Drew Rausch doesn’t make easy comics.
And while some are quick to label his work as goth, it is a label Rausch rejects, preferring to be known for his subtle themes and his ability to force both characters and readers to face the monsters that go bump in the night.
A collection of his first miniseries, Sullengrey: Cemetery Things, created with his wife, Jocelyn Gajewav, will be released at the end of the month from Ape Entertainment. The story delves headfirst into the heart of fear, confronting the monsters under the beds. It follows Grey, a man with a dark past, through the town of Autumn’s Grove, where the monsters in your head are quite real indeed. A new Sullengrey miniseries is currently in the works and will also be released through Ape.
In addition, the second volume of his OEL manga, The Dark Goodbye, self-described as “the perfect blend of film noir and Lovecraft stories,” will be released from Tokyopop in July, 2008.
Rausch is also involved with the ongoing Teddy Scares graphic novel series from Ape Entertainment and the Haunted Mansion anthology from SLG.
Rausch recently spent some time with Comics Week to discuss his projects and the challenges of creating comics that take a hard look at humanity, as opposed to stretched-on tights and capes.
PW Comics Week: The Cemetery Things trade was released on November 28. The graphic novel will include some new features; can you tell me what they are?
Drew Rausch: There’s 15 new pages of commentary for Cemetery Things, including character sketches and an eight-page story I wrote myself and did the art for. It’s called Fear, and it’s basically the origin of the character that terrorizes Autumn’s Grove. Cemetery Things was originally supposed to be five issues long. This is a chance to make the book what it was originally planned to be.
PWCW: What would you say makes Sullengrey unique?
DR: Sullengrey doesn’t really have a villain per se; the whole point of the story is fear and how people deal with it. Grey killed a bunch of people and he’s afraid he’s going to do it again. When you read Sullengrey, every character is afraid of something. What if there is no evil? What if the monsters under the bed and the shadows on the wall aren’t evil, they just exist for the sake of existing?
PWCW: You’re working on a new Sullengrey miniseries, correct?
DR: Cemetery Things was very personal to me. A lot of the things that happened actually happened in real life in some way or another, but because Jocelyn and I knew we wanted to continue the story, we added situations we could [revisit]. What’s cool about the second miniseries is we’re going to focus on the character of Mr. Grim for a little while. Mr. Grim and Girl Scouts. I can’t say anything else. The second miniseries is titled Sacrifice.
PWCW: Sullengrey has often been labeled as a goth comic and compared to other typical goth books. How do you deal with that?
DR: I hate the whole label “goth.” When Sullengrey first came out, it was labeled a goth comic, and I think that hurt us. We’re a zombie horror comic book, and they were, like, "How about we call it gothic?" and that would mean we had a lot of really pretty architecture. The term goth is really moot here and doesn’t really describe what we are.
PWCW: The second volume of The Dark Goodbye is being released by Tokyopop next year. What can you tell me about it?
DR: It’s the tale of a detective who’s down on his luck. He’s a drunk and he gets a case—there’s always a woman involved. He has to find the sister of his client, Livina. Mason, the detective, is kind of a Sam Spade character, and he goes on a roller-coaster ride through the madness of Lovecraft [while investigating the case].
PWCW: How did you become involved with Tokyopop?
DR: About two and a half years ago at Wizard World Philadelphia, I was just shopping around my portfolio, and I took it to Tokyopop. They hated it. They said my women were not sexy enough and my men were too androgynous. Six months later, I got an e-mail asking me if I would be interested doing this project, and it was for The Dark Goodbye.
PWCW: Can you tell me a bit about some of the other things you’re involved in?
DR: I’m doing Disney’s Haunted Mansion from Slave Labor. I’m also doing the Teddy Scares books. Teddy Scares is based on the line of toys. I was one of the first people approached, to help bring on artists I thought would work, and I [ended up] acting as art editor. I did the back cover and I did the origin of Redmundstory in the first volume and a pinup in the second volume.
PWCW: What do you love about creating comics and what frustrates you?
DR: I love creating things. The greatest feeling is to have a reader come up and say, "I bought your book and I loved it." The business side of the industry frustrates me. It’s all about numbers and dollars; it’s not about creating a quality product and putting it out there. It’s about, how can we force the reader to not just buy this book but buy all our books?
You know what’s great: we sell more copies of Sullengrey to mainstream comic fans who are looking for something different than to the Johnny the Homicidal Maniac crowd. [JTHM is a very popular comic published by Slave Labor.] We mainly cater to DC and Marvel fans who are looking for something different, and I like that. I had a guy buying Teddy Scares and we turned him on to Sullengrey and he was, like, “My daughter would like this.” I’ve had people tell me their grandmother liked [Sullengrey].
