Talking Fantagraphics’ ‘Light It, Shoot It!’ With Graham Chaffee

Billy may have served his time but that doesn’t mean his hometown wants him back. In need of a place to stay, Graham Chaffee‘s latest graphic novel, Light It,Shoot It!, sees Billy turn to his older brother for help, but will Hollywood be the answer to his problems? For more on Chaffee’s return to noir, check out this interview with the writer-artist below:

Rachel Bellwoar: Noir is a genre you’ve returned to often. What do you think it is that keeps drawing you back?

Graham Chaffee: Well, I’m a fan, to begin with – it’s an unsentimental genre, morally ambiguous, most of the people involved are doing their best in an environment that’s set up for failure – an encapsulation of the human condition, really…

I think I am gonna take a break from it, for a bit, though – my next story is a golem story – a contemporary, LA, comedic golem story, I’m working on with my partner Susan – it will contain zero noir elements, except sex and cops, I guess…

Bellwoar: Every glimpse we get into Billy’s childhood home is that of a house that’s been frozen in time for six years (which is how long Billy’s been in prison). What made you want to start the book with a peek into the state of mind of Billy’s parents?

Chaffee: I wanted to set up a character who isn’t ever going to get the benefit of any doubt, not even from his mom ‘n’ dad – he’s not welcome in his hometown. This gives him a reason to move the plot on down to Hollywood, where his welcome is dubious, at best…

Bellwoar: Through flashbacks we get to learn more about Billy’s relationship with his brother, Bobby. There aren’t any flashbacks, though, that get into why Billy burned down the factory (if there was a reason why). Were there any rules you created for yourself, in terms of when to use flashbacks and when to avoid them?

Chaffee: No, there weren’t any rules about that – one of the themes in the book is the complicated sibling relationship, and the flashbacks are there to flesh that out a bit. The flashbacks reference Billy’s obsession with fire, it was only a matter of time before things got out of hand – and Bobby’s reluctant role has always been to watch out for him, so the factory disaster would have felt to Bobby (as well as his folks) like HIS failure. Getting away from that feeling is part of Bobby’s reason for moving to LA – confronting that feeling is Bobby’s personal journey in the story.

Bellwoar: Billy and Bobby might not always get along, but they do share a love of movies. How fun was it, getting to curate their shared film history, in terms of the films they quote and the posters they put up in their bedroom?

Chaffee: Pretty fun 🙂

To be honest, there’s only a few types of movies a pair of boys are gonna grow up obsessed with – monsters, war, and crime – I picked monsters because monsters are fun and less problematic (from a writing pov) than war (I didn’t want the brothers to come off as militaristic or gun-oriented – wrong vibe) or crime (too meta).

They could have been into sci-fi or fantasy, but yawn…

Bellwoar: What made you decide to have Bobby work on the set of a horror film (Curse of Dracula), versus a different type of B-movie?

Chaffee: In 2015, one of my coworkers dressed up as “70s Dracula” for Halloween, and I had that in the back of my mind, as I was writing the script… turtleneck sweater, Burt Reynolds mustache – the works!

Bellwoar: I really appreciate how much your dialogue emphasizes pauses. How do you decide when an ellipsis is warranted over a squiggle?

Chaffee: I dunno – I make it up as I go along. Dialog should read like it’s spoken – in fits and starts, with pauses and volume. People rarely speak in clear sentences and one bit of speech always leads to another. The squiggles and ellipses are just my way of trying to convey the sort of informal halting continuity of speech.

Bellwoar: It’s not immediately obvious what an important role Kate Kelly is going to play in this story. Can you speak more about that character and how she’s almost the sleeper star of Light It, Shoot It?

Chaffee: Kate migrated over to this book from the last one. I liked her, and wanted to spend more time with her.

There’s a lot of her journey unexplored on the way. She went from “dissatisfied housewife” to “dissatisfied movie exec” in the dozen or so years between the books – her trajectory following the general flight-path of second-wave feminism, and the women’s lib movement, of the ’60s and ’70s, (though I doubt she would self-identify as a feminist).

In our story, she’s confronting middle-age, in an industry that worships youth, and finds herself (reluctantly) in a somewhat maternal role.

Bellwoar: In an interview for The Comics Journal in 2017 you talked about adding gray to your color palette for this book. Now that you’ve seen the final result, where do you stand on using gray in future projects?

Chaffee:   I think I should’ve spent a few more years perfecting my graywash skills, is what – next book is gonna be digital.

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Graham!

Light It, Shoot It! is scheduled to go on sale April 2nd from Fantagraphics.