Alisa Kwitney stops by the Yeti Cave to discuss the recent run of her comic, G.I.L.T., from Ahoy Comics with Interviews Editor, Andrew Irvin.
COMIC BOOK YETI: Alisa, thank you for joining Comic Book Yeti today! How is everything in New York?
AK: I always feel like a time traveler when I return to the Upper West Side, where I was born and raised. All the storefronts go through bizarre shifts. One moment every other store is a bank. Then they’re all drug stores – Love drug stores, for a time. Then those vanished like Pterodactyls. Right now everything has a strange name, like Puffy Sweet, as if translated badly from another language, and I’m not sure what kind of stores they are.
CBY: Urban renewal takes confusing turns sometimes, and I totally understand. To lead off on the topic of locale, Guild of Independent Lady Temporalists (G.I.L.T.) is very much rooted in the landscape of Manhattan, both culturally and architecturally. Homage is paid to a variety of other inspirational New York buildings and media – while it seems there was never any question about setting this story elsewhere, if you were bound to a certain location, but could move freely in that place throughout time, where would you spatially anchor yourself to temporally explore?
AK: You mean, other than the Upper West Side of Manhattan? I went to Hebrew school, so I could potentially communicate with ancient Israelites. As a kid, I also had a lot of fantasies about going back to Egypt during the reign of Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh. If I get to expand on G.I.L.T., we may discover a connection between the architects of the Bellicent and the Temple of Karnak.
CBY: Depth of scope, indeed! In building your time travel model for G.I.L.T., you make a number of allusions to a deeper structure to the flow of time and the rules being bent by Hildy and Trista, your main characters. You quote Tom Peyer in the afterword notes, ““When faced with a choice as to which time travel trope to follow, choose the one that you feel is the most fun.” What mechanistic considerations of time travel did you toy with as you decided how to structure your plot? Were there any ideas you experimented with that didn’t end up being quite fun enough to use, and how did you eventually arrive upon the device you’ve employed throughout the story?
AK: So, the first fun element, for me, was that I wanted the time travel setup to allow me to explore the question we all ask ourselves at some point: If I could go back in time, and my younger self retained my older perspective, would I make the same decisions – and if not, what would I change? With that as my focus, I tried to keep everything else as simple as possible. So when you step through the back door and through the time portal, you are basically subsumed, body and soul, into your younger self. Wherever your younger self was, that’s where you are. The other fun thing, for me, was that for the purposes of the thought experiment, which is essentially, “What would happen if I had done this instead of that?” I also needed time travel to happen only once, so you get one shot at re-living any given day. Whenever I was tempted to go down a rabbit hole (such as, with time travel, there would be an element of spatial travel as well) I would go back to Tom’s dictum: Does this make the story more fun?
CBY: It was certainly fun to see how you toyed with causality throughout. I noted the character design inspirations provided for Trista included Bill Murray (alongside Camille Cottin), and Ghostbusters was mentioned at least once within the story, so its reference in both character and setting was made explicit. What other points of inspiration, both narrative and stylistic, were present in your drafting process that might have been included implicitly, and not quite as firmly on display?
AK: I first encountered the idea of time travel restricted to one’s own lifespan in Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, a book I adored. Back in high school, I first read Jack Finney’s Time and Again, which is a thoroughly New York time travel story, and deserves to be read and discussed much more than it is. Both those novels inspired me, as did the strange history of the Level Club, a building built by Freemasons in 1927, and supposedly designed as a replica of King Solomon’s Temple.
CBY: Turning from external inspiration to internal continuity, with ten novels and over half a dozen graphic novels preceding G.I.L.T., you’ve covered a wide range of genres for a varied audience, including writing on other’s property separate from your own creations. I apologize for not yet having read enough of your work to discern any evident throughlines, but can you identify if there are points of this story that reference back to prior work? Beyond the in-universe continuity, what about process continuity? Are there bits of dialogue or ideas you’d thought of for other stories that you got around to fitting into this story?
AK: I definitely have themes that run through a lot of my work. Everything I write starts with an idea or theme I want to explore, and it’s always something that I’m struggling with emotionally. My first novel was about how much mental real estate I leased out to fretting about food and weight, and my second novel was concerned with how you learn to trust yourself in a new romantic relationship after making some lousy choices in the past. But the first novel was a Comedy of Manners, and the second was a Contemporary Action Adventure Romance. When I saw Fleabag, I thought, “Yes, this is my very favorite way to have humor served to me – as a vehicle for deeper things, as a delicious savory sauce that makes the almost indigestible tough old bird of life into something delicious.” The series I just finished writing (and Mauricet is drawing now) is fun and absurd and inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers – and it’s also a deeply personal story.
CBY: You just mentioned two of my favorite horror/sci-fi films, so I’ll be waiting to read it! When I picked up G.I.L.T., I thought to myself, “Ooh, this looks like it’ll pass the Bechdel test with flying colors!” and the depth of the relationships conveyed over the course of the story made me realize how reductive I was being in even starting with a Bechdel test. There are men discussed, and involved, in the interaction of clearly nuanced characters, and themes of (mis)communication, accountability, and the ramifications of our actions are probed, which time travel may certainly provide a useful mechanism to explore. Your note in the afterword on Plotting, Pantsing, and Plotzing raises another question, since you mentioned writing deviations from plot as part of your process. How does the centrality of plot trajectory anchor interaction/conversations in your narratives? Are you writing to let the characters pursue their motives (i.e. – pleasure sought/pain avoided), and allowing ?
AK: There are things I know about how my stories will end, and things I discover through the writing. I knew most of how I wanted my latest series to end, but then I was talking with Neil Gaiman and he inspired me to put on my Robert Sheckley hat and to approach the ending as my father might have done. Then I discovered something surprising right at the finish that made such perfect sense to me that I am amazed I didn’t see it all along.
CBY: Sounds like a good piece of advice from a reliable source! You mentioned the proliferation of subplots, as well – I’m keen on your perspective as both a creator and an experienced editor. What “do’s and don’t’s” were reinforced over your years of writing your own titles while editing those of others? As a consequence, how much self-editing do you find yourself doing before you get to scripting a page, and how much did you end up discussing with Tom Peyer over the course of the book that led to changes in the eventual released edition of G.I.L.T.?
AK: I used Tom and Mauricet as sounding boards, but I struggle not to have my internal editor turned on when I sit down to write. With G.I.L.T., I allowed myself more wild mind freedom than I have in years, because I was writing out of the turmoil of big life changes. I found there was something so freeing about letting myself just put it all out on the page. But because I have been a reader and editor for so long, I know how to recognize opportunities and work them into a coherent plot. So, in G.I.L.T., I didn’t know at the beginning how Wynn and Edwin were connected (although clearly my subconscious did). I didn’t even know how big a role the doorman would play. Those elements were among my happiest discoveries while writing.
CBY: Speaking on the communication required to produce G.I.L.T., moving a bit from the written elements, I’d love to ask you about the engaging, vibrant art from Mauricet. You mentioned his willingness to depict characters in conversation making the collaboration an easy fit. What was the origin of your relationship, and how, over the production of the title, did your communication best come together? Was Tom also a part of group conversations, and what made your creative collaboration flow along most effectively over what duration (from inception of idea to publication)?
AK: Mauricet and I first started talking nearly a decade ago, when we were matched up by DC comics editor Brian Cunningham to work on a book I was writing, Mystik U. DC was in the midst of its move to the West Coast, and Mauricet and I wound up talking a great deal while the editorial team was busy moving home and office from New York to Burbank. In the end, that version of Mystik U did not see the light of day (it was resurrected later with the lovely Mike Norton as artist, and is getting reprinted in a new YA version this March) but Mauricet and I were committed to working together again. It was partially our rapport, and partially our commitment to working together as true collaborators, with mutual respect and give and take. We did a couple of short pieces for Shelly Bond and then collaborated on an Edgar Allan Poe tale for AHOY before G.I.L.T., but really, we had been talking for years at that point. We always talk things through, and both of us are engaged and exhilarated by the process.
CBY: Also, I’d love to note the attention Mauricet paid to characterization, when you’ve got these two women, Hildy and Trista, moving throughout time, requiring distinct depictions at various ages in their lives, along with the supporting cast. How did you diagram out their shift over the years? From an artistic perspective, you’ve basically tripled the cast of characters that require consistency and continuity over the course of the story. I think it was quite seamlessly done, so I’m sure our readers would appreciate the insight – what went into achieving that?
AK: Some pulling out of hair, I suppose – I really did give Mauricet a hard time with this book! Still, I imagine that what I feel writing for Mauricet is similar to what choreographer Hermes Pan must have felt designing dances for Fred and Ginger. I know what he can do, and I delight in challenging him and showcasing his abilities. In return, he allows me to be funny as well as emotional in my comics writing.
CBY: It’s clearly a cohesive working relationship, judging from the results! Given the ramifications of time and place coming into play in G.I.L.T., how has the literary and comics landscape shifted over time? You’ve been meaningfully contributing to the literary and comic industry since the 90’s – in light of the continued evolution and transformation within both markets and professional environments, what advice would you have for those attempting to embark on a similar path here in 2023? To what extent have you seen industry participation decentralized since the 1990s? From your own experience, would you advise young creators around the value of pursuing an English degree from a strong Liberal Arts college and living in New York, given cost increases in both relative to page rates and publishing advances (i.e. – if you were warped to 2023 at the age of 23, what would you do differently now to embark on the career trajectory you’ve carved out since you were 23?
AK: If I were warped to NYC at the age of 23, I would focus on my own art skills more, and study more filmmaking techniques. I would explore indie publishing and web publishing, as well, and maybe take a publishing industry course – don’t think those existed when I was in my twenties, or at least, I didn’t know about them. If you’re asking me what choices I might make in terms of college if I were even younger, that’s even more challenging. The older I get, the more I think that we must think about how we can continue to learn over a lifetime. The gift of liberal arts education is to show you how to ask the right questions, and to expose you to a variety of different perspectives and approaches. A lot of what I hear about college education now seems not worth it. much rote memorization delivered through online lectures,
CBY: Having come out of a liberal arts undergrad experience, I thoroughly agree. Bringing things current, can you share with our readers any creative work completely unrelated to G.I.L.T. that is inspiring you most at the moment? What comics, films, music, books, etc. do you think everyone should be digging into at the earliest opportunity?
AK: Comics wise, I’m working my way through a box of AHOY trades, and finally getting to read all of Mark Russell’s Billionaire Island and Tom Peyer’s The Wrong Earth in order. Bookishly, I’m reading She Wolves by Paulina Bren, a non-fiction that reads like fiction about women on Wall Street in the seventies and eighties, and looking forward to reading Rainbow Rowell’s rom com, Slow Dance. I’ve discovered the network series 911, which was created by Tim Minnear of Firefly fame, and it is the perfect blend of 70’s disaster movie and smart ensemble storytelling. Also enjoying Captain Odyssey, which is what would happen if The Love Boat had a baby with ER. Musically, find myself listening to a weird blend of things – Chicago, Rubblebucket, Regina Spektor.
CBY: Alisa, thanks for all the recommendations and making time to discuss G.I.L.T. today! I know you’ve got plenty of irons in the fire, so if you have portfolio, publication, and social media links to share with our audience, now is the time.
AK: @k.witty (Instagram) @akwitney.bsky.social (Blue Sky), @akwitney (The Hellscape that was Twitter) Facebook.com/Alisa.Kwitney.Sheckley
