Charley Parker

This interview with comic book artist Charley Parker was conducted by Director Sébastien Dumesnil via email during the making of Adventures Into Digital Comics. This interview is a part of the first set of interviews, which means that Charley Parker received a part of the shotlist, and was asked to answer the questions as if he were actually shooting the interview. Charley Parker was offered the possibility to interact this way with the members of the cast.

By sending the same questions to all interviewees, Dumesnil wanted to get the most necessary element of narrative filmmaking: conflict. Despite the repetitive aspect of the questions, we hope you will be surprised by the large panel of answers and opinions offered by the interviewees.

Can you tell us about your background?

I'm trained as a fine artist (I attended The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as a painting major.) My knowledge of graphic arts and computer graphics is self taught. I work primarily as a Web designer, graphic designer, cartoonist and illustrator. When I was first introduced to computer graphics and the Internet in 1994, I immediately got the notion that the Web would be a great place to do a comic book. I went looking for something that I could use as an example or guide and couldn't find anything, so I just dove in and made it up as I went along. I started Argon Zark! in mid-1995 and it was the way I taught myself computer graphics, HTML and Web design.

What do you find in comics that you wouldn't find in another type of visual exercise?

The combination of graphic art (drawing) and storytelling. (As opposed to the other visual storytelling medium, film, which uses photography.) Comics are THE union of graphic art and storytelling. It just boggles my mind that it doesn't get the respect it deserves as a unique art form.

1993 was the last profitable year for the American industry. The market has been shrinking ever since. What do you think are the causes of the industry's collapse in the 90's?

- Rising prices, out of synch with inflation;

- Video games;

- Movies easily available on tape and DVD;

- Free entertainment on the Internet;

- A shortsighted and small minded industry that was (and still is) content to suck the dregs out of its dwindling fan base rather than try to expand the market with anything fresh or different.

For the past few years, we've seen the big companies trying to improve quality: better paper, big names from other industries, etc. Do you think that it had an impact on sales? What could be a key to solve the sales' problem?

It may help, particularly good production values (the real competition is video), but it's not the answer. There has to be a basic change in the perception of the value of comics and their place in the entertainment industry. I think comics should move away from the American model of monthly pamphlets with never-ending stories that discourage the casual reader from picking one up.

A better model for the future would be the French model of "Albums"—essentially what we would call "graphic novels," self-contained stories that can be read and enjoyed without the baggage of "what happened in the last 5 issues." The graphic novel format is much closer to both books and movies and has many of the advantages of both. That and an increased presence in bookstores (or "graphic story shops") that look like they cater to intelligent adults as well as adolescents, would be a step in the right direction. Look at the popularity of comics-based movies. What percentage of the people who see those movies are ever exposed to the actual comics they're derived from?

In the 90's, publishers began to create alternate covers, and made a lot of—sometimes unnecessary—relaunches. What do you think of those "gimmicks"?

See my previous comment about a shortsighted and small minded industry content to suck the dregs out of its dwindling fan base.

To make more money and be able to reach different places such as bookstores, the publishers have created the trade paperback. As an example, many people have read Sandman when it was available on paperback, but not before. Do you feel that the comic book format had its days, and could be replaced by the paperback?

I answered this question before I came to it. Emphatically yes! Not that the pamphlet format should be disposed of, but the emphasis should really be on self-contained stories in book format. Imagine if the movie industry consisted of continued-next-week serials, or television was devoted entirely to soap-operas with stories that never resolved. American comics have worked themselves into a position just as unbalanced and ridiculous.

The early 90's saw the first digital lettering and coloring in American comic books. Do you think that it opened a new world of possibilities as far as storytelling is concerned?

Yes, very much so. I also think that color artists should get more respect and attention for their role in the collaborative work.

Also around the same time came the Internet. Did you guess at that time that the Internet could become a distribution system for independent artists?

I didn't guess that it would become such a popular place for comics related material, but it seemed like a natural place for me to work at the time. I was actually surprised when I tried to find some examples to use as a guide and was unable to come up with anything. It just seemed like a natural place for a comic story. As far as I can tell, I was the first to do a comic book style comic on the Web.

I've always seen a close relationship between pictures and words arranged in sequence to tell a story (comics) and pictures and words linked by hypertext to display information (the Web.) Although I'm still astonished at how much the big companies (and a lot of small ones) still don't get it. They still think of the Web as just a place to put a brochureware site advertising their print comics and not as a whole new medium for the art form. Comics on the Web (and in other multimedia delivery methods like CD-ROM) provide a rich new environment for comics storytelling. Hypertext linking and multimedia elements allow for a richer, more multi-faceted kind of storytelling than is possible in printed comics.

Diversity seems to be a key problem for the industry. Do you think that current comic books are oriented mainly toward an audience in its 20's?

I don't think it's the age range that's a problem, Harry Potter stories are aimed at children, but look at how many adults enjoy them. A good story is a good story. The real problem is the narrow focus on one genre (costumed crime-fighters with super-normal abilities.)

The average price of a comic book in the US is around $3. Do you think, regarding the production and distribution system, that it is too expensive? What are the sales like nowadays in the US?

Yes, in that it's competing for the same dollar with movies and video games that can deliver a much richer experience for the same money. (Which is a better entertainment value, half-a-dozen disjointed, incomplete comic stories or a DVD of a complete movie?) Better to expand it into something more substantial and charge a little more (a complete graphic story Vs. a complete movie.)

When you go to comic book conventions, do you feel that people come to buy comics... or toys, busts, and whatever merchandising has to offer? What do you think of that merchandising? Can it help the sales of comics?

The merchandising and movie licensing can help attract attention to the comics, but they have to deliver better stories. In the end it's how much enjoyment the readers receive for their dollars that counts. The mind-set of promoting new comics as collectibles is a horrible dead-end for the medium.

In the biggest comic conventions we can find print and digital artists. Some print artists seem to be ferociously anti-digital. Do you feel that there are now two clans of comic book creators?

There will always be purists and experimenters in any medium that's open to change. They both have their place. The more variation in opinions and approaches, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Many forgotten artists who can't find a job in the industry because they are told they are "outdated" make money thanks to commissions on their personal websites. Others create those digital comics but don't really make money out of them. Do you think that the Internet could be the solution to the current state of the comic book industry?

It's great that the Web can provide comics artists who have been "devalued" by the always short-sighted comics industry a place to connect directly with those who appreciate their true worth and sell their art. Unfortunately, it doesn't do as well for the digital artists who would like to connect with their audience and also make a living from their stories. It won't work until there is a better model for making money from digital comics. The Holy Grail is some kind of universally accepted form of micro-payments, but that seems more remote now than even a few years ago. This is probably the biggest issue facing digital comics creators—how to get paid for their work. Right now there doesn't seem to be a viable solution.

Some digital comics use animation; others sound, etc. For you, what is a digital comic? What would be the aesthetic definition?

One of the key advantages of digital comics for me is hyperlinking, the fundamental basis of the Web. It allows a comics story to contain another "level" of story, material that augments and fills out a story without being a necessary part of the immediate plot. This is similar to the way hyperlinking is used to such great advantage in conveying information on the Web: there is supplemental information available by way of the links, but it does not have to all be displayed in the immediate page.

The potential here is for level upon level to be arrayed in a hierarchical structure that expands a narrative into another dimension beyond that of time. You could be offered the option to dive into a character's background or previous experiences as an aside to the current situation. You could be given background on places and things integral to enriching the story, but not necessary to advancing the plot. Imagine a Tom Clancy novel in which the exposition about technical military or espionage techniques was supplemented with on-demand charts, illustrations or in-depth information. Similarly a comics story could offer hyperlinked information about the location of the story, the background or abilities of the characters. The writer could even tell the story from more than one viewpoint simultaneously without the burden of carrying two points-of-view in the narrative itself.

In terms of animation, there is, of course a temptation to go too far and turn a comics story into a semi-animated cartoon, but used judiciously, animation can add a delightful element of toy-like fun and surprise to a comic narrative.

There are some purists who insist that comics with animation in them are no longer comics, but I disagree. As long as you're not producing an actual animated story, but instead using bits of animation to enhance and enliven panels that otherwise observe the conventions of comics storytelling, you're doing comics. I think the medium of comics is strong and flexible enough to take whatever I, or the Web, can throw at it and still remain comics.

Another aspect of digital comics that is seldom mentioned is that the color pallet available to artists is much wider than in print. The range of colors available in CMYK printing is quite limited, particularly in some parts of the spectrum. Digital comics have the full 16 million color range of a Cathode ray tube as their potential palette.

Do you think that digital comics offer much more diversity than the paper market?

Yes, both for the reasons I just mentioned and also because they bypass the extremely narrow window of what the commercial publishers will accept (and what independent creators can afford to print and attempt to distribute themselves.) Not only can a vastly wider range of creators place their work out in front of an audience, the potential audience itself is immensely broader than paper comics could ever reach. Plus (and here's the magic one that I think is really important to the future of comics as a medium of expression), there is a much greater chance that someone who is not prone to go into typical comic book story will read a free online comic if provided with a reason to do so (a review or mention in a site or a traditional media venue that is not already in the comics "ghetto.")

Only big publishers would have the financial asset to afford the legal support needed in the piracy issue. How do you think that the big companies will make their way into the digital world? Do you think that independents will have to wait for those companies to make money in a safe way?

Safety is hardly an issue until some method is found to charge for online content in a realistic way. What difference does piracy make if you can't make money off of the material in the first place?

Do you think that readers are into comics for collecting and need to touch a comic book to enjoy it, or would a computer screen be enough for them? What about you?

I'm not particularly interested in those who are into comics for collecting, in spite of the fact that I used to be one of them. The fact that there are people who collect antique cars doesn't particularly affect my interest in driving. However, print comics do have their place and their advantages. Until screens get smaller and lighter, they're still much easier to carry around, read on a train, or at the beach, or in bed.

There are many issues that could prevent digital comics from growing, such as piracy. Also, and even novelists ran into that wall, it seems to be hard to get paid, even with systems such as PayPal. Subscription, advertisement, micro-payments: what do you think is the best option to be paid on the web for digital creations?

It's just not here yet, whatever it is. I wish there was a simple answer. Something has to change before it will be really viable.

There are different ways to compose a comic book story on the Internet. Some artists like to consider the screen as a page, others still use a typical comic book format. We can also use the screen as a panel/link leading to another panel and so on. Finally, other artists use the internet as an unlimited space to compose a story. Do you think that digital comics offer more possibilities as far as composition is concerned?

Absolutely. Look at Scott McCloud's wonderful experiments with the "infinite canvas" of the scrollable screen. The more variety the better, although I think creators would do well to pay close attention to the fundamentals of good storytelling, particularly when experimenting with novel panel and page arrangements that can't rely on the conventions that readers are used to for finding their way around. Abandoning convention is fine if you're good enough to create a viable alternative, but that's not always easy. Personally, I opted for a screen-shaped page (horizontal rather than vertical) with consistent navigation buttons for the main story, and supplemental hyperlinks in the art for surprise and extra elements that are meant to be "discovered" after the fact.

Do you think that scrolling is the main limitation of digital comics?

I personally don't like scrolling, either as a digital comics creator or as a Web designer. I accept it under the constraints of time or budget, but I think it's counter to a good reading experience (except when it's actually a focus of an experimental reading experience, as in Scott McCloud's Zot! online comic.) The solution is to design for the screen. If you need a comic page to do double duty as a print comic, change the print format to horizontal. Yes, I know it's a sales problem in the insular world of comics if a comic doesn't fit the accepted bag-and-board measurements of traditional print comics, so my suggestion there is to break your pages into two horizontal sections for display on the screen, and stack them one above the other for printing in traditional comic book format.

One can find digital comics on the web, but also short films produced especially for the Internet. Do you watch such films sometimes? What do you think of them?

Yes. They're the same as almost every other type of entertainment or art: 5% wonderful, 25% mediocre and 70% crap.

We talked earlier about the unlimited space and animated digital comics. Do you think that we could apply some of those compositional ideas to live moving pictures, instead of just drawn panels?

Why not. But, as with comics, I think the effective use of these elements lies within the previously mentioned 5%, when it gets to the broad use of such things they quickly disintegrate into pointless gimmickry.

Bad artistic, and moreover marketing, decisions have been the main reasons of the industry's downfall. The digital technology seems like a good solution to create art without any form of concession. Do you think that the Internet is an open door for new creative voices?

Absolutely. Unfortunately, to some extent, the same marketing machines that control the print comics world will gain sway in the digital realm. Just by the rules of "recognition = popularity," people will flock to the major companies' sites because that's what they're already familiar with and constantly hear about. The majority of people looking for comics on the Internet will not be as likely to search out the independent creative voices. Hopefully the other real strength of the Internet, person-to-person direct communication (i.e. e-mail and personal Web sites) will help to spread the word about the really innovative and exciting independent voices.

Now that comic books have become a niche market (whether they are on paper or digital), pretty much like painting, do you think that we're going to see a peak of creativity and quality as a reaction to the current situation?

No. There will always be those for whom comics are the best medium to express what they have to say, and there will always be those who seek out those creators. There will be periods of more or less energy, interest and creative flowering, but the process will always continue. Comics will change and adapt to the media and delivery methods available, but comics will always continue to convey stories in a way no other art form can.