DE: How much of your books do you do on the
computer?
KB: I finish everything on the computer. I draw
stuff on paper and some stuff I just draw entirely on
the computer. It depends.
DE: How much of King David was done on
computer?
KB: A lot of it was done on paper and then I
scanned it in and colored it on the computer. Some
stuff I just drew straight into the computer. A lot of
it depends on my access to a scanner at the time. If
there is scanner around or if I just don’t feel like
scanning I’ll draw on the computer.
DE: What made you decide to move the dialogue out
of word balloons?
KB: I don’t like designing around word balloons.
Also since I draw the pictures before I write them I
don’t know how many words there are going to be. I
also end up cutting as many words as possible.
DE: Were you worried the average comics reader
might not get it?
KB: My comics are mostly designed for the people
who don’t read a lot of comic books. That’s
another thing; if the balloons and all these other
things depend on the fact that you read a lot of
comics then I’m not doing my job. That’s also a
problem I have with sound effects sometimes. The sound
effects are so creative that you don’t know what the
hell is making that sound. Like a THA-WUNGA, you might
not know who or what is making that THA-WUNGA sound. I
usually stick to onomatopoeia like CRASH or SMASH.
DE: You’ve said that You Are Here uses
techniques that only work in comics, like freezing the
action at a certain point. The Matrix and other
films since then have done stuff like that.
KB: Its just different. Like King David for
instance have huge crowd scenes that you could spend a
lot of time staring at. There are a lot of little gags
all over in those scenes. What are you going to do,
freeze frame Braveheart, you won’t see anything that
cool. That’s not what you’re supposed to do with
that. It’s not what it does best.
DE: What happened with the TV show for Why I
Hate Saturn?
KB: The network, I can’t remember if is CBS or
NBC, passed on it. They felt it appealed to a too
narrow a demographic. Before Seinfeld and Friends
became hits they thought that no one wanted to watch a
show about young people in New York.
DE: Whoops.
KB: [laughs] It was pretty funny.
DE: You grew up in Brooklyn. Why did you left the
East Coast?
KB: I came out to Los Angeles a long time ago. Back
when the comic book business was rotten, meaning
before you could own your own work working for the big
companies. You’d create some character, they’d
make a movie out of it, and you don’t get any of the
money. I decided to come out to Hollywood where you
don’t own your work either but you get paid a lot
more. But then they changed the contracts in comics
where you can own your stuff, so it’s a better deal
than Hollywood. I moved back out to the East Coast but
I put a roof on my house so I’m out in California
for a bit.
DE: Why didn’t the Superman as a baby story [Letitia
Lerner, Superman's Babysitter] get printed the first
time?
KB: Paul [Levitz, then publisher of DC Comics now
president] had a problem with it. I honestly don’t
care what the problem was. It was a work-for-hire and
my thing with work-for-hire is I don’t care what you
do with it once you pay because I’ll probably only
get paid once anyway. I do a lot of advertising and
movie stuff like on Bugs Bunny that doesn’t ever
come out.
DE: Were you surprised when it went into the Bizarro
Hardcover?
KB: I thought that was it funny that it got an
award [Baker received an Eisner award for this story]
and then was in the hardcover. I was quite
entertained.
DE: Is that also kind of what happened to the Christmas
movie you wrote for Paramount?
KB: Yeah, pretty much.
DE: How frustrating is that?
KB: Well, I don’t do it that much anymore. That’s
the kind of thing you do for the dough and you really
don’t care. You have to give up on it if you are
doing work-for-hire. The thing about my books is that
I know they are going to come out. If I turn in a new
book to DC and they didn’t want to publish it, I
could publish it myself. When you sell something as
work-for-hire it’s gone.
DE: Do people know your work in Hollywood?
KB: Some people do and some don’t. I don’t
really count on this Hollywood work. I make a pretty
good living doing the books so I do those and I will
always have them. I’m not out pursuing Hollywood
work. If someone calls me from Hollywood or a magazine
then it’s great. If I get two or three of these
things a year. Like last year I did a TV pilot.
DE: What was it?
KB: It was an animated FOX pilot called Monkeys.
I designed it and did all the storyboards. I just did
it to get something on film.
DE: The structure of your books seemed to change
dramatically with You are Here. What led to
that change?
KB: I’m always trying to get better, obviously.
The first couple of books I did when I was pretty
young, I wish I could have had more things happen in
them.
DE: Cowboy Wally was more stories and then You
are Here and I Die at Midnight were
action-packed New York stories.
KB: Well, Cowboy Wally was a newspaper strip
I couldn’t sell as a syndicated strip. I was inking Spider-Man
on the side but I couldn’t sell the thing. But I
ended selling it to Doubleday as a book. So that’s
why it has that kind of structure.
DE: You just had another child. How do you think
having children changes your work?
KB: Well, like I said, now I’m doing stuff for
the money. [laughs] I used to be a lot choosier when I
didn’t need the money. But now I don’t have the
choice whether I do work or not. Before, if I didn’t
have an idea for a book, I wouldn’t do a book .
DE: Have you thought about doing a weekly or daily
newspaper strip?
KB: With newspaper strips there is no quality
control. The printing is bad and the money sucks.
There’s very little reason to do one anymore. I
think the medium is dead.
DE: Do you design everything on your website?
KB: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.
DE: I sent the girl dancing on the stripper pole to
some friends and they said it was cool and very
disorienting.
What comics are you reading?
KB: I’ve been reading the Lone Wolf and Cub
reprints. And the 50th anniversary Mad
reprints.
DE: They’re reprinting a lot of good stuff Mad
stuff now.
KB: I know and now that I’m not in New York I don’t
get to steal them from DC anymore. I am one of the
usual gang of idiots.
DE: How did you come up with your logo, Quality
Jollity?
KB: God, I don’t even remember now. I know that I
did it because when I created the cover for You are
Here, they insisted on putting the Vertigo logo on
the cover. I wanted to make it symmetrical so I just
made up a logo.
DE: What else is coming up?
KB: I’m writing and drawing a short Plastic Man
graphic novel.
DE: Thanks, Kyle.
KB: Thank you.
Check out Kyle Baker’s website at www.kylebaker.com and DC’s site for King David at www.dccomics.com/features/king_david.
Kylebaker.com
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