Ghosts for the Holidays: Ray Fawkes The Spectral Engine
Ray Fawkes, an award winning comic writer and artist and game developer, had the official launch of his new graphic novel The Spectral Engine at a very full The Central, just in time for Christmas gift giving. It’s a non-fiction historical work in a very different style from his previous work, One Soul.
The Glow in the Dark Cover of Spectral Engine.
His editor introduced Fawkes and the book by saying that the word most used to describe the work was “haunting.” She believed it wasn’t because it dealt with ghost stories from across the country, but because of “the power of [Fawkes’] art and words” to capture Canada’s forgotten history.
Fawkes spoke about how “as an aging goth” he was interested not in the shock value of the traditional campfire stories where the ghost is the punchline, but in the personal history of the ghosts themselves. He wanted to explore how becoming a ghost and being sighted as a ghost could elevate an ordinary individual into someone remembered.
Despite the fact that ‘ghost trains’ are ubiquitous across North America, Fawkes wanted to keep this a strictly Canadian work. Ghosts are a topic he’s been interested in for many years, so when he first outlined the book he had forty potential stories, twenty-five of which were strong contenders. After sorting them by geographic region and time period he had 13 stories, the perfect number for a book on ghosts.
He was asked to compare The Spectral Engine to his previous work, One Soul. “One Soul covered the birth to death story of 18 characters” and he used a strict nine panel per page format for that project. “I found that in the work I said a lot of what I wanted to say about life, but not everything I wanted to say about death.”
The stories for death required a different style, one which was more overlapping that the 9 panel grid could provide. He’d also been reading a lot of European works, including Sergio Toppi, which encouraged him to break away from that grid to let the art flow. “Art style is like choosing a musical instrument, your choice must enhance the work.”
Another question was about his short self published work “Mercy”. “Mercy was the test run for the style of Spectral Engine“, he answered. He often does test work to see if the idea is ready for a longer treatment. Sometimes it shows that he doesn’t have a match yet, this time it showed he did.
The Spectral Engine (list price $27.95) is a great gift for people who love quirky Canadian history, or ghost stories, or Fawkes work.
