Up-and-coming comics talent Ian Shaughnessy
From V.T. Hamlin in the 1920s and Etta Hulme during the mid-century, through the Superman books of BenbrookÂ’s Kerry Gammill in times more recent, Tarrant County has long yielded a wealth of storytelling artistry to the comics industry at large.
An ambitious new representative of the local scene is graphic novelist Ian Shaughnessy of Arlington. Shaughnessy’s books for Oni Press — including an edgy comedy-of-errors called Shenanigans, with Canadian illustrator Mike Holmes — bespeak a childhood fascination with comics, filtered through a lifelong love of language
and an interest in taking the words-and-pictures medium to provocative literary levels.
“I find myself writing under the direct influence of Billy Wilder,” says Shaughnessy, invoking the name of a great screenwriter-director of Old Hollywood. “I discovered Wilder during the 1990s with The Apartment [1960] … and found myself very inspired — in a lasting way.
“With Shenanigans, I found myself attempting to honor the spirit of Billy Wilder — that mastery … of romantic tensions [and] humor … as a key influence.”
Any such talent needs a practical springboard. With V.T. Hamlin, creator of a famous comic strip called Alley Oop that has survived him by many years, the springboard was a cartooning job during the 1920s at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
For Etta Hulme, the Telegram’s signature opinion-page cartoonist since 1972, an early breakthrough lay in a post-World War II comic-book series about a cowboy critter named “Red” Rabbit. Graphic designer Kerry Gammill spent the 1980s and earlier ’90s as a principal illustrator with the kingpin comics-publishing houses of Marvel and DC, then moved into motion-picture conceptual art.
At 24, Shaughnessy traces his springboard to a school-days connection with Oni Press. Shaughnessy represents not only a new generation of niche-market comics talent, but also a fondness for mainstream comic-book influences — although he favors the independent-publishing arena.
“I grew up reading,” Shaughnessy recalls, “with strong encouragement from my parents — and I’ve always read comics … [although] the business of writing my own stuff has left me with little time to read the newer comics as extensively as I might like.”
His parents, real estate broker and educator Steve Shaughnessy and entrepreneurial businesswoman Kathy Shaugnessy, encouraged the interest early on with a trip in 1999 to an influential trade show, the Chicago Comics Convention. Shaughnessy found himself drawn to the Oni Press booth.
“They kind of took me under their wing, you might say, and by the time I had completed high school I was offered a summer internship at Oni Press in Portland, Ore.” says Shaughnessy. “One internship led to another, and although I knew that I wanted to write, more than to work as an editor, I enjoyed the experience a great deal — a real turning-point.
“I found a publisher that had dedicated itself to stories of a certain human dimension … and a publisher willing to provide not only a learning experience, but also a creative outlet.
“And that has been my real quote/unquote ‘formal education’ beyond high school,” he says, “although I won’t rule out the prospect of a college-degree plan. One of these days.”
A pivotal assignment involves a graphic-novel project called Strangetown, with the writer-artist Chynna Clugston.
“In all, just now,” says Shaughnessy, “I’ve got three graphic novels in preparation. Mike Holmes and I have tightened our collaborative skills to a
point where we can communicate instinctively, and that’s a good way to work together.”
Shaughnessy devotes about half his working time to the writing process, reserving the right to resort to pencil-and-paper notes to test the credibility of his charactersÂ’ dialogue. He envisions a generally young readership, given ShenanigansÂ’ array of college-age characters, but often finds himself surprised to find his audience leaning toward middle age.
“So who’s the audience, anyhow?” Shaughnessy asks rhetorically.
“People who can relate to committed storytelling.”
As to technique, he mentions: “A lot of people look at me kind of weird when I say I’ll test-write a dialogue sequence in pencil … If an exchange reads well in handwriting, then I’ll key it into the script.
“Sometimes,” he adds, “I’ll set aside a sequence and try not to think about it for a while — but of course then it’ll prey on my mind until I go back to try to get it right. Sometimes, a spontaneous rush of words will work as a finished product. But sometimes I’ll scrap it and start over.”
Shaughnessy devotes about half a work-day to the writing, setting no page-quota but pursuing a regimen of plotting and outlining that he considers necessary to the development of a finished script.
“The graphic novel, unlike the traditional comics magazine, gives you a good 100 pages and more to tell a story,” he explains. “With the graphic novel, you don’t have to worry about writing to fit into a fixed page-count, and your story can unfold more naturally — less episodically.”
The long-term project commitments anticipate ShaughnessyÂ’s objective of making comics a full-scale career. He and his father, since retired, also work with Kathy ShaughnessyÂ’s online shop, Bearfoot Gifts & Collectibles, which deals in the Madame Alexander line of dolls.
“The comics career is finding its way,” says Ian Shaughnessy. “I’m concentrating on the writing, on polishing the skills with dialogue and lifelike situations and character development, and not worrying about commercial prospects beyond the delivery of a book that’s worth publishing.
“A lot of comics nowadays, especially with the current rush of movie-studio interest [since 2002’s Spider-Man] in comic-book properties, read as though they were written as movie pitches more so than self-contained stories. The bigger comics conventions, too, like San Diego’s, seem to have become less about a love of comics than about movie-studio hype...
“I’m in it for the love of comics — that’s the basis,” says Shaughnessy, “and for my belief in the medium as an area of great potential for telling stories about real people in credible situations.”
Contact Price at mprice@bizpress.net
