This calendar week , Dark Horse Comics will give up the first issue ofFight Club 2 , a 10 - publication mirthful Scripture sequel to the 1996 novel ( which was made into the hit 1999 film ) . The comic is written by the novel ’s author , Chuck Palahniuk . Palahniuk is writing in this culture medium for the first fourth dimension , but he ’s working with some of the most acclaimed collaborator in the patronage .
To dissect a three - page scene from the first issue ofFight Club 2(pages 13 - 15 ) , I spoke with Palahniuk , artist Cameron Stewart , masking artist David Mack , colorist Dave Stewart , letterer Nate Piekos , and editor in chief Scott Allie . Dark Horse Comics has been generous enough to allow us with the full pages from this fit so that you could read along with the commentary .
In general , how did the team pass along with each other during the fashioning of this Holy Scripture ?
Scott Allie ( editor):Well , sure enough the most singular affair with the process of this book was that the whole interior team commence together in Portland to spill about what we wanted to do , and brainstorm some storytelling ideas .
Chuck Palahniuk ( writer):We had meetings twice a workweek all summer to come up with dissimilar concepts . Like the thought for naturalistic object to overlie and apart thing on the pageboy , thing that would be coherent through all the issue .
Nate Piekos ( letterer):It ’s more of a squad standard pressure than most projects where you usuallyonlydeal with the editor . Scott fostered the team - feel glide path with us on theUmbrella Academycomics , and it really is the best agency for everyone to get activated and give 110 % .
Cameron Stewart ( artist):Now that the book is afoot , I in general send Scott the art , who passes it along to Chuck for approving . Occasionally they have notes on the artistic production but for the most part I ’m left to my own devices .
Piekos : The team does a lot of e-mail with everyone CC’d .
The prime petals we see on the first Sir Frederick Handley Page of this aspect with Marla in the kitchen is an interesting twist that is used ( with different target ) throughout this issue . How did this idea get about ?
Cameron Stewart : That was Chuck ’s thought — from a very early level he said that he was interested in the idea of " occlusion"—of designedly bedim data from the reader so as to " visually annoy " them . The tablet and rose petals were compose into the handwriting from the very first draught .
Chuck Palahniuk : I really admired the way David Fincher mess up with the conventions of moving picture in theFight Clubmovie . He did n’t attempt to hide the fact that you were look out a pic . The role player break the 4th wall . He had the motion picture rattle in the coop , he had it burn , he had splices . He really babble out about the mechanics of film within the motion-picture show which I opine kind of lends it an even greater realism because it ’s not a story trying to pretend it ’s the truth and it somehow becomes even more honest because of that .
So I want to seek to describe unlike aspects of comic that we could mess up with . And one was using these realistic objects that would befog and negate captions and dialogue . And also obscure and negate face so it would mean that someone was hiding or lie in that moment . And we ’re going to be doing additional things like messing with the registry and the gloss as if the printing mental process was screwed up so as to imply that these are bad effect . We just found as many aspects of the mechanical process as we could mess with to mimic the way that David Fincher mess with the movie .
Scott Allie : Chuck had the estimation that we would cover things that you would usually never cover , that traditional storytelling would require you to show clear . We ’ve acquit this idea through in a slew of ways , like the issuing # 2 cover by Francesco Francavilla , where the logo covers the champion ’s face .
How are the overlaying aim create ? At what point in the production process are they added ?
Cameron Stewart : I drew them in black and white , on an overlay . I needed to be able to set the size and placement so that I could compile the entire varlet .
Dave Stewart(colorist ): During the coloring process , I layer the objects so that I can sum up shadows on the background signal so it seem like the target is resting on the paper . The strain is hidden in the semblance adding to a more naturalistic flavor . Then the phantom is added to make it find like it ’s rest on the Scripture .
Cameron Stewart : Dave rendered them in a far more " realistic " style , complete with shadower cast on to the page , in contrast to the simple , 2-dimensional , more " funny leger " style coloring on the rest of the page .
Nate Piekos : Cameron drew the page without the mist element ( flower petal , pills … ) and when I letter those pages , I drew indications for the good positioning over the lettering . Dave Stewart did an astonishing job rendering those objects and placing them .
Scott Allie : The mortal who does n’t get enough credit is Christianne Goudreau . She works in our in - sign of the zodiac output section , and she does the last meeting place of everything . Nate give us pristine inscription single file , then Christianne actually assembles that over the stemma artistry . We go through a round of fine - tuning , include moving the rose petals now that we can see exactly how the lettering kingdom in relation to the prowess . Then she gives the inscription files to Dave .
loosely Dave colour in a book at the same fourth dimension the lettering is getting done , but he holds onto it until Christianne can give him the lettering . That ’s particularly important here . Dave had to have the inscription to finalize the coloring . Not only do the roseate petals cover some balloons , but they have shake off shadows that hit the balloon . All of that required a pile of all right - tuning . And I think we were all a lilliputian surprised at how beautifully Dave rendered the rose petal . Dave really rap that out of the Mungo Park . Those are just normal inked drawings of petal drawn by Cameron , but Dave colored the hell out of them . When Dave ’s done , he turns it back in to Christianne , and then we have one more one shot of fine - tuning with her before it ’s all done .
We actually first see this same motif of the naturalistic object on the book ’s cover . How were those created ?
David Mack ( cover artist):I put actual band - aids on the painting . I felt like it merge the two unlike readiness of eyes into one facial personal identity even though they represent two different consciousnesses . The middle open up / eyes closed imagination was intend to convey the two personality . The Tyler eyes open up inside his headspring when his eye close . And with the bruises , cuts , band - financial aid , and scar , I felt like it state " Fight Club " and “ Tyler " with an economic system of entropy . I desire the imagery to bypass the normal thinking process and download in your head instantly .
Chuck Palahniuk : David is so good at depicting the subconscious mind so I just let him go on this .
David Mack : Scott and Chuck would sometimes have short letter and suggestions . Often they would give the notes on the sketch and then I ’d tweak or add something for the ruined painting . Sometimes they may have a note of hand on the painting , and I ’d add a pinch to that . I believe the evolutions of the covers were always for the better .
I often used mixed sensitive and three dimensional object and montage in my work , so it integrated well for contrast with the house painting . And in the vitrine of number # 3 , Scott and Chuck asked for an actual grenade personal identification number to overlap the cover image .
I want to verbalize about the qualification of this special scene because there ’s such a great regular recurrence throughout it . As we see Sebastian mowing the lawn , there is a palpable buildup of stress across these two pages . Can you babble out about how you all worked to help orchestrate that tempo ?
Chuck Palahniuk : Writing for this was more like writing a screenplay or even a storyboard for a screenplay . I ’d have to define and pace the number of gore I could gift . And then being presented with the construct of the Sir Frederick Handley Page turn break which wasfantasticallyfrustrating at first . Trying to pace everything so that there was a setup just before the page turn . Cameron was much good at combining jury so that the page turns would cultivate better . I just did n’t have a very good grasp of it at least for the first yoke of military issue . In that way , he really did keep open me .
Scott Allie : We all pass along very directly on things , but it ’s still my job to make certain the communication works . That everyone has what they require . So with pages 13 and 15 , for instance , the pages with the petals and the barking , the book say what Chuck wanted there . Then Cameron ’s initial layouts picture how it would fundamentally mold , which Chuck and I signed off on .
Cameron Stewart : Since it ’s quite a workaday scope , partly to keep it interesting for myself to absorb , I felt like I wanted to assay to make the page very slow and rhythmical . To produce the tension of the conniption . pageboy 14 utilise an eight - gore power system , but with two tiers of four thin vertical panels , which is an improper layout . I used the first tier to show a still sentiment of the garden with Sebastian moving back and forth across it , to advise the monotony of the mowing — and , on a greater grade , his current domesticated lifespan . As his anger and thwarting at the neighbour grows , I increased the density of the panels on page 15 , apply a very tight 15 - instrument panel grid to suggest an almost claustrophobic feel , like his world is suffocating him and he ’s ready to burst forth out of it . Scott was a small terrified at this layout as I recall he thought it was * too * dim but I matte up like it carry a much greater visual effect than to separate it over another Sir Frederick Handley Page .
Chuck Palahniuk : I dictated that the caption would be a little windy and I want the dog bark to obscure those words so that it would n’t seem overly verbose . That was a big thing that I wanted , this constant static of barking throughout the whole thing . And I want this repeating of the lawn mower going in one direction and then another direction to imply the tedium of our spirit . That most of our lives dwell of the same tasks done over and over until we die so I wanted that sense of futility .
And the coloring is so designedly bland here . If I was unintelligent about illustration I was even more stupid about coloring . Dave [ Stewart ] come up with the musical theme of using these live color for all the really dynamic view . So if there were scenes with violence or sex , that ’s where all the red and yellows would show up .
Dave Stewart : The dog ’s unremitting barking is colored in orangeness and orange - Bolshevik to get out a lot of attention . It kind of screams over everything that is happening in that prospect , and is hopefully kind of irritating in how much attention those people of colour want . Then Sebastian explodes and his background knowledge goes blistering yellowish contrasting the browns of the scenery . His selection in the last three jury to not take his medication and alternatively struggle is indicated in the backgrounds that go from the chocolate-brown gullible sess colouring material to a hot Orange River signaling ferocity of his intentions .
Scott Allie : At one point we were going to vary the wakeless effects , different lyric for barking , but sticking with the same word feel clean , more reliable to the intent .
Nate Piekos : Chuck ’s handwriting stated that the barking should be visually annoying . It should kind of get on your nerves and become consuming . At times , it would vie with the dialogue for your attention . So I just went nuts with it . start slow at first and building as Sebastian ’s tension was work up through the scene . We ’re doing some fun graphic design in this book of account with lettering and elements " overlapping " art , so I did some of that with the barking as well .
Scott did what we call " placements , " where the editor in chief indicates where thing might match and flow correctly . I think Cameron had some input signal on that scene as well . Sometimes he ’ll send along a sketch of where he ideate the sound effects might go when we have a wily page . at last , it was left up to me to make it crop excogitation - saucy and for readability .
Chuck Palahniuk : It ’s heavy to do a scenery about tedium and foiling and still keep it interesting . That ’s why I like using the barking so often because it create a tension in a tantrum that might otherwise seem tedious . The bark adds that extra thing that break things up .
Again , like with the rose petals , the ocular profound effect of the barking obscures some of Sebastian ’s dialog . Did this go against your professional instincts to overcompensate up so much of the literal nontextual matter and duologue ?
Cameron Stewart : No , I was concerned in experimenting with it as a way of score the book visually distinct — I’ve also trifle with overlapping panel and seeing how far I can obscure an image while still allow the necessary information to be interpret .
Nate Piekos : A comic letterer ’s # 1 duty is to make trusted the reviewer is n’t confused . The centre follows a certain path and rhythm method of birth control , and if the lettering is off , then the lector is brought out of the reading experience — when Chuck ’s book designate these overlapping design elements , I was kind of worried that we ’d be walking a tightrope with that . We’dintentionallybe obscure dialogue and art . I think we pulled it off nicely .
Chuck Palahniuk : It makes it seem a little less wanted . That you’re able to discombobulate aside word of honor and they are n’t important . That you could cast away faces . There ’s studies that show that the mannequins that section stores use are much more compelling and draw your center more if they do n’t have a heading . We ’re compel to the uncompleted thing . The obscured thing is always much more piquant .
Scott Allie : When the occluding images are sound effects , it just means a bit more piece of work for Nate . But when they need to be drawn , it makes it more complicated for everyone , requiring Cameron to draw the ingredient on a layer , knowing that they ’ll be moved around , knowing that he has slightly less dominance than he normally does over the pageboy . It complicate thing for Nate in that he needs to imagine not just about what art he ’ll be spread over up , what ’s under his inscription , but also what art will be enshroud his letter , what will go over his inscription . That actually requires a lot of extra consideration .
Amongst everything else going on there are a pile of cutaway model panels to Sebastian ’s Word ’s sleeping accommodation in this scene too .
Chuck Palahniuk : We see Junior with his chemical science set and strew on the base is the Holy Bible which is n’t really introduced until maybe the 4th proceeds but Cameron mystify it in here really early . Also next to that is a Tyler Durden action anatomy with a gun . And that ’s something that designate up much later in a video game but it was just a really saucy way for Cameron to introduce these thing . And in a way it ’s like how David Fincher got Brad Pitt into the movie early by splicing him in and sticking him on televisions in the early scenes so that there was kind of a hint of Pitt before his theatrical role really step in .
Cameron Stewart : The Bible see on the floor of Junior ’s way was in Chuck ’s script , one in a series of scriptural computer address foreshadowing a great tragedy . It was my idea to admit the Rize or Die Tyler action at law figure on the trading floor — a forerunner to Sebastian ’s vision of Tyler in the video game and the mesmerism that there is a nexus between Fatherhood and son and Tyler .
Chuck Palahniuk : Cameron does n’t waste anything so everything is just a grand chance for a frame-up that we ’ll pay off off later . I think once people see the nontextual matter in the book and the cornucopia in which thing are describe multiple times they ’ll be so impressed . Things are n’t just describe once and never see again . There ’s a consistent grain of the same things which is kind of what the minimalist style of writing is all about , repeating the same affair but in unlike way of life .
After all the buildup of the dog barking , the dog dirt and Sebastian ’s simmer aggression towards his neighbour , this scene ends in the top panel of the follow page with the quiet , wordless image of Sebastian and family eating dinner in silence with Sebastian frolic a common mackerel .
Chuck Palahniuk : The non - verbal payoffs and simple gestures are always more powerful . And that ’s another place where Cameron know far more gesture and he put things across in a much more subtle way than I could prescribe them .
Cameron Stewart : After the denseness of the previous page , ending on Sebastian ’s sinister , unrelenting face as he makes his grave menace against the neighbour , it made sense to let out out again to show a scene of slow domesticity . We can breathe again , and laugh at Sebastian ’s unsuccessful person ( or is it ? ) .
Chuck Palahniuk : There ’s something about this form that seemed born for me . I always disliked using a lot of dialog and I like to play down dialogue by not using a lot of citation Saint Mark around it so that you ’re not confronted by this Sir Frederick Handley Page that look like a screenplay which is quote after inverted comma . So that dislike of duologue already set me up to write in this visual way .
I love using some sort of unpaired non - sequiter and then not using it for a while . For instance , the babysitter observe this shoebox full of blackguard shit and there ’s a computer address to junior using potassium nitrate in the erstwhile fashioned way where you ’d sublimate diddly with urine and scrape the crystals off . It ’s such a ruby signal flag but it ’s not direct . And then later we come upon domestic dog shit on the lawn and a kid with a chemistry hardening . Then we get the rhythm - up at the dinner table fit with no explanation and we thrust the reviewer to await until almost the end of the issuance before you find oneself out what in reality happened at that competitiveness and why this scene is so quiet and subdue . I care setting something up and then hold off as long as possible before explaining .
- Fight Club 2 # 1 is available in comic stores now .
