His other work is G-Man: Cape Crisis, which is a graphic novel comprised of five comic issues/chapters that focus on G-Man’s cape. After reading the book, the story presented in each chapter felt like a complete individualized stories. However, each issue was still linked together to create a longer, more complete whole story. According to Giarrusso, this is a goal that most comic writers try to achieve. “Ideally, each individual issue should be comprehensible and a complete story in itself even if you hadn’t read anything that came before.” He had the bigger story in mind, but when he was “fleshing it out,” Giarrusso identified the “smaller arcs” within the bigger story. These arcs then became the individualized comic books/chapters of the graphic novel.
Let’s dive into the content of the book, specifically, Chapter 5. In this chapter, our hero G-Man and his brother Great Man was in search of Sky Mountain to find a great being name Krios Khrysomallos. On their journey through the earth’s sky, they encounter something out of the ordinary, the Transition Zone. In the panel, it is depicted with visible pencil lines and some coloring and inking. The style of the artwork made it obviously different from the rest of the panels. Although it stands out, it was interesting and creative. Giarrusso said that the drawing for the Transition Zone was done in “rougher pencil with no inks and the color was added digitally.” He wanted to show that there was a magical barrier that surrounded the mountain and believed that this art method would be the best way to exhibit it. “I thought taking the inks away would help demonstrate that something was different. Things were a bit off when crossing over this transition zone.”
After the boys pass through the Transition Zone, they encounter Sky Mountain. In the next page or two, there is a detailed depiction of the mountain. I like how the object has the recognizable mountain shape, but stunning enough to not be a plain and simple mountain. Giarrusso wanted a giant floating mountain in the sky that would compass all the majestic feeling of a home for the gods. To accomplish this, he incorporated desired elements like the giant stone statues and the grand tree on top. He worked with certain features to make the mountain look like a face, so that it can look like a giant head. “This is conceptually my take on Mount Olympus, mythical home of the Greek gods, but open to encompass all gods, myths, and legends.
© 2011 Linda Thai
Stay tune for Part 4 of the Chris Giarrusso interview.
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