Interviews

Interview with John Ira Thomas

By LJ Douresseau
April 7, 2004 - 10:46

Although comic book self-publishers barely register as a blip in Direct Market comics, many continue to do their thing. Even smaller is the number of companies who publish OGN’s – original graphic novels. Candle Light Press is one of those companies – a small collective of writers and artists who publish their books primarily through the bookstore market.

Fiercely independent and determined to publish the kind of graphic literature that they want to create, the trio of John Ira Thomas, Jeremy Smith, and Carter Allen has produced some well-received graphic novels including NUMBERS: A Tale of Shades and Angels and DUB TRUB. John Ira Thomas, who often acts as spokesman, PR, and salesman for CLP, has written three of the collective’s recent novels: the aforementioned Numbers, MAN IS VOX: Barracudae, and ZOO FORCE: Dear Eniko.

As John prepares to unleash the beast upon us in the form of the second A Tale of Shades and Angels novel, THE FAIRER SEX (Summer 2004), I spoke with him so that he could introduce CLP to more readers:

Would you mind giving us a little biographical information about yourself?

THOMAS: I was born in Colorado, lived some in Texas, and now live in Iowa. I have a BA in Philosophy, an MA in Classical Humanities (Greek) and an MA in Latin. I read too many police textbooks and still think THE ILIAD is the best book I ever read. I collect and create strange audio and am still haunted by an Archie Horror Comic from the waiting room of my childhood dentist's office.

When were you first introduced to comics and what did you read?

THOMAS: I started out on Archie Double Digests, if memory serves. This would be mid to late 1970s. Not long after, I discovered EC reprints and the Hulk. From there it was a short trip to JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and those great tabloid size reprints of [Herb] Trimpe/Thomas Hulk stories. I was given my first comics by my parents; Dad was a fan as a kid and thought it was a good way to keep me occupied on long car trips. His favorite was GREEN LANTERN.

When did you decide that you wanted to write comics? How did you try to educate or train yourself?

THOMAS: The realities of comics distribution made me a comics writer. In the 70s (and really any decade if your town didn't have a comics shop), I had to fish for the comics I wanted at the supermarket and the 7-11. They were never organized and never got more than one of anything. I was never able to get consecutive issues of things, so I'd try to write what happened in between cherished issues. It's a pretty good exercise, really. From there, much time passes.

When I was in school in Lubbock, TX, a friend who lived down the alley from me was a big comics fan and we talked often about them. I had written prose stories about a group of heroes by this point, and Ed asked me if I'd ever tried to write comics. Since I couldn't draw well, I said no. He handed me a pen and said, "write four story ideas, now." The only point of reference I had was screenplay format; so I started with that. I still do it that way. I essentially write a movie; there are enough parallels that the artists I work with find it easy enough to use.

How did you get into publishing graphic novels?

THOMAS: We got there through selling ebooks. We have a deal where some of our books are sold as ebooks at Unbound Comics (aka ebookopolis). They were the folks that hooked us up with the print-on-demand industry. When you go POD, you need to have works at least a hundred pages long or you'll be stuck with a cover price that will not help you. We've tended towards longer stories anyway, so it's a good fit.

Did you seek advice from other publishers or self-publishers?

THOMAS: At the beginning, we just didn't know any self-publishers, just other locals who were making zines and such. From there it was just research; if you want to know how Diamond works, ask for their publisher's packet. If you want to know how printers work, they'll send you info. Self-publishing is such a thorny enterprise that I don't know how much you can really learn from another publisher. Ask a lot of questions and remember that folks can only tell you what they do, not how they can help you.

Who runs the company with you? How many people are involved? How did you meet the people whom you publish?

THOMAS: The fellow who started Candle Light Press handed the reins over to Jeremy Smith and myself in 1997. Right now there are four people involved in the business of CLP. I met Carter Allen and Jeremy Smith through the local zine scene, along with Will Grant (you'll see more of him soon). We did an anthology comic called ED in 96 or 97. It was our great Diamond experiment. We did it the standard way: offset printing, Diamond Distribution, the whole thing. We learned a lot. After that, we still wanted to work together.

How difficult was it to get financing? How much work did you have to put into finding a printer and learning about selling, advertising, and distribution?

THOMAS: Well, we all have day jobs. Since we use print-on-demand, the costs are minimal. Each book sold generates profit; you don't have to front a large sum to get a bunch of books printed. To get four books in print ran us maybe a thousand. Distribution is handled as part of POD. Our books are in Books In Print and distributed by Ingram, so distribution is covered.

If you have your heart set on offset printing, that's going to run into money. But, speaking as someone who has been ripped off by a printer in that past, I would say if the printer isn't a company that stands to lose by ripping people off, then just tell yourself you have to spend the money for someone who's accountable to their customers.

Did you go into this with a mindset that you only wanted to publish a particular kind of comic? How open are you to experimenting with things that are wildly different from what you are now doing? Would you, for instance, publish a licensed comic if you could get a good deal for one?

THOMAS: We tell the stories that we want to tell. We run the gamut from kid-friendly (ZOO FORCE) to crime drama (NUMBERS) to utterly bonkers (MAN IS VOX) to space opera (DUB TRUB). We've yet to nix an idea because it "isn't our thing". As far as a licensed comic goes, that goes back to money. Still, Carter has some nifty GI JOE ideas....

Why is the focus of Candle Light Press primarily on selling to bookstores?

THOMAS: Dealing with bookstores is infinitely easier than dealing with Diamond. That said, I should point out that we're not down on comics stores; we have a very nice arrangement with Cold Cut Distribution and are quite happy with them. But with bookstores I don't have to explain to my mother where her nearest comics store is. If you want to draw new people to comics, the comics have to appear in familiar places; the manga's done a lot to bring bodies into stores, but I doubt those folks are buying anything else. Now that the American Bookseller's Association has declared that Graphic Novels really are books, the conservative nature of bookstore chains works in our favor. Graphic Novel sections popped up almost overnight in many stores. Bookstores are looking for something to put in those sections. It's a great time.

OK hopefully that's coherent. I'm nursing an allergic reaction on my eye the last few days...

This didn't fit in elsewhere, but I'm feelin' it today, so here you go:

The difference between the Print On Demand model and the monthly/bi-monthly/quarterly/when-we-feel-like-it 24-48 page model is almost total. The former requires a smaller financial investment and provides you with room to make whatever kind of artistic statement you want; the latter, though expensive, keeps you in front of the consumers with a steady pace of appearances. For the startup publisher, the deck is stacked against you with the 24-48 page model; I've seen lots of folks think that they have to bet the house on their first book in order to get "permission" to publish further.

Even more folks lurk around waiting to be asked to join the dance. If you want to make a book, make the book. Find a way to publish: Xerox®, ebook, POD, offset, cave paintings, something. If you want to express yourself, you'll find a way. If you want a job, talk to editors.

I certainly understand and agree with you that people don't have to "wait for permission" to create comics? When did you decide that you weren't going to go begging just to get your comics vision on the market?

THOMAS: There are two answers to that. One is "almost immediately": we wanted to make books and get them out there. We had our stories and they didn't star Superman or Omega The Unknown. The other answer is right around the time Diamond turned down ZOO FORCE, saying the art needed work. You could hear them flipping the pages in a r-p-p-p-p-p-p! We decided long ago that any work spent convincing folks to publish it was time better spent writing, drawing, publishing.

When Diamond turned down Zoo Force, did you think it was because they didn't get it, that perhaps they didn't get the context? Did they give you a chance to make your case again without making changes to the book? Do you currently have any dealings with Diamond?

THOMAS: Diamond uses a form letter not unlike many large comics publishers, and they check off whatever applies to you. It's a fascinating document, really. But they checked one that essentially says "the art's not good enough" and the catchall "we have no market for this book right now." It's almost certainly because they didn't read the book. When you plop it open, most times what you see is a Captain Cat page; it's one thing to say that the minicomic spoofing isn't your thing, but quite another to believe that Jeremy can't draw (because that plainly isn't true). We could resubmit, but it would simply be starting over, and we had better things to do. Right now we have no dealings with Diamond.

Another thing I've noticed is that a lot of people are completely obsessed with what other people are doing in comics, as if they didn't realize that maybe they should watch their own pot. Do you follow the gossip, rumors, hot news, etc that goes on in comics on a daily basis, or is that just divorced from what you do?

THOMAS: I confess to being an avid follower of Rich Johnston's [Lying in the Gutters at comicbookresources.com] rumor column. I'm the comics news guy here at Candle Light Press. Carter follows some things and Jeremy not at all; so I make it my business to keep up. I use the net more to scope out our presence on the wider net. You'd be surprised what you find; that's how you keep your trademarks and such in order, too.

I've found the four books I've thus far read from Candlelight to be so engaging. Even the one book that I was a little at odds with (MAN IS VOX), I found so visually and structurally compelling. What's the ideology or mindset from where these comics are coming? The books look familiar and are like some mainstream comics, but they're like sixth cousins of mainstream magazines. It's such a fresh point of view, so I have to know: what are the seminal ideas behind your comics?

THOMAS: I must have erased this line ten times. There's the "how we do it" answer, which would take ages, and the "what the heck we're up to" answer, which might sound trite or too vague. These stories want out of us. Jer used to say that if I didn't write this stuff down I'd be on an eight-state kill-crazy rampage trying to hold it in. We want to produce comics/GNs/what have you with stories you don't expect, characters that often act as if they're off-camera, and works that you will keep in the bathroom. This is a good test, you know; a local band here, the Firewood Revival, all lived on a farm together near Tipton and they said that "Shades and Angels #1" (an early comic which was essentially NUMBERS part 1) stayed in the bathroom as long as the last Girls of the SEC issue of PLAYBOY. High praise.

How independent are you about what you do? Do you give a damn if what you do is unlike what every one else is doing? Using Zoo Force as an example, I noticed that there was such a purity in the book's execution. It was as if you and your co-creator were saying this is how we do comics and this is how we're going to do comics. So Zoo Force was funny without having to borrow the conventions of past super hero humor comics.

THOMAS: We stick to what we want to do; we wouldn't change just because it was familiar ground. Does not being like the popular stuff hurt us? Not really. If all you're doing is something that folks can get from Marvel or Image for cheaper, then you're not going to last. ZOO FORCE is really our toughest sell, actually. Folks see the Captain Cat bit and think we're a put-on or drawing with a fist. One day we'd like to make a version of "Dear Eniko" as a package: do the Polaroids®, make the Captain Cat minis. We wanted that book to be immersive; the reader is cast in the role of Eniko, more or less. Future stories will be told different ways, but for an introduction to these folks, the care package seemed the way to go. Since these are our books, we're going to do any dang thing we see fit to tell a story.

One more thing on ZF: That story was originally just the "Enforcers" TV show as a short story in an old anthology called ED. The idea was to see if video-style editing could be used to propel the story and create laughs and insights. Lots of stories have done it over a couple panels, but we hadn't seen one go all the way. Panels don't work like TV-style editing does, so it was an interesting experiment.

How have readers received your books? Are you getting a lot of positive responses? Are net reporters and critics seeking out you guys? Have you heard anything from other professionals and self-publishers?

THOMAS: Mostly reaction has been good. Puzzled, but good. Well, there was the one guy who wanted to mail his copy of MAN IS VOX to us because he "couldn't recommend it to anyone". But when you make strong choices, you leave some folks out. But we've gotten some terrific responses from critics (The American Library Association really liked MAN IS VOX and NUMBERS). I'd like to think we're reaching folks who don't normally read comics, or who are looking for something different. This is actually my first interview via the net; we've had print attention, newspapers, weeklies, that sort of thing. Perhaps it's the beginning...

How important a part do you think the Internet is going to play in the success of your operations?

THOMAS: It's always played a significant part, from the website to online retailers, to the ebook editions of ZOO FORCE and NUMBERS. And now with the online reviews and interviews, its role is expanding.

Are you doing the comics convention circuit? Do you think that it's worthwhile for your company to do comic book conventions?

THOMAS: That's a tough question. We've done the Chicago Comicon/Wizard World Chicago con every year since 1996 just because it's the biggest one close to us. There's a great con in Minneapolis called Fallcon put on by the Minnesota Comic Book Association; the proceeds all go to charity. They also feed the creators like there's no tomorrow; it's wonderful. Like anything, cons are a matter of cost. We'd like to do more; and, if enough good word gets out on us, we can do more. We'll be doing both the above cons this year--at least 2 new books will premiere at WWChicago.

As to the usefulness of cons...I vary between feeling like they're a vacation and a boot camp. I have a recurring dream of being at a con being put on by 4-H at a fairgrounds. Looks more like a blue-ribbon pie competition than anything, but each table has one comic on it. The place still smells of animal hair and musk. It used to be that there was a part where someone would say "Alan Moore is here!" and I would flee. Nowadays in the dream I hang around, hoping to ask him a question. It's less of an anxious dream now. But there is a pervasive feeling at conventions that if you don't make a big splash there, that no-one will like your work; it simply isn't true. They're very weird places...they seem to be the only time I talk with Phil Hester, who lives right around here.

Have you approached big comics retailers like a Mile High Comics about selling your books or maybe working out special arrangements with them to get more mainstream readers to discover Candle Light? Do you think the Direct Market is something to really strongly pursue?

THOMAS: Mile High...I was a very early N.I.C.E. customer, actually. The first comics store I ever saw was a Mile High affiliated store in Denver, I think on Colfax, or just off it. It must have been 1982 or 3. It was an amazing time, with First and Pacific Comics on the shelves. It beat the heck out of Safeway and Bunny's Truck Stop. No, we haven't approached many comics retailers as yet; we've been focusing on leaving a footprint in the bookstore market. The Direct Market would be a great nut to crack, certainly.

Have you been courted by any media companies about adapting your books into movies, games, TV, etc. And if that were to happen, how much control of or say about the final product do you want?

THOMAS: We had a deal for NUMBERS with an NYC filmmaker, but that's gone dormant. There have been nibbles. As far as an adaptation, I'll tell you what I told the NYC fellow. He wanted to adapt the script and he had all these questions about what I was thinking when I did this or that, and I dutifully answered. But when he asked what he should preserve or what would I object to, I told him "nothing". The movie is an art object, just like the graphic novel is; but they're different art objects. I told him he could do whatever he wanted, as long as the credit was "adapted from the graphic novel by...". If his goal was to recreate the GN, then sure I'll tell him what I'd want and not want. But he wanted to make something new of it, so I kept my hands off. He was even going to make Dirk and Ritchie into women (Dirk and Ritchie are the likenesses or myself and Jeremy, y'see); Jer and I said fine. Creepily, the actresses kinda looked like us....

If we're in a position where we have to service the trademarks, then certain things have to apply. But otherwise, let's make some art. That said, if there's a movie, I gotta watch it get made, even if for a day. We've got some print plans for the NUMBERS adaptation, even. It's pretty interesting, being adapted. Maybe "creepy" is the word. But as far as a movie goes, either make it good or spectacularly bad; just don't be boring.

What books should we be on the look out for in the upcoming months and through the summer?

THOMAS: Our schedule is a bit loose right now, but we expect to have MAN IS VOX 2: Paingels (which is looking to clock in around 250 pages or better) out this summer. Carter has really outdone himself this time; the forces kept (barely) under wraps in Barracudae bust loose in this one. Summer will also see THE FAIRER SEX: A TALE OF SHADES AND ANGELS, Vol. 1 (of 2), the sequel to NUMBERS. Jeremy is doing a fantastic job there; the story is written as 13 "issues" and will be released in 2 volumes. Later in 2004 there will be more ZOO FORCE. We're also putting together a volume of SCROUNGE by Will Grant, hopefully for Summer. We'll also see Carter putting out DUB TRUB 2:The Peacemakers by then end of 2004. It's a busy year.

I like to close the interview by giving the interview subject a chance to give a shout out or plug some project or anything they'd like to say. So have at it, if you will.

THOMAS: I'd just like to say that our books can be ordered anywhere that uses Books In Print, which is virtually every bookstore in the world. The ISBNs are on our website, or if you just put "Zoo Force" or any other of our titles into Amazon, B&N, or even the Booksense network (if you're a proud supporter of your local independent bookstore), you can get our books.

THANK YOU, JOHN. You can visit Candle Light Press at www.candlelightpress.com for news and previews of their books. If you own or operate a comic book shop or sell comics, you can contact CLP’s distributor Cold Cut Distribution at www.coldcut.com for order information on CLP and many other independent comics publishers. I highly recommend all CLP titles, especially NUMBERS, which received a positive notice from writer/Internet columnist Steven Grant. In fact, I have Grant to thank because it was one of his reviews that alerted me to CLP’s existence.

And if you are a comics creator or publisher and you want to send me material for review consideration or you just want to talk about your book in a Charlie column, punch the click-able name link to send me an email. Holla!

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12