Turning on the New Radio with Alex Cahill and Jad Ziade

By: Kurt Amacker
Date: Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Over the past couple of years, Jad Ziade and Alex Cahill’s fledgling publishing company, The New Radio, has garnered the attention of the mainstream comics press with their one-shots Xeric-Award-winning Something So Familiar and, later, The Island. Cahill wrote and drew both books as black-and-white pantomime comics – stories told with art, but no text. In an industry where black and white has proved increasingly rare, and where pantomime books are even more so, The New Radio’s sudden rise in the world of independent comics seems like a small, but welcome, miracle. With the publisher’s new book, The Island, Cahill has handed writing duties off to Jad Ziade for a mammoth, four-year undertaking. Each year, The New Radio will release a single issue of 104 pages. The first issue is available right now at their website, but will also hit comic shops in September. It tells the story of an alien reconnaissance team uncovering a conflict that may have wiped out civilization as we know it on Earth. Ziade and Cahill tell the story through a series of flashbacks while the aliens examine the remains left by a war between a greedy corporation and a resistance force reminiscent of the modern anti-war movement. I talked with Alex and Jad about The New Radio and Poison the Cure. If you like what you read, check them out and buy the book.

Kurt Amacker: Jad, Poison the Cure is your first writing gig with The New Radio. Is this the first published comic you've written or are there some hidden treasures from your past you'd like to tell us about?


Jad Ziade: Poison the Cure is the first. I have a couple scripts I'm working on right now besides Poison, but Poison is the first published comic I've written.

KA: Otherwise, how did you get into writing comics?

JZ: I grew up reading comics – in fact, comics helped me learn the English language, but Alex was pretty much the reason I got into writing comics. About three years ago I was half-heartedly going to college and hating it. I remember one day I stopped by a tea shop in San Diego to hang out with Alex and a friend of ours named Marcus. They were down from Portland visiting and were working on some pages. I think it was Alex who sort of jokingly asked me if I wanted to do comics with them. I took him seriously and said, " Yes, but after I finish college." A couple months later I dropped out and moved up to Portland.

KA: I was just in Portland. It’s a nice town. Anyway, Poison the Cure is roughly 104 pages per issue, with four parts. And yet, the story moves pretty quickly. Do you feel like that kind of decompression gives the story a more "shot for shot" cinematic feel, or did it just turn out that way?

JZ: I was very lucky that I was able to see Alex's previous work before starting Poison the Cure and I was doubly lucky in that when I saw his work I could see that he and I had very similar ideas on pacing and general storytelling. The story can move quickly and I did intentionally keep the dialogue sparse at parts. I would hesitate to use the word “decompression,” though, because I'm fearful of the fact that it seems to give off the impression that one could quickly flip through the comic, read the dialogue, and still capture everything that is there. I think doing that does a disservice to Alex, who took many of portions of my script that were essentially just paragraphs containing cues and descriptions and he turned them into beautiful sequences of panels. I don't mean to nitpick though.

Alex Cahill: The story moves quickly because we take a lot of time to describe a little bit of action. It's a sensibility Jad and I share. We like our scenes to have enough room to exist. I personally do think it gives a very present and cinematic feel, yes. And I think that when the series is over the reader will be left with the feeling that a lot of pages have gone by without a lot events transpiring. Jad and I are fine with that, because we feel like all the events will have meant more.

KA: The story opens with a framing device with an alien race exploring the ruins of Earth before flashing back to a time when there's a conflict between the Infinitum Corporation and an underground resistance. Can you give us any clue how the two stories will relate to each other?

AC: The aliens will definitely, definitely discover what happened to what might be Earth, and it definitely involves some characters involved in Poison the Cure #1. And I promise you when you read the end of #4, you will reexamine #1.

KA: Do you see the conflict between the resistance and Infinitum as a projection of the current state of the country? On its face, the heroes look and sound kind of like current adherents of the anti-war movement and the new activism that's emerged in tandem with the Iraq war. And, they're opposing an evil corporation that operates with government support. Is Poison the Cure and cautionary tale about the direction the country and the world are headed?

JZ: I think we're already there. The world has always contained powerful entities that have bullied others as a means to make their own existence more comfortable and their hold on power more concrete. Today, the most recognizable of those entities are most of our governments and corporations.

KA: The more things change, the more they stay the same. The powerful have never been kind to those beneath them. But, do you see the resistance as a voice for your own views, or should readers just not look for political subtext in Poison the Cure?

JZ: There is definitely political subtext in the story, although none of the characters wholly represent my own views on the subject.

KA: That’s kind of interesting, because Pedro is clearly uncomfortable using violence in their opposition to Infinitum, but the others – including the kid, Loquito – are more comfortable with it. Do you think this says something about the necessity (or lack thereof) of violence in certain conflicts, or should we just see it as an action story?

JZ: That element of the story is a reflection of my own unresolved inner debate on the morality and effectiveness of using violence as a tool of resistance, although even attempting that debate is arguably flawed and futile considering that I live a relatively mundane life and that to fuel this debate I'm using characters living in a harsh world that I have no tangible experience with. That's not to say that these situations don't exist. I'm just one of the lucky few.

KA: I think that’s the inherent contradiction in any peace movement. Any movement, no matter how well-intentioned can be silent by the barrel of a gun. That’s not to necessarily advocate violence, but the United States certainly wasn’t formed by sit-ins and protest marches.

Anyway, you guys still stick with black-and-white art, even while many of the larger independent publishers are going with everything from half-tones to two-color art to full color. Do you prefer black and white, or is it strictly a money thing?

AC: Nothing inspires me more than black and white comics. It's not like I don't like anything else. I read books that have grays and color, but visually it's not for me.

KA: What do you think it brings to the story that color doesn't?

AC: Black-and-white is the heart of comics as a medium. It's the purest simplicity in drawing, in art-making. Nothing makes my eyeballs happier than pure black-and-white. It's a legitimate preference, possibly even snobbery. I have no plans for grays or color in my work. I wouldn't be against publishing other dudes working in color, because a lot of people do it well. But, it ain't for me.

KA: Then, how does it feel to draw instead of just write with this one? Do you have any input into the story or is this entirely Jad's project? Is just drawing a relief or do you prefer to have complete control over the project?

AC: Dude, working with Jad on this couldn't be better than it is. He gives me incredible freedom, is very open to my interpretations and free-styling (unless they suck) and is open to my feedback and suggestions. It's good just to draw this one. It's kind of like reading it and making it at the same time, which is a fun feeling I don't get doing my own books. We're having a true collaboration here. He respects that I need a lot of visual control and I respect that this is truly his story.

KA: Obviously, the next few years are going to be tied up with Poison the Cure, but do you all anticipate any other projects between issues? What can we expect in the future from The New Radio?

AC: I don't have anything planned for between issues myself, because doing a hundred pages a year takes enough out of me already. Jad and I both have day jobs, too. But for the future, Jad's got another script going for the next project that we're going to do together. It's way, way too early to talk about our bizarre and possibly unrealistic ambitions for the book, but it's the story that Jad first wanted to do at The New Radio, before Poison the Cure had even been discussed. It's a freaking amazing idea, and I hope we can pull it off.

What I'm doing after we put a bullet in Poison (which I hope is in 2010) is a huge project that will precede Jad's and my next collaboration. It's an ongoing series called Commemoration. It's focused in the past on a group of gangsters in Mexico who come to the states. The series will be an extensive exploration of a few of their personalities and histories and of the terrible consequences of the gang's affairs in the states. It's fiction and it’s something I've been cooking up since before I even finished my first book, Something So Familiar. I’m very excited.

KA: Thanks, guys. It’s been a pleasure.

The Spinner Rack
By Ben Johnson and Kurt Amacker

Kurt: Guys, remember that the new comics come out tomorrow, Thursday, and not today. Memorial Day was on Monday and UPS ships a day late. If you have to drink to hold back the rage, I understand.

DARK HORSE COMICS

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