Creator Spotlight: Jeremy Aleman

This week’s Wednesday Spotlight is with friend and fellow author and webcomic creator Jeremy Aleman, creator of Mark of the Beast and many other stories.  Jeremy is a little long winded/rambly, but he has some great thoughts and answers 😉  He also uses stronger language than we normally do, which I’ve decided to *bleep* a bit. Ya’ll will know what he’s saying anyways, probably.

D: Alright Jeremy, tell us a bit about yourself.

J: My name’s Jeremy Aleman and I do everything on the Mark of the Beast website. My day job is as a baker at this sweet li’l’ mom and pop operation on an island outside of Seattle. The best things about the job is that I can really set my own hours based on what needs to be done, so long as everything is baked off before we open. I rarely see my boss – which is weird – and have been adding new menu items basically on what I feel like making. So, more cookies and English sourdough muffins so far.

D: How is working at the bakery? I hear bakers have to wake up SUPER early.

J: The schedule is a bit odd and isn’t for everyone. I’m usually in bed by 8 PM. I get up usually at 2 AM and then I’m back home in my jammies by 9 or 10. It isn’t a bad life, but it’s hell on the socialization, which I’ve always been piss-poor at. You want to go out with people and it’s a weird juggling act with sleep, because you WANT to socialize. But you’re one step behind or in front of everybody else in life. Even on days off, because I get used to that schedule.

D: How is your island hermitage going? Everything you ever hoped for?

J: The one thing I knew while growing up is that I really wanted to f*** off to the woods and have everyone else leave me alone. Oddly, this seems to have happened before I struck it rich, but I’m not going to complain. I basically live in a small studio house in the woods, on an island outside Seattle. If my neighbors would be kind and leave, I could have a clear sight of the bay. Or sound. Whatever they call it here. I’m left alone, don’t have to worry about upstairs or downstairs or sideways people, so it’s good for now.

D: How did you get started with your creative projects?

J: I’ve always wanted to entertain people. My clearest memories in childhood are I’m staging these stupid stand-up comedy acts with my parents in their chairs or sofa. But the TV is right behind me, you know? And even then I thought they were just waiting for me to shut up so they can turn on the sitcoms. I even did a few plays with my action figures. I forget what they were called. Beast Lords of something like that. You’d rub this icon on their chest and the creature’s element would be revealed or something. My family hated it, but I kept on trying.

I really started writing at 14. I remember the age because that was the year my family got a second computer and I was the one that cried hardest to make his claim on the old one. I spent an entire summer clacking away on that old thing and that was the start of “Tales of Reyncia” – a steampunk fantasy story before I even knew what that was. I also started something called Dissolution. The common theme was a world beyond this one – a kind of greater metaphysical truth that bled through reality into some big “event”.

I put event in quotation marks, because around the same time I started reading comics. I started reading them right as The Infinity Gauntlet mega-event was ramping up. For a fourteen year old, that event was mind-blowing. Especially one brand new to comics. For the first time, I was exposed to an inter-connected and sequential way of story-telling that entirely changed to me what a story could be. Instead of A->B->C, there were these wild tangents all over the place! One of my first comics was Silver Surfer #54 – the one with Rhino. Which was a really ground-to-earth kind of story amidst this cosmic chaos. And it made the villain this great sympathetic character!

So, from that start, I’ve always loved writing, but – ah, lawdy! – have I sucked at the follow through. I get frustrated with stories after a few chapters or just bored and then leave them stagnant for ages. That’s one of the main thrusts with my website. I put everything out there (that I want to show). I want to continue with it all, but I’m hoping something resonates with fans. Whether that’s the comic or not, I don’t know or care. I just want to entertain and if people get that from what I’ve put up, I’m happy.

As for the comic… I’ve never really drawn before this. Or done the weird coding huju stuff. So, it’s been a continual challenge, learning experience, and f****** headache. I am happy and proud of it though. I went from saying “I don’t know how to draw” to “yeah, it’s s***, but I did it. Ya f****rs”.

D: Tell us about being a RPG gamemaster.  How is that writing different?

J: As I mentioned, I love writing and have been doing it for – GASP! – twenty years now. It sucks and I don’t recommend it to anyone. But, if you absolutely have to, it is a good way to stay sane in this crazy world of ours. But so’s drinking. Fortunately, the two go well in hand. As I mentioned, I really just want to entertain. As such, I have a particular fondness for tabletop RPGs. I only just recently DMed my first game (Pathfinder) with my very talented interviewer (Dan the Shark). It’s a great way to get an immediate reaction from people to see how they respond to whatever plots, intrigue, and mystery you can devise. But it also forces you to think from your characters’ perspective, which I think a lot of young writers overlook.

In writing for a tabletop game, you really need to cover what you think the players (essentially YOUR characters in the overall story you have created as DM) may do. Yes, these may cover idiotic and stupid reactions, but… guess what? People – and thus, characters – are like that. It’s been a great insight on thinking about story narrative and what-not. One character in particular was very focused on getting a farm and supporting her spoiled wild pig, so it was a challenge to think of ways to keep that character (not necessarily the player) invested in the story.

That game is currently on pause, mainly because it involved mostly other webcomic/content creators and we’re all insanely busy trying to provide people content just for the sake of it. It was a nice distraction, but now I’m trying to focus on my website. I have two comics – both in the same storyline and with the same characters – but all my other writing is up there as well. My to do list is insane! In the future, will try to just focus on getting that stuff done and dealing with my cat. He’s good people, despite his limited understanding. Every day after work, he greets me at the door and is happy to see me. With everything else in the world, isn’t that basically what we all want?

D: What’s the inspiration behind your main comic, Mark of the Beast?

J: One thing that I thought was misunderstood about Mark of the Beast from the get-go was it’s a true story. Hand to God. The four central characters are all based on myself (Eli – my middle name) and three of my friends. I moved around a lot as a kid and that was always difficult on me. I’ve always been socially awkward and from a very young age had hearing problems that certainly didn’t help any. In the second grade, the teacher had to wear a microphone around her neck that was wired directly to a Walkman-like set-up I had to wear during every class. Not the best way to get popular in elementary school, but it was a step up from before. Earlier, I had to have friends translate what I said to the teacher and what she said back to me. Amazingly, I didn’t end up in special ed classes.

Anyway, these three misfits in one of the spots my family moved to were the first group I had connected with in what seemed like a lifetime. By that point, I think I had lived in… eight towns? It’s hard to remember. Then – suddenly – there was this click and I had a group I belonged to. It was a great feeling. Unfortunately, the family habit of moving every year didn’t change, so year after year I made plots to get back there because it felt like that’s where I belonged. There’s that whole saying “You can’t go home again”, which was either a poem or novel, but I’m too drunk to remember. But it turned out to be true. I no longer speak to AJ, Jeff, or Clayton. What we went through (and probably still do), is what the comic is about. I’m sure other people have experienced this and hopefully they see their own experiences in the comic, but it felt like we were all under a curse. That whatever could go wrong, would.

So, certain things in the comic are hand-to-heart true. “Jeff” really did have conversations with the Grim Reaper (in his mind). There was a hobo forest. My favorite character to write – Wyonna, Clayton’s mother – is pretty accurately portrayed, but I think I did so lovingly. She is/was an awesome lady and the last I heard she had cancer. I sincerely hope she beat it to hell and back. But because the comic is based around people I no longer talk to, has made it difficult to continue at points. I think I have more or less passed that point and separated the characters from their origins, but time will tell.

D: So since it was based on real life and you’ve kind of outgrown that, do you have the rest of the story figured out yet?

J: The odd thing is, I do have Mark of the Beast outlined from start to finish. I may not know what each comic page will be, but where it goes and what it ends on has been cemented from the very start. I’ve just started penciling page sixty-nine and that has a few throwbacks to the very start, two years ago. It’s weird looking back on it all, because my life has taken so many loops and turns during that period it’s difficult to conceive and explain that time. It was full of so many upheavals that it really is a weird, ever-shifting fog to me.

But that’s what life does and I think that’s an important thing to remember for anyone attempting to do this crazy thing called webcomicing or self-publishing or whatever. At the end of the day, you need to remember that the reason why you’re hunched over your computer or tablet while coworkers are out partying, why you’re passing up those social commitments and spending another Friday night alone, and why damn near every f***ing moment you spend awake is spent dreaming up worlds no-one else could but you is not because of the fans. It’s not for the recognition or the money. It’s because you thought of something where things make sense; where there is meaning instead of the senseless chaos we have to deal with on a regular basis. So, do your thing – whatever it may be. And be proud of it. Even if it’s complete s*** sometimes.

D: Tell us a bit about the plot/where the story (and your other stories) are going.

J: I really wanted to do something unique with Mark of the Beast in the sense it was a whole publishing brand for everything I did. I’m working on redesigning the site to reflect that, but for now – Mark of the Beast is entirely about four guys who used to be friends. One left town ten years ago, but has this romanticized notion about his friends in Clovenhill and, really, the town itself. So, he comes back after all this time and kinda expects things to be the same, only they’re not. And it continually lets him down, due to his high expectations.

The pacing in the comic hasn’t been ideal, but I’m aiming to correct that. A lot of the dangling plot threads – which there have been a lot of – are going to start drawing together. At the heart of the comic, it’s about four very different people drawn back together by a curse that has caused a lot of the strange, weird s*** in their lives. The snow-whale early in the comic? That’ll be explained. Chupacabra and Doom Raven both have their place. Even how Eli got his doctorate in puppetry comes into play because of this curse.

My current story-line is “A Cask of Modello”, which non-dimwitted readers will recognize as a reference to the Edgar Allen Poe story, “A Cask of Amontillado”. We’re nearing the end of that and I can’t express how I happy I am to close this chapter of Mark of the Beast. It’s not to do with anything in the comic itself, but it’s been spread across a very chaotic period in my life and finally getting it done is a way for me to move past that. But, before we can do that, there’s “Game Night, Bloody Game Night” to get through, which is a story I’ve been referencing for over a year now. The seeds of it started when Marvel started hyping their “Original Sin” event and then Harold Ramis died – and really, how can you not be a fan of his?

So, this Groundhog Day meets Uatu the Watcher story got hatched and that’s what we have to look forward to. Except, I can’t use Uatu (Marvel never answered my emails), so I’m forced to use Peeratu the Peeper. Budget reasons. But he’s about two foot tall, so that’s all kinds of savings there.

In Mark of the Beast Quickies, I’m currently going through a story line where Higgins (Clay’s cat and the top-half of the crime fighting duo, Cat-Hat) has to face the repercussions of his past decisions. This leads to all sorts of soap opera intrigue and a peek at the going-on’s beneath Clovenhill, in a place I’m calling – for lack of a better term – Undertown. Once I’m done with that story, it’s on to a more true-to-life story where Eli and the other three all visit the state fair. All I can say on that one is there’s… well, vomit just everywhere.

D: Anything you want to use this soapbox to rant about/get off your chest?

J: One of the massive fandoms that I really can’t stand is the one surrounding anime. It just makes no sense to me. The fandom. The popularity of most of the shows. But I especially hate the word anime and this idea that it’s a genre in its own right. They’re cartoons and belong with the likes of Scooby Doo, Dexter’s Laboratory, and the rest. Sure, there are shows out there like Ghost in the Shell that people will point to as something far better than mere “cartoons”. Then lump it in the sci-fi section or other TV shows. Pretty sure Family Guy, Simpsons, and others are just on the shelf next to the box sets of sitcoms and medical dramas. It really isn’t that hard.

But the whole anime thing started as this weird cultural fetishism thing and a lot of people got this attitude that anime was superior than cartoons, which is nonsense. They’re cartoons that happen to be made in Japan. Just say you watch cartoons – there’s no shame in it! I love cartoons, because they’re f***ing awesome! To say there’s an anime or manga style – which people have said to me whenever I get into this argument – and that’s what you prefer is just weird to me. And, I would think, kinda insulting to Japan. I don’t think you can talk about a national or cultural “style”, because it’s lumping all comics and all cartoons produced in that culture under the same label.

There’s a funny story involving the guy one of the character’s in my comic is based on and I’ll just refer to him by that character’s name, Jeff. Jeff loves his anime and this happened when we were all in our early-to-mid twenties. I think we were at the campus of a community college and there were two Japanese women there as exchange students for a semester. Jeff naturally wanted to chat them up and – Jeff being Jeff – the conversation starter he went with was Dragonball Z and how he was such a big fan of the show. Of course, they looked at him kind of weird, said “that show’s for little kids”, and then laughed at him.

Another comment I’ve heard from anime fans a lot is how they’re so much “deeper” and “smarter” than other cartoons, which is such a load of horse feathers. I’ll go back to Ghost in the Shell, because that’s been in the news lately and is something most people are familiar with. Yeah, it’s a smart show/movie and greatly enjoyable. It’s a great sci-fi story, that happens to be a cartoon, but let’s be honest – the only depth is a lot of philosophical window dressing for a lot of butt-kicking action. The ideas in there are nothing new and certainly not explored to any kind of depth than they already have in other media. It’s like The Matrix – fun movie, but no real new ideas in sci-fi and any depth there was as real as Keanu dodging bullets. Around the same time, another movie came out that involved very much the same or similar ideas and questions – The Thirteenth Floor. It was largely ignored and then forgotten because the flashy and explodey violent package wasn’t there to sell it.

The same people that really make this claim of anime being deep and intelligent are usually the same ones that insist the only “right” way to watch it is subtitles with the original Japanese voice actors, which I think goes a long way into explaining why this silly belief persists. Sure, you’re reading the lines in English, but everything just sounds a lot smarter when you can’t understand a word of it. It’s a feeling I’m familiar with, liking that Russian band t.A.t.U and a few Thai pop singers. I’ve listened to English versions of the songs, but hearing them in Russian or Thai and I can fool myself into thinking all kinds of emotional depth and meaning are in there. But there’s really, really not.

D: Any advice for webcomic readers and/or creators?

J: My advice to readers of webcomics is to shut the f*** up and enjoy free entertainment. The vast majority of people providing this kind of entertainment to you are paying for the privilege for you to look at it. So, be supportive. Be APPRECIATIVE. Whether it’s to give you a slice-of-life comedy or Sonic fetish porn, most likely they’re paying so you can look at it. I’m going to be an old, ranty man here, but that’s a role I’m comfortable in… you dang kids have no idea how good you have it now. It’s all at your finger-tips. In a very short amount of time, it is literally an entirely different world out there. And the f***ed up thing? Within ten years, the same kind of change will happen again.

And that segues nicely into advice for creators… if you’re really serious about this, stay up on technology. I had a nice excuse in that I was working in Honduras for five years – s*** passed me by so much that by the time I returned to the US I went through culture shock. In five years! And that will probably just keep on happening faster and faster. My huge hurdle in starting all this – which I’m not quite over yet – is because of the tech and because I had no freaking clue how to draw. Slowly working on both and appreciate any jokes about either – if you come up with something I haven’t already told myself.

Which brings me directly to my last point… we’re all fragile little snowflakes. We were bullied. We’re odd and queer and drug-addled and all sorts of f***ed-up. We’re <i>artists</i> (Dan, add whatever emphasis you want here) [Muahaha!]. And all this free content out on the web that so many millions of people enjoy is there because we have a drive to entertain, despite what it costs us. No matter what the subject is, that alone should be celebrated.

D: Thanks Jeremy, great thoughts.  Anything else you’d like to say?

J: THIS INTERVIEW IS OVER! *drops mic and walks away*

D: That’s a great stopping point.  Thank you so much Jeremy!  If anyone has questions for him, you can post them below 🙂