Posted in: Comics | Tagged: amanda rachels, Comics, kevin laporte, kickstarter, Last Ride for Horsemen

The Southern-Fried Comics Recipe

Published Sat, 07 Sep 2013 17:00:43 -0500

by Rich Johnston

Last updated Sat, 07 Sep 2013 19:08:52 -0500

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By Kevin LaPorte

Write what you know.

Write for the masses.

Write what you'd want to read.

All sage tidbits of conflicting authorial direction, but which, if any or all, to actually employ when fingerpads meet touchpad?

I suppose each writer must, in practice, mix and match such maxims to meet his own goals and styles, but, for me, all three surface in my work on a gradient consistent with my enjoyment of both the act of writing and the final product. Yeah, what the hell does that mean?

It means that what I write is initially informed by my fund of knowledge and experience, slathered atop my thoroughly natured and nurtured personality. So, yes, I do inevitably write what I know. Even when I (often) research a topic to better approach it in a story, I then know it to some extent, and, so, again write something I know.

At the basic level of story composition, what I know (further research not withstanding) is the culture of the Southeastern United States. That means twangy dialects and unlikely idioms. That means settings lush with oak and pine and swamp and the decaying woodwork of man. That means a culture of hunting and fishing and engines. I know these things as the fabric of my upbringing, and they insert themselves into my stories in some fashion, subtle or obvious.

And, yes, I do write what I would want to read – stories that unearth the unlikely and improbable in human (or near-human) behavior. Just as I love the wanton havoc of Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, I write of rampaging killer clowns on a mission to salvage what remains of abused children in Clown Town and of a forlorn biker voodoo-cursed to eat only roadkill in Roadkill du Jour. Just as I am enthralled with the ruggedly surviving Fremen of Frank Herbert's Dune, I write of a dying cadre of frontiersmen faced with Steampunk incarnations of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Last Ride for Horsemen. Those themes of the unusual and the bizarre draw me to a story, and, naturally, they diffuse through the membrane of my consciousness and leak into the tales it concocts.

Writing for the masses admittedly slides lower on the aforementioned gradient of writers' advice in application, but, as someone who actually wants others to consume my work, it remains a critical ingredient in the overall literary formula. Certainly, that means limits to the extreme themes of human misbehavior and depictions of violence, but it also means couching those themes in a context that makes them interesting and even…palatable. Why should we tolerate the brutal-yet-whimsical attacks of the clowns of Clown Town, unless their motive is the salvation of victimized children? Why should we watch as a man feeds from a carcass on the road in Roadkill du Jour, unless he uses the power gained from that poor sustenance to pursue a cure to his affliction and to rebuild his family? Why, in Last Ride for Horsemen, should we care if the despicable greed of the town leaders is endangered by a monstrous Plowman portending the Apocalypse, unless these same powermongers suddenly become the only hope for the town's survival.

Give the readers a reason to appreciate and even enjoy these marginal themes and the role they play in the larger narrative. Avoid the boredom of the conventional and still tell great stories.

My most recent comic, Last Ride for Horsemen, is funding on Kickstarter NOW.