Fans of boundary-pushing comics have been singing Sammy Harkham's praises for years. As the editor of the legendary anthology Kramers Ergot, Harkham has introduced readers to countless unique, challenging pieces of comic art from creators around the world. But Harkham's own comics are just as exciting. After working on it for over a decade, his highly anticipated new graphic novel, Blood of the Virgin, is available now from Pantheon Books.
Blood of the Virgin tells the story of a writer and director struggling to make a name for himself in 1970s Hollywood. As the story progresses, Harkham takes the reader on a tour of Hollywood's history while painting an intimate portrait of a young couple struggling to cope with parenthood, creative ambition, and financial pressure. In the newest edition of CBR's Indie Spotlight interview series, Harkham discussed the origins of the project, his creative process, and his passion for comics.
Congrats on Blood of the Virgin! How does it feel to see the collected edition after working on it for over a decade?
Great and strange. A project like this inevitably grows and changes over time, so to consider it all as one piece and for it to work as such is gratifying. Pantheon went all the way on the edition. It's a beautifully made object. I'm still staring at it.
Could you talk a bit about the origins of Blood of the Virgin? How did this book come about?
The initial spark was thinking about my parents, monster makeup, and what Los Angeles looked like in 1971. Those three things were the initial spark plugs. I could see potential in it, and I think I was ready to attempt a long-form comic that was very different than anything I had done up to that point.
How has the project evolved in the years since you started?
I was always driven more by questions, wanting to get past the cliches of it all, and I think that pushed it into deeper and weirder areas psychologically. I believe in trusting your artistic intuition and that even if you don't understand where your story is going as you work on it, your subconscious DOES, and everything will sort itself out if you stick with it and follow your nose. To answer your question more directly: I think the cartooning got better!
In a recent interview with The New Yorker, you mention that you don't write a script for your comics. Could you talk a bit about what your cartooning process looks like?
Sure. I don't like working from a script because then the comic is merely a form of adaption from one medium to another. I want to work out the story and characters through the language of comics and within the limitations of the medium. I have a sense of the overall structure of the story when starting, but nothing is written down. Maybe there are some scraps of ideas, gags. I work on it one page at a time -- starting with a scene that's nagging my brain a lot. I focus on the single page or sequence and try to make it work as good as I can on its own terms all the way through, from limited thumbnails to finished inks, and try not to think about or rely on other stuff that might happen later in the comic.
Doing this makes every page feel like it's your last instead of just one in a long procession of things to get over with. It makes you want to make it count. That doesn't mean in terms of visual fireworks but in terms of the scene itself. That usually begets more ideas for the next page as well as developing a natural rhythm to the flow of the overall story and getting deeper into your characters, too. Often, this mode of working leads to hitting brick walls and despair because I haven't thumbnailed the whole thing first, so I don't know if it's working or will succeed until it's done. It feels precarious. But the benefit is I bring every single thing I have to every page [and] wring out my psyche to the last drop. So for better or worse, it's as good as I got.
How did your experience publishing some sections of the book in Crickets and Kramers Ergot impact how you approached the story?
It made me double down on making each chapter as strong as I could on [its] own, as separate pieces. Beyond that, readers' enthusiasm as it was coming out was always encouraging, especially [when] it felt like an impossible task.
Speaking of Kramers Ergot, how does your relationship with this graphic novel compare to the anthology series you've created and curated? How have the two projects informed each other?
Kramers Ergot was always a passion project, a way to excavate comics' past and future in a context of modern cartooning. Making the anthology made me enthusiastic about comics and books. Enthusiasm is important if you MAKE comics.
Joe's story was one of the last sections of the book that you self-published, but it appears fairly early on in Blood of the Virgin. Did the book's chronology change as you were making it, or did you always have the sequence of events planned out?
The Joe chapter was an idea I had while working on Crickets #6, and it was a color idea as well, so I thought it would be well suited to Kramers since it didn't concern itself directly with the main narrative. The idea always was for it to be placed in the middle of the book as both a kind of physical orientation placer and to subtly recontextualize the main narrative themes. That was an addition in some ways to the story, but also the missing piece I was always looking for from the beginning when I had this vague overall shape of the project. You fill the particulars as you find them, so it was very much an idea looking to be found if that makes sense.
What made you want to tell Joe's story in full color?
Color differentiated it from the main narrative so that automatically the reader takes it on its own terms, and color romanticizes the themes in the right away for the rug to be pulled out from under them. I also initially thought it could be a collaborative project with a colorist I love, Claude Legris(the original colorist on Hard Boiled), but she was impossible to track down! But that was ultimately for the best.
Were there any real-life filmmakers or Hollywood figures who inspired the characters in Blood of the Virgin?
Joy Bang, Mason Hoffenberger, Monte Hellman, Andy Milligan, Doris Wishman, Ray Lovejoy.
What are you most excited for fans to encounter as they read the book?
I'm excited for readers to experience it in its fully completed form as it was intended. I think there are distinct pleasures there. As much as I loved getting the Black Hole single issues, there is something powerful in holding it as a single bound THING.
Blood of the Virgin is available now from Pantheon Books.