by Rob Wuest, Mark Englert & Stefano Pavan

 

I have been a long time fan of the sci-fi, monster and mystery comics of the 1950’s and 1960’s.  In fact, the first comic book I bought as an 8 year old boy in 1974 was the Marvel reprint comic WHERE MONSTERS DWELL #28.  With these comic influences, I began a journey of comic creation over the past several years, which has now led to the completion of the comic book created by myself, Stefano Pavan and Mark Englert. That comic book is entitled MONSTERS AMONG US!


MONSTERS AMONG US is a Sci-Fi/Monster comic book set in the year 1959 which follows the lives of the Kraushaar Family and their tragic connection to monsters becoming unleashed upon the world.  Dr. William Kraushaar is the world’s leading scientist; Elizabeth Kraushaar is his wife and the mother of their teenage son, Bobby Kraushaar.  Issue #1 is the origin issue where we see Dr. Kraushaar (in Chapter One) inventing a machine that will hopefully change the world.  Unfortunately, things go terribly wrong and the machine instead brings monsters to life.

After the creation and escape of the monsters, the Kraushaar family decide to courageously hunt for the monsters themselves to protect the public.  The Kraushaar family comes to this decision of sacrifice with the aid of a surprise guest.  Chapter Two reveals the first monster to attack: a Vampire!


The beginnings of MONSTERS AMONG US started in June of 2003, as I sat at my kitchen table over the course of a week and drew about 30 monster faces.  I don’t know really why I did this; I may have seen a 1950’s sci-fi, monster movie during this time or read an old horror or mystery comic that I love so much. Who knows why we do things! In any event, my drawing was much better than usual during this stretch (I was in the zone, as it were!) and I was very happy with the result of my monster sketches.  About a year or so later, I wanted to try inking for the first time with a brush like the classic comic artists used.  The first thing I inked were these same monster faces.  Again, I was very happy with my artwork and found I was pretty good at inking and I rather enjoyed it! 
Going forward about another year, I decided to make a mock up cover where I cut up copies of my monster faces and placed them on a 10”x15” bristol board to make a comic cover.  I named the comic cover “Tales of Mystery #1” complete with an old 10 cent price.  This was as far as I intended to take my little art project of monsters…that is, until my son Michael, who was around 10 years old at the time, asked me to make a real comic book from my monster cover.  “Oh, I don’t know how to make a real comic book,” I responded to my son!  “I’ve never done that before!”

As time passed, I thought of my son’s request more and more.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind and slowly began to think how a comic story could progress from my cover of monsters.  It took another several years before I devised a story plot with characters that I was happy with.  This would have been around 2007 or so when I was ready to begin the real work on my comic book. 
During the time as I was developing my story, I was also thinking about trying to break into comics as an inker.  Now, I have some drawing ability as a penciler, but since I have never spent the time or adequate study to draw sequential art, I would not be able to pencil in the professional comics world.  But, I felt I could be a professional comics inker and I began looking for avenues to submit my work.  I remember submitting my inking samples to Archie Comics, but didn’t receive a reply from them. 


It was when I was reading my favorite comic magazine, THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, that I saw an advertisement asking for an inker for a comic project which sounded interesting.  This project was headed by a man named Juan Gonzalez from California.  Juan and I have since become good friends.  Juan sent me samples of the project's penciled pages for me to ink.  When I submitted these inked samples, Juan really liked them but would not be able to use me for awhile as they had another inker on board working on issue #1 of that same project.  I had really liked the penciled pages from Juan’s comic book and I asked Juan if I could ask his penciler to maybe pencil my comic book.  Juan was very gracious in giving me the e-mail of his penciler: Stefano Pavan, who lived in Italy.
I made contact with Stefano around the spring of 2008 with my comic story.  Stefano really liked the story and characters and agreed to pencil the comic for me.  So, I worked to finish my plot and tighten it up so Stefano could begin the penciling for issue #1, which he started around August 2008.  From the very beginning, I recognized that I was blessed as a comics creator to have a collaborator as immensely talented as Stefano.  Stefano draws like he was lifted out of 1965 with his classic style of figure drawing and backgrounds.  His style was exactly what I hoped to find in that I also love the old school style of comics.  I just love Stefano’s art!  Stefano and I have become such good friends through working together on MONSTERS AMONG US, despite that we have never met physically as we live half a world away from each other.  Stefano’s storytelling ability is rock solid.  I gave Stefano complete liberty to make changes to my story plot with his penciling if he found ways to improve the story, which I'm pleased to say he did. 

 

In fact, I learned that utilizing the “Marvel Method” is the best way for me to collaborate on a comic book.  There were some pages in the comic plot where I had written narration or character dialogue.   But, when I received Stefano’s penciled pages, either he had made some changes to improve the story or he drew a page differently from what I was visualizing in my head so that now the pages no longer matched the words that I had written before.  I found that MONSTERS AMONG US was a building process, with each step of the way improved by the interaction between Stefano and myself.


While Stefano was penciling issue #1, I began to search for a letterer and colorist.  To back up a bit, I had originally intended to hand letter the entire comic book by myself, and I actually hand lettered the first eleven pages directly onto the original art.  I have always admired the hand drawn lettering of the old masters such as Artie Simek and Sam Rosen and I wanted to give it a go!  I would give my dialogue hand lettering result a B or B+, but I wanted an A+!  So, I decided to find a Letterer to cover over my lettering with computer font lettering that is commonly used on most comics today.  I placed an advertisement on Digitalwebbing.com to pay for a Letterer and Colorist.  It was good that I included that I would pay for these services because I received over 100 responses from all over the world!  In the end, I chose Mark Englert to color the comic book and another artist as the letterer.  When it came time months later for the letterer to begin work on the comic, he was unable to do it because of other commitments.  But, no problem!  I asked Mark if he could do the lettering and he did it magnificently!
Mark Englert brought the experience and knowledge of comic book production to our trio.  Mark had by far the most experience in our group, having worked in comics since the early 2000’s, I believe.  In fact, if I remember correctly, Mark was discovered by Robert Kirkman when Robert saw some of Mark’s artwork on a fan site about 10 years ago, before Robert hit it big with INVINCIBLE and THE WALKING DEAD!  Robert and Mark even did a comic book together called CAPES.  Mark and I both did the lettering of the comic book, where Mark did the digital dialogue lettering and I did the lettering of the titles and sound effects by hand.  Mark had suggested I do this lettering by hand, saying it would add a warm quality to the book.  With my hand lettering, I either lettered directly on the original art or I lettered on separate bristol board, then cut out the letters and pasted them over the original art boards.  Even though it took a lot of time, I like how it turned out!  For the dialogue lettering, I had Mark use the JOE KUBERT FONT, which I felt had a nice, old-school feel of the 1950’s and 1960’s comics. 

 

The coloring is where Mark really shined on the comic!  From the beginning, I had wanted to color MONSTERS AMONG US in the old style coloring of the old comics.  I felt that the old coloring would also match the 1950’s period of the comic.  Personally, I am not much of a fan of the modern coloring.  Mark was able to color the comic book just like the old comics, complete with little dots and slightly off center coloring imperfections…I loved it!  I am so blessed to have had Stefano and Mark work on MONSTERS AMONG US!  I thoroughly love the outcome of issue #1, thanks to the artistry of Stefano and Mark. 
For the first printing of MONSTERS AMONG US, I only printed 200 hardback copies with 34 pages each (32 pages of which contain story and bonus art).  I have sold out of these copies and am planning a larger print run of issue #1 next in the standard comic book format.  For this next print run, I will do a Kickstarter campaign (www.kickstarter.com) to raise the funds for the printing.


Someone wanting the digital version of MONSTERS AMONG US #1 can visit my STORE link at www.monsters-among-us.com, where they will be able to purchase the digital file of MONSTERS AMONG US #1 for 99 cents thru the website: THE ILLUSTRATED SECTION.


We are currently working on MONSTERS AMONG US #2 which will feature a Werewolf!  Stefano has completed the pencils for the 28 page that will run in issue #2, .  Next, I will be inking the comic book and finishing up the dialogue and story to the plot that Stefano and I worked on.


My hope is that many people will enjoy the art and story of the MONSTERS AMONG US as much as Stefano, Mark and I were happy to make the comic book.

 

Rob Wuest