3 Questions WIth… Eric Grissom
This is part one with the creators of the Goblin series, writer Eric Grissom and artist Will Perkins. I first came across their work when they did a book launch at Kids Comics Unite for the first Goblin book. But it was actually on TikTok where Eric and I kept popping up in each other’s feeds that we connected. Eric struck up a conversation and I’ve been following his and Will’s work ever since.
Goblin is about Rikt, a teenage goblin who is the protagonist rather than the typical bad guy or cannon fodder of most fantasy works. The second book, The Wolf and the Well just came out.
Why comics?
I love comics. I first caught sight of one in the checkout aisle of our local supermarket. I remember it being one of those digest-sized collections of reprinted DC comics featuring Batman and Green Lantern. While I couldn’t even read properly, I immediately convinced my mom to add it to our shopping cart, and I was well on my way.
As a creator, I find comics as a storytelling medium to be close to perfect. There’s a magic that happens when you combine words and pictures that you can’t do in any other form. Film gives you the power of moving images, music, and performance to tell stories, but once that story starts… it’s moving with or without you. In prose, the reader moves through the book line by line. Sure, you can stop at any moment, but you can’t easily jump back to a previous scene without having the foresight ahead of time to have marked the page.
In comics, the story moves at the reader’s pace. You can linger on a panel. You flip through the pages and move through time in the blink of an eye. You can layer dialog on dialog on dialog without losing clarity or purpose. The story can move from scene to scene, location to location, all on the same page. Within the same panel even. This freedom of pace allows for wonderful possibilities. You can create a story not only through dialog and image but also through the form itself. If you want to increase the pace, use fewer panels. Want to slow the reader down? Keep adding more and more. You can design a page, so a reader must physically turn the book to obtain a different perspective or to unlock hidden information. There’s no other storytelling medium that lets you do that.
What is something you do now that you wish you had either figured out or implemented sooner in your career?
I wish I started making comics earlier in my life. Or at least, I wish I had committed to doing it professionally sooner. Much of my twenties were wasted living too hard and worrying about things I had no control over. I didn’t commit to the craft until I created DEADHORSE with artist Phil Sloan around 2010. By that time, I was already 36 years old. Aside from a webcomic I had done in the late 1990s, all of my efforts prior were in writing and directing sketch comedy videos and commercials. I don’t regret that time, but I think that had I used that energy to make comics, I would be in a much different place in my career as a writer.
What is your favorite part/step of the process?
It does not come as often as I would like, but nothing in the world comes close to when you figure out that part of your story that makes you want to jump out of your seat and dance. There’s a rush of adrenaline and euphoria when you feel the truth of it. Something stirs deep in the recesses of your soul. A lot of the time, writing can be a slog. It’s a grind. Sometimes, I feel like I’ll never get through it, and I must convince myself to keep pushing through. To make my way through the trees and bramble in the hopes that I will finally discover some new cave of mystery to call my own. Because when I reach it, I know it’ll have been worth every cut and bruise.
If I can be so bold as to pick two parts of the process I love, it would be placing the final letters on the page. I have moved past the pain of creation. The art has come in and been discussed with my collaborators, so all that remains is making it whole. When it’s all laid out before me, I see what the story really is. I can fix my mistakes, discover new avenues and dialog, and take a moment to enjoy the work. At this time, I am most confident about the book. I usually tell myself, at this point, that this is the best thing I’ve ever written. This confidence, unfortunately, does not last. Until I write the next one.
You can find Eric online at:
Goblin artist Will Perkins also answered 3 Questions. Check it out!
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