FBON Interview Series: John Vinson, Author of The Nobodies

 

John Vinson: Author of The Nobodies

Since starting this blog, I always kind of hoped that the opportunity would rise that I would get the chance to interview a few folks along the way. People who are pursuing their passion. People who are doing interesting things. People who are doing what they love. Well my first interview guest on my blog here is someone who definitely fits into all three of those categories.

John Vinson is a long time friend of mine. A fellow movie and TV buff like me, he has now gone and done something he has always dreamed about doing: Writing a comic book. He got together some money, found a great artist and created his first comic book series, The Nobodies.

Set in the future, The Nobodies is about a man named Iggy who wakes up in a garage, attached to all sorts of medical equipment. He wanders outside into a different world than he saw last. Lifeless people known as the Nobodies roam the streets. Iggy runs into a group of survivors who explain to him what is going on. What follows is action, mystery, and suspense and some dark humor. The concept sounds familiar, but Vinson and artist Ger Curti put a great amount of detail into the world Iggy now inhabits. Vinson also peppers the comic book with storytelling that will get you talking.

The first thing I had to ask Vinson about was the cover. The one with the giant marijuana leaf on it. It definitely is an eye catcher and is one of the things that makes the comic stand out.

Here is my interview with John Vinson. Enjoy!



Steve Hash: You look at the cover here and right off the bat, amongst the great artwork is a giant marijuana leaf...

John Vinson: (Laughs) Yeah, There it is. It's pretty apparent.

Official cover for The Nobodies

SH: One question that comes to mind is the comic being used in anyway, even in small ways, to comment on politics of marijuana?

JV: Um, not the politics really. It's basically... the marijuana aspect, it's a part of this world now in a different way than we know of. Because in this world, there is no law. There is nothing to say that marijuana is wrong. There is nothing to say that this is wrong or that is wrong. Which, you know, is pretty standard with any post apocalyptic tale. I guess the marijuana for me was the way to say, without the law to say that this is wrong, it could just as easily become a staple of society as it could be seen as detrimental. You know like alcohol!  Alcohol is a part of our society. It's legal. There are bars. There are places you can go to drink this alcohol.

SH: Well even alcohol was illegal at one point....

JV: Even that was illegal! Right? They turned that around... it is so arbitrary in a lot of ways. But in this world, marijuana is actually a currency. I don't really dive into a lot of that in the first issue. I think the only marijuana use in issue one is Tom and Dr. Edeman smoke a joint and pass it back and forth with each other. But you'll see more of it as the book goes on. That is just kinda the details of the world I wanted to establish. Marijuana is very prevalent. Everyone smokes it. Everyone is fine with it. It has become a part of society.

SH: Do politics in general even enter into the the theme of the comic? 

JV: Politics some. It's not the main drive of the book. There are going to be a couple of storylines later on in the book... it is a seven issue miniseries. So I think around issue three or four, there is going to be a little more politics involved. I don't want to dive into that too much, but it does get somewhat involved but nothing heavy handed really.

SH: So how did this idea come to you? Where did the story come from?

JV: Actually, it was started by two things. First would be a book called The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I highly recommend it. To me it is the greatest piece of fiction ever and there is a chapter in the book where they talk about humanity and the loss of it. One of the chapters in that book is called "The Devil. Ivan's Nightmare.' One of the characters, whose name is Ivan, has a hallucination of Satan. It talks about how Satan uses out aspects of humanity against us. That was kind of what drove me to write this book because the essence is about humanity. What makes us human. What are the negative things that makes us human? What are the positive things? If you take that all away, what are you left with?

SH: That is fascinating. Was this always going to be a comic book? Or did you have something else in mind?

JV: Yeah it was always going to be a comic book. It's funny another inspiration was Led Zeppelin's "Dancing Days." That is where I got the idea that I didn't want to do zombies because to me... I didn't want the threat to be the undead. I didn't want it to be something supernatural.

SH: That actually was going to be a question I had. Where did the idea for the Nobodies themselves come from?

JV: It came from when I was actually listening to "Dancing Days." It's weird, it actually came when I was listening to music. It didn't come to me when I was reading a story, or watching a movie, or watching a television show. It happened while I was listening to this song. It made me think, the Dancing Days: You are having fun and it's free spirited, all these positive emotions. What would happen if all these emotions got taken away? All the emotions gone from a person. Like what if I am sitting across from a person. You know, I am not sad or happy or angry. I am just sitting here. Nothing is looking back at you.

SH: It almost would be traumatizing.

JV: Exactly! It is! Funny you say that because part of that comes into play too about how people react to the Nobodies when the Rapture happens which is the event that they call it in the book.

SH: You said that there are seven issues, are we ever going to see the actual "rapture" happen? It's mentioned obviously.

JV: No. This takes place 20 years after the event.

SH: So might we see flashbacks or anything like that?

JV: There might be flashback maybe. I think most of the flashbacks if they happen are going to be mentioned in the POTUS letter. Whoever has read the comic and seen the POTUS letter at the beginning, he actually is a character in the comic and he will talk about it and flesh out the world a little more. I have a couple of ideas for flashback stories later on. For the most part, I am not going to dive too much into the details. I am going to focus more on the world as it is now.

SH: So you come up with the idea of the comic, how did you go about funding it? Because self starting your own comic book has become a thing here lately. How did the process go?

JV: A lot of savings. A lot of... praying. (Laughs). Let me tell you one thing about comic making is that it is very expensive.

SH: Really? What's the ballpark figure on making one?

JV: Well if you don't do the art yourself, and you find a competent artist and a competent inker. Without coloring, $1,500 to $2,000. And that is if you are doing a single issue, which is usually 20-22 pages. For me it was pencils, inks, and grayscale.

SH: You planned for the no color then?

JV: Yeah. That decision wasn't made from the funding. It was made because I didn't think the story required color. I didn't think color would help it. It is not a very vibrant world. Like when you are reading Superman. You wouldn't want to read a black and white Superman book. To me, a lot of stories don't require color. I did grayscaling because I wanted to give it more depth. I looked at the inks and there just wasn't a depth on the pages. I gave it a little bit of gray scale just to kind of give the world a bit more layer to it.

SH: So who is the artist? How did you hire them?

JV: I put out a advertisement for this website called Digital Webbing (www.digitalwebbing.com). I highly recommend it if you are ever looking for artists. If you ever post there, you'll receive hundreds of postings there and they all want to work for you of course. So I posted it there, and I was going through the submissions and right off the bat you can just see... you know (shakes his head no)... and some people are good but they just don't fit your style. But with Ger (Curti, the artist for the Nobodies), it's funny in that you don't think with an artist that there is going to be so much back and forth, but you really want someone to get the gist of your book. So it was down between him and a couple of other artists and so I talked to each of them and kinda got their take on the book and if they were into it or not. But Ger and I clicked together right off the bat.

SH: Was it his art that just popped right out at you?

JV: Oh yeah! When you send out advertisements for these artists on the website, they'll send you something right back that they have worked on. Most of it is stuff that you know won't work at all but with Ger's stuff, I couldn't get it out of my head. You know, it is like with anything artistic that you like, it clicks. You don't think about it too much. It just works.

SH: So where is the story going to go? Is it going to go worldwide? Because in the first issue here, it pretty much stays in Buffalo, NY for the most part. Do you see it go to somewhere like London? Could we see this from a worldwide perspective?

JV: This actually is a tough question to answer. I can't give specifics because a lot of the places that Iggy and the other characters travel to are actually part of the story. So I don't wanna give away any of the story but I can tell you it definitely expands beyond Buffalo. I can give you a little more insight into the next issue. What's going to happen is that there is going to be a lot of violence in the next issue. A lot of movement in terms of things that are going to happen to the characters. So it is going to be... the second issue is going to be much more action packed. It definitely gets bigger that is for sure.

SH: So what is next? You said that there is seven issues but what is next after you finish this run? You got any other comics planned out ot any other ideas?

JV: I do have a couple of ideas for sure...

SH: What kind of genre you thinking about doing?

JV: Superheroes. I can say that. It's funny though. As hard as it is just to get one issue done, I can't even fathom.... unless this takes off where I can do it full time... fathom what the next series is going to be. But I do have some ideas to keep things going beyond The Nobodies that is for sure.

SH: Cool thanks very much.

JV: Thank you!


A comic book series based off of Russian novels and Led Zeppelin songs? Sounds pretty badass to me! If you want to go buy and read the first issue of The Nobodies, go to http://www.comixology.com/The-Nobodies-1/digital-comic/73859 and you buy the issue there for $1.99. It's getting great reviews already so I recommend you find it and read it soon.

Enjoy and go to the Lexington Comic and Toy Convention if you are anywhere near Lexington, KY this weekend. Sure to be a great time if you go! Till the next time!

- Hash