John Jack
This week we are joined by Jordan Finn to talk about his new book currently crowdfunding at Kickstarter, Death Kanji, available HERE. Death Kanji is drawn by Greg Woronchak, colors by A.H.G. Color, and lettered by Lyndon Radchenka. Order a copy today, I know I have!
John Jack: Tell me about yourself.
JPF: Hi, I’m Jordan. I’m a comic writer from Toronto, Canada. I love movies, I love horror, I’m a private pilot, I play D&D on weekends, and I’m getting married in a month!
JJ: Death Kanji is such an interesting concept, what inspired you to write it?
JPF: For Death Kanji, I was inspired by the short stories of HP Lovecraft & the films of Akira Kurosawa. It’s a graphic novel about a samurai that developed out of the idea put forward in so many of Lovecraft’s tales that if you dig into your family’s history, you may not like what you find.
The eldritch knowledge stumbled upon by Lovecraft’s characters can be a terrible burden, and I wanted to couple that in my story with the pre-existing burden that a samurai protagonist already carries.
JJ: Please tell me about the creative team.
JPF: Gladly! I’m assembled an awesome team for this book:
Greg Woronchak is the artist. He’s a fellow Canadian, with a long history in sequential storytelling. He and I have worked together many times in the past, but Death Kanji is our best collaborative effort yet.
A.H.G. is our colorist. He’s a color wizard who seems to just be breaking through based on his incredible work in Broken Bear, Mistakes, and NYC Gallows.
Lyndon Radchenka is the letterer. He’s also an indie comic writer from Canada, who learned to letter so that he could provide more to his artist than just a script. I tried that as well on my early books, but the difference is that Lyndon actually got good!
Jordan was kind enough to provide us with the first 3 pages of Death Kanji:
JJ: Your campaign seems to be going great, what is some advice you might give someone looking to start a Kickstarter or other crowdfunded book of their own?
JPF: The biggest piece of advice I would give is to keep it simple. Offer minimal rewards. Don’t go overboard with hats and t-shirts and whatever else. People want your book, just focus on that.
I would also advise talking to other creators who have been through the process before. Many of us are willing to chat and discuss shipping, fulfillment, or just answer any specific questions you may have.
The last thing I would say is good luck and I hope you reach your goal! The world always needs more good comics.
JJ: Tell me about your past projects.
JPF: Previously, Greg and I did four issues of Hellcraft together. Hellcraft is a black-and-white Lovecraftian detective comic, each issue based on one of Lovecraft’s stories, from Nyarlathotep to Call of Cthulhu.
The first three issues I funded out of pocket, but I took the fourth issue to Kickstarter and collected all four in one paperback. On the fourth issue, Greg and I were joined by letterer DC Hopkins, who also designed the collected edition.
Image from Hellcraft #4
JJ: What is your favorite part of making comics?
JPF: The best thing about writing comics is seeing the art come back to you. Every artist that I’ve worked with has been incredibly talented, and it’s such an amazing feeling when you see your vision brought to life.
I also love seeing interest in my books. I’m still a fairly new writer, so the novelty of having other people want to read something I wrote makes me so proud, no matter who or how many they are. That said, I’ve just passed 200 backers on Death Kanji, which is insane to me. Over 200 people want to read my book! And I can’t wait to get the finished product into their hands.
JJ: What is your dream character or characters you want to work on?
JPF: The reason I started writing comics is because I had an Inhumans story that I needed to get out of my head. That’s a property that I find so compelling, and it’s everything that I want to eventually write. Inherently Shakespearean in nature, deeply political, adjacent to the cosmic side of Marvel, but still independent enough to stand alone from the rest of the universe.
But for the past few years, I’ve been obsessed with the Zelda mythology. I want to write a Ganondorf comic more than anything. He is such a rich character who is completely overwhelmed by burden. His journey (in Ocarina of Time) is similar to Paul Atreides, and I would write a Ganondorf graphic novel in the same vein as Dune, as well as taking deep inspiration from Lawrence of Arabia.
Thanks for reading, be sure to show your support for the Kickstarter campaign going on right now HERE!