Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

Red Room’s Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Web’s Antisocial Network

Award-winning indie cartoonist Ed Piskor discusses his new comic book Red Room and all of its bloody, horror-infused mayhem.

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Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

Eisner Award-winning comic book creator Ed Piskor has always made his projects his way while careful to pay homage to his numerous influences throughout his own work. This remains true with his latest project, the ambitious, world-building Fantagraphics title Red Room. Crafting his own shared, comic book universe, Piskor kicks things off with a 64-page debut issue before releasing a series of stories told in four-issue arcs each month. The comic takes place in a world where murders are live-streamed on the dark web, with Piskor blending his horror influences in full.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Piskor shares the creative influences that helped inform the creation of Red Room, explains how each issue will stand as its own autonomous story while building to a larger world and how Red Room will go full tilt with its ultraviolence and splatterpunk sensibilities. We’ve also got a look the first issue and covers and variants illustrated by Piskor, Cartoonist Kayfabe co-host Jim Rugg and Peach Momoko.

Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

CBR: How did the experience building the Cartoonist Kayfabe YouTube channel shape Red Room and its dark web community?

Ed Piskor: The community plays such a big part in Red Room, the people who participate in the chat rooms and who patronize the sick subculture that blights my comic. I have to say that so much of it comes from my experience with YouTube and social media in general. I just turn the energy up to 1000 in Red Room. Archetypes exist in anonymous comment sections online. You have your people-pleasers, the eternal haters, losers who think they’re speaking truth to power when really they just like complaining, the fanboys. I’ve never paid much attention to online commenters, being really turned off by strangers online as far back as 9/11 when I saw the things people were talking about on the Comics Journal message board that day, but building Cartoonist Kayfabe I can’t help by engage with that stuff on some small way. It does provide great reference for my comic. Great question!

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Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

Since Hip-Hop Family Tree and X-Men: Grand Design involved so much scholarship, how’s the creative process different for something more story-driven like Red Room?

Piskor: This is tongue-in-cheek pulp horror comics. I’m having so much fun figuring out different ways to creep myself out while trying to create a comic that I would absolutely love to come across in the wild. Hip-Hop Family Tree was a world-building exercise on rails, because I was dealing with real life people. X-Men was a world building exercise with some leniency because I could play around with story stuff as I saw fit. Wolverine was not going to call me at 2 AM because I drew the wrong sneakers on him. All that education was in service to reach the point I’m at now, which is building my own worlds in comics.

Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

On the Kayfabe channel, you documented a manga pilgrimage to Japan. Is there any particular manga influence on Red Room?

Piskor: There is no one manga in specific that is a direct influence on Red Room but one of the common attractions I’ve noted in the works of all my friends I made out there is that whenever you think you pushed things as far as they can go, there’s probably even more room to push. I saw examples time and time again and that is a perfect maxim to keep in the back of my mind while working on such a hardcore and bizarre comic book.

Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

In a world where something as gory as The Walking Dead is mainstream, what defines outlaw comics today?

Piskor: We’re pretty tongue in cheek about the term. Just having fun. When I think of outlaw comics I’m thinking about a very specific group and era of comics. Cartoonists like Tim Vigil, James O’Barr, Vince Locke, Tim Tyler, Guy Davis from a certain era, Eric Talbot, Troy Nixey. Lots of rendering. Lots of black ink on the page. Lots of spatter and practical effects. Duotone and/or zipatone. Black blood. Hyper violence. Figure drawing fetishization. Urban decay. Nothing has captured the spirit of those early Northstar comics, Rebel Media comics, or first-year Caliber comics in damn near 3 decades. I had to make a comic in that spirit to remind people of those comics that are straight-up classics to me. Faust, The Crow, Deadworld. Walking Dead wishes it could hold a candle to Deadworld.

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Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

I was wondering if you could speak to the format of Red Room and the overarching plan across its four-issue arcs.

Piskor: Everybody says they dislike the decompressed storytelling of Marvel and DC comics that are written for the trade paperbacks, but no one is taking the chance to do standalone comics anymore so I figured why not try the opposite approach. I’m setting up a world with rules and each comic is a standalone story in this world. You will see some recurring characters and there will even be multiple stories where recurring characters are the protagonists, but every single issue can be read on its own. I’m trying to swing for the fences with every issue because I get the sense that the Marvel/DC assembly liners dream up a single idea they’re thrilled with and milk it for 6 issues. They abuse the readership with that. It’s been fun trying to put the kitchen sink in every issue, completing said issue, then starting from whole cloth with the next issue.

Lastly, what are you most excited to hype up about Red Room when the comic drops?

Piskor: I’m hyped up that my suspicions are confirmed and there are lots of people that want a comic like this. Once again, they’re all standalone stories so if you see an issue, scoop it up. Don’t worry about the number conventions. Issue 23 of Tales From The Crypt is as satisfying as Issue 27 and Red Room will be no different in that respect. Readers deserve that respect for their buying dollars.

Red Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial NetworkRed Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial NetworkRed Rooms Ed Piskor Explores the Horrors of the Dark Webs Antisocial Network

Written and illustrated by Ed Piskor, Red Room #1 goes on sale May 19 from Fantagraphics.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/ed-piskor-red-room-interview/

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