Bosch Fawstin: He Has A Table Ready For You
Less than 18 months since the debut of his original graphic novel entitled Table For One, Bosch Fawstin has already garnered two prestigious comic industry nominations, one for the 2004 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, and one for the 2005 Will Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition. In addition to these impressive nominations, Bosch’s work has received very positive reviews from several online comic news sites. Not content to rest on his laurels, Bosch is busy with the development of his next personal project The Infidel, as well as committing himself to the pursuit of his lifelong dream of becoming a full-time professional comic book artist. I had the privilege of tearing Bosch away from his busy schedule to conduct the following interview:
Mike Thompson: Let’s start at the beginning, Bosch. Were you into reading and collecting comics as a young boy? If so, what were some of your personal favorites?
Bosch Fawstin: My first exposure to comic books was superhero comics that my oldest brother brought home when I was six or seven years old. After that, the only comics I really picked up a few years later were Star Wars comics by Marvel. It wasn’t until I was twelve or thirteen years old that I became passionate about comics after my brother brought home Secret Wars #1. From thereon, my brother didn’t have to encourage me anymore. To a thirteen year old, Secret Wars was the best comic book imaginable. I then picked up issue #253 of The Amazing Spider-Man, the second appearance of Spider-Man’s black costume, drawn by Rick Leonardi who did a damn good job on it. Jim Shooter no doubt intended kids to try out comics that starred the characters he used in Secret Wars and it definitely worked on me. I picked up the Fantastic Four by John Byrne, Uncanny X-men by Claremont and Romita Jr. and so on. Spider-Man was a favorite of mine, picking up all of his ongoing present day titles of that time, along with my first exposure to Ditko’s Spider-Man, which was being reprinted in Marvel Tales. To my not yet developed artistic vision, I thought Ditko’s work looked strange and funny back then, especially compared to Romita Sr’s and Jr’s versions of Spider-Man, but over the years I’ve learned to appreciate those issues more than any other Spider-Man run, and Ditko’s quirky, organic and kinetic Spider-Man defines the character for me. Within a few years, I got into DC comics when Miller did Dark Knight and Byrne did Superman. The Dark Knight Returns was the best thing I ever read up until that point and it’s still one of my favorite comics of all time. It was a great time for comics and I was there when it was all happening. The highlights for me were Frank Miller’s return to Daredevil with what has come to be known as Born Again and all of his Batman work of that period. I was never into the independent comic scene back then, I picked up a comic here and there when it attracted me, but in general, there was nothing out there that interested me when I was younger. Today, I read a wide variety of comics and graphic novels, mainstream and not, mainly following creators and trying out books that look interesting.
Thompson: When did you make the decision to seriously pursue a career making comics? The events of September 11th are an obvious backdrop to Table For One. Did this tragic event in any way help to cement your decision?
Fawstin: I made the conscious decision to work in comics about a decade ago. I was working as a waiter and I knew I wasn’t good enough to produce professional work, even though I’d continued drawing since elementary school and I’d written story ideas and such. So I took night classes at SVA (the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan) for a number of years and honed my skills to the levels that I believed were good enough to illustrate a story I had in mind. I studied a lot at home, writing/drawing, reading books on writing/drawing and taking Robert McKee’s Story seminar a few times over the years. 9/11 is a day that is very much alive within me and it’s a day whose meaning has dictated the subject of my next book and will no doubt, in some way, influence my future work. My next work will be an attempt to bring the whole war down to the context of two brothers in a kind of terrorism one on one. I always wanted to write and draw heroic fiction and 9/11 and the many lessons from it definitely helped cement my decision even more profoundly.
Thompson: Tell me about Table For One. With so many superhero and science fiction comics on the market, why did you choose to set your debut work in a restaurant?
Fawstin: ‘Write what you know’ was a start. It was important for me to begin my career by placing my hero in a world that was real to me and the fact that the setting was something unique to comics was a plus. The restaurant is a world I’ve been intimate with for over 15 years of working in it. I started to see the restaurant as its own world, its own society filled with all different types of people that would be ripe for conflict. I’ve placed a no nonsense moral character among the corrupt and the foolish and let the sparks fly. I’ve started using the line ‘Dirty Harry as a waiter’ at conventions to describe my book and it goes over pretty well, most people getting a feel for the story from that short description. But for fuller clarity of the character, I’ll add here: ‘Dirty Harry as a writer who’s moonlighting as a waiter’.
Thompson: Describe the process you followed in bringing Table For One to fruition.
Fawstin: After I felt I was good enough to objectify this story in comic book form I basically wrote out a full script with dialogue, rewriting it to the point that I was happy with it. I then made thumbnail breakdowns on index cards until I felt I had a good idea where I was going with them. Then I began to work out the thumbnails on 11 x 17 newsprint. I worked over them with tracing paper and it would take between 3 to 10 different designs (or more, if necessary) until I got to the point where I knew ‘This is the One’. I would then refine the compositions and make full drawings, always shooting for clarity. When I was finally at peace with a particular page, I would transfer it onto Bristol board with a light box using only a very direct simple line with a #2H pencil, with no shading or under drawing since it was all done in the previous stage. It was Frank Miller who mentioned the bulk of this process in an interview that struck a chord with me as it worked out perfectly. Doing all of the thinking, designing, and drawing before having it on the actual Bristol board keeps me really loose in the construction of the page and allows me the freedom to drastically change things before I get to the final page. The one thing this process does for me is that it keeps the final page very fresh and free from the wearing down it would get with erasing, making the page very inviting for the ink work. After I penciled the whole book, page by page, I began the lettering. Now, here’s some advice to someone who may be lettering for the first time. I began lettering directly on the page, thinking that my hand lettering was good enough. It wasn’t. I was so disappointed with my lettering that I had to throw out the page and spend days writing out every letter of the alphabet dozens and dozens of times until I was happy with the results. I loved the organic feel of lettering on the final artwork, but I’ll definitely try lettering through the computer one day just to see how that goes for me. Anyway, then I began lettering and found that I wanted to rewrite dialogue pretty extensively throughout the book, so I did that which worked out really well, since I liked the final wording of the story far more than in my full script. I then inked the book page by page, mainly with a brush besides using a pen for straight lines and borders. Finally I added the gray wash where I had six different dilutions of grays to work from. Then after I had someone scan the pages, I cleaned them up in Photoshop, changing some faces here and there, and perfecting things until I was happy with how they looked and my book was done, which felt great.
Thompson: You have received praise from some very big name comic creators, haven’t you? Would you care to name names? How did you get such luminaries to notice Table For One?
Fawstin: I was very fortunate to have a few noteworthy comic book professionals who liked my book and who allowed me to use their quotes for it. Alex Toth is the finest illustrator to ever work in comics. I say that as a fact, and I’ll argue with anyone over it. I got his address after a few attempts and sent him a Xerox copy of my book to get his thoughts and feelings on it. Within a week I received one of his famous handwritten postcards where he praised my book and talents. I was so overwhelmed; I got tear-eyed reading his praise for my work. It was definitely a surreal moment. People always ask me ‘How did you get Toth to give you that quote?’ My pat answer is ‘I simply sent him a copy of my book’, a black & white Xerox one to boot. Toth has a reputation as a curmudgeon but I wouldn’t think that from my experience with him. He’s as direct as his art, and I can’t say enough about what an influence he’s been on my work. Denis Kitchen also liked my book enough to attempt finding a publisher for it through his artist agency. There was interest for it, but ultimately no one was willing to back it with a deal. There’ve been other pros that liked my book, and I found out about that at the few convention appearances I’ve made in the last year. Some already got the book and said nice things about it, and some bought it directly from me after hearing about it. Most of them mention that they like my book and keep it at that, so I don’t want to name any of those names.
Thompson: Who or what inspires you creatively?
Fawstin: Great work of any kind, especially in art. Seeing or experiencing a work of art that makes me think as well as feel. I find inspiration in a work of art that hits a nerve, which resonates within me and fuels my own creativity. It mainly comes from other cartoonists whom I admire since nothing in any other field of art has affected me as much as comics has.
Thompson: One of the things I’ve been so impressed with is your ability to consistently capture the personalities and physical traits of your characters in Table For One, as well as your uncanny ability to change your style to fit the various personalities that populate your book. As an artist myself, I know how difficult it is to develop even one consistent style. You manage several in the span of 88 pages. Was this a conscious decision on your part to vary your style in this manner? How did you prepare yourself to achieve this so effectively?
Fawstin: I made a conscious decision to make each character live in his own skin, to embody a physicality that had direct congruence with his or her relationship to reality and to their morality, or lack thereof. It was important that once I established the characters that they remain consistently drawn throughout. It’s important to me for many reasons, one being that I used to resent the hell out of comic artists who used to draw characters differently from panel to panel, knocking me off the story when I noticed this.
Thompson: You are very busy on your next big project, The Infidel. Without giving too much away, can you tell me a little bit about it?
Fawstin: The Infidel is a story that deals with jihad terrorism in an up close and personal way. It’s about a counter jihadist cartoonist whose work gets on the radar of the enemy. It’s also about how ideology can trump all other values in certain individuals, no matter their prior predisposition in life. It revolves around two estranged American born brothers with a Muslim background who will come face to face in this post 9/11 world.
Thompson: We have had many personal conversations about your goals and aspirations in this business. Do you have any aspirations to work for the major companies on some of their more iconic characters? What characters appeal most to you?
Fawstin: I love good comics, no matter the genre. And I love good Superhero comics and one of my goals is to produce some one day. I will show a little of what I can do in that genre in The Infidel since the main character of my story is a cartoonist who writes and draws a character called PigMan and one of his stories is titled Super Jihad. It will essentially be a comic book within a graphic novel at times. But I would love to write and draw stories about the characters that I loved as a kid. When the time comes I would love to do one shots of Daredevil, Spider-Man, Superman and Batman. There are others, but those are the ones I will have to do before my career is over. I believe I’m custom made to work on The Question. I would also love to write a story about the Hulk. There was something about the way Kirby drew him, especially in the middle issues of his first six-issue run that is so appealing to me. And Stan Lee wrote him as a clever thug, which is the version I would want to do. He was ugly and he wasn’t built like a body builder. He had a thick gut and a hairy chest and he always looked nasty and pissed off. Iron Man is a character who I think has great potential because of the self-made hero aspect. Here’s a character that created his super suit and does good because he wants to, not because of any dark obsession or feelings of guilt or negative motivation of any sort. I find that aspect of the character very strong and very in line with the heroes of Ayn Rand.
Thompson: Are there any creators with whom you would like to collaborate?
Fawstin: I think I work best alone, especially since I have very particular ideas about what kind of stories I want to tell and what kind of final look I want with my art. I 'm not sure if I’m built for collaborative work, but a part of me would be curious to find out. If the opportunity presents itself with a creator I admire, I may have to seriously consider it.
Thompson: Shortly after the results of last year’s Manning Award were known, the late Will Eisner approached you. Would you care to describe the conversation you had with him?
Fawstin: I actually approached Will Eisner as he briskly walked through the Comicon floor. I stopped him for a moment just to introduce myself and he must have remembered me from the nomination or from an e-mail exchange I had with him. He placed his hand on my shoulder and told me that being nominated was what was important in as sincere a way as possible. It’s become a cliché, but it’s true, being nominated for the Russ Manning Award or for the Eisner Award is really its own reward, especially for a newcomer like me.
Thompson: How can people obtain a copy of Table For One, or for that matter, contact you?
Fawstin: Table For One is available at comic shops, which you can order through your local retailer since I’m distributed by Diamond, Cold Cut & FM International distributors. It’s also available through Amazon.com and even through paypal on my website at
BoschFawstin.com. I sell the book in person at conventions and will do so at SPX, the Small Press Expo, in Maryland this coming September. I will also have a prelude of The Infidel available. The Infidel will have a comic within a graphic novel and I will have a mini-comic available to show you why the main character has been targeted for his work. His superhero character is PigMan and you can guess where that goes.
Thompson: It’s been an honor conducting this interview with you, Bosch! I hope in some small way I’ve been able to help you gain the attention you and your work so rightly deserve!
Fawstin: Mike, I want to thank you for setting up this interview. And to all those pros out there, having a guy like Mike in my corner has been one of the great, unforeseen benefits of becoming a professional cartoonist.
