This Little Piggy... Pursuing a career as a private detective can be challenging. There's all sorts of problems to deal with: licensing, training, life-threatening danger, late payments, seedy locales, anthropomorphic pigs... Okay, the last problem may be unique to Boston Booth. So who is Boston Booth? He's the star of Pigtale, an Image series that marks the comics debut of writer/artist Ovi Nedelcu. "Pigtale takes place in contemporary Portland, Oregon. It tells the exciting adventure of Boston Booth, an amateur private eye whose life is in financial and professional turmoil, when suddenly he runs into Clyde, an intelligent talking pig desperate to get away from his violent wolf stepbrother Taxx," Nedelcu explained. "Together, Boston & Clyde venture off into the face of danger to help one another overcome their fears, rescue loved ones, and save the city from Taxx; who's bent on destroying Clyde, getting his revenge, and using the Super-Plasma device to conquer the city and reign supreme." A struggling PI in a contemporary northwestern metropolis... so how'd the talking pig become a part of the mix? "I'm not really sure what led to the decision to mix the two worlds, but I do know that it makes for a better hook. If I came up to you and said, 'Hey, did you hear about that detective that rides around on a scooter?' you'd probably say 'huh?' but if I came up to you and said 'Hey! Did you hear about that detective that ran into a talking pig!?' you'd probably fall off your seat with anticipation!" Nedelcu said with a laugh.. "So that's the kind of response I want to get from the public. That's the kind of mood I'm trying to convey with mixing the two worlds. "I just love the dynamic of having that fairy tale aspect of it. I'm a big fan of children's literature-children's books, fairy tales, folklore, and the like-so I have all that in my blood. I like a lot of fairy tale stories by authors like the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Aesop, Roald Dahl, Silverstein, Provensens. I'm also a fan of Looney Tunes, (Chuck Jones's run on it) to be more specific, and the old school Disney, back when the nine old men were doing them with all the talking animals and what-not. I never want to get too serious with my work; I think it deadens it. "Creatively its great, I get to write and draw real-life situations about human characters that people can relate to and also go wild with the animal 'fairy tale' world and make things interesting in both the story and drawing's. I get the best of both worlds, so to speak. How do talking animals relate in the real world? Well, they don't! That's what makes it interesting! That's what makes it a 'fairy tale.'" Part of the appeal of the series is the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? juxtaposition of believable human characters and quirky anthropomorphics. That means that Boston Booth is pivotal to the success of the series; if he's not a likeable, believable character, then the whole concept flops. So Nedelcu has focused a great deal of attention amateur private investigator. "Boston is kind of a goofy guy, but in a cool way. He's the underdog. The bricks on his path start to fall from under his feet as he finds himself in the middle of trouble he never asked for. He's definitely not your college quarterback-even though he's sizable enough to be-but he's not a coward. In fact, he is the opposite. He is foolishly courageous and usually acts on instinct instead of thinking things through. But that's part of his advantage in the field of crime fighting/investigation. Sometimes if you think, you're dead. He's also a confused and frustrated fellow when it comes to love and relationships; both with his grandma, his dead parents-and of course, his crush on Carmen, the girl of his dreams. "I'm not sure where his character really stemmed from, but I think it's a combination of character traits we all have in us. Dealing with financial problems, love, careers, etc. I'm just trying to take all of those and present them in a new, fresh and entertaining way to which hopefully people can relate to. I find myself in these kinds of situations each day, and sometimes I seriously don't know what to do with my intelligent talking pig! It's frustrating," Nedelcu joked. Pigtale has elicited a great deal of positive attention from Image-and praise from the publisher, Erik Larsen, who said of the book, "Pigtale is one of those books that fall out of the sky and you have to wonder, 'Where did this guy come from?' And I mean that in the best possible where-have-you-been-all-my-life kind of way. This guy is, simply put, incredible-and I've got a strong feeling about this one. Generally, when that happens, it's a book that catches readers and retailers by surprise and they come back at me a few month later and say to me, 'why didn't you tell me this was going to be good?'... I think readers and retailers alike are simply going to fall in love with this book." Pretty intense praise for a first-timer! So what's Nedelcu's background, and how did he end up bringing Pigtale to Image? "Back when I was in high school, I started to get serious about making a career out of being a comic book artist. I always read them and liked drawing the characters while growing up, but it wasn't until high school that I realized I could maybe one day make a living doing them. I have to thank two of my good friends, Efrain Luna III and Paul Harmon, for inspiring that thought. They would always have all these comics with them and constantly be drawing comic pages in class. So that really pushed me to want to do them also. "Back then I was looking at the works of Will Eisner, Jim Lee, Dale Keown, and the whole Image bunch; I was fourteen at the birth of Image! Along with that were those Burne Hogarth anatomy books-which are still on my shelf, mind you). "I soon grew out of that stage-with the exception of my interest in Will Eisner-when I got into college and realized that there was a lot more art out there outside of comics that I wasn't exposed to in my teens. I started looking at a lot of illustrators, fine artists, fashion designers, sculptors, you name it. I was like a sponge, absorbing all that great art. That, and working in animation really opened my eyes and helped me develop what my style is today." Nedelcu offered some more details regarding that animation background. "I have worked-and still do work-in the animation industry. When I was still in college I got hired by WB animation to do some visual development for a few of their shows. There I met a bunch of very talented and respected artist (including Bruce Timm and Glen Murakami) who helped me sharpen my animation skills. Also Out of the bunch were AJ Jothikumar and Shannon Tindle, who really looked out for me in my first days in the professional world. Both are great artists, and to this day I still ask and respect their opinion. "After WB I went on to a few other studios-Sony, Carton Network, BKN-but eventually, five years later I found myself living in Portland, Oregon doing work for Vinton Studios and producing my comic book. When I was living in LA I promised my wife we would one day move back to her home town of Portland-so last year I kept that promise, and here I am!" A look at Pigtale makes it clear that Nedelcu is bringing his animation aesthetics to play in his comics work. "Animation-or I should say good animation-really forces you to use the least amount of line work to express yourself. It forced me to really get to the essence of a drawing and make sure every line counted; to capture the expression, gesture, attitude, and life of a character in the fewest amount of lines is; It's deceivingly simple. A few guys who I think do it extremely well are Alex Toth, Al Hirschfeld, Chuck Jones, and Will Eisner; just to name a few, and that's why all of them my heroes. Bruce Timm does it really well also, he once told me something I will never forget: 'Think more, draw less.'" Those artists just get it. And hopefully one of these days, I will too!" Pigtale is a true one-man effort-and most of it is hand-done. "The tones are done in Photoshop, but everything else is hand-drawn and inked. I first started 'toning' the pages with markers, but soon realized I was going to be paying a lot of money for markers, plus I was getting bad headaches from the smell, so I put two and two together to form Photoshop. It's a godsend, I tell you!" What are the pros and cons of doing a book entirely as a one-man operation? "The pros are that I get all the creative freedom possible; the drawbacks are that I get all the creative freedom possible!" Nedelcu said. ". No one is there to baby-sit me or tell me what to do, or let me know if what I just wrote really sucks. I'm kind of in my own world. But I like it that way; if I screw up then so be it-I'll learn and move on. Sometimes you only learn and get better when you get burned. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often!... But there's just something so great and liberating about being in the driver's seat of your creation and being able to break all the rules if you want to without anyone telling you 'you can't.'" Nedelcu feels like the comics market is particularly accepting of animation-influenced styles currently. "From the looks of things, it looks like it. I see a lot of animation-influenced artists now doing comics. Ten years ago, there really wasn't that many that seemed to be influenced by the animation style. "I think diversity is great, and I can't wait for comics to really open the door a little wider and see the possibilities it has to offer as an art form. But with diversity also comes trends, which I'm not really a fan of. To tell you the truth, sometimes I don't like being labeled as an 'animation-cartoony' guy, because it seems to becoming more and more trendy and I see a lot of young up-and-coming artists just buying those cartoony-ashcan-sketchbooks and trying to mimic them without going to the source-that is, going to the artists who influenced the guys in animation back in the day, who then influenced the leading designers and animators in animation today, who then influenced the guys putting out those cartoony-ashcans today-and really learning why everyone in that hierarchy was influenced in the first place. *sigh*. "It's not only in animation, its in children's books, comics, film and so on. Go to the source-which in the end comes down to studying life itself and creating your own style. That's just my opinion, But then again, what do I know? My artistic venture has just begun and aside from studying life, I'm also still influenced by a lot of great masters. So I have a long ways to go..." Is Pigtale a limited series, the first in a series of limited series, or an ongoing series? "All of the above," Nedelcu quipped. "It's an ongoing series with three major story arcs that will span over twenty or thirty issues. I still haven't decided on what issue number the book will be capped and ended on. But it's going to be a great ride, so hop on board!" Does Nedelcu have anything else in the works? "My long-term plan would be to finish the single issues of Pigtale and then eventually bind the entire story together in a collected edition. I also have a spin-off story that could keep the stories of Boston Booth going, sort of a 'the many adventures of...' type of thing. So I have a lot of things I could do once I have the story finished-but for now my main focus is finishing it and making sure it's a great read not only for the public, but for me, too! "I've also been working with director Henry Selick at Vinton Studios here in Portland, doing some character design and storyboard work for the short film he's directing called Moongirl. Up next on the list is Neil Gaiman's Coraline, which Henry Selick will also be directing as a feature film at Vinton Studios. "Aside from that I'm currently designing and writing a screenplay for an animated feature film I want to pitch soon, and have been hard at work getting the second issue of Pigtale done. Besides that, I've been doing freelance design and development work for various studios, and I'm also developing a collaborative idea with a friend of mine who also has a book coming out from Image. Im doing as story for Flight vol: 3, And finally, and most importantly, I've been spending time with my family, which I don't get enough of because of work. My wife has been very supportive with what I've been doing so far, and puts up with me far more than she ought to!" Readers can prepare to "pork out" in mid-January, when Pigtale #1, a $2.95 comic, is scheduled for release. -by Cliff Biggers