View From the Comfy Chair In my humble opinion, one of the best independent books on the market right now is Shades of Blue. Created in 1999 by James S. Harris and Rachel Nacion, SOB is the tale of Heidi Paige. One night she went to bed, a normal teenager trying to fit in at a new school. When she woke up, she discovered she had blue hair and electrical powers. Thanks to some prodding from one of the best supporting casts in comics, Heidi becomes a superhero. Now she must juggle her time between making friends, fighting crime and hitting the books. Borrowing equally from superhero and slice of life genres, this series also features a unique art style. The heavy lined, cartoony pencils invoke visions of everything from Jim Mahfood to Batman: The Animated Series to Archie comics. This week, I’m happy to present my exclusive interview with the man who gives form to Heidi and company every issue, Shades of Blue penciller, Cal Slayton. How would you describe Shades of Blue? What does the title refer to? Shades of Blue is about an average teenage girl named Heidi Paige, who wakes up one day to discover that her hair has turned blue and that has has the power to control electricity. I’m not sure how the title came about, obviously it refers to her hair. I think (and I could be wrong) Jim originally was calling the book Blue and then added “Shades of” because something else came out with a similar name, I’ll defer to Jim on this. How did you come to get involved on Shades of Blue? The artist on the first two issues had to quit and Jim was looking for a new artist online, he found my website, emailed me and asked if I’d be interested in coming aboard. So I did and we’ve been working together ever since. I’ve heard people compare Shades of Blue to Seinfeld or Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Do you think these are good comparisons? Seinfeld? Really? I’ve never heard that one before, that’s a nice compliment to the writing. “Heidi vs. The Soup Nazi!”...I can see the cover already. I’ve heard the Buffy thing several times, I even put an homage to the Slayer in issue #6 because of it. The one we get the most is Daria. I can see both of those references though. We have a group of teens, weird things go on in their town, they have an older “advisor” of sorts in Mr. McMurtry...all those have Buffy similarities. Heidi is dry and sarcastic like Daria. I love it when people compare the book to stuff like that because that means they get something out of it that they like. And I like all of those shows, I guess it might bother me if they said “Shades of Blue” reminded them of “Full House”. A major complaint about many teen characters is that they look and dress like little adults. How do you avoid falling into that trap? What do you use for fashion references? I hang out at the mall all day checking out high school girls ... (dodges lamp thrown by girlfriend) ...not really. I don’t really use any fashion reference. I watch a lot of TV, the afore-mentioned girlfriend gets a ton of magazines and I flip through them a lot. I try to draw clothes that look like high schoolers would wear but at the same time, I try not to make them too outlandish or trendy. What’s your favorite Shades of Blue cover? Why? Issue #8, the all white cover with Heidi, K.T. and Marcus on it. I’m also a designer and I love the negative space on the cover, it gives it a feeling of the snow overwhelming the kids. Ever since I saw the “Alpha Flight” cover (#6 I think) by John Byrne, I’ve always wanted to do one like it. You mentioned over in the Shades of Blue forums that K.T. (Heidi’s best friend) was your favorite character. Why? She’s just a lot of fun. She’s the one that gets to say the funniest stuff, the things that make Heidi freak out, especially around Jack [Heidi’s crush – F]. You really seem to have fun with your Shades of Blue panels (hiding gags like, what teachers do after school in #3 or, sneaking in friends and family #5). Any personal favorite Easter eggs you’d like to point out? Oh man, there’s a lot of that going on. Jim, his wife, me and my girlfriend are in several issues, as well as buddies of mine. Some of the more obscure things... #9 –see who donated the penguin habitat, #8 – check out the book on the shelf in Heidi’s living room and #4 – check out the article pinned to McMurtry’s bulletin board, not mentioned his misspelled name on his desk. An old boss of mine makes a couple of appearances and those of you that swear you’ve seen a woman with glasses and what appears to be a monkey tail in several issues ... you’re right. In issue #10, you folks had a letter of praise from letter-writer supreme, Olav Beemer (who’s had letters printed in just about every comic). Does this mean you’ve made it? You know, I never knew about this guy until Jim told me about him, after I learned about him, I was amazed. Yeah, I think that might be a sign of success. What other comics have you worked on? I wrote and drew a story in Digital Webbing Presents #1 called “Lost Child” which was pretty well received; I got a lot of positive feedback on it. Thanks to everyone who talked to me about it. I also created a book called “Spookytown” and published a mini comic of it last October. Some day I’d like to publish it as a mini series or ongoing series. Your bio lists a couple of writing projects (“Lost Child” & “Spookytown”). Will we be seeing any Cal Slayton solo projects, or is writing more of a side-venture? Hopefully. Writing for me is more of a means to an end. I just want to be creative and make comics. So if I have to write stories for me to draw, then I’ll give it a shot. I’ve never claimed to be a writer, but I have written. If people want me to stop writing, then by all means hire me to draw comics full time...Marvel, DC...I’m looking in your direction. According to your bio at www.calslayton.com, you’ve done a fair bit of non-comic work as well - web design, logos, CD covers and so forth. Do you consider yourself a graphic design artist, a comic artist or a little of both? At heart, a comic book artist. Both in truth I’m both. I wish my job was to get up in the morning and make comic books and nothing else. To support myself by drawing would be the ultimate for me. But I love having the designer side of me. I think a lot of small press books suffer from bad design. You can get the coolest drawings but they’re stuck under a terrible logo and in badly packaged book and it’s very unprofessionally looking. Which of your works are you most proud of? Why? I don’t think there is one in particular that I’m most proud of. I love Shades #3 because it’s my first published comic book work and it’ll always have a special place for me and “Lost Child” was the first story that I did everything in...story, art and letters. So those two really stand out for me. If you could pick your dream project, what would it be? For DC it would be Batman. As a little kid in the 70’s, it was all about Batman for me. For Marvel, probably Fantastic Four. Anything that Kirby had a hand in would be an honor. I think I could make a cool Spider-man book too, since Shades is sorta the same type of high school super hero genre. When you’re drawing, do you use music to help set the mood for the project? If you were putting together a Shades of Blue soundtrack, what would be on it? Not really for the mood of the project, more for my mood. The soundtrack for me drawing would be pretty mixed. Beastie Boys, Fu Manchu, some cheesy 70’s and 80’s stuff, Jurassic 5, Foo Fighters, Sinatra, almost anything but country (and I live in Texas). Are there any specific influences on your work (comic or otherwise)? Kirby, Timm, Mignola, Allred, Buscema, Romita, Cooke, Oeming, Perez, too many more to list. Any advice for aspiring comic book artists? Well, I still consider myself an aspiring comic book artist. Even though I draw comics, I’m not doing it for a living. I won’t give the usual advise (draw everyday, etc.), I’d say get a website and use the internet to your advantage. Get your work online and in front of people’s eyes, hit the message boards and promote yourself. And don’t be a jerk while you’re doing it. If you had the power to change one thing about the comic industry, what would that be? Why? I wish the industry would do things to attract new readers. Right now it only seems to be trying to please the readers it has. There is a lot for comic books to compete with for the attention of kids, probably the biggest being video games. I think the recent comic films are a great step, anything that gets a kid excited about a comic book character makes me happy. I wish it could be like it was when I was young, where you could go into a quickie mart or grocery store or whatever and there was a spinner rack of comics to flip through. Kids today might not even be able to find a comic book because they’re all tucked away in specialty stores. It’s a little sad to me when I’m standing in my local comic book store and I see two kids hop off their bikes, run in all excited and then ask for Pokemon cards. One of the reasons I love Shades if that it’s an all ages book, you can let a kid read it and not worry about it. Would you say that Shades of Blue has helped you grow as an artist? In what ways? Definitely, without a doubt. I’ve just become a better artist and storyteller drawing the book. I’ve drawn around 180 pages of the book so far and if there wasn’t a noticeable improvement over that many pages, something would be wrong. To prove it, take my first issue (#3) and lay it down next to the most current issue and compare them. I cringe a little when looking at that, but I’m glad. Constant improvement is my goal. Volume One of Shades of Blue from Amp Comics has wrapped up (now available from Digital Webbing Press as Shades of Blue: The Collected Edition Volume One trade paperback). Where should people go next for more of Cal Slayton's work? In April we re-launch “Shades of Blue” with a new issue #1 from Digital Webbing. I’m very excited about it, so be sure to check it out! Thanks Cal! That wraps it up for another week. Be sure to come back to the Comfy Chair next time for the monthly parade of comic previews! Until next week, Fletch Adams fletchadams@comicskins.com