{"id":834,"date":"2013-05-03T10:54:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=834"},"modified":"2023-12-12T11:20:16","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T19:20:16","slug":"terry-moore-stranger-in-paradise-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/terry-moore-stranger-in-paradise-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Terry Moore: Stranger in Paradise, Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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THE TOUCAN INTERVIEW<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry Moore: Stranger in Paradise, Part Two
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\"Toucan<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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We continue with our exclusive\u00a0<\/em>Toucan\u00a0interview with Comic-Con 2013 special guest Terry Moore. Part one dealt with Terry\u2019s fan-favorite comics series<\/em>, Strangers in Paradise.\u00a0In part two, we move on to\u00a0<\/em>Echo\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Rachel Rising,\u00a0plus Terry’s recent\u00a0<\/em>How To Draw\u00a0series of books..<\/em>\u00a0Click here to read part one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Terry Moore in front of the cover of Echo #1. Used with permission of the artist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> For a while you did some work for both DC and Marvel as a writer. Is that something you enjoyed, or do you prefer to work on your own concepts and self- publish?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> You know, they\u2019re such opposite experiences. You just have to appreciate them as two different things. They both have their advantages. I loved working on some of the properties that I got to handle, like Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane.<\/em> I got to work with the Spider-Man cast back in their golden days, when they were all in high school and Gwen Stacy was there. That\u2019s the era I loved, so writing that was a joy. And I think one of the best things I took away from working with Marvel and DC is getting a better understanding of how much they really love what they do and how professional they are. I was so impressed with the editors at both companies and how much effort they put into every issue to make it as good as possible. So every time I get around really accomplished professionals, I\u2019m always so impressed by how much it means to them. That\u2019s always inspired me. That happened to me when I worked with other companies. It helped boost my spirits. I like doing it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Art from\u00a0Echo.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a9 Terry Moore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> After you ended <\/em>Strangers in Paradise you launched <\/em>Echo, which was a science fiction series with a heavy dose of science fact that lasted for 30 issues. Did you plan that as a finite story from the beginning?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Yeah, because SIP<\/em> had been a wandering, self-indulgent, indie thing. I wanted to do something tight with three acts, so I sat down and drafted out Echo<\/em> in an outline, a three-act outline. Because I had already had 14 years of not being able to sell SIP <\/em>to anybody, I wanted to make Echo<\/em> so that it would be an appealing high=concept story that might be attractive to somebody in another medium. That was actually on my mind because all my peers had accomplished that and I had not, and they all had smarter stories than I did. Their stories could be explained, and I had just done this rambling SIP<\/em> epic. So when I started Echo<\/em> I was thinking like that. I was thinking, okay, now be professional, write a screenplay. So I did, and it took 30 issues to get it all done. Actually, it needed to go for about 32 issues. I\u2019d already declared 30 as the stopping point, and once I got to the ending I needed a little more space. So if I redid anything or we edited any of it, I would add more pages to the ending, but other then that I\u2019m pretty happy with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> There seemed to be an awful lot of research going into that. Is that something you enjoy?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> You\u2019d be amazed how little research actually went into it. I just made crap up. I\u2019ve always been intrigued with earth sciences and physics, and as a musician I fell in love with higher mathematics because it\u2019s all the same thing. So I\u2019d been carrying around that little nerdy bug in my head and all those little bits of data, and I knew I wanted to build around it. So when the time came, all I really had to do was Google images of the collider and things like that. Once I started looking for images, I found if you look at the CERN collider, the next thing you know you can go right to their site and they have a little link there, and you can look at what test they\u2019re running today what their settings are, blah, blah, blah, and next thing you know I\u2019ve got what looks like a huge scientific page in front of me, following numbers and settings and all these terms. So I would grab all that and put it in there as well, and one thing led to another. But in terms of the basic principles involved of what I\u2019m trying to . . . the message I\u2019m trying to get across, that had been with me for quite a while, and I just worked the story around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> It ended kind of open-ended. Did you have a sequel in mind for it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Yeah, there is a sequel definitely. Everything you\u2019ve read in Echo<\/em> so far, I told you so that I could tell you the next thing. All I did was basically just get her the suit and what happens after that. Also, her companion in that story, Ivy, is an investigator for phenomenal stuff, and this is only one of her cases. So she went home and went on to her next case the next week. So there\u2019s several ways I could go with all that. And I definitely would like to go back to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The iconic cover to\u00a0Rachel Rising<\/em>\u00a0#1. \u00a9 Terry Moore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> But right now you\u2019re a little tied up with <\/em>Rachel Rising, which is a horror series, and I don\u2019t think anybody saw that coming from you. I don\u2019t think people saw a science fiction series coming from you either, but maybe you could also call <\/em>Echo a superhero series.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s kind of a hybrid. It\u2019s a recipe of stuff that we all see and enjoy. Sometimes you start a series off thinking it\u2019s one thing and then it becomes another. So I knew that Echo<\/em> would be sci-fi in the old-fashioned sense like sci-fi about the planet Earth. And then I knew that with Rachel Rising<\/em> I wanted to do something like an old Hammer film type of thing, a cross between a Hammer film and Twin Peaks.<\/em> So that\u2019s what I was shooting for, something that would be creepy on the page without resorting to gore. It\u2019s fun to try to go for that. One of the first short stories I wrote was a horror story, so there\u2019s just been little things I\u2019ve always liked. I\u2019ve always been a fan of that genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> Is this planned as a more finite series like <\/em>Echo, or are you going to keep going with this?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> No, I\u2019m going to end this one at #24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> Which is about eight issues away.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Yeah, so in one more year. And that\u2019ll give me six trades worth of material, and of course at the very end of that, when it\u2019s all said and done, I\u2019ll make an omnibus of Rachel Rising<\/em> and then move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> Do you know what the next thing is?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Yes, I do. I have a story that I was going to do with Vertigo but we never could work out the money. So it\u2019s all outlined and pretty well thought through, and it would be a really fun comic book series, so I\u2019ve just decided to do it myself. And it\u2019s a slightly different genre than anything else I\u2019ve done as well. It\u2019s a little more of a fantasy and more all ages too. It\u2019s something I haven\u2019t done before, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> The only common thread I see between all three of your series to date\u2014 besides that all the female characters have really great hair\u2014is that they all kind of revolve around a conspiracy that somehow affects a woman. In <\/em>Strangers in Paradise it was Katchoo and the Parker Group; in <\/em>Echo, it\u2019s the military trying to get back the suit that is forming on Julie\u2019s body; and Rachel in <\/em>Rachel Rising seems to be living in the middle of a town filled with conspiracy. So are you a closeted conspiracy buff?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> I love conspiracies. I wish one of them was true. But actually, what I think about in a story is a survivor taking the power back. So when I think of Strangers in Paradise<\/em>, I think of Katchoo overcoming her demons and taking the power back in her life. And when I think of Echo,<\/em> I think of a normal woman unfairly saddled with this incredible problem that can change the world. And how fate shows that power ending up in her hands is so much better than it ending up in the hands of a government . . . that just one woman going by her heart makes the right decisions. So it was a woman fighting for her own survival, for herself, her identity but also in a much bigger way, things on a much bigger level. And then in Rachel Rising, <\/em>it\u2019s Rachel fighting to save her own identity and her life and her soul while everything around her is going to hell in a handbasket and she is bravely trying to figure it out and fix it before it all comes away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> Does it surprise you if someone reading this stuff comes up with the conspiracy angle instead? Maybe I\u2019m the one who\u2019s the conspiracy buff.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> I like the conspiracy stuff, and what I\u2019ve done is taken my survivor tales and stood them on top of conspiracies and betrayals and a web of lies. So basically, conspiracies are a web of lies for an event that everybody was involved in. And I definitely have that going on in all three stories. So yeah, definitely, I\u2019m a conspiracy buff. You can ask me anything about the Kennedy stuff or Jack the Ripper or Marilyn Monroe\u2019s death, all that stuff and the Twin Towers. I\u2019ve read all that and seen all those videos. I am fascinated by the idea that grown men lie and try to cover their tracks. It\u2019s great fodder for a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Terry Moore’s How to Draw collection. \u00a9 Terry Moore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> You recently came out with a series of how-to-draw books, which you then collected into a trade paperback. Why did you decide to share all your knowledge with the world?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> It was something I was constantly being asked, and in the beginning I would never presume to tell anybody else what to do. But after doing it for so many years, I realized hey, I saw the difference between what I was doing and what amateurs were doing, and I just felt like it was, if I didn\u2019t start sharing and being open about how I do it, I was an asshole. At some point if you know the answer to stuff and you\u2019re not telling people, you\u2019re an asshole. So I decided to at least share what I know. That\u2019s why I didn\u2019t write a book that looks like all the other books: here\u2019s a thigh and here\u2019s what\u2019s in it, here\u2019s how to draw that. I didn\u2019t do that because there are a billion books like that. My book is just about how I make my comics and how I draw women and what I look for on a page, and then I actually printed all my templates and measurements and how I use my tools and all that stuff, because I wanted it to be more practical. It\u2019s supposed to be a book that\u2019s worthy of sitting on a shelf that already has nine other how-to-draw books on it, because hopefully I tried to say something different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> The most fascinating book of the series to me was the comics one, because I think a lot of people are fascinated by process and how you do what you do.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Yes. When you get down to it, what you\u2019re desperate for is step-by-step instructions when you\u2019re ready to do it. And it\u2019s amazing how you can immediately get on step two or three of your process and then have a huge question and you can\u2019t go forward and you can\u2019t find the answer on the bookshelf and what do you do? I spent years trying to develop my routine in the beginning because nobody was addressing the specific question I might have on any given day since they tended to talk in big generalizations. Like a book on perspective. I have three of them, and I don\u2019t understand any of them, and they all say look, here\u2019s your horizon line and you start at a point and do this. And if you want to draw, you can have several points and blah, blah, blah. Well, every time I try that, it comes out looking awful. That doesn\u2019t work. They know something else, they\u2019re doing something else to make the building look great, and I get lost in it. So when I did my books I was thinking about it\u2019s not enough to tell me how, you have to tell me why. That\u2019s how I learned. I learned by understanding why. And that\u2019s why I like sci-fi, because they say why; science says why. So my book was all about here\u2019s how I draw a woman\u2019s body and here\u2019s why I draw it, because if you know why then you don\u2019t need reference material anymore. It\u2019s in your head and you know how it moves. If you only are told do this, then you\u2019re going to need a reference point every time, every time it changes. What if she bends over? Well, you get a different reference photo. What if she stands up? Okay get a different reference photo. You don\u2019t need that if you know what\u2019s going on inside, and how it moves the skin. So that\u2019s what I was focused on, stuff like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> There are only a handful of cartoonists who started self-publishing in the \u201890s who are still at it, particularly in publishing what I\u2019m going to call \u201cfloppy comics.\u201d for lack of a better term. You and Jeff Smith are the only two that spring immediately to mind. Why do you continue to self-publish?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Because I\u2019m not as good as the other guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Well, no, Dave [Sim] and Jeff [Smith] were definitely in another league, and they don\u2019t work anymore because they don\u2019t have to. And I\u2019m making my next issue because I have to. I need the next issue to make the house payment. So I didn\u2019t enjoy that kind of success that the other self-publishers had, and so I\u2019m working for a living and here I am. That\u2019s the basic answer. If I had found success, if Strangers in Paradise<\/em> had been something more than a cult favorite, I would still be making comics [of it]. I mean, I love what I do. I just probably wouldn\u2019t be doing it on this vicious deadline year after year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> You have flirted with Hollywood with <\/em>Echo. Is there anything currently going on that you can talk about?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> The option for Echo<\/em> expired. So Echo<\/em> came back to me and Echo <\/em>and Strangers in Paradise<\/em> are both available. I have a good agent, and she\u2019s working on it, but you know that\u2019s a gamble. Over the years I\u2019ve been so disappointed so many times by Hollywood over things that might happen or almost happen and then fell through. I kind of stand back now and just leave it to them. If they want to pick something up and go off and make what they want, that\u2019s great, they can. So I\u2019m not trying to get involved. I just want to make comics and write books and things like that. I don\u2019t have any plans to get involved necessarily with any stuff that might get optioned. I take that cue from Alan Moore. He just keeps making his books, and I think that\u2019s a good choice. [Right after we finished editing this interview, it was announced that <\/em>Rachel Rising was optioned as a TV series by Alcon Television Group. Executive producer Lloyd Levin (<\/em>Watchmen, Hellboy) is part of the team, along with producer Ben Roberts, a production consultant on <\/em>The Walking Dead.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> Do you read any current comics? Do you keep up on the industry?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> I do keep up on the industry, but more so these days with the artists. I have a lot of art books that I love by the great artists who are working today, who bring me a lot of joy, who inspire me. Just like back in the National Lampoon<\/em> days, it\u2019s the art, artists, and cartoonists who bring me a lot of joy. So I love following the work of Bruce Timm and Adam Hughes and Stan Sakai. I got to meet one of my heroes, Doug Sneyd, the Playboy <\/em>cartoonist. So he\u2019s just about to the point where he remembers my name now, and I think that\u2019s so cool. And then a mutual friend introduced me to BK Taylor and I\u2019ve become friends with BK, and for me that was like meeting a Beatle, because I grew up on BK Taylor cartoons, so what a thrill. I follow anything that Darwyn Cook will do, or Amanda Conner, people like that. The great ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan: <\/em><\/strong>You do a lot of convention appearances each year, what do you take home from that?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> Mostly encouragement and going out and being at the table and meeting fans who have very supportive things to say. I bring that back with me and it helps me keep going. It\u2019s also incredibly inspiring to go to a convention and see what the other artists are doing. I was at Emerald City Con and I sat next to Joe Linsner and watching him work all day, every day, and how hard he works for his fans and everything, it was very inspiring to me. So that\u2019s what I take out of it, the experience I have, the people that I run into and I get to talk to. And it\u2019s like a circuit; you meet the same people at shows so you become friends and it\u2019s kind of like a family on the road. So it\u2019s great. I love being with my friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toucan:<\/em><\/strong> What still excites you about doing comics?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry:<\/strong> What excites me about comics is that if I had a good day I have a page drawn that didn\u2019t exist that morning and on that page is a whole scene of life. I brought some characters to life and I made this whole little fantasy world come together. And you can look at it at the end of the day on the table and it\u2019s gorgeous, hopefully. But it\u2019s got people on paper doing things, living life. It\u2019s just a magical process. It\u2019s something I fell in love with when I saw the Peanuts Christmas special [A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em>] for the first time, and I thought how lucky is that man, Charles Schulz, to be able to create his own little world that\u2019s so much happier than ours and live in it every day as a cartoonist. I have met a lot of cartoonists who have cited that Christmas special as giving them the exact same inspiration to create their own world. It\u2019s like kids today growing up and seeing gamers who have developed their own games and their own special online place with avatars and all that. It\u2019s basically an avatar situation. I have all these little avatars. Even the bad characters are avatars for me. You move them around on paper and they come to life on the end of your pen. It\u2019s just magic. It really is magic. Cartooning is magic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

Comic-Con International<\/div>\n\n\n

Published<\/p>\n\n\n