Comic-Con 2015: Interview with Alex Woolfson
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One of the highlights of my Comic-Con (and year if we’re being honest) was getting to chat with Alex Woolfson. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Alex is an award nominated writer of graphic novels, lover of scifi and action, and genuinely an awesome person (and a Bay Area resident!). All of his work is free (!!!) on the internet, which was how yours truly came upon Artifice, his Lambda Award finalist piece about the relationship between an inhuman and a human. It’s a wonderful piece and now he’s moved on to bigger things, The Young Protectors, which follows a group of young superheros and specifically Kyle, a gay kid who runs into the villain Annihilator after leaving a gay bar, and who gets drawn in by him. I spoke with Alex about those two works, how he got his start, and how genre can be used to tell LGBTQ stories.
On Getting Started/The World of Web Comics
Alex actually was a filmmaker, an editor to be specific, and he initially saw his stories as being films. But his big budget ambitions combined with his desired subject matter, led him towards comics. Because he was a visual storyteller he was able to use these as a way of exploring his visions. Initially, he would send his comics out as PDFs, but this process was long (he’d have to rebuild his audience every 8-9 months) which led him to move to webcomics. Web comics allow visual storytellers a kind of freedom that most forms of art can’t. Alex remarked that with Artifice, and now the Young Protectors, he’s able to tell feature length stories for the cost of a short film with an unlimited special effects budget.
Using Genre to tell LGBTQ Stories
Growing up, Alex longed to tell stories about heroes who just happened to like guys and were the focus of their own story. Rather than just tell traditional narratives he turned to genre material to set his stories, which gave another layer of depth and an emphasis on what his characters could do rather than who they were sleeping with. “Scifi has a tradition of exploring the human condition in a way that lets people think about their lives outside of the way they’ve thought about them before,” Alex mentioned when talking about Artifice, which was inspired by Aliens (!) when Bishop tells someone he prefers to be called an artificial person. The Young Protectors
On The Healing Ability of Art
The LGBT community has made many strides in the last decade, but they still rank among the highest suicide and homelessness rates. Woolfson, who mentioned that he himself has a difficult childhood, does not shy away from the difficulties and trauma that can occur in a person’s life. It’s probably why the alienation Jeff and Deacon face in Artifice due to his sexuality and Kyle’s horrific first time having sex/Spooky’s year in hell resonate so deeply with readers, leading many to share their own experiences and bond in his comments section. What’s so wonderful about Alex’s work is that he hopes his work can be a beacon in the darkness for people who may have gone through tough situations. He remarks that though our demons are always there when we want them, everyone has the capacity to move on and have true happiness/love in their life, no matter their circumstance.
Writing Villains/Having Compassion for Characters
“You often think of George RR Martin…laughing as he’s torturing his readers…but it can be hard because I love my characters and I don’t want them to suffer,” but even Alex knows that in order to allow his characters to grow, he has to give them trials. One such trial is the villain, of which The Young Protectors has a doozy of one in the Annihilator. But just like the others, Woolfson makes sure he felt like a real person before writing. One of my favorite things Alex mentioned during out chat was that he writes characters as if they have a moral argument specific way to be, a modus operandi if you will. This means that the characters actions/reactions will be believable in how they approach the situations. As the author though, he gets to have final say about which one is the most productive way to live and succeed.
What Can Fans of The Young Protectors Expect?
The next storyline picks up in about a week and a half after that insane cliffhanger that ended volume two. Woolfson played coy about what would happen next (although yours truly did advocate strongly for the Anihilator’s death) but he did mention that this story isn’t a tragedy (bless). My theories? I think Kyle will somehow get to banish the Annihilator to hell and that he’ll get an original character as a love interest.
If you want to support Alex Woolfson and his work you can do so by checking out his work (for free!) at Artifice or The Young Protectors, contributing monitarily via Paetreon, or purchasing a copy of the comics (although you will have to wait a while for The Young Protectors). You can also follow him on Twitter @alexwoolfson.
The full audio of my interview with Alex is below (be warned there is a weird noise at 6:29) where we get into some light spoiler territory and more in depth with characters.
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