By Mitch Barracuda

Hector Casanova is the cool artist of the comedy/horror comic book, Screamland for Image Comics. “I have been drawing my own comics ever since I could hold a crayon in my stubby hand, and like most kids, I left comics behind when I discovered girls.”

Hector has previously worked with Steve Niles on The Lurkers and a comic strip called Guffman & Godot for the Kansas City Star.

After finishing up Screamland, Hector will work on some side projects before doing a possible follow-up to Screamland. “I have some band art and more editorial illustration lined up for the summer.”

You can check out more of Hector’s work at his comics blog with other Kansas City comics artist friends at http://comicstripjoint.blogspot.com/ his official website and MySpace.

Geeks of Doom: Welcome to Geeks of Doom, Hector! Are you really a “Casanova” as they say? If so, I need a pickup line like stat.

Hector Casanova: It IS my real name, along with my father’s. Google tells me there are more out there: a prosthetics engineer in Texas, an air traffic controller in Florida, and a very terrible Salsa musician in Puerto Rico. Everyone always gives me shit about my name when we first meet. I kind of wish my last name had been “Kafka” instead.

GoD: I’d dig that! You’re currently the artist for Image Comics soon to be cult classic, Screamland. How did you and writer, Harold Sipe, meet and come up with this idea of classic Universal Monsters still working as actors in the Hollywood system?

HC: Harold and I met while we were both art students at the Kansas City Art Institute. He was a fellow comics nerd. There was a small but passionate clique of comics geeks at KCAI. In art school (like anywhere else really), when one comics nerd spots another, you hold on tight. Most of those guys are now doing comics professionally too.

As for the concept behind Screamland, I have to say, the seed idea was all Harold’s. When I first met Harold, he was a sweet, sweet guy; a true Southern gentleman, well bred and polite as can be”¦ Always said please and thank you, and ended his sentences with “sir” and “ma’am”. After school he moved to L.A. And, well, I guess L.A. brought out the Charles Bukowski in him. He came back with a ton of crazy ass anecdotes and with Screamland in his head. He asked me if I wanted to do it, and the more we talked about it, the more I realized I would be a fool not to do it. I tend to draw ugly people, I love monster movies, humor and horror. Screamland has such heartbreak, horror and comedy in it that I just had to do it.

GoD: Was Screamland always intended to go the creator-owned way at Image Comics?

HC: As we were shopping it around, Image was definitely one of our top choices for publishers. We shopped it around to all sorts of different places, big and small, and when Image expressed interest to do it, we jumped on it.

GoD: What intrigued you the most about drawing these monsters?

HC: The challenge of making the monsters the sympathetic characters. Usually monsters don’t really have much character development, as the reader/viewer is not really meant to side with them. But Screamland is about the monsters’ inevitable long hard fall from fame and fortune, and the beating that life has handed them. Their attempt to fit in contemporary society, decade after decade kind of thing. From where they stand, the humans around them are the real monsters. So drawing characters that would be creepy AND sympathetic really appealed to me.

GoD: Who’s your favorite one to draw? If I had to guess, it would be either the saucy agent, Andrea Silverman, or Carl the Wolf Man.

HC: Definitely Carl, the Wolfman. He’s a blast. He is a couple hundred pounds overweight, his hairline is receding”¦ life hasn’t been kind on him, but he has the best attitude about it. All he cares about is partying and getting with the ladies. And he is so gross. I love him.

GoD: In issue #1, there are posters hanging in Andrea’s office. Are they in reference to anything?

HC: Ha! Yeah, the posters were supposed to be of modern day teen stars, for shows like Felicity, WB shows, that kind of thing. I used pictures of friends and dropped them in there.

GoD: When did you start drawing comic books?

HC: I have always been into comics, ever since I was a little kid. The first books I ever read in English were my mom’s Peanuts collections from the 1950s and 1960s. I grew up in Mexico, on a steady diet of Spider-Man (El Asombroso Hombre-Araña) and Fantastic Four. And I have been working as an illustrator for most of my adult life. I’ve done comic strips and indy stuff here and there, but my first Big project was The Lurkers, with Steve Niles, in 2005-2006.

GoD: That’s cool! You have a gritty atmosphere in your art, kind of like Josh Medors and Ben Templesmith, but unlike them, clean with the characters. It’s very comfortable, yet alluring. How would you describe your work and who are your influences?

HC: My work is constantly evolving; I have a very short attention span so I am always reinventing my technique. If you see my (woefully un-updated) website, you’ll notice that I tend to work in several different styles, from cutesy to gritty. I’m very versatile by default, and this is both a blessing and a curse. I don’t work very conventionally; Screamland is a mixed media process incorporating ink, watercolors, sculpture, photography, collage, and computer. Part of making art for me is the constant quest to find new ways to make images, to get effects. So I rarely stick to one look for too long.

And in that respect, some of my strongest influences are musicians, especially those that are always on the move, reinventing themselves: Ween, Tom Waits, Café Tacuba, people like that.

As for comics artists, I owe huge debts to Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, Chris Ware, Windsor McCay, Ben Templesmith, Ash Wood”¦ I could make this list go on for miles, but these guys are at the top.

GoD: What comic book characters are you interested in tackling in the future or just basically would sell your body to draw?

HC: A lot of Neil Gaiman’s Endless characters: I would kill to do a Sandman or a Despair story. I am also a huge Nightmare on Elm Street fan, so I’d love to do Freddy Krueger. Not so much a superhero guy, but I do have a soft spot for Moon Knight.

GoD: Is Screamland going to extend past the limited series?

HC: We have schemes and plans”¦

GoD: Are you working on any other projects at the moment?

HC: Not really right now. Right now all my attention is on finishing Screamland. I have some small gigs lined up for after. Album covers, that kind of thing”¦

GoD: Now for the really good stuff. What is one of your self-proclaimed, “geekiest” moments in life?

HC: I could tell you about my homemade (and very awesome) Dr. Doom costume”¦

GoD: What are some of your favorite movies and TV shows? We gotta know what you “veg out” to, Hector.

HC: I am a horror movie buff, especially creature movies. The Stuff, The Blob, even movies like Pterodactyl“¦ I get obscenely excited about stuff like that. My girlfriend doesn’t let me go to the video store unaccompanied”¦ And I love movies that are dark and beautiful, creepy and surreal”¦Brazil, Kafka, City of Lost Children, Tideland… And my favorite TV show ever was probably Carnivale.

GoD: What comic book conventions and other events can we see you at this year? I’m gonna be wanting a Carl the Wolf Man sketch from ya.

HC: In a couple weeks (May 18), we’ll be at Free State FreeCon in Lawrence, Kansas. In June we’ll be at Heroes Con in Charlotte, and San Diego in July.

GoD: Any last words you’d like to tell your fellow Geeks of Doom before we get out the lightsabers?

HC: I just want to thank my fellow geeks and nerds and freaks of all sorts who continue to support independent comics and musicians. We couldn’t do this without fans. And while I enjoy mainstream comics, art and music as much as the next guy, what a sad, insipid world this would be without the indie stuff”¦