An Interview with the Creative Team Behind Serious Creatures:
Today we sit down with the creative team behind the runaway hit comic book Serious Creatures and discuss the origins of the book, the genesis of the concept as well as the Sega of their collaboration and find out how this team of rakish rogues is able to quell their divergent and discordant personalities enough to make a 24 page full color comic book every month.
So, let’s get to know the creative team:
Writer, Tony McMillen: ‘Sup, sluts.
Artist, Tony McMillen: Heeeyyyyy.
Colorist, Tony McMillen: What’s going?
Letterer, Tony McMillen : My job is last and I’m least good at it.
How would you describe Serious Creatures to the small contingent of unwashed virgins who have yet to read it?
Tony McMillen, Writer:
It’s a comic about the especially impractical people behind practical effects.
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Oh god, that sounds so canned and phony.
Tony McMillen, Writer:
What? You need an elevator pitch!
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Your shit’s more like an escalator pitch.
Tony McMillen, Colorist:
What does that even mean?
Tony McMillen, Artist:
It means it’s slower than turtle gravy.
Tony McMillen, Colorist:
What the hell? That’s not a saying.
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Well, I just said it.
Tony McMillen, Writer:
It’s a saying now, that’s going in the book.
Tony McMillen, Letterer:
One word or two? Turtlegravy looks kinda cool but does it read?
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Do you? Two more typos last issue.
…So, the book is about special effects?
Tony McMillen, Writer:
It’s about Bobby Feckle, a teenage special FX artist growing up alongside the movie industry he’s helping to create in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Tony McMillen, Artist:
“Three decades of life in the special FX industry.” We get it, you saw Goodfellas.
Is he like this all the time?
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Like what?! Don’t make me run up on you, fool!
Tony McMillen, Colorist:
Fool? Run up on you?! You don’t talk like that. You’re from Akron Ohio.
Tony McMillen, Writer:
He just rewatched Friday again…it’s reactivated something long dormant deep inside of him.
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Yay, Yay! …That’s an Ice Cube thing. I was doing Cube.
I see…the comic is about a teenager who works on movies making special effects back when that work was done more with rubber masks and animatronics and the like…basically before the advent of CGI. Your comic likewise is handmade without computers, correct?
Tony McMillen, Colorist:
Where are you getting that from? No, I color every page of this thing using a computer. I try to make it look like it was done with watercolors and crayons but it’s done on an iPad Pro with an apple pencil and before that a mouse.
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Yeah, computers are cool. Make shit way easier. What’s your beef with computers?
Tony McMillen, Letterer:
I letter the book using a font created from a handwritten font of my own but it’s still using a computer.
Tony McMillen, Artist:
….seriously….who hurt you? Did you have a computer for a stepdad? Did he rough you up? Was he mean to your moms?
Tony McMillen, Writer:
Worse. Was he good to you. Did he love you but then one day…bamf! He left. Just like your real dad.
….I don’t see what that has to do with…..sob….how did you know?
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Called it! Stepdad was a Commodore 64.
Tony McMillen, Writer:
Dude, that’s a video game console, not a computer?
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Oh word?
I…let’s take a break, I have to process this…
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Hey….you don’t have to do that alone. Come on, let’s get our cry on.
(We all go into a huddle and start weeping profusely. Tony McMillen, Artist, despite his bad boy façade is the most tender of all of us. I feel cared for when he holds me. I feel seen. After the interview wraps I will give him my number. I don’t know if he’ll call. I don’t know if I want him to. I just know that I am compromised. I have left all objectivity behind. And I don’t care. I want to be seen. I want to be seen by him.)
Later…
Tony McMillen, Writer:
I will say the spectre of CGI does hang over the characters and their world throughout the story. It’ll come into play much more for the second half of the comic, issues 7-12. Because that’ll take place in the 80s and 90s. This first half is mostly concerned with the 70s. The big overarching plot piece is the character of Wolf Beard wanting to make the greatest werewolf transformation in film history. Wolf Beard is the nickname for the director who in the world of Serious Creatures will go on to direct the film A Connecticut Werewolf in King Arthur’s Court. He tasks Jack Barber, our main character Bobby’s mentor, with the seemingly impossible task of creating this heretofore unrealized special effect. Turning a man into a monster on film in full light with no time lapse and minimal cutaways.
Tony McMillen, Colorist:
And if you know your movie history you know that this bit doesn’t sound too far off from the behind the scenes trajectory of the movie An American Werewolf in London.
Tony McMillen, Artist:
Or the parallel production of The Howling.
(Did he look at me? Has he always been looking at me?)
Tony McMillen, Writer:
Right. The characters of Bobby Feckle and Jack Barber are loosely based on the real life careers of Rob Bottin and Rick Baker. Loosely because I only really took their career arcs as raw material and left all the personal stuff off the table. I don’t know either of those guys and that’s not my concern. I can make up that stuff. What I was interested in was Rob Bottin being a 14 year old kid becoming an apprentice for Rick Baker (then only in his early 20s) and them working on a slew of important and iconic movies together and then separately. I was really compelled by the fact that they both made important werewolf movies in the same year using some of the same techniques. Even if the reality isn’t that salacious or dramatic a helluva yarn could be conducted around that event.
(Now Tony McMillen, Artist is looking at Tony McMillen, Writer like he sued to look at me! DESPAIR!)
How does an issue of Serious Creatures get made, start to finish?
TO BE CONCLUDED