The Real Thing – ft. Kenny Keil (Part 2)

Welcome back to the Real Thing and part two of our chat with Kenny Keil.  Previously, Keil talked about self-launching his first comic book project without a leg-up from any established publisher, major or minor.  Today, he talks about what makes his comic one of the funniest products on the off-road market.

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The entirety of Tales to Suffice is pretty much humor material.  How long have you known you were a “funny guy”? 

I always suspected it, but years of rejection letters from the Laffy Taffy people can wear a guy down.

I know you have a love for sketch and improvisational comedy, and Tales certainly has a sketch-comedy quality to it.  Did you ever do any of that, outside the comics medium?

I strive to get that sketch-comedy feel in my Tales to Suffice stuff, but up until recently that’s been the extent of my comedy writing experience.  The thing about comedy (or anything) is that you’re going to suck when you first start out.  And the great thing about comics is that they allow you to suck in the privacy of your own home without an audience watching.

What are some comedians or comedy shows you really love, and what are some that have influenced your own sense of humor and the humor in Tales?

I came up on stuff like SNL, The Simpsons, and Letterman, with a little Monty Python tossed into the mix.  Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock and a great deal of Adult Swim shows have rocked my world in more recent years.  As far as stand-ups go, I dig Rock, Carlin, Chapelle, and pretty much anyone who’s ever appeared on the Comedy Death-Ray podcast. Despite all of this, the comic sensibilities of Tales to Suffice remain best described as Dorf meets Chespirito.

What was the first tale to suffice, and how did the idea come to you?

Dang… I can remember a comic I read in 1984, but not a comic I made in 2007!  I’m thinking it was either The Red Atom or Ray Gunn, Space Sleuth.

Fictional publisher Mort Finkleman acts as Tales’ host of sorts.  How did he become such a central character, and who did you model him after?

I felt like I needed something to tie it all together, and had been reading the excellent Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones, learning about all the wonderful outcasts and shysters responsible for creating this wonderful medium.  Obviously there’s a lot of Stan Lee in there, but I pulled little details from an amalgam of people to create Mort Finkleman.

Ray Gunn, space sleuth, is clearly a take-off of other star-faring heroes.  Who did you have in mind when creating the character, and what did you want to make fun of with him?

I’m a big fan of Carmine Infantino’s Mystery in Space stuff, so visually Ray Gunn owes a lot to Adam Strange.  There’s just something really magical about how the future used to look, and it saddens me that we seem to be headed in a direction where there aren’t fins on everything.  But beyond that, those stories are just a big hodgepodge of science fiction tropes ranging from Buck Rogers to BSG.

The Red Atom faces a lot of hard knocks in his burgeoning career as crime-fighting vigilante—what would you say is his fatal weakness as a superhero?

I think he has some fatal weaknesses as a human being in general.  He’s lazy, he’s cowardly, and while he likes the idea of making the world a better place, he just isn’t willing to put the work into actually doing it.  I guess he’s a lot like you and me.  What’s that?  Okay, just me then.

Hank—or shall I say, Reed Richards’ spiral from competent stud into overweight comics shop owner is pretty much a cautionary tale on letting your comics addiction get out of hand.  Do you have any firsthand experience of his many vices?

That story was basically a cautionary tale to myself.  I’d gone something like 10 years without reading a comic, and was sort of re-discovering them in my adult life shortly before starting out on Tales.  I was reading stuff at this ridiculous pace, voraciously consuming book after book trying to catch up with everything I’d missed while I was away (and everything I wasn’t cool enough to catch onto the first time around).  I’d be at work the next day, exhausted, unable to focus on anything but that Swamp Thing comic I’d read at 2 AM.  Don’t get me wrong–I’ve always been nerdy on some level or another, but this was seriously a transformation of sorts.  So “Read at Your Own Risk” was my way of having some fun with it.

Of all the amusingly insane products and services advertised in Tales, which one is your favorite?  And more importantly, would you buy it?  I myself like the Oates alarm clock, with detachable mustache/bottle opener.

Everybody loves that John Oates singing clock radio.  I missed a real gravy train by not selling those instead!  My personal favorites are probably Books on Tape and Racist Grandmother.  But no, I’d never buy anything from a company called Blippo Novelties.  Nobody should.

You’ve got a number of cover previews for features we haven’t seen yet—“True Stories of the Sherman Oaks Shopping Plaza Bike Police” comes to mind.  Do you have plans to expand on these as future features?  Which one will get first treatment?

It’s funny you should ask!  I’m in talks with Michael Bay’s people about bringing “Planet of the Abes” to the big screen next summer.

You mimic a lot of periods and styles with your art in Tales, but which would you consider your “real” style?  Are there any particular artists who’ve inspired your work?

I’m not sure I’ve found my style yet.  I think that comes from my design background.  You know, “form follows function” and all that.  I base the style on what I think would best serve the content.  But if I had to pick one, I’d say the Red Atom/Professor Wormhole stuff is the more natural fit for me.  But even that’s starting to change.

Another reason for my chameleon-like approach is that I have way too many inspirations: Darwyn Cooke, Harvey Kurtzman, Curt Swan, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Don Martin, E.C. Segar, Jim Lee, Marcos Martin, etc.  The list is all over the place, and goes on forever.

Tales doesn’t a have a serious bone in its body, but would you ever be interested in creating a more “serious” kind of comic?  What kind of comic would it be?

I like reading serious comics, so it stands to reason that I’d enjoy making serious comics…But I think I’ll be sticking with comedy for the foreseeable future.  Of course, “comedy” is a pretty huge umbrella, so I can see myself branching out with more character driven work with actual plots and stuff.

I hear you’re writing some comedy shorts for your friends.  Now are these comics, or web videos, or what?  Any ideas you care to preview with us?

We’re looking at getting into web videos, and my side of that equation has been trying to learn some screenwriting basics.  Making comics can be pretty isolating, so it’s fun to be able to collaborate with friends.  In that sense it’s a bit easier than comics, but in every other sense it’s more difficult.  Nothing yet to show for it, but I’ll keep you posted!

So what’s next for Tales to Suffice?  Will there be any more issues coming down the pike, and will you be going the self-publishing route with them again?

Right now I’m mainly focused on getting the word out about Giant-Sized Tales to Suffice, as there are still several hundred copies sitting in my garage.  But I’m keeping Finkleman alive over at talestosuffice.com, where new comics are rumored to appear sporadically.  I’m currently writing some stuff that fits somewhat in the vein of Tales to Suffice, so that will likely debut there as well.  Eventually.

Some people out there may be pondering the idea of producing an entirely self-created work of their own.  Do you have any wisdom you’d like to offer them?

Stop pondering!  Just do it.  Seriously, whatever it is, just do it.  And that goes double for comics.  It’s one of the few mediums where you can create without anyone else’s help or permission. So get crackin’.

I notice you have a super-cute little kid on your lap in your Facebook profile—what part of your interests do you hope he’ll inherit from you?

Thanks!  I’m pulling for him to become a comic fan as he gets older, but just my luck he’ll probably be too popular and athletic for them.

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Shout-out to Kenny Keil for being our guest here on the Real Thing.  Check out our review of Giant-Sized Tales to Suffice, which is available to order at talestosuffice.com.