Episode 63 - Creator Interview Matt McGrath

This week I'm joined by Matt McGrath who is kickstarting his book, The Acts of Louis Debraz, Voyageur! This is a Folk horror inspired by French Canadian Folk Tales, and Hellboy!  Check out the link below!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matt-mcgrath/the-acts-of-louis-debraz-voyageur-new-folk-horror-series

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey everybody, welcome to Comic Books Beyond. We are joined by a special guest this week. We have Matt McGrath, who is promoting his Kickstarter for uh the acts of Louis Debras. Did I say that right? Or is it Debray?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Uh that's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I uh Louis de Braz is what I say. Louis de Braz Voyager, uh, which drops on Kickstarter August 5th, or I guess I should say dropped, because this is definitely coming out Friday. All right, Matt. Uh, before we start, uh, I have a question I ask almost everyone. Uh, this I'm convinced I can learn everything about a person that I need to know. You can go anywhere in the world. Uh it's lunchtime. What are you getting for lunch? What am I getting for lunch? Yeah, and you can go anywhere you want. This tells me everything I need to know.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Okay, interesting. Um, do I have an unlimited uh money as well? Yeah. Unlimited budget. Hmm. Um, yeah, maybe I'm like I'll fly to Japan and or teleport to Japan and get some like authentic sushi or or something. I usually just go up the road for some sushi, but that's probably not the most authentic experience. But uh yeah, if I got magical uh transportation uh abilities at my disposal, I think I'll just yeah, go over to Japan and get the real thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I might be right behind you on that one. Yeah, all right. So, Matt, let's uh let's get into uh the book today. And I don't know where you're at, but it is hot as hell where I am today.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So uh yeah, it's pretty hot here. Um yeah, one of our hot hotter days so far.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Whereabouts are you? Uh I'm upstate New York, Binghamton. Okay. Yeah, it it's kind of middle of nowhere, so it's the edge of nowhere is where I say I live.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Got it. You've been getting some of our wildfire smoke over the past uh.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Are you up in uh Canada then I take it? Yeah, yeah, I am so sorry for so many things. I apologize. I I do love Canada though. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, we love the United States most of the times. Yeah, we're not always like this.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Uh so Matt, can I ask you to pitch me this book? We are talking about horror today, and I'm a huge horror fan, so I'm really excited to talk about this one.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Great. Um, yeah, so well, speaking of Canadian, this is uh Canadian folklore uh comic that I've had in my head for pretty long time. I don't know. Um feels I think uh the solid idea of it's been in my head for maybe five or so years, but the kind of lingering um idea of it's been probably 10-15 years. But um yeah, to pitch it, um, it's about a voyager, so who uh a fur trader uh in the um 19th century Canada who uh has this unknown vendetta against the devil, and he's basically tracking him across all of Canada, um trying to drag him back to hell. Um and so that's kind of the overarching plot. And um, so for this specific one, it's based off of a famous uh French-Canadian folktale called um Rose la Tulipe or The Devil Comes to Dance, and there's many, many, many different variations of this legend. Um, but mostly it's about uh a small town, a small community is celebrating Mardi Gras, so the last night of partying before Lent begins, and a mysterious stranger comes to the door and asks, you know, he's been on a long journey. Uh, can he kind of come inside, warm himself up, have a drink, and maybe just chill out for a bit? And they say, Yeah. And then he kind of takes his um eye to uh a young lady of the house, Rose, and kind of woos her and off her feet, and along the way, people kind of start noticing that this guy's a little iffy, like they look at his feet, and there's like little sparks of fire coming up. Um, the kids are afraid of him, stuff like that, and lo and behold, it's actually the devil, and they um so they end there. Um there's many different variations of it again, where Rose ends up, you know, running off of the devil, or maybe she she's saved by the priest, or her soul is damned, and uh what have you. But um, yeah, that's usually how it goes. So um, yeah, the basic ideas for this is it's it's basically my version of Hellboy. That's that's the main reason why I wanted to do this. Nice. Um, yeah, so it's just a a way of kind of uh adapting a bunch of French Canadian folk tales that I've come across over the years. And I should say that it's co-created uh with John Berg, who's another um Canadian comic creator uh who lives in the GTA, so the Greater Toronto area. And yeah, he's done a fantastic job with it so far. He's our uh he's the co-creator and the illustrator of the book.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

He uh you sent me a couple preview pages earlier, and I read through them about three times, and they looked great. I I really liked the art style. Uh, it wasn't too terrifying, but it it looked really good. Uh so can I ask, was this a story that you grew up with? Like, was this like your bedtime story going to bed or just something passed around the schoolyard? Where'd that come from?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, no, that's interesting because it's definitely not what the stories that I grew up with. Um, so I grew up in Ontario, um, so it's a province in Canada for your American listeners. Uh right next door to us, to the east, is Quebec. Uh, and they're uh mostly French speaking. There's kind of like little islands like Montreal that are very bilingual, and there are other little islands of English speakers, but mostly uh French speakers there. Uh so that's where my partner is from, and um I kind of learned about them through her, I think, although I don't really m remember the specifics. I think just kind of getting more being in Quebec more often and being more exposed to Quebec stuff, I just kind of came across all these folktales. Um, and yeah, it kind of clicked with me. Like I had this nebulous idea for a kind of hellboy type thing of some wanderer who walks across the country and encounters paranormal problems that he has to solve. Um, so all these uh folk tales from Quebec that are heavily based off of like Catholic traditions, and the devil is a character that comes up repeatedly in uh in a lot of these stories. I just kind of thought it would be like a great premise. These these I could conjoin these cool folktales with this kind of very vague idea that I had. Um, and so yeah, the interesting thing is they've I have kids now and they they kind of kind of become bed stories for my kids. Uh we have like a a storybook of like French Canadian legends that we read to them, and Rose La Talipe, the devil comes to dance, is one of the ones that we read to them at night.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Oh well, that's definitely an awesome bedtime story for the kids. I I grew up on Thomas the Tank Engine, but yeah, I I quickly found horror when I was like four, and it was all downhill from there. Yeah. Um, so it's interesting you said this comes from Quebec. My only time in Canada was a uh really bad horror story. I did not realize how French Montreal was. I was told it was a English-speaking country that happens to speak French, and um, you know, the no parking signs are not clearly labeled. And three tickets later and almost getting towed, I was I I enjoyed my time there, but I had but I had my fill.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah, yeah. All the signage will be in French for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

It was great though. I I I really liked it, aside from the parking tickets and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah, that's uh although the one bad thing about Quebec is you can't take um you can't go take right turns on red lights one problem.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I definitely didn't follow that rule. Okay, good good to know for my next trip there. So, Matt, where uh where did you first like get into horror? Like, what's the horror origin story?

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Um yeah, I feel like I I'm pretty uh late bloomer when it comes to horror. Um growing up, it it was mostly I think sci science fiction was like the thing that I liked the most. Like my mom was really into Star Trek, and I kind of kind of got my interest in science fiction from her. It was more speculative stuff. Um, yeah, I watched like things I that were way too inappropriate for me to be watching when I was a kid, like Terminator 2 and Nightfall Monkeys and all those kind of dark sci-fi uh things, Blade Runner. So yeah, like growing up, it was like that superhero stuff like that. Um it probably wasn't lit till probably my early 30s, late 20s, where I really got into horror, and I guess that kind of came about with this new, you know, this elevated horror kind of revival that we've been seeing in the past 10-15 years with you know directors like Ari Aster and uh uh Dave no something Eggers, the the Oh Robert Eggers.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Robert Eggers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Yeah the the witch and all those the bitch, yeah. The uh yeah, so I think I think that's where I came to it. Um and also video games like Resident Evil. I'm a huge Resident Evil fan right now, but which is your favorite? Um I haven't played all of them, but so far I'd say uh two, the original two. Cool, cool. Yeah, it's a classic.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, I've actually never played the original three, uh, because just I never my mom was actually that was like the one thing she would stop me from doing was uh the Resident Evil games. So I started with like seven and then worked my way back. I played the remakes and then I never played like the first two or the original or I never played the original two and three or the original one, but I played the like the remastered version and most of the other ones too.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Oh yeah. For the original one, yeah, the the remake is far superior than the original. Yeah, I've heard it's really different too, which is I thought it was just like an extra couple things, but um, yeah, there's like yeah, there's like an one kind of new character plot point that's added on. That's a pretty significant change in Yale, a bunch of other different locations, but more or less like pretty much the same plot. But yeah, just the music, atmosphere, obviously the graphics are way, way better. Now, now now were you a uh Silent Hill kid or were you Resident Evil only? No, so like yeah, that's that's the other thing. I I didn't get into Resident Evil probably till I was like 35 or something or 34, mid-30s.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Uh yeah, so I came to it very, very late, kind of in that in that headspace of you know getting more into horror in in my adult years. So yeah, no, when I was a kid, I was kind of the RPG fan. Like I was playing Final Fantasies, nice, um, Crash Bandicoot, all that Legend of Dragoon, like all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Uh one of my co-hosts is a huge Legend of Dragoon fan, has been trying to get me to play it for 20 years, but I think they just announced a remake. Oh, did they? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Okay. I can believe that. We've done it for Final Fantasy VII, so yeah. Dragoons do as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Yep. Um, so Matt, how um how scary would you uh say this work you're you're putting out here is? Like, say on a legend of or uh on a scale of Hocus Pocus to a Serbian film, how how dark are we talking here? A Serbian film? My wife came up with that one. It's some really dark extreme horror that she won't watch. Oh, I gotta check that out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Um uh I'd say sorry, what was the first op the low low end again? Low end we'll say is like hocus pocus.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

So like can you maybe give me a comparison horror movie here?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Okay, um, yeah. Well, I guess like Hellboy, like it's about as scary as Hellboy, so yeah. Um, it's more creepy atmosphere, atmospheric horror, like tension, more than kind of like jump scares or anything like really kind of unsettling.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Um yeah, the uh the atmosphere in this and like the colors I really liked. So yeah, you did it. Can I ask you to talk about the collaboration process on this one a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, sure. Um, where do I start? Um, so I wrote the script. Uh I kind of like was had it, I don't know. I I it took me a while to kind of like find the story of it. Like first I had to research all the different variations of the legend and kind of find the parts of each story that I liked the best that I wanted to incorporate it, and then find kind of I don't know how I fit in this character that I've made up, um, how he fits into it. Anyways, so that took a while. Um, and then finally got the script done. Um, and then yeah, John, I worked with him previously on a um a Frankenstein uh short story for a zine that came out a ca a few years ago about about the I think it's 250th or 200th anniversary of Frankenstein. Uh so our story was about um uh the creation of Frankenstein's monster from the perspective of Frankenstein's downstairs nosy neighbor. So yeah, that was that was yeah. So yeah, uh kind of ever since then, like I've been wanting to work with John again. So he I I gave him the script and he was interested, but he was busy with another project. So instead of you know trying to find somebody else, I uh just kind of put it off and um put it off in my you know, whatever, my my laptop somewhere and just let it gather dust until John was ready. And luckily he was that time came um uh earlier this year. Um yeah, it's not a very interesting story. But um is yeah, through any specific things, because like originally the this the story was meant to be structured like a silent film. Oh it was gonna be on like a six-panel grid, so it'd be two across, three down, uh square panels, and so there would be an image, and then you know, all the dialogue would be done in would be set in like one panel, um, with like the intertitle type of look. Um but yeah, I guess this is like with talking with him through it, um it that idea kind of like didn't really work. Like I don't think it kind of worked with how he likes to draw comics. Like if you look at his pages, they're very bombastic and and um I don't know, fluid. Whereas the the silent film thing would have been a lot more constraining. Um so that's one of the big changes that kind of came about with collaborating with him. And yeah, I think it's probably for the best because when when I started writing it out uh with the dialogue inside the panel, it kind of freed up a lot more stuff. I could add like a lot more story into the pages that I had, um, more characterization, things like that. And yeah, I kinda yeah, it worked it worked out pretty well, and it felt much more Hellboy after after that pass.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Now, were you writing with uh Hellboy in mind? Or did was that something that like came out where you like naturally started to feel this reminds you of Hellboy? I I've I've actually only ever read I think the first arc or two of Hellboy. I liked what I read, but uh there's a lot of that. But that's that that's my only reason for not going more to it.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah, they came out with like omnibuses a few years ago that might still be around, but it's pretty there's only like five of them, and they're pretty inexpensive.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

So if like you've ever wanted to do a deep dive, like yeah, yeah, a lot of places are doing that, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah, totally. Um uh but Hellboy, um, yeah, I think like from the beginning it was very much like I I want to do my Hellboy. Um first the idea was I want to do a Hellboy, and then I kind of had to come up with okay, but what am I gonna do that's gonna be my own, but not just completely derivative derivative of Mike McNeola. So um, yeah, I guess that kind of goes back to my earlier answer. We're discovering these folk tales, because obviously uh Mike McNeola is very influenced by uh folktales, especially in Hellboy and and in the new book that he's doing now. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Now uh Louis Debray. Debrez? Trying to I'm trying to say Louis Debrez, is that correct? I don't even know how to say however you feel like I kind of like de Bray. We're gonna go with Louis Debray. Um so was he a specific character from these folktales, or uh was he someone you came up with?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, he uh somebody that I came up with. Um so yeah, uh yeah, I just kind of had some characteristics that I had in mind. Like I wanted him to be, I don't know, a bit overweight. Like I didn't want kind of like a super buff, thin-ish, I don't know, muscly dude. I wanted somebody a little more, I don't know, uh natural looking. Um somebody who's a little bit out of shape and kind of get knocked around a lot, but still is kind of like a badass who could beat you down if you wanted to. He's farmer strong. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, he uh uh doing some research, I kind of came across a person, a real life person called Louis Sir, who is French Canadian, and he was like a famous strong man, like probably I don't know, uh according to Wikipedia, one of the you know strongest men who are recorded, I guess, who's ever lived. What was his name again? Louis Sir. So L O, yeah, like Louis in this one, and Sir is C Y R.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Oh, I know exactly who you're talking about. Um, I actually compete in strongman. Um and Sir is a specific dumbbell challenge, which is ridiculous, and just the thought of doing it scares the living hell out of me. Yeah, no, it's like uh I don't think it's the um there's a dumbbell that's like this thick, like you're holding like a giant coffee can. Uh, I think that's the one that that is named after him. So yeah, okay. That's a cool character to be named after. Yeah, exactly. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Um, yeah, so kind of his look was based off of that a little bit. Um, I think yeah, Sir was probably like more of a lumberjack type thing, like he was later, more uh early 20th century person, but um yeah, um just like so so my guy is a voyager who would have been is like a fur trader, so they would have um kind of they're kind of like the middleman who's going into the into the deep woods and you know trading with the indigenous people there to get the fur pelts and then taking them back to the forts and handing them over to the you know the fur traders, Hudson's Bay or what have you, and getting their commission from that. Um so yeah, the kind of being this rugged ad stores men was kind of a big part of that of uh of that lifestyle. And the de Bray or the Debras part of it, um I just was like looking up creepy French last names and yeah, somebody I don't remember the first name, but somebody named Debray was like one of the the last person in um France to be tr uh killed or uh executed uh for witchcraft. Um so I yeah, I just kind of went with that. Like that sounded kind of creepy and ominous connection with it. So it's like, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

I mean, that's horrifying, but you know, you picked a pretty metal last name for that reason. Uh yeah, it's um I I don't know much about the history of witchcraft in um Canada, but we had that problem here for a while. And we have a ton of dedicated museums dedicated to that. How about how about you?

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Oh, um well, okay, so the person I was referencing, they were Debray, they were in France, like they're French French, French and Canadian. But um, yeah, there is like there is a little bit, not as not as much um uh in the United States with witchcraft. But there there's one specific, now that you mention it, French Canadian legend, where a woman actually, okay, now I'm thinking, yeah, I think she was accused of witchcraft, but um she was executed for kind of witchcraft, but also maybe murdering her husband, uh and maybe her previous husband before that, and uh she was executed and her body was kind of strung up in this cage on a crossroads, and that kind of spawned a legend where you know her ghost kind of haunts this crossroads now, and she's in this cage and she's kind of grabbing people who were ever walking by. Um uh Le Car Le Carvo is the name of this character. Um, and uh yeah, again, that's another French Canadian legend that's super famous and kind of has its connections to witchcraft.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah, you've definitely read a lot of these uh French Canadian legends, and you're kind of selling me on checking a lot of these out. Uh so do you think in the future are we gonna see more of these from you? Yes, yeah, I hope so.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Like we'll I've I know John down to do more. I want to do more, like I have more ideas. Uh it all depends on how well this Kickstarter does. So I think even no matter what, but I still got like a couple. couple more that I want to do. Um but we'll see like how how popular it becomes. Um to like give me the financial uh imp impetus to keep going with it. But um yeah there's there's a there's a lot. There's werewolves, loop gurus are kind of a very famous or very huge part of uh French Canadian folktales. The Chasse Galerie is kind of the the most famous folktale. It's about an enchanted canoe. So uh the oh yeah so I guess a bunch of Voyagers or lumberjacks or whatever it is in which version are kind of far away from home on Christmas Eve and they're lonely and they want to get home so they make a deal with the devil um to get them home as quick as they can so they can be with their family and get drunk and so the devil gives them this enchanted canoe and they hop on and they go flying off into the night on this witch canoe. And then they make it back home they have their party and I they're I can't remember the specifics but they have to be back at a certain time because you know that's always happens in folktales and they get on and I think they're not allowed to swear on the enchanted canoe and one of them does and it breaks apart and they'll fall down or I think in another version like they they end up hitting a church and that also causes them to fall down out of this out of the sky to their desk there yeah I don't know the endings specifically but I know that the setup and the endings are uh depends on which version you're getting but yeah that's one of their more famous uh legends in Quebec not being able to swear on a boat if you've if you've ever been on a vote it's just swearing that's pretty much all you do rowing sucks so French Canadians love to swear too and they have very specific swears swear words.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

They're probably a lot nicer than the ones we have in my country so um yeah yeah kinda it's different there's there's like there's a music to to France like I I can't speak French at all. Yeah um the it's it's all based off of um religious items in in a church all their swear words no kidding the more you know uh so Matt um can I ask you to talk about the Kickstarter campaign itself a little bit like what are some of the tiers and options you have out there uh when I I I don't think it's live now so I I couldn't get very far deep into it.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Oh yeah yeah no it um it's so it's Friday obviously and so it is live right now so you can go to the Kickstarter page and look at all the cool stuff. But what we have uh so we have the base stuff of just um a digital version and a um the print version of the book uh so it's 24 pages um per no the saddle stitch um for the digital version it's seven dollars canadian and for the print version it's ten dollars canadian so at US that kind of shakes out to like five dollars and eight dollars seven dollars type of thing uh that is a great rate is there is there a physical version of this at all yep yeah so the print version yeah it'll be a print for the print version is uh the ten doll canadian oh nice yeah uh now how about uh international shipping on that what how's that gonna work i i'm not sure if it'll would be printed in canada or how that works at all uh yeah so speaking of trump um having to think go through all those uh tariff stuff but um i am so sorry it's okay it's okay it's not your fault um okay but so luckily with whatever silly tariff laws that he uses um books and books and written material are exempt so there's no tariffs on any of that so yeah you can back that tariff free um and yeah so it's uh I can't remember what I'm charging for the United States but it's about between like seven and eight seven and nine dollars Canadian I think so it's probably like pretty pretty similar to what you'd pay for like a domestic like shipping from you US to US that's not bad at all that's that's honestly a great rate compared to some other uh Kickstarters I've seen and yeah that's awesome I mean if you need to like uh I'm not too far from Canada we'll meet at the border toss them over I'll take them to the post office yeah no problem yeah all right Matt we are running a little low on time tonight but I would like you to you know crack your knuckles crack your back get in character get ready okay do you want to pick make one final pitch for this tell us exactly who this is for and why we should back okay what who this is for okay yeah so I guess this is for uh anybody that likes uh Folkcore so all the good stuff that we've been talking about like Robert Eggers um Ari Astor if you like Hellboy if you like kind of pulp characters like I'm starting to get into James Bond right now reading all that um um Conan is another one that I'm starting to read more any of those kind of like very 30s 40s 50s 60s pulp characters um you'll definitely uh like what we have here uh and if you're interested in folk tales and legends from around the world and learning more about uh different cultures um uh this one's for you well Matt you sold me on this pretty hard I was pretty sold when I saw the uh preview pages like it it looked good full car uh my wife is a huge fan of that so I I knew I was gonna be at bare minimum as soon as you sent me those I'm like honey look at these I think you you'd like this yeah I I just got them very recently and it was the highlight of my day for sure awesome those pages well Matt I really enjoyed having you on the show uh I hope you had a good time uh is there anything final you want to sign off any positive messages anything you want to pitch chat up whatever you got the floor's yours sir oh man yeah um no I just uh I just really want everybody to back this book um get it funded as quickly as possible kickstarters are really hard and the the faster they fund the the happier I will be especially going into my vacation I want to help me have a stress free vacation where I'm not checking my phone constantly to see if somebody gave me a couple of dot bucks to go towards this book.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Absolutely so Matt it was great having you here uh I'm gonna get this up as quickly as possible and I wish you the best of luck in this one sir thank you thanks for having me on absolutely anytime let us know when you have something else because I want to see more oh yeah I got something else coming out later this year so doc. Oh awesome you might be our first returning guest oh cool all right well thanks everybody uh we'll see you back next week well it's time to close the book on today's episode if you're a comic book creator and you have something for me to review or would like to interview a guest on the show please send me an email at comicbooksbeyond at gmail.com this offer is also available to fellow comic journalists if you're a listener and you want to submit a question I'd happily read it on the show please just let me if it let me know if it's okay to read and how you'd like to be created credited. If you'd like to get a hold of me otherwise I'm at comic books beyond on blue sky instagram tick tock and YouTube but I mostly use blue sky. I am trying to use uh Instagram a little bit more though if you'd like to show support for the show please consider leaving a rating review or comment I ask for honest reviews only and I'm always looking for ways to improve the quality and content of the show. Alright everyone be good to each other and stick around for some gratitude and thanks Comic Books Beyond would like to thank John Burkle and the crew of the Talking Comics podcast Brandon McNulty Lisa and Bradford from Comic Book Couples Counseling Alex Jaffey Jeremy Whitley Jimmy Gusparo and the crew of Comic Book Yeti John Clay the Third of Shadow and Flames with Magic podcast David Pepos and all of our listeners and co hosts