That's A-vore!
Digging deep into WHERE WOLF Chapter Three
We are officially 1/4th of the way through WHERE WOLF. Where does the time go?
Before the next chapter hits FANGORIA tomorrow morning, here’s an inside look behind the scenes of Chapter Three: “Another Steak Out.”
The bit where Larry laments about being stuck in College Station is definitely drawn from an autobiographical well. I lived in College Station for about a year after graduating from Texas A&M, long enough to see all my friends leave and start new careers in other cities. At first, I was happy to still be in College Station. Rent was very, very cheap and I was content going to work, watching a movie every night at the local Cinemark and taking trips on the weekends to visit Houston or Austin. You can only tread water so long before your legs begin to get tired, though. I began to realize I had put my life on pause and nothing drove that home more than being surrounded by young bright-eyed, bushy-tailed college students with their entire future ahead of them.
During my brief time working for The Bryan/College Station Eagle, I was responsible for designing the page layouts and copy editing the features section. A big part of this job was laying out recipes - which always filled at least one page in the features section - every day. Here’s the thing: Food looks gross AF when photos are printed on newsprint. At least the newsprint the Eagle was using at the time. The colors always looked muddy and dim. I tried to be creative with the layouts and there are some designs I’m still pretty proud of but, eventually, I grew frustrated having to lay out new guacamole recipes every friggin’ month.
When I was a teenager, I went through this phase where I really didn’t like my eggs scrambled or runny so, when I went to eat breakfast somewhere that served eggs, I would always ask for my eggs to be poached. I thought it made me seem cultured - not noticing the look of disgust from my servers as they had to deliver the order back to the kitchen. It turns out, poaching eggs is a pain in the ass and I am happy that I’ve moved beyond my need to torture poor short-order cooks with my egg-based neurosis.
This is one of my favorite gags in the chapter, probably in the whole book - and it was born entirely out of collaboration. I was recording lines with Chris Reeves back when WHERE WOLF was going to be a podcast and Chris was playing Larry. We were riffing lines and this joke was born kicking and screaming into the world during one of those long recording sessions. I love writing by myself but I love coming up with jokes with other people even more. I honestly don’t know if I’d be a good television writer but I’d love to experience what it was like participating in a writer’s room at some point in my life.
This joke only exists because I knew it would make my friend Dustin laugh and that’s good enough for me.
God, I love this panel so much. I remember seeing it come in from Debora and immediately knowing WHERE WOLF was going to work as a comic book. I mean, I was three chapters in so I had a pretty good idea things were going to be OK, but it was this panel and this page where I knew we were working on something I’d be incredibly proud of. Carlos was a lot of fun to write. Yes, he’s based on somebody in real life. No, I’m not going to admit who.
While much of WHERE WOLF was me attempting to channel the literary spirit of my hero Gregory Mcdonald, this section of the book was my attempt to pay homage to Stephen King - specifically this thing he would often do where he’d dive deep into a character’s life and motivations before violently killing them. The example that immediately pops to mind is the scene in King’s novel DREAMCATCHER where Beaver’s life is explored and examined - every victory and every regret - before he’s killed by a shit weasel. DREAMCATCHER is a weird book. I’ve seen people criticize King’s tendency to take tangents as unnecessary wheel spinning designed to pad out a book, but these people are idiots and don’t know what they’re talking about. I love how King is not afraid to take a detour from the main story in order to paint a vivid mini episode about a character, make you fall in love with them or, at the very least, understand where they’re coming from, before offing them. It’s really what made me fall in love with Stephen King and I hope I was able to come even a little close to that style with the tragic demise of Carlos.