(interview conducted for the www.mk1comics.co.nz website)

M: Have you always been a ‘comic book guy’? How did you get into them?

R- My Dad bought me a subscription to Amazing Spiderman when I was a young boy. It came once a month, rolled up in my mailbox at the end of our long driveway in the country. I had to walk a long ways to grab the mail if I *thought* it was time to get it. Sometimes it wouldn’t arrive and I’d be really upset. That’s definitely how it started.

M: What comics are you reading and enjoying at the moment?

R- There was recently a sale on the original Sandman series. I started reading that since it was a book that had always intrigued me. It’s a great story. The most recent comic that blew my mind was an short webcomic called ‘Haunter’ by Sam Alden.

M: Who are your writing and drawing influences?

R- As a beginning writer of comics I was inspired by the work of Kazu Kibuishi, Michel Gagne, Mike Kunkel, and many others.

M: How would you describe Rust to someone who has never read it?

R- Rust is different. It doesn’t fit into the mainstream method of visual storytelling. It’s not for everyone but it’s a story that I care about very much. It’s about farm life, it’s about family, it’s about war, and it’s about robots. I’d likely describe it a little better than that but that’s my description today. 🙂

M: I’m always interested in how story ideas develop. What was the genesis of Rust? Has it stayed pretty true to your original conception or has it changed/grown over time?

R- It’s stayed pretty true, but at the same time it’s really evolved. It’s still the story I’ve always been telling but it’s become so much more too.

M: I’m also very interested in how autobiographical influences find their way into fantastical stories. According to your bio you grew up on a farm – Rust is set on a farm and Roman’s key driver seems to be to find a way to get away from it… anything there?

R-Absolutely. I was pretty young when we left the farm but I have some memories from it like a faint dream. I remember the feeling of being on a huge piece of land, but so far away from other people. ‘Neighbors’ were miles apart. Even walking from the barn to the house seemed to take forever. I never had feelings of wanting to get away from it, I was too young.

M: What were some of your influences in developing the setting? The easy association is to go, “dude with jetpack + robots + rural/post war setting = rocketeer and/or Iron Giant”… were those influences or did those elements come from somewhere else?

R– I honestly wasn’t inspired by any property in particular. I was definitely a fan of Iron Giant and Rockateer but I didn’t go into this property saying ‘I want to make a story like that’. Rust started with a few sketches of Jet Jones flying around. A friend said ‘Wow what’s this story?’. I said I didn’t have one and he said ‘You should’. That’s how it started.

 

M: Is there any story that cannot be made cooler by adding robots and jetpacks?

R- I think Bambi might have been silly if it had robots and Jet packs.

M: If you could code your own robot, what would you programme it to do?

R- My wife and I just had our first baby, so naturally; diapers.

M: In Rust you seem to be juxtaposing Roman and Jet’s respective relationships with their Fathers… Roman just wants his Dad back, Jet is running from his…how important are those relationships (and the differences between them) to where the story is headed?

R- It’s what the story is about, for sure. Hm. Not sure how to answer that without spoilers. Yes it’s important now in the book, it will be in the end. It’s a very important theme to me.

M: How tightly plotted is Rust – do you know exactly where things are going or are things evolving as you write/draw each volume?

R- Small things evolve and methods of telling the story evolve, but the story itself is set. It wasn’t always but it is now.

M: How many volumes do you think the story will take to complete?

R- Rust will be a four volume series.

M: What’s your process as far as writing and drawing go? Do you script it out in full first, or thumbnail the art and add the words in later?

R- The answer is Yes! 🙂 In dialogue heavy scenes I script and then thumbnail. In action heavy scenes I simply start thumbnailing. I do a bit of everything but everything starts with a thumbnail.

M: How well do Royden the writer and Royden the artist get on? Does the artist side of you determine the direction of the story based on what’s fun to draw – or as a writer do you have to you force yourself to draw things that aren’t ‘fun’ but necessary to get the story where it needs to go?

 

R- Great question. Royden the artist is the boss. Royden the artist shows Royden the writer a nice picture and makes him write a story that applies. Art work is such a big part of the process of comics that it *has* to be fun to draw. If it’s not fun to draw it’s not going to get done. Sure there are essential scenes that are less fun then others. But honestly I get a lot of enjoyment out some of the quietest, slowest scenes as well as the action.

 

M: Your action scenes are really cinematic – how much of that would you attribute to your background in animation?

R- All of it. 🙂 Deep down I just want to be a director.

M: Speaking of things ‘cinematic’ (see what I did there?)You’ve sold the rights to develop Rust as a live action film – how is that progressing? How involved are you in the development?

R- I am involved. It’s progressing great. Fox is a huge fan of the book, we have an amazing team of people that have come together, they want to see this story on the big screen in a big way and for that I am incredibly thankful and excited.

M: You are involved in computer game design, writing and drawing kids books, and comics – which medium do you find most fulfilling? (Or do they all have their own particular pay offs?).

R- Comics are the most fun. [Creating] video games is fun but it’s a huge group effort, with many outside influences. I get to do comics by myself, for myself.

M: Imagine that the Rust movie goes off like a…um…rocket, the books become bestsellers and you had the time/financial security/profile to work on any project you wanted – what would it be?

R- I would simply say; My next story. I have more stories to tell. Some in the Rust world, some not. If I had pure independence I’d tell them all.

M: Are those stories in other genres? Some of the art on your website has a definite fantasy (as opposed to the, I guess, Sci-fi flavour of Rust)…is that a genre that you’d like to explore as well? Are there others?

 

R- I’m not sure what genre those other stories are, they haven’t taken definite form. I really like robots. I like ’em a lot, so most of my stories will likely be science fiction.