MIDDLE MAN-AGEMENT AND LES MCCLAINE

raul grau · Jun 21, 2005, 03:44 pm

<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MMCOVER.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MMCOVER_T.jpg" hspace=10 align=left alt="The Middle Man #1"></a>By Remy Minnick, Comixfan Staff Writer

Artist Les McClaine has been a busy man. You may know him from his work on the webcomic Jonny Crossbones, which has been nominated for an Eisner in its inaugural Digital Comic category. However, come this July, he may become more well-known for The Middle Man, which will debut at this year's San Diego Comic Con International. Last week, Comixfan spoke with Middle Man writer <a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=34221" target="_blank">Javier Grillo-Marxuach</a>, but now McClaine tells us about this new series, which features explosions, tentacles, spaceships, clowns, Mexican wrestlers, robots, and more.

Comixfan: Let's go back to the beginning, how did you get your start in the comic book industry?

Les McClaine: I got my first opportunity while I was still in college: in 1996 I was studying Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and we were given the assignment to pitch a project to a publisher. The purpose of the exercise was to get us accustomed to rejection. In my case, it backfired. I sent in a pitch for a comic that I’d been drawing in my spare time to Slave Labor Graphics, and a few days later, I got a call from Dan Vado, the president of the company. He said that they’d like to publish it. It took a few years, but the book finally came out in 2000 as Highway 13.

Comixfan: It's been five years since the release of Highway 13, what have you learned about the comic book industry since then?

McClaine: I learned it’s a tough business without too much material reward. I went through a period of questioning if it was even what I wanted to be doing. At a certain point I decided there was nothing else I’d rather be spending my working hours on, so I quit my day job and jumped in headfirst. It’s been tremendously rewarding in other ways.

Comixfan: How did you get involved with Viper Comics and, thus, The Middle Man?

McClaine: Well, I got involved with the Middle Man first. Javier had seen my work on Highway 13, and thought it would be a good mesh with the style he had in mind for the book. He emailed me, promising a script with “robots, monsters, and masked wrestlers,” which intrigued me greatly, and then sent on the script, which just sold me on the project completely. We spent a month or two working up character designs and the first half of issue one for a pitch.

Viper Comics was a publisher we’d both been impressed by, with their high production standards and marketing savvy. We sent them the pitch, and it seemed like minutes later Jessie Garza had called back, very excited about the project. We signed with them a couple days after that, and got going on finishing the miniseries.

<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MM05_T.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MM05_T.jpg" hspace=10 align=right alt="The Middle Man #1"></a>Comixfan: What is The Middle Man about?

McClaine: It’s a very fun concept that follows a young, drifting post-collegiate named Wendy Watson as her mundane life suddenly intersects with the Middleman's. He's an agent of some shadowy organization that prevents the weirdness behind the scenes from bleeding out into the everyday. Wendy soon finds herself being recruited into this new world of tentacled monsters, talking chimps, and world-conquering luchadores. Every time I get a new script or Javier calls me with a new idea he’s had, it just cracks me up. Working on this book’s a blast.

Comixfan: What is the creative relationship like between you and Javier Grillo-Marxuach?

McClaine: It’s a very fun working process. Javier originally wrote the script as a screenplay (which makes sense, since he writes for television, primarily) and we decided the best way to play to each of our strengths was to work directly from the screenplay into a comic. So Javier writes the dialogue and some stage direction, and then I basically adapt the screenplay into comics. What makes this process work so well for me is that it gives me a lot of freedom in terms of pacing the stories and breaking down the panels for the best effect, which is really the fun part about drawing comics.

An added bonus is that we both have very similar senses of humor, so we get talking about ways to do things and end up laughing for several minutes about some idea or another nearly every time we talk. This project’s really a lot of fun to work on.

Comixfan: How much artistic freedom did you have in the character designs on this title?

McClaine: Quite a bit. Javier and I worked very closely at the beginning of the process on getting the looks of the primary characters just right. We went through a lot of sketches, especially for Wendy and the Middleman, for whom Javier had a pretty specific look in mind. I’m making up all the minor characters on the fly, though. The first time Javier saw Colfari and Tadzio, the gangsters in issue one, for instance, was when I sent him the finished page they appeared on.

Comixfan: What aspect of the story of The Middle Man do you enjoy the most? Did you find your drawing style changing at all to better reflect the story?

<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MM07.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MM07_T.jpg" hspace=10 align=left alt="The Middle Man #1"></a>McClaine: I really like drawing outlandish monsters and villains and bears on motorcycles, so that part of the concept appeals to me the most, I think. But just as a reader, a lot of the jokes in the dialogue really tickle me, too. It’s a very funny comic.

I’ve definitely developed a specific style for this project, but I try to mold my artwork to best fit the story for every project I work on. This one I’ve veered a little more towards representationalism than I usually do, though there’s still a good deal of old-fashioned cartooniness in there. A man in a tie smiling as he shoots horrible ass-faced monsters can’t be rendered too seriously, after all.

Comixfan: What do you feel your own art style that makes you the perfect match for the title?

McClaine: I try to imbue my work with a sense of whimsy, and I think that meshes well with the story here. My work is also somewhat old-fashioned in a way, and the Middleman’s 1950’s-era attitudes really come out with a slick brushline.

Comixfan: Who are your influences, when it comes to your drawing style?

McClaine: That’s a tough one. I know who my influences are, but I don’t really see them coming out in my work, somehow. I’m very much influenced by Hergé’s Tintin books, but my linework owes more to Walt Kelly’s Pogo. I’m a great fan of Dan DeCarlo’s work on anything at all. And I’m constantly trying and failing to be as good as Patrick McEown, who I think is the greatest North American cartoonist working today. A lot of my style comes from observing, simplifying, and formulizing in my own work, too.

Comixfan: Do you have any other projects coming up?

McClaine: Despite the fact that I’ve been lax about updating while I’m working on finishing up the Middleman, I’m still working on my webcomic Jonny Crossbones, (http://www.evilspacerobot.com/comics/jonnycrossbones/) which was nominated for an Eisner award this year in the first “Best Digital Comic” category. Great progress is being made on bringing it to print as a 128-page paperback for summer 2006, but I’m not prepared to say too much more about that just yet.

Comixfan: How does it feel to have your webcomic nominated for an Eisner, much less nominated in the inaugural run of their "Best Digital Comic" category?

McClaine: Oh, it feels great! I’m up against a bunch of other cartoonists I really admire, too, so it’s a great feeling to be considered in among them. The best thing for me is that I’d had that comic rattling around in my head for seven years before I finally started to draw it, and it looks like my timing couldn’t have been better!

Comixfan: Mexican wrestlers, bears on motorcycles, tentacled ass monsters, what has been your favorite panel that you've drawn so far on The Middle Man?

<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MM01.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/ind/viper/2005/mm/MM01_T.jpg" hspace=10 align=right alt="The Middle Man #1"></a>McClaine: Without question, the splash panel on page 20 of issue 2. You’ll know it when you see it. It’s got everything. Explosions, tentacles, spaceships, clowns, robots, you name it. When I finished drawing that panel, I told Javi, “this may very well be the awesomest thing I’ve ever done… and I’m a man who’s done some awesome things.”

Comixfan: With such a plethora of strange creatures will fans see the cyborg ninja zombie pirate monkey they have all been clamoring for?

McClaine: Gosh, anything’s possible. I keep drawing throwaway details into the background, and Javi just seizes on them and comes up with complicated backstories and origins and whole miniseries worth of stuff around them. I’ll see what I can do about sneaking in some cyborg ninja zombie pirate monkeys for you.

Be sure to visit X-World Comics for great deals on these books and more!

James Groves · Jun 21, 2005, 03:59 pm

I love Jonny Crossbones - very Tintin-esque.

I would love to see it in paperback form!! I love the sense of fun to it.

Shall keep a look out for The Middle Man...I'm a fan of his artwork, so it should be good!

Jun 21, 2005, 03:59 pm	#2
James Groves Jedi Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: England Country: Posts: 3,777	Re: MIDDLE MAN-AGEMENT AND LES MCCLAINE I love Jonny Crossbones - very Tintin-esque. I would love to see it in paperback form!! I love the sense of fun to it. Shall keep a look out for The Middle Man...I'm a fan of his artwork, so it should be good!

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