2005-07-05
In the Scope: Kyle Baker
By: Joe Doughrity
Kyle and I go back. Not quite like babies and pacifiers, but suffice to say I've been a fan since The Shadow and Why I Hate Saturn and met him many times over the years. We were baldheads together in the mid-to-late eighties, then grew dreadlocks in the 90s. I sat down to interview the man behind the rabid pen as he prepared to publish a new title through his small New York based company based on one of the most controversial figures in American history. A black man named Nat Turner who was mad as hell about the status quo of black and white relations in his time, and decided he wasn't gonna take it.
In celebration of the patriotic month of July, the Fourth marking the 229th birthday of this great nation, Buzzscope proudly presents... the Kyle Baker interview.
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Joe Doughrity: Congrats on the Harvey Award nominations, first of all. Guess you're kind of used to it by now? How does it feel to be competing against yourself?
Kyle Baker: I just hope I win. It'll look bad if I don't win.
I've followed your career for a long time on the comic scene, in your magazine strip work, and on graphic novels for DC. Why the move into self-publishing now with Kyle Baker Publishing?
KB: Because I'm getting older and I wanted to do something on my own. On the Cartoonist books, the publisher makes more money than the creator. And with something like The Bakers.] [Kyle's autobiographical series], I didn't want to get into a situation where I didn't own the rights to my family!
I see where that could be a problem.
How did you get the idea to adapt Nat Turner's story into a graphic novel?
KB: It was a couple of years ago. I can't remember exactly. I was re-reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and there was a section in there about him. That might be where I got the idea to do it.
Did you approach any mainstream publishers or was the idea from the start to self publish?
KB: I'm currently just trying to find a good way to work. The problem with approaching a publisher before a book is done; the minute you sell the book they put it on a schedule. If the book's not the way you want it to be, you've just have to put it out because it's got to be on schedule. By publishing it myself, I also get to make sure I have enough time to do it the way I want to do it. If the book's not done I don't have to sell it. Something like Plastic Man has to come out every month or two no matter what.
And if you don't do it, someone else will. [Witness Scott Morse' recent fill-in arcs.]
KB: That and sometimes you just look at it and go, "Oh wow, this could be a lot better if I could spend another day on it." But you just don't have another day. You have a deadline.
This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a slave narrative's been done in comics form.
KB: Yeah, mine too.
Do you feel the need to do more research than on a normal project?
KB: [On DC's] King David I did a lot of research too. I pick a lot of these stories because I want to do the research. If I'm doing something for a book, then I get to read a lot of books and stuff I wouldn't normally have time to read. Slavery and all that stuff is what I'm interested in anyway, so that's why I wanted to do the book. I got tons of books. It's hard to find pictures for that stuff though.
Yeah I can imagine... in light of Nat Turner being inspired by God, if it's not too personal a question, I was wondering what your own religious background was?
KB: When I was a kid I went to church with my family. We don't do that too much anymore. I was raised in church though.
"Hotel Rwanda" got me thinking about Nat Turner and the obvious comparisons to come with Maus. What was your basic approach to such dark, potentially divisive subject matter?
KB: Part of what I try to think of whenever I'm doing a comic book, [is] you want to pick something that people can only get in your book. Like superhero stuff...it's available in so many other formats. Like, for example, if I wanna see the X-Men, I might want to see the movie, the cartoon or a videogame. It's sort of competing with the comic book. If you have a book that's similar to something somebody could get in a movie, better, they'd pick the movie. So that's why I chose Nat Turner. It's a story that hasn't been told to death.
People say stuff is divisive, but it's not. People will either read it or not. Like with the King David thing, these aren't my stories, I'm not making this stuff up! This is true stuff. You might not like what's in the book, but you can't say I made it up. You can't call me a liar. We ran into some trouble on that Captain America thing [The Truth written by Robert Morales -- see Buzzscope's Color Commentary #3] because people accused Bob of making all that stuff up. But he'd done a lot of research. But that was a work of fiction and you did have to make half that up. But the stuff in Nat Turner is 100% true. People don't have to buy it, but it's not something you could disagree with. I mean you could. There's people saying Hitler didn't kill six million people.
You'll always get some wacky extremist I guess.
KB: Those people don't know what the hell they're talking about! One thing I wanted to do was...one thing people do lie about is how bad slavery was. You'll read books that say, "Oh yeah sure they used to beat the slaves but it wasn't that bad... Aww the branding didn't hurt." Weird stuff like that I'd like to change.
I'm sure we'll see a more realistic version than that old Mandingo movie we all had to suffer through growing up.
KB: Even Roots, I mean I saw Roots again just for five minutes. I was in a hotel, I don't get TV because I'm in Manhattan and it's hard to get a signal (and I don't pay for cable so all my television watching is in hotel rooms). I saw a rerun in February where Ed Asner is the slave trader and they're on a boat. They have this whole big scene about how he's guilty and sorry. You only see things like that in these movies. One of my favorites is in Gandhi, it's just awful. It's made by Richard Attenborough--
--Old Sir Richard?
KB: Yeah, Attenborough had to raise the money from these rich English people. I worked in Hollywood. The people with money always tell you what to do. So they said you can't make the English look too bad. So you never see the English do anything bad. When the Indians start lining up to get themselves hit in the head you're like what's wrong with these people? I was so confused by that movie I went and got some books and they were terrible to those people. They had a law where if an Indian and a white man were walking down the same street the Indian had to start crawling.
What? Oh my goodness!
KB: I'm not making that up. In the movie there's one massacre and then the next scene is like the General who ordered the massacre. He's being reprimanded by the British Army. "We don't do that. We don't massacre women and children. You're fired!" It's the same thing with a lot of the slave stuff. They tone it down. I had to get Amistad as part of my research and they have all these people lining up and getting on the boat. And just sitting there quietly. Even when the one guy got kidnapped they just hit him in the head once and just carried him away.
It looks like, from some of the panels I've seen, you're going to show some of the more subtleties and atrocities like the sharks following the slave ships across the Atlantic?
KB: Yeah, all that stuff is interesting. And you'd think someone like Steven Spielberg would be into sharks? (Mutual laughter) ...I'm serious. I'm looking at that movie and it's boring. The big thing about slavery is you're picking people for size and strength. You've got a bunch of people who are bigger and stronger than you, and outnumber you, and you're trying to make them into slaves? You have to be rough! Nobody went quietly. I mean if somebody tried to take you away, "Oh yeah c'mon you're gonna work for free." You'd be fighting! They'd have to beat you up.
You're gonna tell it like it is was then?
KB: They were trying to jump out of the boats and break the chains. I think another thing is the slaves themselves had to lie. When the master went, "We're not treating you too bad are we?" The slave went, "Oh no boss, you're treating me great." That was the biggest thing I liked about the Nat Turner story. I mean this dude was lying for like forty years! He'd been planning this thing for at least 20. "Aww, look at that Nat, he's such a nice guy."
[Adopts a slave voice.] "I'm gonna go have a meeting now, boss." [Master:] "What are doing?" Nat: "Oh nothing, just praying..." [Master] Nice Nat.
I mean in the movie [Amistad] all the white people are very interesting. Matthew McConaughey, John Quincy Adams, they have worked out personalities with a lot of dialogue. Very complicated characters. But the slaves are just...there. None of them do anything. I would say the same thing about Schindler's List though. That's the way he [Spielberg] makes his movies. How come the story about the non-Jew [Liam Neilson's Schindler] is so interesting? I mean you couldn't find a story about a Jew who kicked ass? There must've been one of them?
That probably would've been a more entertaining movie.
KB: I mean I don't know who he was, but I'm sure it's there in history. The guy Schindler, he wasn't 'in it'. It wasn't his problem. It was very nice, I do charity too! I'll send money to places [suffering] but I'm not in it! I mean no one wants to see the movie of me writing a check to the Tsunami victims. You wanna see a movie about the Tsunami!
Just, choices like that. I don't have any of these folks going quietly. A lot of it comes out of the fact that slaves always had to lie. Maybe people really do believe they were happy or it wasn't that bad or whatever. But those folks were plotting, trying to figure out how to get out. I've been reading all these old slave narratives written by actual slaves. The Works Progress Administration hired a bunch of out of work writers to interview slaves during the Depression. The ones that were still alive were like 90 to 100 years old. So I was reading those stories, man, and you will never complain about anything in your life again!
[Laughs heartily.]
KB: I'm serious! I'm working on this book, busting my ass and not sleeping and stuff. I have a full schedule with 3 kids then I'm reading these books and I'm going complaining about how hard I'm working? Then I start reading these books and it's like, "Aww, man, I'm not working that hard." Nobody's beating me, nobody's killing me. A lot of things have not changed. They're still locking black folks up though. They call it something else now.
Being institutionalized I believe? Slavery is still with us, it's funny. I was just talking to a white friend of mine about this. I don't know too many black people who were upset by the Jimmy the Greek thing. Most black people thought what he was saying was true. Slave masters did breed their big black with their big black like chattel! What Al Campanis said, that blacks weren't smart enough to manage, that's racist. I think white guilt did JTG in.
KB: That manager from the Cubs [Dusty Baker] said the same thing. "Oh yeah, it's gonna be a hot summer but black folks were bred for the heat." That's why they brought us over here. He's right! And he got in trouble for it. I learned doing research that the first people they tried to make slaves were the Native Americans. They kept dying. They couldn't take it. They had to go all the way to Africa.
We're made of tough stuff...lucky us!
KB: One of the reasons I like self-publishing is that I'm free to sell the books wherever I want. Like, in the case of King David... there were places that I would've liked to have seen that book sold that they didn't try. Like Bible stores. There's the thing. That book had a built in audience.
Yeah, all these religious people in America. They got Bush in office!
KB: And going beyond that, there was that Jesus movie [The Passion of the Christ] that was the biggest movie of the year. But also I've found if it's done well, it'll sell with black audiences. I've talked to some black churches and you tell them you've got a book with black bible characters they say hey, we'll buy it.
For sure.
KB: The reason I did that book is because every time I see pictures of Bible people they're white. But every time I see pictures of that region, like everyday on the 6 o'clock news, they're black.
Or at least brown!
KB: I mean it's the Middle East?!
They already took Egypt out of Africa and put it in the Middle East in the public's collective consciousness.
KB: Oh yeah, spacemen built the Pyramids...When you're hooked up with a big publisher you can't really go over their heads. If I hear of a place that wants 100 books, I've been known to drive all night to sell 100 books. Because I'm getting all the money. But if you tell DC, "Yeah I know a guy and I bet you could sell 100 books (mutual laughter) it's not worth it for them.
Paul Levitz isn't gonna hop in a car?
KB: They've got too much of an overhead, y'know? They gotta pay all these salaries and stuff. So to do the work necessary to sell 100 books is just not worth it to them. Especially if they don't see a way to follow up. I'm gonna do more Bible books, I just gotta figure out when to do it, 'cuz I know there's an audience out there because I would buy it! That's how I try to think about all this... I try to do stuff that I would buy, if someone else did it. And there's nobody doing it. Like a Nat Turner comic. If I ever saw a Nat Turner comic at the store I'd buy it. The thing I'm looking forward too is the videogame, my next project. That would be hot!
Bonus kill whitey round! (Laughter)
KB: C'mon you'd buy that thing.
Oh, I'd be there. Lined up the night before.
KB: It'd be bigger than Grand Theft Auto. I imagine myself going into Warner Brothers, [winds up in pitch mode], "Alright the Nat Turner video game!" They just wouldn't go for it. That said, we've been talking to some people about doing a movie. We're looking at ways to do it that it won't get messed up.
The tools are getting cheaper and more Democratic every day. I have a little film I made playing at this year's San Diego con.
KB: Even though there's more money in animated movies, you've got like 3 or 4 animated films being released this year, the animators are just being treated worse and worse. It's not that hard to make an animator a more attractive offer. Know what I mean? The guys' only making a thousand bucks a week, it's not that hard to top. Also the stuff animators are asked to work on is so lame, they'd rather work on something fun. Aww, gee I'd rather not animate Strawberry Shortcake. The animators are all excited about King David.
Didn't you start animating a Noah's Ark project a few years back?
KB: Yeah, I was working on that until I started getting notes like, "Does everybody have to drown?"
Come on (laughs)...
KB: I'm serious! And another one was, "God seems kind of mean. Does he have to be punishing these people with this flood?"
It's called the Old Testament!
KB: My thing is Hollywood is so used to changing stuff. But who are you changing it for? You're just making people like me mad. When I go to see these movies like "The Prince of Egypt" and that Richard Gere King David movie, and they tone these things down so much that somebody like me, who thought I knew what this movie was about, I feel ripped off. Because if I go to the movie I wanna see David and Bathsheba. And then they go and re-write it, and he doesn't sleep with her until she's single. He sees her, but he doesn't touch her and he says, "Hey aren't you XX wife?" And she goes, "Oh yes and he's very mean to me and he beats me, and he's a terrible husband." Then David has him killed and marries her. Who are you changing it for? The only people that are gonna see this movie is people who like the Bible. You're not fooling anybody. They think by toning it down its going to make it reach a bigger audience. If it's called "Noah's Ark" it's obviously a bible story and everyone knows what that's about.
It sounds so simple...
KB: There was just tons of that stuff. [Adopts studio executive voice] "Noah seems kind of old...Can you get rid of Noah's three sons wives? Can we make them into kids?" If I get rid of the wives how do they re-populate the earth?
We might have a slight problem there.
KB: I still don't know how Cain and Abel did it. Well if Adam and Eve only had boys, then where did the other kids come from?
That's a good point. I dunno, I flunked Sunday school... Back to Nat Turner, the middle passage is an important, neglected part of our history and you're about to shed some light on. Do you think it will get the attention it deserves?
KB: We'll see what happens. There's a bit of a gap between issues one and two. I wanted to give it a couple of months. Sometime with my stuff, people tend to sleep on it when it first comes out. [With DC/Vertigo's] You Are Here, the reorders were bigger than the initial order. I suspect the same thing will happen here.
You should feel pretty safe overprinting a bit. Just one of those Bible stores could move a lot of copies!
KB: We've been talking to the guy who distributes those Iceberg Slim books. I don't know how it is in LA, but in NY there's people selling books on tables on streets.
Naw, not here.
KB:There's not people walking in LA! But we found out where those people get the books. There's a good example, Iceberg Slim, everybody I know has read these books and I don't think they sell them in stores?
I only see 'em at newsstands come to think of it.
KB: I mean you ever walk into a Barnes and Nobles and say, "Where's your Iceberg Slim section?" I really think this book is going to do well in non-traditional venues. A lot of places that won't carry comics will carry this. Iceberg Slim must've sold like millions and millions. I bet you the guy is bigger than Tom Clancy.
A total underground phenomenon. The Lovecraft of the 'hood.
KB: I was surprised at how good the response was just to the idea. The whole point to the monthly issues is to hype up the trade and hardcover. There's no way to make money on three comic books because you're selling them to the distributor for half price. And the minute you advertise it, that's the end of it. That's all your money. I have to sell 2,000 books just to cover my Diamond ad!
Just shifting gears a little bit, I wanted to talk a little bit about Plastic Man. That went from a graphic novel to an ongoing series. I read recently you only had 6 issues on your contract and then, of course, the switch to bi-monthly. Are you going to try to continue on the book?
KB: I don't know. I know I'm on it until #20. I've finished #17. It depends on how things are going.
I was reading on a website where you and your daughter were checking out some Justice League comic and she said, "It's just people talking to each other." If Plas does go away I hope you can do at least one or two arcs a year. It's one of the few comics my niece and nephew will read. It'll be a real loss. But hey when they get a little older I'll just put a Nat Turner in their hands.
KB: There you go.
Did My Special Pain ever come out?
KB: No, I'm backlogged. Plastic Man took over my life. Now that it's bi-monthly, things have lightened up. There was a year where all I could get done was Plastic Man. My Special Pain was just a little 94-page thing. I may work on it next.
What about your short film The Light?
KB: It was adapted from the second Cartoonist book. It's two minutes long. We've just been animating short films. It's why I'm publishing. I have the right to just go do stuff without having to get approval or meet with anyone. Like when I do stuff for DC, which is fun -- I like doing stuff for DC -- but you have to go through a big machine. Which is why I'm the only cartoonist I know who doesn't have any toys. All my friends have toys. A lot of them have movies. If I'm interested in doing stuff I'm just gonna do it. We're looking at ways to pay for that.
You've had a busy year with the Birth of a Nation graphic novel with Reggie Hudlin and Aaron McGruder. Are there any other creators out there you want to collaborate with?
KB: No, probably not. I'd say no, but then things change. I turned down Birth at first. Because I didn't want to split the money. But then I looked at the script then I said ok, I'll take it. But generally it's not easy working with other people. They tend to write things that are difficult to draw. But you never know. I'm supposed to do a short Michael Chabon story.
I think you've been back in New York since '97 or 98? Do you think being back in the Big Apple has had an effect on your work? Or does geography have nothing to do with your creativity?
KB: I keep moving around. We just moved back to Manhattan. I don't think it affects my work. I have a studio. I think it's easier to get stuff done in Manhattan. Like I have high speed Internet which is a big difference.
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See also:
· Buzzscope's Nat Turner #1 review - "A comic book so amazingly good it left a lump in my throat and a bit of rage in my heart."
Previous Color Commentaries:
· Young Avengers #3 (Kyle Baker, Robert Morales, Allan Heinberg)
· Black History Month Recap
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