FreakSugar interviews Keith Dallas

FreakSugar.com recently spoke with Keith Dallas, writer and co-creator of The Argonauts about the Kickstarter campaign for the book.

Here’s an excerpt:

FreakSugar: With a ensemble concept like the Argonauts, what was your biggest challenge when you were scripting your story?

Dallas: Ironing out the characters’ “voices”–their speech patterns and vocabulary. To emphasize, again, the “Tower of Babel” theme, I began playing with the syntax of language. For instance, Shard, the freedom fighter from the far future, doesn’t say, “Listen to me.” He says, “To me listen you.” Similarly, Davin, one of the characters from 12^th century Norway, won’t say, “I don’t understand.” He’ll say, “I understand not.” Keeping track of each character’s syntax has been a challenge, but I think (and hope) I’ve been consistent.

FreakSugar: I’m sure that can prove to be daunting with certain foreign languages that employ different clause structures…

Dallas: At one point, I had the notion of using Norwegian syntax for the Norwegian characters’ dialogue, but I quickly learned that inserting English words into Norwegian syntax just turns every sentence into gibberish. (Anyone who has used Google Translate on a foreign language article can understand what I mean.) So I abandoned that idea pretty quickly.

FreakSugar: What are some of the unique challenges of independently publishing and crowd-sourcing a project?

Dallas: I would say the two principal challenges of independent publishing are budget and visibility. The independent creators are constantly striving to get readers to notice them. The spotlights shine brightly on the big publishers (e.g. Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, Dark Horse, etc.), leaving little space on the stage for small press. That’s just the way it is, and there’s no point in complaining about it. Because of this situation (and the rising cost of paper), you accept the fact that with every issue you publish, you’re losing money. That’s unavoidable. The question is always how much money are you willing to lose. You don’t want to sacrifice the quality of the material you’re publishing, but you can’t afford to pay the same page rates that the bigger publishers do. So you often spend a lot of time searching for talented artists, colorists and letterers who will accept the meager amount of money you’re willing to pay them. Those are the major challenges that I’ve confronted as an independent creator.

You can check out the entire interview here: http://www.freaksugar.com/diy-comics-argonauts/