Posts Tagged ‘Motor City’

Gavin Hignight is a film and television writer whose credits include Fox Kids’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and numerous short films and screenplays. He is also the author of the novel Sweater Party, and has contributed to magazines such as Geek, and L’uomo Vogue. Motor City is his first comic book series.
Jetilla Lewis is an illustrator and designer whose work has appeared in American Junior, and throughout independent comic festivals and at Comic Con International. She counts Koshun Takami, Matsuri Akino, and J. D. Huxtable among her inspirations. Motor City is her first graphic novel.

Carmine Magazine: For the readers who are not familiar with Motor City, can you please describe it?
Gavin Hignight: Motor City is a graphic novel somewhere between Japanese style Manga and American style comic books. It’s a mix of retro, horror, and a coming of age story. It follows Lexi, the youngest member of a 1950s era human street gang trying to defend their turf from all kinds of monsters.
Jettila Lewis: Motor City is a unique comic. It’s like classic horror with a bit of a modern twist.
You know those movies about the 50’s with the neighborhood of trouble makers and gangs? Picture that with ghouls and monsters! It’s pretty neat!

CM: Why did you decide to work on a comic book? Has it been as fun as you had hoped?
GH: After writing tons of scripts, trying to sell ideas in Hollywood, etc… I got frustrated. I just wanted to tell the kinds of stories that were floating around in my head. The medium didn’t matter. I was doing some work on the Fox Kids Ninja Turtles cartoon and I started thinking about its roots, about Eastman and Laird, about how awesome the original black and white TMNT comics were. And I thought to myself, I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna tell my story one way or another.
Although I read comics I had never really planned on being a comic guy. But writing it, and with artist Jettila Lewis, finally getting to see these worlds in my head realized in a quality manner, I really grew to like the medium. Now I will always do comics–Hopefully in addition to other mediums. It’s such a great way to write and experiment with ideas I never want to abandon it. The other thing about comics is that they have made me a much better writer of other material. Writing comics forces you to really analyze your dialog, because you don’t have that much room, so what your characters say really has to matter. No space for dribble.
JL: Comic books have always been a major interest of mine. Both reading and drawing them. I decided to take up working on Motor City because before, I’ve only made comics for my own enjoyment. I wanted to take the next step in making illustrating a career.
I’m not sure if the word “fun” would be an appropriate description of the experience, although I did very much enjoy working on it. I saw it more as a learning experience than something “fun” to do.
I had to do research, find reference photos and study things which I’ve never done with the little comics I would make for myself.