Mark Mazz’s 12 Questions
with Edward R. Flynn...

1) What is your oldest memory of being inspired to create horror stories? Was it a movie, or an event in real life?
As a child growing upstate in the 60s in a pretty rural area, my first real experience with horror came from my hot-rod greaser uncle who had an illustrated book of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... and copy of Fantastic Giants #24 which featured the amazing work of Steve Ditko. The moment I saw these I was hooked on comics. I love that comicbook!

Also as a child I was reading at much older level. At seven or eight I was digging into the young reader stuff from my local library. Jules Verne, HG Wells, and my favorite the oversized Alfred Hitchcock Presents series of books: Stories to Read with Doors Locked, More Stories my Mother never told Me, etc. These books acted as a big pry bar to opening my mind to the love of horror and mystery.

I wonder if kids today read any of these things?

I think what further pushed me along into my love of horror was a Saturday morning television show that came out of Syracuse called the Monster Movie Matinee

It was hosted by a goofy sinister lab assistant named “Epal” and a mad scientist named Dr. E. Nick Witty , which all you ever saw of him was his hand. Very creepy.

They played all the great Universal Monster flicks plus all those wonderfully crappy American International movies about giant leeches, insects, colossal men and every other nuclear nightmare to jump off the screen.

I’ll never forget the cheesy opening of the show: The camera zooming into a fog covered, obviously badly made, model of a scary mansion on a hill near a graveyard while the music from This Island Earth played in the background. Classic TV at its best!

2) Are you classically trained? Did you go to art school?
I am trained as an Illustrator and graphic designer. I graduated in 1987 from SUNY Buffalo with a BS in Illustration. My specialty was editorial illustration with a heavy leaning in political satire. You know, something real marketable..

1987 was the first year that SUNY Buffalo also graduated anyone in that major, thanks to a wonderful woman named Kathy Howell, who was able to talk UB’s stodgy Art Department heads into creating the department.

Kathy was and still is a great children’s book illustrator, and although I spent a fair part of my college education screwing off and getting drunk, she actually did make a great impression on me by helping to push me to improve my skills and get the background one needs to be an illustrator. She worked really hard to make sure that not only could her students draw adequately but also possess the conceptual abilities necessary for illustration.

She also made sure that we got real world experience by bringing in well known illustrators of the day for talks and workshops: Matt Mahurin, Brad Holland, Alan E. Cober, Marshall Arisman, etc.

Although this training really isn’t in the field of cartooning and comics, I still felt that it strengthened my talents.

3) Whose work do you draw upon for inspiration? Any artistic Influences?
As far as learning comic and cartooning, I would have to say that I have two main teachers: Warren Publications and Mad Magazine.

I would intensely study every issue of Mad, Eerie, Creepy and later on when Warren republished Will Eisner’s, The Spirit. You can learn a lot from the drawing styles of all those greats from Mad: Will Elder, Wally Wood, Mort Drucker, Don Martin and Sergio Aragonés. Study their drawings and their use of poses to enhance comic timing. I absorbed all of their work like a mad man. Then when I discovered Warren’s stuff...oh forget it...I was ga-ga over all those artists. Jim Warren published work that was so far superior to everything else. I mean how can you top Bernie Wrightson, Rich Corben, Jose Ortiz, and all those other great artists were in those pages?

How can you not want to be an artist after seeing work of such beauty and at the same time such horror?

Also let me mention Will Eisner. Those 35 year old, now tattered copies of The Spirit reprints from Warren are among my most cherished comicbooks. Eisner was the best and every-time I page through one of those books, I learn something new on how to present a story.

To any aspiring cartoonist out there I can only suggest that they must own, at any cost, Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art. It is an essential reference for good cartooning.

4) You were involved with the Pi comic written by Director, Darren Aronofsky. How did that come about?
Oddly enough from just surfing by craigslist.org and answering an ad posted by Darren seeking a “graphic novelist.” I was kind of bored and needed a good creative challenge.

At first I never thought these guys were going to go anywhere with the comicbook. But then Darren called me up from Sundance after Artisan bought the distribution rights to Pi, and he told me, “The book’s a go. Start drawing.”

Next thing you know, I told my boss I needed 1 month off to help my parents move (what a sap), and I spent a solid (and I mean solid 18 hours per day) 28 days making that scratch board comicbook.

BTW, I don’t think I’ll ever do that again. All that scratching almost killed me. The day after I delivered the art, I fell into a 4 day fit of exhaustion.

5) Are there any specific genres of Comics that you’re most inclined to explore?
I spent four years trying to launch an editorial political cartoon called Better Wear a Hat. That was fun and I almost got a paying gig at a major paper in Seattle, but ultimately it is exceedingly difficult to break into the political cartooning market in this country just due to the shitty way that all our newspapers are becoming monopolized or forced out of business due to dropping readership.

My experience with the Psychosis! book has renewed my love of horror comics. I am really looking forward to banging out more work for Mark Mazz. He lets me do whatever I want and just go right off the deep end. What more could you ask for.

Well, maybe some money... but hey, what’s a day job for?

6) You and Joe Mauceri started FEARSmag.com. How did that come about?
Darren Aronofsky introduced us after Joe interviewed Darren for World of Fandom Magazine. Joe seemed like a nice enough fellow, so we hit it off as friends.

7) What is your mission statement for FEARSmag.com?
Straight from our website....FEARSmag.com, which first appeared on the Internet in 1999, is dedicated to providing original editorial content and coverage of the vast spectrum of science fiction, fantasy, horror, the paranormal and the unknown, presented in the form of daily news, up-to-the-minute news, Fiction and Interviews, animation and traditional comic properties, and much, much, more.

FEARSmag.com is the destination URL for anything and everything science fiction, fantasy and horror on the web.

This open forum, within the context of a friendly and open environment, provides a perfect setting for a strong, loyal community where the genre aficionado can be challenged and the casual fan can be entertained and informed. Because its enormous popularity continues to accelerate, thanks to innovative design, superlative content, accessibility, and staff/fan personal interaction at numerous conventions, coupled with accolades from critics and users alike, the site continues to receive acclaim.

8) What are your top five favorite horror films from the past 10 years?
Hostel
Cabin Fever
Shaun of the Dead
From Dusk Til Dawn
Bubba Ho-Tep

9) If you were given a chance to direct a remake of any horror film, which film would you chose? And what elements draw you to that particular story?
I think I would take a shot at redoing Powell’s Peeping Tom just for kicks. As lurid and weird as it was I really think that I would approach it with more of a Ken Russell wildly over the top sexuality and mix it with Herschel Gordon Lewis’s (or Eli Roth’s) love of gore to see just how far one can take an NC -17 rating.

I think that’s what horror films of today are missing. More NC-17 ratings. Scare me and gross my ass out. Is that too much to ask?

10) You’re also known for your retouching skills in advertising work. Has that helped you in your career as a storyteller?
Working as a retoucher, art director and production artist in the advertising field for the last 20 years is the perfect place to perfect one’s story-telling skills. It’s all just one lie after another in that business.

11) The worlds of comics and online content are merging more by the day. What form do you feel the future of storytelling will take?
As animation programs and programs like Photoshop start to more easily incorporate into one another, plus with the increased speed and decreased cost of computers, creating animated short films becomes more available to artists. It makes the perfect conditions for comics to switch to just being an online mass media content. This is exacerbated as consumers get more access to a broadband connection.

However there are some HUGE downsides that I see in this transition.

First, as comic fanatics transition away from reading printed matter to just passively watching online content. While this does provide a way for artists to get their work to be seen by a wider audience and do an end run around the ridiculous monopoly that Diamond Distributors holds on the business, the collectability and value of an artist’s work becomes practically nil. Who the hell is going to be willing to bid on Ebay for a Flash or PDF file?

The only way that I can see out of this is that artists need to become their own marketer whereby on the Web site that provides the online cartoon there also has to be a way for the artists to sell related merchandise and also offer a print-on-demand version of the comicbook.

Secondly, this also translates into a cheapening appreciation for the years it takes to become a skilled and talented artist.

In as much as the computer has been a boon to artists as a valuable tool. It has also been much like the sword of Damocles, hanging over our heads and threatening to cut down on our uniqueness through the hegemony of flooding the field with “artists.” And it will only get worse as computer intelligence evolves.

Plus, I recently saw the next generation of screens merged with Wacom tablets that is being created at MIT and that really resembles something close to that nifty computer Tom Cruise was playing with in The Minority Report. As cool as it was, this tool showed me the future of our field in that anyone will soon have the ability to make pretty pictures.

Get ready for a world where everyone could be called an “artist.”

I saw a similar thing happen in the 80s with the boom of schools creating more BFA degrees (illustration, design, etc.) and graduating many more students than before.

Although survival of the fittest did thin the herd of too many artists for too few jobs, it still created a downward thrust in our earnings because it became a buyers’ market for the graphic arts.

So what does this all mean?

Bust your ass twice as hard, young man, if you want to succeed in this world.

I wish I had a nickel for every-time someone thought they solved the riddle to the diminishing comicbook market. But I tend to think that the key lies in learning to master great storytelling.

Because no matter how flooded the market is be it by print or on-line media, it will be the consumer that solves the riddle because they will be the ones who seek out great stories. And even though it will soon be a time when almost anybody can create cartoons and comics, very few of them will be able to present a great story effectively.

Like my Grandpappy used to say “Anybody can dig a ditch. But the fellow that knows where the ditch is to go, is the one who makes the money.”

12) Any aspirations for the film industry, or massive online RPGs? Where do you see your future as a storyteller in 5 years?
Films? RPGs? Eek! I think from my dealings with FEARSmag.com has given me enough of a taste of the film industry. No thanks. Unless of course DreamWorks knocks on my door to hand me millions for some goofy story I wrote or drew.

As for my future in storytelling...I’ll keep making comics plus I work occasionally in advertising. ‘Nuff said.

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