An Interview With Alex de Campi about VALENTINE, Digital Comics, and What's Next

I recently got to chat with the writer of Valentine, a comic that you can currently catch up on at Thrillbent.com. The book stars a young man named Valentine, who, all upon happenstance, ends up realizing the world around him is just the tip of the iceberg. I was able to sit down with writer Alex De Campi to talk a bit about the recently released volume 2, as well as the beginnings of the book itself. 

Matt: I guess the first thing would be, what interested you in that time frame with Napoleon? Was it just because you wanted to try something different?

Alex: Well, there is a reason that it is in the Napoleonic era that doesn’t become clear until much later, because it allows me to do a really cool twist at some point. So there are reasons, but I love history, history is awesome. I especially love military history, and that hasn’t been seen that much in my work, but especially in the future a lot of my stuff is set in various historical time periods. Valentine is set in Russia during one of the great military disasters of all time, where I think 90% of the army died, mostly through cold and sickness rather than actually by a Russian. Visually, it's incredibly evocative, regarding the image and setting. The white of the snow, the red of the blood, the blue of the frozen bodies, etc. I mean its all very visual, and that works well so you can immediately have your characters in peril, and very clear peril, without having to spend a lot of time explaining what's going on.

Matt: I actually read them out of order. I read the second book first, so it went from this really bright and vibrant world to this dark and grisly one that was supposed to act as your introduction to the world. It made more sense that way, because there was death all over the place, and by the time you get to the lighter and brighter world you appreciate it more. Christine Larsen's art is beautiful by the way, whether dark or light, it always remains pretty.

Alex: Yeah, we do a lot with color as you can tell. Color is very important to us, and we use it in the saturation and the shades, as each section is color coded. it’s a bit like John Boorman from the film Point Blank in that respect, but we play with saturation a lot more than he does. He was always much more desaturated throughout the whole thing.

Matt: Well now that you are bit further on in chapter 2, do you like having a bit more freedom because of the location and there being more fantastical elements you can introduce?

Alex: The funny thing is that so far, I am working on chapter 13, which is somewhere else entirely. With volume two I’m thrilled that it's essentially chapters 6 through 10, part of the old Valentine. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the history of Valentine, the original incarnation. What you are reading as a fresh volume two was in 2010, and then once we get all caught up we are releasing the new episodes which are even prettier and even crazier!

At this point Alex’s dog was making sure we did not forget about him. We break for a puppy interlude.

Yeah, I'm the cutest thing ever.

LOOK AT THAT FACE!

Alright, back to the show.

Alex: Valentine is a really wonderful comic to do as a digital comic, and it was deliberately created that way. It has alot of twists and turns that take it in many different places. I mean I’m always amused and can tell when someone hasn’t done very much research because they’re like “you know, this is really interesting historical fantasy” and I’m like...no. Congratulations, you’ve read the first chapter (laughter). The constant twist and turns keep it really fresh for me and hopefully for the reader. Its one of the reasons we picked the particular story we did, as it works so well with many episodes, and at the end of each you always want to figure out more, and it never stops, and as you can tell from the first volume, things just constantly happen.

Matt: Yeah

Alex: and the things we do to poor Valentine, I mean, that poor boy.

Matt: Hahaha, and I have to be honest, I am very new to Valentine. In fact, this was my first exposure, so one of the things that grabbed me was the presentation and layout of the book on the website, which has a very motion comic feel to it. That little bit of extra motion it provides helps keep the story moving and strongly feeds into that “just one more page” mentality. Now does Valentine also have a hardcover or trade companion?

Alex: One of the unusual things about Valentine is that we originally launched it on Comixology back in the day. We were one of the only digital longform comics, and we completely threw away the concept of the page. Most of the digital comics that you see are some kind of unhappy medium between a completely digital product but still being able to print the thing at some point. It is really secretly like the screen is half the page, so its a paper comic with just a few little tweaks so you can call it digital, and we were like “no, fuck that.” We saw no print as an endgame, and we didn’t care if it got printed.

I did eventually, like in 2011, go back and publish the last 10 chapters as a graphic novel through Image, and it was literally taking all of these panels and cutting them up and remaking them into a page, and you know, it was visually very successful, and one of the reasons we did it was that people would not review digital comics. Reviewers really looked down on digital comics. I couldn’t even get people to log into Comixology at that point, they just didn’t know what to do. I was like you go to Comixology, press download and then read it on your phone and they were like …..uhhhh I don’t know how to do that. Then I went, okay, fine, and then we made it into a book to raise the profile a little bit, but we probably won’t do a volume 2 like that.

Matt: its amazing how far we have come in a few years time in regards to digital.

Alex: Yeah

Matt: Like I know people now that digital is all they read, and they don’t even go into their comic store anymore.

Alex: Exactly. I am not surprised. I am definitely not surprised. It's the way that most things are going to go. It's a shame that we can’t really have some sort of like, that more companies aren’t more embracing and won’t try more interesting things, because it still feels all very much like it's just something they do. It is still really a print comic.

Matt:  Just a few months ago, I ended up getting Marvel Unlimited, which is the monthly fee Marvel Digital Comic service. While it's cool to be able to read them all on your phone, the books are not laid out in a conducive way for a mobile device. Now I have a giant phone, I have a Note 2, so its not like I’m lacking for Real Estate.

Alex: Yeah

Matt: Its still not, like it doesn't flow from scene to scene, and it is especially awkward on things like 2 page spreads, and it can also be easy to read things out of order because the format wasn't tweaked enough to excel on mobile device. Its treated like an afterthought. 

Alex: Yeah, and Valentine is made for a small phone, essentially on a standard, like you could read on a 3GS and you'd be fine. It was designed specifically for that.

Matt: Also the way the chapters are divided, with each one being about 13 or 14 pages long. It makes for great break-time reading.

Alex: That was entirely what the comic was made for, and this is how we competed back in 2009 when no one was doing this sort of thing. If you had a few minutes, you could just pull out your phone, open up a comic, and it was super easy to read. You didn’t have to worry about it being a printed page and zooming in on the panel and then twisting to another panel and having to move your phone. It was just simple, and you could do it on the subway, as long as you had coverage on the subway, which they've done in Hong Kong since fucking 2002. Also New York.

Matt: Yeah, if Krystal's has free Wifi, you can get it pretty much anywhere. 

Alex: Yeah I know.

Matt: As far as the art goes, Valentine contains some beautiful stuff. Are you doing all the lettering and art digitally at this point?

Alex: All of Valentine is digital, and its just me and Christine. Originally, the stuff you’re looking at concerning the colors, in the new episodes it's just me and Christina. I write it, she draws it, and sends it back to me, I letter it and do the post production on it, and then we're done. This thing is literally made by two women on their own.

Matt: How long does it take to churn out one of these chapters?

Alex: It takes Christine about 5 weeks to do a chapter, and that’s like one of our ComiXology chapters, so you know, that’s about 5 of the mini episodes. I’ve written up through about chapter 16, and we are getting ahead. And what you’re reading, the beginning of volume two, as I’ve noted, is chapter 6. So we are so far ahead.

Matt: Well the book is great, and I’m a sucker for a book in a fantasy setting anyway. Dragons, fairies, cool swords, etc, it all appeals to me. 

Alex: Yeah, and alot of people do and there aren’t a lot of good fantasy comics out there.

Matt: True, true.

Alex: If people want to check it out you can go to Thrillbent.com/valentinepromo (this has since been taken down, but you can enjoy the entirety of volume 1 free of charge) and they can try it out for free for a month and just gorge out on comics

Matt: Oh that's great. How often are they updated?

Alex: Its weekly, and we have like 52 weeks of content on Thrillbent. We're also available on Comixology so for those who use Comixology for their comics reading go to Comixology, download Valentine. Chapter 1 is free, and the Comixology chapters are the long ones. They are 5 weeks of Thrillbent episodes. They are how we originally conceived them in a much longer thing. So you download them, and there will be a new big fat chapter coming out weekly on Comixology until we are caught up and then we will probably go monthly, but for the next 12 weeks we’re weekly.

Matt: If you were to give someone that one reason to check Valentine out, what would that be?

Alex: Gosh, this is like a what's your favorite song question.

Matt: Haha, sorry about that.

Alex: No problem at all. It's just really exciting, and there is so much out there right now that is grim and dark and miserable. Valentine is, well you know how much we put Valentine through, but it's quite a positive book about a character who's got strong morals and is trying to make good choices in a world that he can’t understand since its so screwed up. It is not miserable however, although there is a ton of peril in it. It's just exciting in the old-fashioned pulp way.

Matt: You empathize with him a great deal, but the tone of the book isn't a pessimistic one.

Alex: Yeah, like he’s a hero, an old school version of a hero. It's somebody better looking than you, stronger than you, and going through worse things than you, but because of their choices and their adherence to their beliefs, you feel that they are going to end up on top.

Matt: Well thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. I truly appreciate it. If they want more information where can they find you?

Alex: I'm at Alexdecampi.com so you can send people there if they want to check out more of my stuff, and I will be at New York Comic Con at table Y3. 

Thanks to Alex for taking the time to sit down with me, and to Thrillbent for the opportunity to sit down with her. Really enjoyed the chat, and make sure to head here to give Valentine a read.