Vera Brosgol’s enormously successful Return to Sender has taken the webcomics world by storm in less than three months, surprising everyone with its deft approach to humor, gentle insight, and glorious, multipage battle scenes. Perhaps most surprising about this potent creation is the auteur’s age–at 17, she’s both a prodigy and a fresh-faced newcomer to the world of sequential art. We’re grateful that she took the time to conduct this
interview with us via email.
MHA: Thanks for “sitting down” virtually with us today, Ms. Brosgol. If you don’t mind, we’d like to start right in with a few high-buzz rumors. Everyone’s been dancing around this on the grapevine circuit, but I think it’s time to ask it straight out: is it true that Return to Sender has been optioned by Dreamworks?
VB: Not really, no. Who told you that? I mean, they could if they wanted, I guess. They could cg up the monsters, the kids obviously respond to that.
MHA: Then the option did, in fact, go to Fox Searchlight.
VB: They can have it too if they want. Seriously, someone should call me, I’m a whore for money.
MHA: Keeping your cards close–that’s understandable. We won’t press any further; instead, let’s talk about the Dark Horse hardcover. Now, you’ve stated that it will be released in “manga format;” did you mean that it will simply be taller than a typical trade book, or will it in fact read right-to-left with subtitles?
VB: Well, first of all manga-format isn’t any taller than anything else, I don’t think. It may in fact be shorter. I don’t have any manga anymore so I can’t check. Second, not only is the story unfinished and un-optioned, but it is also unpublished. This Dark Horse business, I don’t know where that’s coming from. Do I have some kind of over-enthusiastic unpaid publicist somewhere giving out all this information?
MHA: Would that we all did! I don’t suppose it’s even worth asking about the confirmed Return to Sender 2001 soundtrack? Its CDDB entry currently lists such artists as John Wolfington and Two Dollar Guitar.
VB: No. It’s not worth asking about.
MHA: Let’s move on. Everybody’s talking about sustainability models for webcomics these days, but they’re also saying it may end up as a battle of the fittest. Your own preference for the reliable Paypal donation-button aside, which do you think is the most likely to fail: subscription syndicates, “McCloud-payments” or the original ad-and-merchandise method?
VB: I don’t… really… have a button… I guess it’s okay that people have buttons, there are overhead costs to running a website and no one’s twisting anyone’s arm to donate. It’s not a very reliable way to get money for comics, obviously. As for those other three, I think micropayments are rad but are less likely to support an artist entirely any time soon. The problem is that a lot of readers don’t have credit cards, and for the card-holding percentage that’s left you might as well try to get a decent chunk of money out of them through a tshirt or a subscription than a quarter. Merchandise is probably the best way to do things; people like both clothes and comics, they go well together.
MHA: People do like clothes and comics–and in fact, they like the Internet. Another thing that’s set the scene a-twitter is the use of Flash animation, both as content and site design. What do you think of animation as an online paradigm?
VB: I think it is A-okay. Animation and comics aren’t that far apart, storytelling is storytelling. Some folks like Andrew Bell are already doing a really good job Flashin’ things up. If people feel like doing it, there is certainly an audience for it, Homestar-style.
MHA: We agree completely. Now, the traditional bar for most Canadians who are “getting into” print or webcomics has been illiteracy. Do you believe voice-over animation is the solution to this problem, or do you endorse a brand of text-to-speech software?
VB: Heh. While comics are a swell intro to reading novels and things, I don’t the Canadians are any worse off than we are Stateside. I mean, they’ve got (up til just recently) a year more of secondary school than we do, if anything they get a little boost. That said, even the dumbest Canadian can find a comic out there just for them, using words they commonly see in their day to day lives, such as “stop”, “walk,” and “Tim Hortons.”
MHA: Ah, so you consider Horton’s work in the same category as monosyllabic words. Not a fan of the man’s latter-day films? Surely you can’t deny the influence that, for example, The Nightmare Before Christmas or the Stainboy cartoons must have had on RtS’s design.
VB: You mean Tim Burton? Sure I like Tim Burton. He is tiny gothic butterfly slowly dissolving in the acid of my heart. I ain’t denyin’ nothin’.
MHA: Finally, although we wouldn’t do this across territorial lines, we want to ask you a bit about yourself. Have you ever taken any art classes?
VB: Well, yeah. I’m in art school. They kinda made me. Territorial lines?
MHA: There are certain things that become… more serious when done between, for example, BC and Ontario, but that’s not the point. You’re saying your parents noticed your prowess and “made” you attend summer art classes?
VB: BC and Ontario are best friends, whatchoo talkin’ bout? And my mom is living vicariously through me to make up for the opportunities she botched, I wouldn’t dare take that away from her by pursuing something profitable.
MHA: Well, then, on the premise that they are “best friends,” and from a strictly professional standpoint: what are you wearing?
VB: A pair of pants. But they’re painted on.
MHA: That’s rather a saucy answer for anyone Canadian-born, much less a minor like yourself. Do you think the exposure to a largely US-based audience has given you such a brash approach to sexuality?
VB: Listen, lady. No one’s Canadian around here. If anyone’s Canadian it’s YOU.
MHA: Our guest has been Ms. Vera Brosgol.