LUTHER MOSHER Strikes Red Gold with MARS LIGHTNING

Andrew Irvin, Interviews Editor, is joined by Luther Mosher to discuss Mars Lightning, a sci-fi adventure graphic novel with a campaign running on Kickstarter through July 25th!

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COMIC BOOK YETI: Welcome to the Yeti Cave, Luther! How’s summer shaping up on the East Coast?

LUTHER MOSHER: Thank you for having me. I love what you’ve done with the place. Very cozy. 

Aside from the occasional apocalyptic heat wave, I’ve been having a good summer with my wife and our four year old. He’s on school break, which is forcing me to go out and find adventures. 

CBY: Ah yes - my son (nearly 12) is always asking for new activities to do together, so I'm having to get increasingly creative, so I can relate! Let’s set the scene here; you’re a graphic designer by training and trade, having studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. What were your early experiences with comics, and how did they inform your approach to the visual arts as you decided to pursue the field as a career?

LM: My earliest memories of comics were my dad reading 1960s Fantastic Four to me. Then at four years old, I boldly declared that I wanted to be a comic artist when I grew up.

CBY: Though graphic design and comic illustration share certain traits, they’re distinct disciplines within the field - where do you find the overlap in your practice, and how do they differ?

LM: I do find that they overlap quite a bit. It’s critical in both to be mindful of how to use composition and visual hierarchy to move a reader’s eye through an image to shape the story. Also, they often have limited real estate to convey a lot of information and it can feel like a riveting puzzle. Mind you, I hate regular puzzles because there’s no narrative! 

Having said that…word balloons! Word balloons are fundamental in comics and work really well. They’re also pretty quirky and hurt my design brain because a lot of the best practices I’ve learned have to be thrown out the window. In graphic design, I use center-aligned text as sparingly as possible. Center aligned text in word balloons, however, is the only game in town. 

CBY: Mentioning it now, it seems obvious, but I'd never thought about the text alignment preferences within word balloons, but you're definitely right - it's the best way to balance and fit everything evenly in a (generally) rounded area. I should note you’ve been working on Mars Lightning, posting 19 Webtoon installments over the course of the year thus far. Was the Kickstarter you’ve launched part of the plan when you started posting the web edition?

LM: From its inception, I wanted to do a Kickstarter. I love the community and the excitement of the campaigns. The dream has always been to do a traditional print comic. My aim on Webtoons has been to help grow an audience for this campaign. This has been a heavier lift than I expected. I’ve seen people do really beautiful things with the vertical reading experience on Webtoons, and I wanted to respect that. Optimizing the pages for that format has taken quite a bit of time, but I’m glad I chose to do it. They feel like different versions of the same story to me now. 

CBY: Having given Mars Lightning a read, the visual style is pretty distinct - strong lines, bold color - what can you tell our readers about your technical process? It appears to be digitally inked and colored, but beyond that, what goes into putting the pages together?

LM: I owe my love of bold lines largely to John Romita Sr., Jack Kirby, and Joe Sinnott. The bold colors have evolved from my time as a graphic designer. My tastes used to be a lot muddier (Lol). I started with traditional pencil and ink but switched early on to creating in the Procreate app on an iPad because it literally cut production time in half. 

When I’m starting a page I pull together any reference I might need. This is usually for vehicles, or a very particular environment. I keep a folder of cool places I’ve visited for inspiration. For instance, the pirate base is partly inspired by a remote fort I saw on Eggmont Key in Florida. I also built a 3D model in SketchUp for the Notus and two other ships. This is also a big time saver. 

When I’m in the line art stage, I check that I’ve left enough room in the composition for word balloons. This is a regular challenge for me, as I tend to underestimate how much space is needed. In my newest work, I’ve started pasting the text on the page rather than just guessing. 

When the line art and color are done I bring it all into InDesign to letter and lay it out for print. I also open the pages in PSD to make sure I haven’t oversaturated the colors. Even with this process, it’s still good to test print pages when I have the toner. Even with all the right settings, there’s a difference between the screen and the page. Sometimes those vibrant colors lose depth in print if you’re not careful. 

CBY: That's certainly true - running from RGB to CMYK can do a disservice to work as colorful as Mars Lightning, especially given it has initially been presented on screen displays. I also notice your inclusion of a variety of expressive characters and action poses - what sort of referencing methods do you employ to set up your panels?

LM: While I use reference for a lot of things, I don’t often use it for the action poses. 90% of the time it comes from my head. Dynamic poses are my favorite part of drawing, so the inspiration is there. I have years of comics and action scenes floating in my head to draw on. Sometimes if I can’t quite nail it, I’ll take a picture of myself, a posable figurine or search "skateboarders," etc. 

CBY: Turning to your writing, I appreciated the meta-referential nods by your characters, poking fun at your own use of tropes and narrative techniques. What writers do you turn to for inspiration? 

LM: It’s funny that you point that out because many of those things were last minute additions to the script. I had a point where I realized some things weren’t popping in the way I wanted them to so I thought, “what would Stan Lee write here? K.A. Applegate? What would they say on Supernatural or Firefly?”  I’d also add G. Willow Wilson and Tom DeFalco as an inspiration. 

CBY: K.A. Applegate isn't an author I see referenced too often these days (though I see she's still writing middle-grade books)! You employ the Earth-Mars dichotomy to draw a parallel to existing xenophobia and identity issues. You also take the opportunity to examine a range of power dynamics between various characters at an individual and social level. How does the world you’ve built help you process what is happening in the United States at the moment, with the unfettered attack on the citizenry now underway by the government of the day? 

LM: Caring is exhausting and we’re in a time where we can’t afford to run out of steam. My hope is that in weaving these issues into a coming-of-age adventure, I can disarm them in a way that lets both the readers and I engage and reflect without being overwhelmed. Maybe we can also find hope. History has shown that we keep doing the same awful things over and over again. But we also keep digging out of it because of heroic people and communities willing to do the work. 

CBY: Homage to the past provides inspiration for the present, and we need all the inspiration we can get right now - you're absolutely right. While this graphic novel represents your efforts as both writer and artist, you also have Corinne Willett credited as Story Editor and Lucy Bishop as Copy Editor. Can you tell us a bit about how they got involved, and their contributions to the process?

LM: Corinne is my secret weapon…and wife. During the early stages of scripting the story I had too much plot crammed in and she kicked my butt to make sure the pacing didn’t drag. She went to SVA for film, so her expertise in screenwriting was invaluable. I’ve really learned a lot from her. Lucy is the friend of an SVA teacher of mine who graciously offered to proofread and provide clarifying grammatical advice. She was wonderful to work with. 

CBY: Having a partner in both work and life that can bolster your efforts is really a game-changing contribution to creative flow that should never be discounted. I should also note, your website involves a variety of storyboards, prints, and other art, you’ve also got a running children’s book series called The Bumbly Bears. When did you start working on those books, and given the popularity of bears amongst children’s lit, how does your series differentiate itself from other bear-themed books in the market?

LM: I made The Bumbly Bears very early in my career. They’re basically teddy bears that fly an airplane, have strangely realistic bears for parents and sometimes have high tea with dinosaurs.   This isn’t the marketing savvy answer but my focus wasn’t on differentiating them so much as following the joy of making something a bit zany that I would’ve enjoyed as a kid. I’m very slowly (thanks, Mars!) working on a revised re-issue of the books as well as a few new stories.

CBY: To close, what creative work unrelated to Mars Lightning should our readers check out once they’ve given your work their attention? Any other comics, films, literature, art, music, etc. they should give a look or a listen?

LM: Yes! Thank you for asking. I love sharing…

Comics: Postal from Top Cow, Spider-Girl (MC2 version), The Last God of Spring on Webtoons, and Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli.  

TV: Black Sails, Battlestar Galactica, the "From Here to Machinery" episode of Tale Spin feels pretty timely, season two of the 1990s Fantastic Four cartoon gets overlooked for being fan…great, and Doll House really takes off in Season 2.

Film: This is very different from the rest of the list but watch the Monkees movie, Head. It’s just brilliant and flew under the radar.  

Music: "Banana Bread" by Buko Buko, "Garbage Truck" from the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack, and "Michael Praytor Five Years Later" (Ben Folds Five). 

Books: The Maddadam Trilogy by Margret Atwood and Animorphs by K.A. Applegate. Don’t sleep on the Animorphs. Because of the show or maybe the premise, many people missed what a funny, dark, and surprisingly enlightened children’s book series it was. It fearlessly asked a lot of important ethical questions.

CBY: Luther, thanks for dropping by today, and congratulations on seeing Mars Lightning successfully funded! If you have any other portfolio, publication, or social media links to share, now is the time and this is the place!

LM: Thank you, I appreciate your time and all of the thoughtful questions. The Kickstarter campaign runs through July 24th, and will have some late pledge options available afterwards.

I’m @moshermakeart on Instagram, Blueskies, and Cara. My portfolio site is www.luthermosher.com and you can find out more about the comic at  Mars Lightning.com

I also have a Patreon for Mars Lightning.

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