Zander Cannon

Our second featured guest for Twenty Questions is Zander Cannon. His past works include Replacement God, and Chainsaw Vigilante (a Tick spin-off book). He was most recently doing the layouts for Top 10, and is now hard at work on Smax…a Top 10 sequel of sorts.

4COLORHEORES: How did you come to be at ABC and working on Top 10?

ZANDER CANNON: I had just quit working at a coffee house, just published my first self
published comic, and just finished a comic/slideshow for the Minnesota Orchestra in early 1999. Each of the above taught me something. Working at the coffee house taught me that I wanted to stop working at a coffee house. Self-publishing a comic book taught me that I liked drawing and writing, but not publishing, filling orders, and doing promotion. Doing the project for the Minnesota Orchestra (and getting paid with an NEA grant) taught me that I wanted to make money. So the timing was right for Gene Ha to move to St. Paul, Minnesota (I was living in Minneapolis) and need an art collaborator. We figured that if I liked to do layouts and storytelling, and he liked to do illustration and finishes, we would be the perfect match.

4COLORHEROES: What were your initial reactions when you realized that you would be working with Alan Moore?

ZANDER: Now that I look back on it, I would have guessed that they were disbelief, euphoria, intense happiness, etc. but I seem to recall that I was pretty calm about it because I was so focused. I was always a huge fan of Alan's, back to probably DR and Quinch, so I was very intent on making sure this happened.

4COLORHEROES: Who else would you like to work with?

ZANDER: Hmm. I've always enjoyed Adam Warren's stuff. I'd like to write something for him to draw OR draw something that he would write. I'd like to work with Scott McCloud. I'd like to work with Linda Medley. Let's see... Alan Davis. Kieron Dwyer. Mark Waid. Chris Sprouse. Sam Hiti. Vincent Stall. I don't know. There are a million of them, and the more I list, the more that I'll leave out.

4COLORHEROES: What is it like collaborating with Alan Moore and Gene Ha?

ZANDER: With Alan: I've said this many times before, and it's always been true: Alan Moore covers himself five ways from Friday every time he writes a script. That's why people always want to reprint his scripts in text form; they're so complete that you can envision them right there. So when you get the script, you work as a problem solver almost as much as an artist. "How am I going to squeeze these characters all into this panel?" "How can I put a disgusted expression on someone's face if I've already put them facing away from us?" But in that way, he will give descriptions of every panel and if you aren't feeling particularly creative that day, you can just draw precisely what he describes, and you know it will come out pretty nice. I imagine that, in Alan's mind, although it's more work, it makes it easier on him when he knows that once he sends it off, it's the last he has to see of it, since there's very little need for clarification. Then he doesn't even have to worry about whether I do a good job on the drawing, because he's done with his job, and if I muck it up, that's my affair.
With Gene: Gene and I envision and draw pages very differently. Aside from the obvious differences in style, our processes of drawing are all topsy turvy from one another. I tend to want to do the pencil artwork as basically a grey version of the inked artwork, with black areas filled in and little to no rendering work left to the colorist, whereas Gene does a lot more innovating in the inking stage, where he works from photographs to get his very recognizable and realistic style. When the two of us were drawing Top 10 together, we initially did a lot of passing the pages back and forth so that our work was very integrated, but our differences in method made that system slow and sometimes counterproductive, though I look back on some of those pages with fondness. What came later was the decision to make me the layout guy, with Gene as the finisher. That meant that I would get the scripts and create a very loose layout on the page, placing characters, backgrounds, and word balloons as I would tell the story. Gene then can interpret that the way he wants, completely restyling certain panels if it suits him. In that way, I'm like Alan is with me-- I've
done my job, and whatever Gene does with it is his business. He's the artist on the book. That was another understanding we came to later: that Gene's aesthetic was the aesthetic of Top 10. He created the characters and the city; he gave the book its look. I was there to
speed up the process and keep Gene from having to look at a blank page first thing in the morning.

4COLORHEROES: The book you’re currently working on Smax, is a sequel of sorts to Top 10 beginning where #12 left off. What’s the basic storyline of Smax?

ZANDER: Basically it's a parody of fantasy the way Top 10 is a parody of superhero and science fiction comics. Jeff Smax, the emotionally unavailable hulk from Top 10's police precinct, has to return to his homeworld, an out of the way fantasy dimension, for his uncle's funeral. For reasons he is unwilling to reveal, he wants Robyn Slinger (Toybox) to come along with him. Once they are there, let the highly referential goofs on fantasy pop culture begin!

4COLORHEROES: What are some of the complications Smax spoke of in Top 10 #12?

ZANDER: It seems that Jeff has left some things unfinished in his home dimension. He was once the greatest of all dragonslayers, but there is one dragon left unslain. Also, his father was a bit of trouble. And his twin sister.

4COLORHEROES: Smax has a twin sister!!?

ZANDER: Alan said she should look like a cross between Red Sonja and the most ludicrously built of all female bodybuilders. I decided to give her a bit of that old Rumpleminz magic, as well. She's quite a charming girl.

4COLORHEROES: From what I have heard Smax sounds quite different than Top 10, a little more lighthearted perhaps?

ZANDER: Not really. Actually, it's exactly the same tone as Top Ten. Moments of gruesomeness followed by cute references to fairy tales. Basically take Top 10 and transpose it into a fairy tale world.

4COLORHEROES: Can you give us some more detail about Smax’s homeworld, how much fun was it to create the look of Smax’s world?

ZANDER: It was a lot of fun, and well suited to me also. I have a hard time drawing architecture consistently, as in Top 10, but woods and rough-hewn buildings and castles are much more forgiving. Creatively, it was great fun to be able to cut loose on the nuttiest designs for cities and the weird little civilizations that exist in this all-inclusive fantasy world.

4COLORHEROES: How do you go about interpreting one of Alan Moore’s detail heavy scripts?

ZANDER: I get the script, which usually comes in 2-5 page increments, and just give the dialogue a read. Usually you can get a pretty clear idea what's going on from Alan Moore's scripts just from the dialogue (though he obviously stops short of "Arr! I'm punching you through a wall!" "Ack! I'm being punched through a wall!"). Almost always he includes in the page descriptions a plan of how he'd like the panels to be laid out (eg. a 3x2 grid, or with one big one in the top 2/3 and three small ones on the bottom row...) so I give the script a check to see if it will all fit, but usually I just follow what he's put down. Sometimes I'll even rule the lines out around the borders in ink on the page before I even lay out the page. I'm pretty confident it'll work. Also, I really like for all the word balloons and art to stay within the panel borders. I really don't like things that break through, or full bleeds, or word balloons and captions that snake across the page, ignoring the path of the panels. I mean, they work fine on things like Stray Toasters, but not for a straightforward narrative. So then I look at all the panel descriptions and see which ones are going to be tricky. If there's a big panel somewhere that needs a lot of detail (and usually it's establishing a new setting, so it usually does) I will sometimes do a thumbnail for that. If it's not a big reveal panel like that, I usually just start right in on the page. If it's a heavy dialogue panel, I start by roughly envisioning the panel in my head and placing word balloons. Then I know how much space I have to work with. There's nothing more frustrating than drawing a whole panel and then realizing you need more space for word balloons. And as I've said, I hate for word balloons to break the panel borders. So, particularly on pages with lots of small panels and lots of dialogue, I really place the word balloons first in each panel, then the rough figures, then on to the next panel. I'm a big believer in readability. I'm a readabilist.
As for the references, I'll make a list of the ones he's chosen, then think of a few on my own, then, when I'm drawing, look for empty spaces where a reference could fit. If I have a swamp in the background, I'll put an adapted version of Swamp Thing. If I have a store in the background, I'll have it be Flourish & Blotts from Harry Potter. Those (well, not those specifically) are sometimes the most difficult references to get because they are the least rational. And then I have to justify them to Andrew Currie, the inker, and hope that he thinks they're funny too.

4COLORHEROES: What are some of your favorite references you have snuck in Smax or Top 10, and how did that start?

ZANDER: When Alan created Top 10, he wanted the world to be as full and rich as possible, and he suggested a great number of characters to be wandering about in the background. The idea was to take the world of superhero comics as it is today and mash it all into one city, so Gene, Alan, and I did our best to plant as many references as possible. People started noticing and cataloging them on the web, and so now it's gotten to be pretty fun to put in still more obscure (and still less legally actionable) references to give people a real challenge. I think my favorites are in the first issue of Smax, where we see a tavern that is
cursed, and I looked up a whole ton of superstitions in an old book. I'm sure no one will find them all. I don't think I'll even really remember them all.

4COLORHEROES: Are you enjoying doing the full pencils for Smax vs. doing just the layouts like you did with Top 10?

ZANDER: I am, a great deal. I enjoy being able to see my idea for the storytelling come through, and I really like drawing Robyn and Smax. Though it's hard to have closeups very often with him being two and a half feet taller that she is. I also really like fitting in the references. Then I can really take a look at each one, see if it's too obvious, or legally actionable, and try to obscure it in some way. It's nice, too, to have a little empty corner in a panel and try to think of what could go there-- Why, little Jack Horner, of course!

4COLORHEROES: On the average, about how many pages do you pencil in a week?

ZANDER: Yeesh. As many as five, as few as one. It all depends on what else I'm working on. I have spec scripts that I'm doing, I'm studying Japanese all the time, I'm sketching new characters. It also depends on what sort of page it is. Sometimes the pages demand two dozen references, and looking them all up online takes a little while.

4COLORHEROES: I have heard conflicting reports on how many issues Smax is, three issues long, four, five, is any of this information correct? And how far are you into it?

ZANDER: It's six issues long, actually. I'm about three issues into it.

4COLORHEROES: When is Smax scheduled to come out?

ZANDER: I suspect later this year. It's dependent on when Alan and I get it done.

*NOTE* At the time of posting this interview, the latest info I have lists the first issue as coming out in August

4COLORHEROES: I also hear you were a model for a character in the 49ers (Gene Ha’s prequel to Top 10), how did that come about?

ZANDER: Same as my working on Top 10-- I'm friends with Gene. I play the young, dashing pilot Steve Traynor. At age 16, which is ever so appropriate, since I'm 30. My friend Anna modeled for the Skywitch, so she and I had a lot of sessions where I'm wearing cool old borrowed WWII uniforms and she's wearing stretchy evening gloves, a hooded sweatshirt, and a bathing suit. I'm not sure how she felt about it all. I was sweltering in those clothes, and I think she was freezing her legs off. That Gene. What a nutty guy. I think someone else is modeling now, since my wife and I moved to Japan, and less drastically, Gene moved to Chicago.

4COLORHEROES: How are you adjusting to life in Japan?

ZANDER: I'm learning Japanese, slowly. I'm just about to the point where I can ask most any question, and understand when people speak slowly and clearly. And even though my wife Julie is here with me, it's a bit lonely. No one wants to talk comics (well, in English anyway). The great part of it all is, I'm getting to the point where I can get the gist of children's manga here. It's pretty simple stuff, but it won't be too long, hopefully, before I can read comics that are more my taste.

4COLORHEROES: Scott Dunbier (Editor at ABC) has stated that there will be more Top 10 after Smax and the 49ers, but from what I have read from Gene Ha it doesn’t sound like he will be returning. What can you tell us of the future of Top 10?

ZANDER: Tough to say. I love Top 10. I have a bunch of projects that I'm eager to work on after Smax is over, but who knows?

4COLORHEROES: Do you have any plans on working with Gene Ha again?

ZANDER: Gene and I have halting plans to work with each other all the time, but it's tough to get someone to publish them so that we can justify the time we spend on it. Someday, I'm sure it will happen.

4COLORHEROES: Is there anything more you can tell us about the future of Top ten?

ZANDER: It really is up to Alan. It's a popular series, it wins awards, I'm sure it won't stop. The thing is, Alan can't write another book right now, so we'll have to wait until the spin offs are over, I'm afraid.

4COLORHEROES: Would you ever consider doing Top ten by yourself?

ZANDER: Sure. If they asked me to do it, I'd jump at the chance. I'd have to hire an assistant to get it done on a monthly schedule, but sure, I'd love to draw the book. With Smax, being a limited series, I want to really spend a lot of time on all the details myself, but I think when you want a monthly series to come out on time, you need to gather together a bunch of good people and really get cranking.

4COLORHEROES: What other artists work do you enjoy?

ZANDER: Well, all the ones I mentioned, plus let's see... Paul Chadwick, Peter Kuper, Jason Little, Craig Thompson, Miyazaki Hayao, David Mazzucchelli, Sergio Aragones, Bryan Hitch, Fil Barlow, and again, a million others.

4COLORHEROES: What would be the one character you would love to draw?

ZANDER: Here comes another list. Spider-Man. Adam Strange. Blue Beetle. Vandal Savage. I also have a few dozen of my own creations that I'd really like to get to work on.

4COLORHEROES: What will you work on after Smax?

ZANDER: Probably spec stories of my own work. I have a dozen concepts that I'd like to get out there, if only to get them out of my sketchbook. I'll probably post them online.

4COLORHEROES: Can you give us a scoop about any of the concepts you have in your sketchbook?

ZANDER: Well, the idea is that I was thinking about all the concepts that are popular in other media, and how if they were pitched to comic publishers in the US, no matter how mainstream or firmly entrenched in a popular genre they are, they would be considered "alternative" and therefore unsaleable. So I'm working on figuring out a way for those type of ideas to get a wider audience. Basically, a lot of my ideas or characters are my take on a specific genre: Military, science fantasy, children's mystery. horror, satire, spy thriller, magic, etc. My favorites are "Henchmen", "Space Operation Solaria", and "SlackerJack and SillyJill". We'll see how they all work out.