Nerd Mentality

Comics That Don't Suck: "That Salty Air" with Tim Sievert

Posted March 5th 2009 by Adam Glasgow.

Let's be honest: most comics suck. But so do most movies, games, TV shows, and so does most music. But with these mediums most people seem to think themselves pretty good at weeding through the trash to find the morsels of goodness. Why is it, then, that more people don't sort through the horrible comics and find the good ones? Sure, every once in a while the mainstream will notice something like Watchmen or Maus, but many great comics fly well under the radar. With Comics That Don't Suck, which will be an ongoing feature here at N-philes, I hope to bring some attention to comics that you probably wouldn't have known about otherwise. If you never read comics maybe something will catch your eye and you'll pick one up. If you already love comics, hopefully I'll show you something new. For the very first CTDS I'm talking about Tim Sievert's first published comic: That Salty Air. I also had the chance to talk with Sievert about his book (among other things).

That Salty Air is a story about a fisherman named Hugh who lives near the sea with his wife. After hearing news that his mother has drowned, Hugh becomes angry with the sea and self destructive in nature. He starts drinking, mistreating his spouse, and swears revenge on the ocean. I don't want to go into too much detail in case you decide to read it, but essentially the comic (which is just over 100 pages) is about Hugh trying to cope with loss and, more importantly, change. It's about how you can't stop the hard moments in life from happening, you can only deal with them. It's also about the possible consequences of dealing with them in the wrong ways.

Sievert writes and illustrates the fable, which is melodramatic (like fables are) and haunts you afterwards (like fables do). The art is deceptively simple in style and is more interested in conveying the way things feel as opposed to the way things look in reality. To me, this kind of visual abstraction is one of the great strengths of the comic book medium and Sievert has exploited it wonderfully. The book has a distinct texture; there are points when a number of pages will go by with almost no words, allowing the sights and sounds of the book to tell the story as opposed to dialogue or written narrative.

If it wasn't obvious enough from the title of the article, That Salty Air doesn't suck and is certainly worth your time, even if you're not normally a comic type person. It's sad, memorable, hopeful and very human. Sievert has done good work here and I'll be first in line when his next book is released.

INTERVIEW

That Salty Air is your first graphic novel. How long have you known that making comics is what you wanted to do? What sparked your interest?

I drew a lot when I was a kid, mostly aliens and Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog and other stuff like that, but when I was around ten something about comic books really clicked with me. I don't really know what it was, but I just started drawing Spider-Man and Wolverine all the time. People around me seemed to like my drawings well enough, so I came to the conclusion that comics is the direction I'd like to go.

That Salty Air is about (at least in part) a fisherman and his relationship with the sea. Do you have a personal interest with the sea, or were there other reasons you chose the setting?

I grew up in Iowa, and now live in Minnesota, so I obviously don't have a lot of hands on experience with the sea, but it's something I've been interested in for a long time. The idea that most of the Earth is covered in water, where trillions of life-forms are going about their business everyday, not paying any attention to us (hopefully), really makes me happy. The best we can really do is float on top of it, or send little capsules down with cameras to look around for us. We don't really know what's down there, and we're not really allowed to go there. I mean, it's a lot like outer space, but so much more rewarding. Plus anyone can go there, relatively easily.

If it's not too personal of a question, what inspired That Salty Air?

No it's fine. My mom died very suddenly and without warning in 2004. The story for That Salty Air came out of that. I was in my last year of school at the time, and wasn't really motivated to finish, but I tried to focus the self destructive actions I wanted to take onto the main character of Hugh. I tried to let him do my grieving for me. I think it worked.

You've been working on a comic called The Intrepideers. Can you tell us a little about that?

A little over a year ago, some friends and I started playing Dungeons and Dragons, most of whom, like me had never played before. The Intrepideers is our adventuring group. It became apparent very early in the game that the story of the Intrepideers was far too fun and ridiculous to leave to a D&D group who doesn't meet as regularly as they should, so fellow cartoonist Brett VonSchlosser and I decided to start making Intrepideer comics as well. I was also looking for a smaller-scoped comic to work in between larger projects, you know, to keep well practiced, so that's what I've been doing for the past few months.



In addition to writing and illustrating comics, you also work for Puny Entertainment. What, exactly, does Puny Entertainment do, and what is your role there?

Um, hmm. I don't always know how to describe what Puny does, because honestly, we kind of do everything.
We animate for Nick Jr's Yo Gabba Gabba,
make online games for Cartoon Network, Scholastic and Esurance,
We design pizza restaurants
Develop animated series for television
Produce banner ads
design websites
animate music videos
design sound for animation and games
I wear a lot of different hats at Puny, everything from concept and production artist, to client contact/project management stuff. I don't really know what I do.

I'm always interested in how an artist's taste compares to his own work. What are some of your favorite books, movies, and musicians?

Favorite books, hmm I listen to a lot of audio books, so I hope that counts.
I Am Legend ( i really read that one. I think that's my favorite book) The Road, lots of H.P. Lovecraft stories,
Movies: It's A Wonderful Life, Breaker Morant, Straw Dogs
Music: Mercyful Fate, Paddy Reilly, Nick Cave, Al Jolson

Do you read many comics? If so, what do you read?

I don't really read as many comics as I'd like to, but every now and again I'll go on a reading binge that lasts a few weeks. Recently I've been plowing through as much Osamu Tezuka stuff as I can get my hands on, and the Savage Sword of Conan collections.

That Salty Air was published by Top Shelf Comics, which seems to be one of the best places for a comic artist/writer to be (even Alan Moore is published there now). What was your experience like working with them?

Brett, Chris, and the whole Top Shelf team are an amazing group to work with. They had a few editorial and art direction suggestions that I was more than happy to receive, and they were very open to ideas that I had about promoting the book as well. They're an awesome group to hang out with at conventions too, very welcoming, very inclusive, and that Leigh Walton sure can bring down the house at karoake. It's amazing who you meet and get to talk to by just being around them at a show. They are great.

What's next for you? Any upcoming projects you can talk about?

I find talking about projects publicly is the best way to force yourself to finish them, so yeah, I'm finishing up the Intrepideers comic in the next few weeks, and working on a new graphic novel in the meantime. It's still pretty early in the process, so it'll be a while before there's much to share, but yeah I'm really excited about it and am having a lot of fun in the process.

Thanks so much for talking with us, and best of luck in the future!

Sievert's Blog
That Salty Air at Top Shelf
That Salty Air at Amazon

Tags: Comics That Don't Suck

Posted in: Entertainment, Features

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