Broken Frontier

Fans of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, Once Upon a Time in the West The Shadow, the Green Hornet, and the Phantom Detective, rejoice! Your long, dark days of sobbing for a new hero will soon come to an end! The Vapor has heard your distress call and will come to your aid, brightening your future by gunning down your nightmares—that’s right folks, Pulp and Spaghetti Westerns are back. Both neglected genres are bound to rise up again when Sal Cipriano and Jok mix them together in Markosia’s Vengeance of the Vapor.

Sal Cipriano talks about his new four-issue mini series, debuting this May.

BROKEN FRONTIER: The series is billed as spaghetti western meets pulp hero action. Why is that?

SAL CIPRIANO: Vengeance of the Vapor is an interesting book in that it first developed as two separate stories. The Vapor was a straight-up super hero deal almost in the vein of Spider-Man. Although my desire to do it as a super hero story waned rather fast, I thought the character of The Vapor and his arch nemesis, The Heavy, would fare better if translated as a pulp hero set in the Old West.

As the book started to come together I combined it with a retelling of an old short story I had worked on called Kate's Story, and it went from there. It's billed as a Spaghetti Western though because this was the approach I wanted to take from the start. I grew up worshipping these movies and the desire to tell a story in that mold grew more and more as I came to grasp exactly what the Italians had set out to do back in the 60's.

I wanted to capture that grit, cartoonishness, and style, and really pay tribute to my fellow Italians. I hope I have achieved that.

BF: Whenever the term ‘spaghetti western’ is dropped, a lot of people think of Sergio Leone. Was he a source of inspiration? 

SC: He is most definitely number one on the list of inspiration. Also, Mr. Sergio Corbucci, (who directed my second favorite spaghetti western, The Great Silence!) has to be mentioned for his sheer intensity. Mr. Leone though was a master storyteller, with his specialty being character language and style. By working his cameras to gravitate towards the ugly side of humanity, he was able to catch the characters at their most natural. In fact, he did it so well that it was almost to the point of them being gritty ultra cartoons. In essence that's what I wanted to make, a gritty ultra cartoon.

BF: The series takes place in a town called Tin Cup, a place oppressed by The Heavy Gang. What business does this band of outlaws have in Tin Cup? 

SC: In reality, Tin Cup was a mining town that dropped off the face of the Earth shortly after the Gold Rush era. So with that knowledge, plus the fact that there was a wealth of gold there, I thought it was the perfect spot for The Heavy Gang to come in and rape clean. Pure and simple, The Heavy Gang has taken over every aspect of the town so they can enslave the townsfolk to do the dirty work and then retire into Mexico. So far they have been very successful.

BF: The title itself refers to the pulp hero of the story, the Vapor. Without revealing his identity, is he somewhat like a Zorro figure, i.e. a local who stands against the oppression? 

SC: I would say that is pretty close, although I would also say that The Vapor is a more complicated character than some of the more popular pulp heroes. That was the most important part of getting the character right for me. I wanted the character to feel a little more real than someone like a Zorro or Shadow too. I think setting the story in a cold wintry setting similar to what Corbucci did on The Great Silence helped me greatly in achieving that.

BF: Your artist on the story, Jok, hails from Argentina and also illustrated your OGN The Hill, coming up as well through Markosia. How did you first get in touch with him?

SC: I had flirted with a couple of different artists on The Hill, but as the project developed it became bigger, commitments and interests changed plans. At that point I felt like I needed to infuse a fresh energy into the whole thing, and rewrote the book. I then posted up an ad at Digital Webbing looking for an artist, and boy, was the feedback phenomenal!

Funny thing was my top pick was another member of Jok's studio; who fortunately was booked up! Jok soon won me over with his sketches, and then he surpassed even that by blowing me away with sample panels! The rest… well you know.

BF: How did you persuade Jok to collaborate on Vengeance as well? 

SC: Jok and I developed a great relationship during The Hill's collaboration, so it was immediately settled that we'd continue that relationship on Vengeance and beyond.

BF: The artwork has a certain ‘quirky’ flair to it. I’m sure that’s because you wanted the artwork to expand upon the ‘spaghetti’ flavour of your writing?

SC: Completely! I knew Jok would be the perfect person to tell this story because his approach is inspired by the same things that influence my writing style. He feels this story just as much as I do and you can tell on every page with the atmosphere he's created though his color palette and shot choices. I'm extremely fortunate for having found him and I look forward to seeing more fruits develop from our labor. 

BF: You seem to have found a new home following the debacle with Speakeasy, where you released Bio Boy, and were also slated to release The Hill. How come you’re so cosy at Markosia?

SC: Simple blackmail, my friend, simple blackmail… Seriously though, when Speakeasy closed shop I was all over the place with inquiries regarding The Hill. It had been scheduled for April 2006 and it was ready to go. There were several suitors, but I felt Markosia had made me the nicest pitch and it helped that former Speakeasy stable mates Chuck Satterlee, Jose Torres, and Chris DiBari had already found a comfortable home there.

Unfortunately a series of unavoidable events have led to the book's delay, which I have to admit bummed me out for the latter portion of 2006. Harry Markos, however, has been stand up about everything from the beginning and he goes a long way in earning a man's trust and he has mine. Being upfront and honest, being able to admit mistakes by picking yourself up and moving forward with intent on correction and improvement, those are all things that are paramount to me.

I really like what the company's been doing since the start of this year too. Just ask anyone involved and the common answer seems to be that things are heading in the right direction for Markosia. So, while the great thing about indie comics is being a free agent, Markosia seems to be a good home team to have.  

BF: You’ve got a bevy of other projects in development. What’s the status report on each of them?

SC: First off, there is my largest single story yet, Tiki Road, that's being done with artist Kensuke Okabayashi (Manga for Dummies), and is signed to Arcana Studio. We are progressing nicely on it, but we want to get a large portion of it done before solicitation, so it'll be out on time when that time comes.

The next two are called The Grinder and The Uncredited History of Farragut and Foster: Adventurers for Hire, respectively. Both of them are being co-written with Chuck Satterlee (Of Bitter Souls) with art by Max Riffner (Golden Boy) and Karl Slominski, again respectively. These are both in pitch mode, and are being seriously considered right now by a couple of companies.

I have a few other projects that are completed like The Adventures of Bio Boy Vol. 1, a wrestling book called Turnbuckle, and a serial killer story called Last Day, that I hope to get out there soon one way or another. To help that along I am in the process of putting together my own label called 1819Pro so these projects can have a home should there be no takers.

I have a few other exciting stories developing as well, but it’s too early to talk about them just yet.

For more on Sal Cipriano and his projects, stop by his blog at  salcipriano.blogspot.com.