Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Call him old school if you like. But at a time when the Frank Miller-chomping masses are tearing stand-alone graphic novels and Japanese manga off the shelves with fervor to spare, Baton Rouge artist Zack Soto holds an unwavering belief in the serial comic. “Seeing the characters develop over time and how the story builds—it’s just more interesting to me,” he says.
After independently producing the award-winning Studygroup12 series and lending stories to popular anthologies like Hi Horse Omnibus, Soto’s first major release as a comic artist, The Secret Voice #1, is out now from AdHouse Books.
Soto has created a not-so-alternate world where irony, existentialism and intrigue are on tap. The residents of The Secret Voice just happen to be fantastical beings that go by sinister names like the Smog Emperor, Soft Moth and Dr. Galapagos.
“It’s really important for readers to be able to relate to it,” Soto says. “Unless you’re creating some slug society on Slug World. But I’m trying to use societal constants. I don’t want it to be too alien.”
For instance, Soto muses on what earth would be like if continental drift had not occurred. The results inform some of the characters for which Soto, much like J.R.R. Tolkien, drums up pages of biography that never appear in published form. The Secret Voice does contain a magazine-style letters section and excerpts from Soto’s sketchbook that give fans a hint of the creative process and a sneak peek at future characters.
Unlike traditional comics that follow a single timeline and story arc, The Secret Voice reads more like Soto’s one-man anthology, a loose dry-humored collection of characters and genres. In short, it’s Soto’s playground. It is also his chosen tool for bridging the gap between two disparate fan bases: the art-comic crowd and the superhero crowd.
But splitting it down the middle is never easy. After a few months in release, Soto is finally getting used to reading his own reviews. His favorite critique, the first negative one he has earned, describes The Secret Voice as “maybe the emptiest thing I’ve read all year.” Soto plans to print the quote on the back cover of his next release.
AdHouse has committed to at least four issues of The Secret Voice. Soto is hard at work on the second, and he hopes to have it in stores this summer, promising the debut of the Spectre Girls, the continuing crusades of Dr. Galapagos and a mysterious narrative he calls Drifting. The Secret Voice is available at School of Comics on Jefferson Highway. Visit studygroup12.com for more information.
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