Are Alpha Males Still For Hire In Paris?

by Vince Brusio

They’re called Z2 comics, and are formerly known as Zip Comix. One thing has remained constant, though: they are still purveyors of amazing graphic novels, and their lineup has included titles like Dean Haspiel's Fear My Dear: A Billy Dogma Experience and Paul Pope's Escapo. On tap to be released is the collected edition of Chris Hunt’s Carver: A Paris Story, and in this PREVIEWworld Exclusive interview with Hunt we learn that the comic which harkens back to movies like Casablanca actually has its roots in filmmaking.

Carver: A Paris Story TP (JUL162155) is in comic shops September 7.

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PREVIEWSworld: Tell us about the genesis for Carver: A Paris Story. How did the project originate, and how did the story evolve through drafts?

Chris Hunt: The story first came about while visiting an ex-lover/friend who was studying abroad in France. I was getting ready to apply for a residency at The Atlantic Center for The Arts under Master Artist Paul Pope, and I was trying to come up with an idea for a short comic that would be a part of my application.

I’ve had a love for Paris and The Lost Generation since I was a small boy and I think being there and taking in the environment and ambiance, I was inspired to try and tell what I would affectionately refer to as “Hemingway Fan Fiction.” It was a simple story about a hunter and his tracker in Africa, tracking a man-eating lion but it stuck with me.

I fell in love with this idea of bringing back the old school, macho cigar-chomping Man of Fortune while finding a way to put my own spin on it. I wanted to do something unexpected, so my idea originally was to show this mustachioed cliche having to confront an unrequited love from the past in Paris, rather than show him on one of his adventures. It was very much akin to Before Sunrise or Casablanca.

Unfortunately, right as I was about to start that draft I lost two of my best friends a month and a half apart from one another, and I had to step back from the project. That was in 2011. I didn’t go back to it until early 2012 when it was adapted into a radio play and I started getting back into the skin of the character. I spent a great deal of time developing a live-action short for the character that came to inform Carver 2.0, while working through the life changing events of 2011. I came to realize that Carver is something of an avatar for myself, and as I changed so too did the character and the story. The DNA of Francis Carver and the goal of A Paris Story always remained the same, though.

PREVIEWSworld: What background/research did you bring to the project? What life did you give it?

Chris Hunt: Well, I think the shortest answer is that the line between Carver and me has been blurring more and more as time has gone on. The skeleton of the story was always my relationship with the “real” Catherine, and what it’s like for two people to love each other in the wrong place, and wrong time, but Carver became its own thing as I progressed through drafts of the story.

I spent a lot of time researching the era and specifically Paris in Carver’s time when we were working on the short film. I’m very big on getting the details right, so I wanted to make sure any attire or weapons not only were accurate, but would be an accurate reflection of the characters and the time you found them in.

I ended up playing Carver in the short film we made, which leant a real “method” kind of creation to the project, and the comic subsequently. As unorthodox as that sounds, it helped me a lot when sitting down to do the comic in earnest. I knew how he’d move, even how he’d hit. We spent 4 months training and running choreography for a fight in the film, which was my first experience with anything like that. I was tossed into the fire so to speak by my trainer, and was sparring on the second day. No gloves or head gear. As nuts as that sounds, I do think it was important to get hit, and learn to understand the shift that occurs when you’re no longer afraid of it. It takes you out of a defensive mindset and suddenly you’re able to propel yourself forward. To me that’s the heart of the character; he understands that he will be hurt, that he will bleed, but he can only move forward because stagnation is death.

PREVIEWSworld: What has influenced your style of writing? Can you tell us what previous works and/or creators help fuel the flames of your muse? And how did you channel those influences into Carver?

Chris Hunt: With regards to comics specifically, the influence of Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese cannot be overstated. There would be no Carver without Corto. I admire Pratt’s commitment to telling stories in an austere, but detailed manner, either through research or direct experience with his subject matter. I’ve tried to do the same with Carver.

I have, and continue to, pull from comics as well as literature. It may be strange to make a prose comparison to comics, but I respect Hemingway’s commitment to the purest, truest sentence and I’m trying to apply the same mindset to sequential storytelling. The way I try and apply that is the measurement of the degree to which a comic can be read silently. I firmly think that if the story is there as the narrative backbone, the imagery serves to reinforce the tone and the “acting” and within a small margin of error a reader should be able to know what is going on.

PREVIEWSworld: What was your most rewarding experience working on this book? And if you had the opportunity to do something differently the next time, what would it be?

Chris Hunt: For a while I was angry that it took me literally years to get going on the comic in earnest, but I think it actually was the exact path it needed to take. Between losing my friends, making the short, and getting the publishing deal with Z2, it all happened in a very specific order and manner that led to what Carver: A Paris Story is at this moment in time. In a way, I’m grateful for it all.

Honestly, it’s been the reaction from readers that’s been the most rewarding. I’m sure that seems like a no brainer, but I was prepared for a lukewarm reaction at best. Most of my career I’ve had to push past my perfectionism by dwelling on my shortcomings, so it’s hard to be objective about something that is so personal and close to me. Not to mention it’s a black and white comic in a genre not very well represented in American comics.

Carver really was me attempting to create the kind of story I wish I could be reading right now. So yes, I’m passionate about it, and it’s been infused with very personal parts of my life but that doesn’t mean there’s an audience for this kind of work. I think that’s the most frightening thing about making art: the thought that there’s the possibility you could work on something for years, and when it’s out, no one may give a damn about it. What excites me to think, though, is that maybe we’ve been able to kick in a door, so to speak, that will let other stories and creators working on these kinds of stories bring something to the table.

PREVIEWSworld: If you had to summarize in a 60-second sound bite the journey you took in making this book, what would you say that would best represent Chris Hunt's involvement in Carver: A Paris Story?

Chris Hunt: What I’d say is that the moment I created Francis Carver, and began to write his story, I unknowingly created a framework that would ultimately help me transition into adulthood.

There were some hard lessons along the way, and the years I spent building out this character and the world he occupies were some of the most painful, and uncomfortable of my life.

I buried friends, I learned to fight with my hands, and I walked up mountains in the Cascades carrying a crosscut saw.

Francis gave me a reason to sit down and determine the kind of person I wanted to be in the midst of all that, and how that person would choose to interact with the world. It forced me to seek my own truth, in an attempt to make him as truthful as possible.