Talking With Larry Young
Ed Cunard was gracious enough to send me two Astronauts in Trouble mini-comics he purchased in 1995. I found these stories very interesting so I decided to ask Larry Young for permission to put these two comics on my site. Along with giving me permission he graciously agreed to an interview.
Issue 1 of Astronauts in Trouble can be found here and Issue 1.5 can be found here.
These mini-comics were published in 1995. What was going on in that time of your life that made you want to create these books?
I'd been doing minicomics for a while, a few issues of INSECT MAN when I was in college for THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, a time travel thing called FOREVER MAN (which I amped up and retooled as FOR THE TIME BEING just recently for PROOF OF CONCEPT), and the PLANET LAR review zine. Maybe a hundred issues, all together. I had an idea for a little anthology book that would feature astronauts in trouble. Simple as that. But the idea was too good for that and after I had done the series bible and the
script for issue four of CASUAL HEROES for Image/Motown, I figured I was ready to take a stab at my own professional-level comic.
Here is a link to the series bible I did.
After the Challenger disaster NASA wasn't as big an institution as it once was due to budget cuts as well as waning public interest in its projects. Did the lack of interest in NASA as a viable force for further space exploration help you to create Astronauts in Trouble?
Naw, man, I've always just like astronauts-in-trouble-type stories. Exploration, adventure, drama, conflict. All the stuff I like in fiction can be found if you take a couple of astronauts as your protagonists and put them in some sort of jeopardy. Buzz Aldrin had this great answer to a reporter when he was asked about whether the government had given the Apollo astronauts cyanide pills in case something went wrong. Buzz said if something went wrong, they wouldn't need cyanide pills; all they'd have to do is open a window.
Guys doing something so dangerous for the thrill of adventure and to advance human knowledge is inherently compelling, if you ask me.
You mentioned that after the first issue was published someone bet that you couldn't carry on the story since the main character was dead. Care to tell us the story behind that?
Just one of my college buddies said I couldn't do another one because I'd killed the main character. AiT #1.5 was my was of flipping him the bird. I told him, "All I have to do is show the guy still sitting there and start off 'I guess I'm still dead.' and the rest of it writes itself." So my buddy wanted to see it, so I fired up the Xerox machine. Writing is easy; drawing is hard. :)
How were these mini-comics received?
Excellently. I sold 2500 copies of each through the now-defunct distributor Capital City. Still have the pay stub in a scrapbook somewhere. First money I made in comics.
The mini-comics themselves are pretty different from the first AiT series in both the tone of the story and the art. The art and the actual events seem dark, yet the text, as the Astronaut is remembering his life, are of a happier time. The books themselves are haunting because of the dichotomy. What changed in your outlook between these stories and the first "real" AiT books?
Well, nothing, really. The comics I like best are the ones whose words are juxtaposed with the pictures, so the words tell a story by themselves, and the art tells a picture by itself, but put the two of them together, and the synthesis becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The SKY APE guys did a great page where Jenkins' art is Kirk Madge getting up out of bed, turning on a lamp, and grimly setting his features to face the challenges a millionaire monkey with a jetpack must
face. But the caption boxes are a well-paced rendition of the WKRP IN CINCINNATTI theme song lyrics. Each by itself tells a story, but put the words and pictures together, and it's SUBLIME. That's comics.
Most of the two-pagers in LIVE FROM THE MOON are like that, especially
the ones I did with Bri Wood and Kieron Dwyer and Darick Robertson, and
funny enough, those were the back-ups we got the most mail about.
I think you portrayed the story well for some of your first work. I particularly enjoyed your use of repetition in the panels towards the end of the book. Do you still draw anymore? If not, why?
Because I wanted to do professional comics, and I was never going to have professional comics art skills. So I decided to concentrate what I was good at and get great at it. So, here we are. :)
I heard AiT/PlanetLar recently had some interest from Hollywood. Are there any plans for any Astronauts in Trouble to make the leap to the big screen? If not, what books did they express an interest in?
Everybody's talking with us about everything, man. Lots of stuff is in various stages. But that's all for the folks who have 'em to announce and talk about. I'm all about the comics.
I think these books go to show everyone that anyone can produce a comic if they put their mind to it. Do you see a lot of people with a strong enough drive to get their work out there for the public to see? How often do you have someone talk to you about how to publish a comic even though the information is still out there either through TRUE FACTS or your LOOSE CANNON column for Comic Book Resources?
I get emails every day about it from people. For every B. Clay Moore who keeps TRUE FACTS by his computer for reference, there's a Micah Wright who didn't even know about it until he started looking into self-publishing and asked me for some pointers. The cool thing is I can just point people to the page on Amazon or tell them to visit their local comics shop or Barnes and Noble and it's all there for them.
You're very good at guerilla marketing and using every resource available to you to promote your products. You also seem to be shooting for a wide variety of demographics lately with books like Ursula and Electric Girl. Do you see more books like this in the future of AiT/PlanetLar?
Well, we've been publishing ELECTRIC GIRL, JAX EPOCH AND THE QUICKEN FORBIDDEN, and COLONIA for the last two years, so our July book, URSULA, is just the latest in an all-audience line. Having a nice, diverse, something-for-everyone line has worked pretty well for us, so, yeah, we're going to continue offering something for everyone. Doing a different graphic novel every month is actually the secret to our success. If we published BATMAN, and you didn't like BATMAN, you'd have no reason to seek out our comic. But if you don't like CHANNEL ZERO, you might like COURIERS. Or THE ANNOTATED MANTOOTH. Or HENCH, or whatever. Chances are if you don't like one book, you can wait a month, and you'll want that next one. Slow and steady wins the race.
In your latest blitzkrieg of new books you recently sent out solicitations for, you announced a collection of stories from your PROOF OF CONCEPT column at Comic World News. Do you see any future work at AiT/PlanetLAR for any of these up and comers and how was the experience overall?
Yeah, if you read that release closely, you'd see that Damian Couciero
and Jeff Johns, two guys with stories in PROOF OF CONCEPT, are doing
books with Joe Casey and Dan Curtis Johnson, so there's that. As far as
the experience went, I had a blast, and I hope everyone else did, too.
That would be FULL MOON FEVER, by Joe Casey, Caleb Gerard, and Damian Couciero and MOONSHINE, by Dan Curtis Johnson and Jeff Johns. You can see some art from MOONSHINE below.
Thanks Larry. It's always nice hearing from you and it was a pleasure having my very first interview with you.
Issue 1 of Astronauts in Trouble can be found here and Issue 1.5 can be found here.
These mini-comics were published in 1995. What was going on in that time of your life that made you want to create these books?
I'd been doing minicomics for a while, a few issues of INSECT MAN when I was in college for THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, a time travel thing called FOREVER MAN (which I amped up and retooled as FOR THE TIME BEING just recently for PROOF OF CONCEPT), and the PLANET LAR review zine. Maybe a hundred issues, all together. I had an idea for a little anthology book that would feature astronauts in trouble. Simple as that. But the idea was too good for that and after I had done the series bible and the
script for issue four of CASUAL HEROES for Image/Motown, I figured I was ready to take a stab at my own professional-level comic.
Here is a link to the series bible I did.
After the Challenger disaster NASA wasn't as big an institution as it once was due to budget cuts as well as waning public interest in its projects. Did the lack of interest in NASA as a viable force for further space exploration help you to create Astronauts in Trouble?
Naw, man, I've always just like astronauts-in-trouble-type stories. Exploration, adventure, drama, conflict. All the stuff I like in fiction can be found if you take a couple of astronauts as your protagonists and put them in some sort of jeopardy. Buzz Aldrin had this great answer to a reporter when he was asked about whether the government had given the Apollo astronauts cyanide pills in case something went wrong. Buzz said if something went wrong, they wouldn't need cyanide pills; all they'd have to do is open a window.
Guys doing something so dangerous for the thrill of adventure and to advance human knowledge is inherently compelling, if you ask me.
You mentioned that after the first issue was published someone bet that you couldn't carry on the story since the main character was dead. Care to tell us the story behind that?
Just one of my college buddies said I couldn't do another one because I'd killed the main character. AiT #1.5 was my was of flipping him the bird. I told him, "All I have to do is show the guy still sitting there and start off 'I guess I'm still dead.' and the rest of it writes itself." So my buddy wanted to see it, so I fired up the Xerox machine. Writing is easy; drawing is hard. :)
How were these mini-comics received?
Excellently. I sold 2500 copies of each through the now-defunct distributor Capital City. Still have the pay stub in a scrapbook somewhere. First money I made in comics.
The mini-comics themselves are pretty different from the first AiT series in both the tone of the story and the art. The art and the actual events seem dark, yet the text, as the Astronaut is remembering his life, are of a happier time. The books themselves are haunting because of the dichotomy. What changed in your outlook between these stories and the first "real" AiT books?
Well, nothing, really. The comics I like best are the ones whose words are juxtaposed with the pictures, so the words tell a story by themselves, and the art tells a picture by itself, but put the two of them together, and the synthesis becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The SKY APE guys did a great page where Jenkins' art is Kirk Madge getting up out of bed, turning on a lamp, and grimly setting his features to face the challenges a millionaire monkey with a jetpack must
face. But the caption boxes are a well-paced rendition of the WKRP IN CINCINNATTI theme song lyrics. Each by itself tells a story, but put the words and pictures together, and it's SUBLIME. That's comics.
Most of the two-pagers in LIVE FROM THE MOON are like that, especially
the ones I did with Bri Wood and Kieron Dwyer and Darick Robertson, and
funny enough, those were the back-ups we got the most mail about.
I think you portrayed the story well for some of your first work. I particularly enjoyed your use of repetition in the panels towards the end of the book. Do you still draw anymore? If not, why?
Because I wanted to do professional comics, and I was never going to have professional comics art skills. So I decided to concentrate what I was good at and get great at it. So, here we are. :)
I heard AiT/PlanetLar recently had some interest from Hollywood. Are there any plans for any Astronauts in Trouble to make the leap to the big screen? If not, what books did they express an interest in?
Everybody's talking with us about everything, man. Lots of stuff is in various stages. But that's all for the folks who have 'em to announce and talk about. I'm all about the comics.
I think these books go to show everyone that anyone can produce a comic if they put their mind to it. Do you see a lot of people with a strong enough drive to get their work out there for the public to see? How often do you have someone talk to you about how to publish a comic even though the information is still out there either through TRUE FACTS or your LOOSE CANNON column for Comic Book Resources?
I get emails every day about it from people. For every B. Clay Moore who keeps TRUE FACTS by his computer for reference, there's a Micah Wright who didn't even know about it until he started looking into self-publishing and asked me for some pointers. The cool thing is I can just point people to the page on Amazon or tell them to visit their local comics shop or Barnes and Noble and it's all there for them.
You're very good at guerilla marketing and using every resource available to you to promote your products. You also seem to be shooting for a wide variety of demographics lately with books like Ursula and Electric Girl. Do you see more books like this in the future of AiT/PlanetLar?
Well, we've been publishing ELECTRIC GIRL, JAX EPOCH AND THE QUICKEN FORBIDDEN, and COLONIA for the last two years, so our July book, URSULA, is just the latest in an all-audience line. Having a nice, diverse, something-for-everyone line has worked pretty well for us, so, yeah, we're going to continue offering something for everyone. Doing a different graphic novel every month is actually the secret to our success. If we published BATMAN, and you didn't like BATMAN, you'd have no reason to seek out our comic. But if you don't like CHANNEL ZERO, you might like COURIERS. Or THE ANNOTATED MANTOOTH. Or HENCH, or whatever. Chances are if you don't like one book, you can wait a month, and you'll want that next one. Slow and steady wins the race.
In your latest blitzkrieg of new books you recently sent out solicitations for, you announced a collection of stories from your PROOF OF CONCEPT column at Comic World News. Do you see any future work at AiT/PlanetLAR for any of these up and comers and how was the experience overall?
Yeah, if you read that release closely, you'd see that Damian Couciero
and Jeff Johns, two guys with stories in PROOF OF CONCEPT, are doing
books with Joe Casey and Dan Curtis Johnson, so there's that. As far as
the experience went, I had a blast, and I hope everyone else did, too.
That would be FULL MOON FEVER, by Joe Casey, Caleb Gerard, and Damian Couciero and MOONSHINE, by Dan Curtis Johnson and Jeff Johns. You can see some art from MOONSHINE below.
Thanks Larry. It's always nice hearing from you and it was a pleasure having my very first interview with you.
