By Jacob Cordas — With only a few days left in the Kickstarter, I was able to sit down with writer Aubery Sitterson and artist Chris Moreno. They have each made deeply entertaining and political work on their own. Together they have come together to make Stoned Master, an anti-gentrification kung-fu comic. Check out our conversation about the new book below…

INTERVIEW: Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno talk STONED MASTER

JACOB CORDAS: How did this project come to be? How did you two go about making this?

CHRIS MORENO: The idea sprung from working on me and Aubrey’s previous project, The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling, a non-fiction history of the “One True Sport.” I drew a ton of key moments from wrestling history, including pivotal matches, but because we were covering the entirety of the history of the art form I didn’t really get to draw an entire fight scene, just one or two panels. So, I mentioned to Aubrey that the next book I did, I wanted it to be all action, big fights. That led to us talking about our favorite action and kung fu flicks.

I hipped Aubrey to a 1977 movie called Death Promise, the story of two ass-kicking best friends who use martial arts to fight their evil landlords to protect their fellow tenants from eviction, or worse! It’s a real schlocky hidden gem (with a great titular theme song and a poster by Neal Adams, to boot!) with bad audio, lighting, cardboard sets, and actors who it feels like were pulled right off the street, or out of a local martial arts school. But it’s also got this kind of goofy earnestness, and this other level that we really responded to, which was that it was basically a story about tenants’ rights, except the tenants use their martial arts skills to kick the crap out of their landlords when starting a co-op fails.

AUBREY SITTERSON: This is actually our third book together; prior to The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling, we'd collaborated on the graphic novel WORTH, which was based on a story from the fine folks at Roddenberry Entertainment. We had a blast on both titles, but since TCBSOPW was tied to historical accuracy and all the things we had to include and WORTH was a work-for-hire gig, we'd never had total freedom on a title together. Stoned Master grew out of that, a way for us to show what we can do with action and comedy, to explore our adopted home of Los Angeles, and to dig into some deeper themes and ideas that are important to us. With cannabis and kung fu, natch. From there, it was just batting things around, designing everything from the ground up to play to one another's strengths!

JACOB: You both have worked together before. What do you both appreciate about working with the other person? How has your creative relationship developed over the course of your time working together?

CHRIS: The thing I like best about working with Aubrey is that he never tells me an idea is too big or too weird. I’ve worked on comics where it’s just page after page of people in rooms talking, which scratches its own storytelling itch, but I got into comics to do more books like Stoned Master. Aubrey gives 180%, and the best collaborations I’ve shared are ones where I’ve wanted to do as good or better as what my partner is giving me, which, by that math, means I’m giving at least 360% back. Aubrey and I have that kind of great collaboration, and that’s stretched back to our first project together, WORTH, and through our previous book, The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling. We have a good rapport, we can throw ideas back and forth, and we know when to give input where it’s needed, but we also know when to sit back and let each other do our thing.

Aubrey Sitterson (left) and Chris Moreno.

AUBREY: First of all, let me just assure you that Chris' math checks out. I've said it before, but what I love about working with Chris is that he doesn't really need me. I don't consider myself dead weight – it's definitely a synergistic process – but Chris is a true cartoonist, not an artist or illustrator or someone who just draws. He can do it all, so it's like our collaboration gets an incredible head start right out of the gate. That's been especially true on Stoned Master. As we built the story together from the ground up, I got to benefit from Chris' brilliance at every step of the way, which is a new aspect of our working relationship. As a result, Stoned Master is the purest expression of Chris and my vision for comics to date. I can't wait for you to read it.

JACOB: Aubrey, your work pulls heavily from genre but puts really unique angles on them, whether we are talking about No One Left To Fight’s anime heritage or BEEF BROS’s dynamic take on 80’s action. How does Stoned Master incorporate in and interact with the martial arts genre?

AUBREY: Dude, that's so nice of you to say. I am, at core, a genre writer; not a specific genre, but genre as a whole, whether it's the books you mentioned or my upcoming Dark Horse series, Tony Gregori and my raunchy sci-fi detective story The Worst Dudes, and Jed Dougherty and my jungle fantasy romcom Savage Hearts. One of the things I love about genre is joining a generations-long conversation held through genre tropes and conventions and creators' elaborations and subversions of them. With Stoned Master, we created a kung fu story – Shaw Brothers fans will feel right at home when it comes to the plot and structure – but reinterpreted the component elements through the lens of contemporary Los Angeles. I think readers will see this in everything from Chris' character designs, to the styles of kung fu used, to the driving motivations for our main characters.

JACOB: Humor comics have recently started making a true comeback with Aubrey's comics being some of the best in this recent revival. Is there a reason both of your work incorporates humor to the degree it does? How do you feel about this recent revival?

CHRIS: I wish I could say it was entirely by choice, but I’ve been offered comedy books for most of my career, from the first book I ever did, The Travelers with Tony DiGerolamo, to Sidekick with Paul Jenkins. Either comedy or horror books, strangely. So when I did my creator-owned book Zombie Dickheads, I combined them both! However, when I was first getting into comics, the trend was more towards realistic/photo-realistic styles, so I was always getting told my stuff was too cartoony, as if that was a negative, which made it hard to make certain in-roads. At a certain point, though, I decided to stop trying to chase trends and just do what feels right, so I always approach every project with a style that feels appropriate to the book. Sometimes that’s more realistic, sometimes more cartoony. But cartoony, comedic books are where I feel the most comfortable, and pretty much all of my new creator-owned projects have some element of humor in them. I’m so happy to see the trends swing back towards cartoonier styles, more humorous content, because it means a lot of comics creators are getting their chance to tell stories that the gatekeepers were previously saying there wasn’t an audience for. But I don’t know if it’s as much of a revival, because everyone doing humor comics has been around this whole time, or if it’s just now they’re getting spotlighted and covered by the mainstream.

AUBREY: Okay, now you're making me blush! My experience has been much like Chris' actually. Going all the way back to my time at Marvel, I've been told that my ideas are too gonzo, too weird, that comics need to be grounded, that "funny ain't money." But the truth is that humor is one of the things that comics, as a medium, excels at. There's a reason why, even with the decline of newspapers, comic strips have flourished on the internet, you know? It's right there in the name: Comics are comic. When they're at their best at least!

For me, powerful stories come from powerful emotions, and emotions are relative. If you tell a Sturm und Drang tale chockablock with nothing but intense emotional angst, audiences are going to get worn out very, very quickly, unless you find ways to alter the mood and pacing, which ultimately makes all of your beats hit harder. While I'd grant that all of my books are funny, I don't know if I'd characterize any of them as humor books, per se. If you look at universally revered narrative art, you'd be hard-pressed to find examples that don't contain at least some degree of levity. Humor is an important part of the human experience and to leave it out of your art is to leave a very effective arrow in your quiver untouched.

JACOB: Aubrey, your ability to weave comedy and politics is almost unrivaled right now in comics. This work aims to take on gentrification, which was a part of BEEF BROS as well. Do you build it from the ground up to deal with these political issues? Are they just a natural development of your interests? How are you able to so fluidly merge those two things?

AUBREY: Yes, YES! More compliments for me! By the end of this interview, I'm going to be completely insufferable and impossible to work with.

I think that for a genre story to be truly transcendent, there's a list of things it requires, and since I'm always trying to make work that not only engages with, but moves beyond the genre it's in, I strive to include all of those requirements in all of my stories. One of them is thematic depth. A well-plotted story can be enjoyable and even impressive, but if it's not ruminating on deeper ideas, it's, at best, well-crafted but forgettable pablum. In a very real way, I use my work to chew on whatever big ideas or concepts I'm exploring or even struggling with. There are ideas that are too complex to be explained literally in anything short of a boulder-sized tome, but are perfectly primed to have their ambiguities explored through genre fiction. I think community-based politics are a great example of this.

JACOB: Living in such a political time right now, Aubrey's work proposes some radical (if only in reference to the dominant culture) solutions of community solidarity, self-policing and rejection of a formalized state. Outside of purchasing your work, something I would recommend everyone do, do either of you have advice for people on how to organize to help make these kinds of things possible?

AUBREY: This is a great question and something I've spent the last year thinking about extensively, as I know a lot of people have. It's been uniquely frustrating how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected people, bringing so many vital issues to the forefront but at a time when community safety protocols have precluded the possibility of many traditional forms of community engagement. By exploring these ideas in my work, I've been able to relieve some of the pressure building up in my brain, but disseminating big, powerful ideas is only the start. Those ideas have to lead somewhere.

That's why organization is so important. The other night I read a phenomenal essay in Baffler by Brendan O'Connor, "When the Party's Over". It covers a lot of ground, but much of it comes down to the insufficiency of talking and ideas when there's no organization being done to implement them. As to how to start getting involved, that varies from place to place, but if there's a Democratic Socialists of America chapter in your city, I'd recommend that as a great place to start. At the very least, you'll connect with some like-minded folks, and that's where anything truly valuable begins.

JACOB: Chris, the art in this book looks amazing from the first few preview pages. What inspired the art style being used? Are there any visual references we should be keeping our eyes open for?

CHRIS: I was drawing from a lot of different sources, like Cheech & Chong movie posters, Underground Comix, Mad Magazine (particularly artists like John Severin), LA tourist postcards, movies like Drive and Thief, Jademan Comics, and a lot of the photo ref me and my wife have been taking driving around town. It all goes into the blender and then gets poured out on the page.

JACOB: Aubrey, one of the things I love about your books is how strong the design for each character is. How does that come about? Chris, what's your process for creating such fantastic designs?

CHRIS: Usually the process starts on the page, either the script or any written materials about the characters I’m given. Aubrey gave me a lot to start with: personality descriptions, some references to actors or character types. I take all that and start compiling my own reference, Google searches, Pinterest boards. I’m looking for any bit of info that can feed my sense of the character-- like clothing styles, but based around, say, what neighborhood they’re from. With Frankie, for example, I was looking at Sammo Hung in his classic wuxia comedies, like Knockabout, but then interpreting that look through the kinds of comfortable streetwear I see folks dressed in around LA. Aubrey threw in his input, like that LA logo on his hoodie, and I added the Sweet Leaf Buddha on the t-shirt. There are even little pot leaves on his toque. Early on, I talked about how designs and logos on the characters’ clothes were going to be a way to communicate more about who the characters are. Some are subtle, like the American Southwestern nods on Master So’s shirt, and some are pretty over-the-top obvious, like the Menagerie, kung fu villains who are basically cosplaying as their animal styles.

JACOB: Why did you choose to use Kickstarter for this project? How does using this public method compare to working with publishing companies? Do you have a preference of release method?

AUBREY: Let me get this out of the way first: I love comic shops and the direct market that loads em up with books. However, the direct market – like the bookstore market, the webcomics market, the YA market, and every other market – has its own preferences. And while the direct market allows for the existence of books that wouldn't otherwise be possible, it doesn't mean that every book is able to find success there. For instance, BEEF BROS, a new superhero book that doesn't feature any Marvel or DC characters, would have struggled to find a spot on shelves. Stoned Master, as a book that prominently features cannabis, would have been a tough sell in much of the country, where cannabis usage remains taboo if not outright illegal. Kickstarter gives us an opportunity to let these books find their audience outside the direct market and, through the use of retailer packs, make them available to retailers who know that their customers would dig em.

On the other hand, books like The Worst Dudes and Savage Hearts are perfect for the direct market, as evidenced by the bonkers order numbers on The Worst Dudes #1 and advance buzz for Savage Hearts. They also get to benefit from the editorial, marketing, distribution, and reputational prowess of the legendary Dark Horse Comics generally and my editor Brett Israel specifically, helping get retailers on board with these books at a scale that wouldn't be possible on Kickstarter.

I honestly can't say I prefer one to the other, as they're both different paths to the same all-important goal: Getting all these ideas out of my head and into gorgeous, gonzo, genre comics!

JACOB: This may seem like a silly question at this point but I want to flat out ask it - why do you think people should invest in this amazing-looking comic book? Outside of it looking amazing, of course.

CHRIS: Stoned Master is our love letter to LA, weed comedies, kung fu movies, and, above all, community and friendship. And who couldn’t use a little bit more of any of those things these days.

AUBREY: If nothing else we've said has sold you, how about the fact that Stoned Master is 32 full-color pages with premium printing? Like BEEF BROS, this is no disposable, cheaply printed floppy but, rather, an art object worth treasuring. And you can get your hot little hands on it for only $10, with free domestic shipping. Baby, that's a steal at twice the price.