. I don’t want to sound corny, but it really comes down to customer service. We know who’s reading our comic, in part. We continue to service them and when we do them wrong, we come back and do them right. We answer letters. We keep people excited. We keep people guessing. We’re cognizant that we are creating something for people. It’s not like we’re throwing this against the wall and seeing if it sticks, which is, from a marketing point of view, what most people do in the world. “OK, let’s just keep farting this stuff out until something sticks and then we’ll know we have a winner.” We have a spine to this stuff. There’s a big story that’s being told. I love these characters. We don’t want to sell these characters out. We agonize over little details like, “Are Purgatori’s ears supposed to be pointy or curved?” and making sure people are happy about that stuff.

  It seems that every time I am at a con, Chaos! is there and it’s so great because there is that tactile interaction between creator and his audience.

  We know where we came from. It’s clear that we are allowed to do what we do because we connect with people and we don’t take that for granted.

  Obviously you feel it’s important for a company’s creators to take the time to spend, even an isolated moment as the fan comes by, and it seems to me that you guys don’t just blow them off and nod your heads as they talk. I mean, I’ve seen you stop what you’re doing and talk to someone even if, and not to dismiss this age group but, that person is a younger kid who you can see the passion in his eyes and you reciprocate that.

  I just love it. I don’t know if that’s any special agenda. It’s just the way we are. It seems to be the right thing to do. There’s really not a lot of strategy there. If you saw me on the street, that would be the guy I am. I’m just eternally grateful.

  You had, at one point, an exclusivity deal with Diamond Distribution and you decided to cease that. Can you talk about that?

  Initially, when we went exclusive with Diamond, it really served us. With the way everything looked in the industry, we wanted a bridge, wanted a degree of security and it became clear that Diamond, and
it's their right, title and interest, was selling off promotional opportunities and if you didn’t get in the window you wouldn’t have exposure. We are a business, clearly part of what we’re about is a business. We got in there, and then, when the industry started shaking out and things started changing, it seemed to be more prudent to not be exclusive and diversify our interests, go back to more grass roots marketing and distribution, and that’s what we’ve done. We stand by both decisions. We reacted to the environment of the marketplace pretty well I’d say.

  We were with Diamond for a while and ended up parting ways just because we were convinced that they had an animal and they didn’t know how to care for it or nurture it to make it grow.

  It makes sense. In their defense, they handle so many SKUs. We take it as a part of our responsibility to do that, but I understand what you’re saying. There’s a lot of distribution avenues out there.

  And they’re getting better and better what with people like Syco, FM and Cold Cut. I want to talk to you a little bit about your writers. I know you’re doing a lion’s share of the creation, but you’re also handing off some of your projects to people like Hart Fisher, Philip Nutman, Mark Andrecko and David Quinn. Was that a tough thing for you to do, to hand your babies over to someone else?