At last weekend's New York Comic Con, I did some reporting for Bleeding Cool. They were kind enough to let me mirror some of the interviews that I did for them here at THE LONG AND SHORTBOX OF IT! This is one of Jon's favorite upcoming creators, Jason Latour, talking about his writing on the nonnoir Loose Ends and how his process is changed because he is both a writer and an artist. It was originally posted to Bleeding Cool on 10/16/11
JK:Will you tell me a little bit about Loose Ends?
JL: Basically, as it’s billed in the subtitle, it’s a southern crime romance, which is to say it’s a story set in North Carolina that travels throughout the Southeast. It follows what you could call a doomed romance, and it’s very much in the spirit of something like True Romance or other older movies like The Intimates and non-noirs. It’s very much about the execution of the story, more than a plot driven character thing.
JK: How did the book come together?
JL: It’s always been a passion project of mine, I’ve always been interested in crime fiction. I wanted to tell something that was sort of a personal story and a genre study, and Frank Brunner was also looking to do something similarly. He’s an unbelievable artist, and we became close friends and started kicking the story around, and eventually it became such a large part of our lives that we decided that we should hole up and actually do it.
JK: Does being an artist as well as a writer change the way that you write for someone else?
JL: Certainly. I think that it gives me, maybe not a better understanding but a more personal understanding of what he’s doing, and what it's like to have to sit and toil away at a page. I know firsthand what kind of problems sort of rear their head in the process of converting a word into an image. To some extent, I think it helps me to visualize what’s going to go into a script as well as when to let go. Other than that, it's more or less the same job as any other writer.
JK: Anything else coming up the pipe?
JL: Art-wise, it was announced today that I’m doing a two issue B.P.R.D mini series, it’s Scott Allie and Mike Mignola, with Dave Stewart coloring and I’m also doing an X-Force one-shot with Ivan Brandon, and Enrico Renzi is coloring that.
JK:Will you tell me a little bit about Loose Ends?
JL: Basically, as it’s billed in the subtitle, it’s a southern crime romance, which is to say it’s a story set in North Carolina that travels throughout the Southeast. It follows what you could call a doomed romance, and it’s very much in the spirit of something like True Romance or other older movies like The Intimates and non-noirs. It’s very much about the execution of the story, more than a plot driven character thing.
JK: How did the book come together?
JL: It’s always been a passion project of mine, I’ve always been interested in crime fiction. I wanted to tell something that was sort of a personal story and a genre study, and Frank Brunner was also looking to do something similarly. He’s an unbelievable artist, and we became close friends and started kicking the story around, and eventually it became such a large part of our lives that we decided that we should hole up and actually do it.
JK: Does being an artist as well as a writer change the way that you write for someone else?
JL: Certainly. I think that it gives me, maybe not a better understanding but a more personal understanding of what he’s doing, and what it's like to have to sit and toil away at a page. I know firsthand what kind of problems sort of rear their head in the process of converting a word into an image. To some extent, I think it helps me to visualize what’s going to go into a script as well as when to let go. Other than that, it's more or less the same job as any other writer.
JK: Anything else coming up the pipe?
JL: Art-wise, it was announced today that I’m doing a two issue B.P.R.D mini series, it’s Scott Allie and Mike Mignola, with Dave Stewart coloring and I’m also doing an X-Force one-shot with Ivan Brandon, and Enrico Renzi is coloring that.
