CHRIS WISNIA DEBUNKS THE SUPERNATURAL AND THE STRANGE

[Stephanie Kay]

By Robin Lewis, Comixfan Reviewer

Chris Wisnia has been hacking away at the thankless coalface that is comics self-publishing for several years now. He's put out five issues of Tabloia and two collected editions of stories that originally appeared in that august title: Doris Danger Seeks Where Giant Monsters Creep & Stomp and The Lump. As well as the stories the books also contained a wide selection of pin-ups from such industry luminaries as Mike Mignola and the Los Bros Hernandez and Wisnia's own revealing account of his travails in the arena of self-publishing. He's got a new collection of stories out this October, Dr Debunko: The Short Stories, and he met up with us recently to chat about it.

Comixfan: So, for those who have no idea who Dr. DeBunko is and what he does in the world of bunkum, tell us about him.

Chris Wisnia: Dr. DeBunko is a debunker of the supernatural. He spends his time matching wits against misinformed, stubborn, backwater, uneducated and superstitious folk around the globe, in an attempt to make the world a safer, more rational place. Naturally, this puts him in opposition with people’s beliefs in corpse-eating werewolves; cattle mutilations; spontaneous combustion; sex-craved succubi, incubi, the devil himself; and other absurd supernatural oddities.

CXF: What do you find fascinating about these urban myths?

Wisnia: For me, it isn’t so much the urban myths themselves. What fascinates me is people’s insistence on their realities.

It’s become such a dominant storyline in our culture – in comics, movies, books, pop culture, and even the news – where some paranoid whacko sees something he can’t explain, and he becomes convinced of some bizarre, crazy, unlikely or absolutely absurd logistical explanation. And everyone thinks he’s a nut, and won’t listen to him, and dismisses him or tries to lock him up, but he just can’t deny what he knows must be true, even if he can’t prove a thing or even convince his girlfriend. It could be a government conspiracy, an alien invasion, a fantastic and as-yet-undiscovered monster, or a religious prediction of the end of the world. And every time, the whacko is the hero of the story, who turns out to be the only one who was observant and smart and vigilant enough to put the pieces together, to see “what’s really going on.”

That’s all fun and makes an entertaining story, but in reality, there are whackos like this everywhere, all the time, but what they believe is completely idiotic, and they’re not heroic at all, and often they just suffer from mental illness. To me, that’s a much more interesting story, to look into what these people believe, how they got to believe so unbendingly, and how absurd these beliefs can be. Although I don’t really do this in the Dr. DeBunko stories. I just kind of belittle them.

CXF: Why do you think these myths and superstitions persist even in today’s modern world? Do you think they update themselves and come back to haunt us in altered forms – the devil abducting people turning into aliens abducting people, for instance?

Wisnia: There are many much smarter, better-suited people out there to answer this question. I don’t really know why individuals are so insistent to believe in all their whacky theories. Everyone has their opinions, and everyone has come to their opinions based on the evidence they’ve collected from their personal experiences, and everyone’s personal experiences are completely unique, and I guess that’s what makes the world so diverse and so beautiful, and so frustrating. There’s no question that people have believed whacky things for as long as people have believed things.

I assume, when people finally find enough evidence against them, they reach a point where they have to admit, “Yeah, actually it isn’t really possible for the devil to be abducting people. It’s completely absurd. But you know what could make better sense to me? If aliens were abducting people!” Maybe in a hundred years, people will stop believing in aliens, and something else will arise to fill whatever void their alien anxieties soothed.

We all just do the best we can, I think, to make sense of our confusing environment. But some people just aren’t smart.

CXF: Is Dr. DeBunko ever going to take on some of the everyday superstitions we see around us: horoscopes, telephone psychics, and the like?

Wisnia: I kind of made a subconscious decision, pretty early on, to stick with the more outrageous supernatural claims. Not because I think they’re more valid or less offensive, but just because I like keeping his stories really over-the-top. I'm enjoying outrageous protagonists, and more farcical, outlandish solutions. Maybe a few people will get the point, and be able to make the connections, though, with the types of everyday superstitions you’re talking about.

All the stories in this collection are really short. Two or three pages each, most of them. If this books generates any interest, I'd like to go into greater detail with stories and characters, and I think that would afford me more depth to delve into less blatant but equally prevalent superstitions.

CXF: Your account of the self-publishing section on comic conventions painted a pretty depressing picture of life in your particular part of the comics world. Is it really that bleak? And if it is, how difficult is it to scrape up the enthusiasm and effort necessary to actually get another book out there?

Wisnia: When I published my “self-publishing tips,” I wanted them to be a humorous, self-deprecatory look at my personal journey as a self-publisher, from the excited and hopeful beginnings, to the emptied bank-account and no-artistic-recognition after the fact. There’s no question it’s a tough road, and I have it easier than a lot of people, because I have a day job that allows me lots of free time and a decent paycheck. But I strongly believe that self-publishers are really struggling in the comics industry, despite the growing interest in comics from Hollywood. Distributors are continuing to up minimum order requirements. Writing and especially drawing the stories takes a lot of time. The printing, promoting, and distributing take just as much time as the creating, and a lot of money. No one’s heard of you, so no one wants to buy your books. There’s no way that I’ve found to get stores or readers familiar with or interested or even just to look at your work. And I’ve tried a lot of techniques, including different forms of advertising, online exposure, meeting store owners, going to a lot of conventions, and getting Mike Mignola, Sam Kieth, the Hernandez Brothers, Tony Millionaire, Gene Colan, John Severin, and a dozen more of my favorite artists to contribute to my books.

I haven’t really met anyone who’s making a living from self-publishing (except maybe one).

But with all that said, I love creating comics. I love being able to come up with a story and write it and draw it, exactly how I want it done and to the best of my ability. I’ve got complete control of every aspect of my work, from start to finish, for better or worse. I have a lot of pride about that.

I came to a realization, just in the last couple months. If I’m not ever financially successful, or artistically recognized, I can live with that, as long as I can afford to keep doing my stories. That’s what drives me, and that’s what makes it worthwhile. That's where the enthusiasm comes from, and it's enough to get me excited about getting up in the morning and going to the drawing board every day. And I think that’s true of everyone who does it, and if they realize it isn’t, they move onto other things.

If you enjoyed my self-publishing exploits, I’m in the process of setting up a blog at my website, which will actually be more of a diary of all my self-publishing experiences. I’m hoping it will generate some interest, because I intend to ruthlessly and unapologetically name-drop all the comics artists I adore, and all the time I’ve spent finding and meeting them, pestering them, and trying to convince them to contribute pin-ups to my books.

CXF: Your Doris Danger books obviously grew from a love of Kirby, but who else do you look on as having influenced your work?

Wisnia: Every project is influenced by different things. When I came up with Dr. DeBunko, I was still trying to pitch to comics companies, to get them to hire me. At that time, DC was revamping all their past characters (Does that give you an idea of how long ago I created him?), and I thought about who might be fun to revamp, and all I could come up with was Dr. 13, who was a “debunkery” character, with such little readership interest, they stuffed him into the backs of their “B” books for awhile here and there, and finally just abandoned him. His style of debunking was from the Scooby-Doo school, where there’s a ghost, and something just isn’t right, and he figures out that it’s actually just Uncle Ross out to scare his cousins, so that they're afraid to live in their inherited mansion, and he can take ownership. Again, this kind of story didn’t interest me, but I was intrigued about writing stories of debunkery.

After writing a few Dr. DeBunko adventures, I stumbled onto the Skeptics Society, and finding them felt like I’d been adopted and learned who my parents were. I felt like, “Finally, here is where I belong.” I’ve since been in contact with them, through Michael Shermer, who is their director and a brilliant and inspiring author. They’ve given me a lot of support. Michael Shermer has blurbed my comics in the past, and he gave me a very flattering blurb for the cover of this current collection.

Before I found the Skeptic Society, I was always looking for books that questioned supernatural beliefs, but they were hard for me to hunt down. If you look in “supernatural” aisles in the bookstore, there’s a lot of really poor, silly stuff. Since finding the Skeptics Society, I’ve found treasure troves of great info and anecdotes and looks at people’s weird beliefs. Michael Shermer even wrote a book called, “Why People Believe Weird Things.” He’s also published Skeptic Encyclopedias and such.

Artistically, I don’t think I could say what’s influenced Dr. DeBunko, although I do use some photo reference from old 1950’s horror films. With other projects, I’m influenced by 1940’s film noir, 1930’s horror films, and art at museums and in art books. I have a degree in art. Comics creators whose work makes me glad to be alive are Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Mike Mignola, Mike Allred, Alan Moore, anything EC…

CXF: Once the Dr. DeBunko book is out, what’s next from you?

Wisnia: I’ve got two sixteen-page Kirby-style giant monster comics coming out before the year is up. The first is Doris Danger Greatest All-Out Army Battles in November, featuring giant monster pin-ups by Russ Heath, Sam Glanzman, Dick Ayers, and John Severin. In December will be Doris Danger in Outer Space, with giant monster pin-ups by Al Feldstein, Dave Gibbons, Peter Bagge, and JH Williams III.

I’d like to do a third, and then collect them all in another humongous, tabloid-sized 9”x13” format like my last Doris Danger book. That’s a format that a giant monster book deserves. I’m ecstatic to learn that Shag will be providing a giant monster cover, and Stan Lee will be providing a blurb.

I’ve also got an exorcism story for a Dr. DeBunko limited series, but I won’t do it unless there’s some interest with this current Dr. DeBunko issue. I’ve also started a religious story called “Limbo Café,” about an atheist who dies and finds himself in a Christian Fundamentalist afterlife. And lastly, I’d like to do a web comic with my Dick Hammer: Conservative Republican Private Investigator character, because that would be a lot cheaper than printing it, and if I just do a few panels a week and post them, it would feel like I’m being productive. There are always way too many projects in the works, and never enough time to get through them, so I just do my best to plug through it all, one at a time.

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You can check out Chris Wisnia's website at: http://www.tabloia.com/debunko1.shtml.

Dr. DeBunko: The Short Stories to ship this October.