Downlands, the newest graphic novel by writer/artist Norm Konyu, known for comics such as A Call to Cthulhu and The Junction, will be released this May from Titan Comics.
Set in the south of England in the late 1990s but weaving in stories from centuries of local history and folklore, Downlands is a rich and deeply rewarding read. Like the films of Cartoon Saloon, it blends tradition, myth, and legend with a beautifully riveting and moving coming-of-age story that sees one boy deal with his very first experience with death, in the form of a giant black hound.
The Beat sat down with Konyu to discuss some of the process behind his latest work. Read on!
This interview has been edited for clarity.
JARED BIRD: Thank you so much for your time. Your newest graphic novel, Downlands, comes out from Titan Comics on May 13th. To those unfamiliar, how would you describe what Downlands is about?
NORM KONYU: It’s a weaving of folklore, superstition, and history of the area in England between Eastbourne and Brighton known as the South Downs. It takes local myth and legend and incorporates them into a story about a boy seeking answers.
BIRD: That’s a good way to put it. This is your third book with Titan Comics. What’s it been like to work with them?
KONYU: It’s been very easy. My first comic was crowdfunded because I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested in what I had to say or draw about, and they picked that up, and it eventually became The Junction. Since then, I’ve more or less been doing the same thing, creating my own books and crowdfunding them, and then Titan has picked them up after that point. Most crowdfunding sales won’t impact a proper publisher. It’s given me complete freedom to do whatever I want, which is almost unknown. There’s no editor and no one constantly pushing for updates or deadlines; it’s all left to me.
BIRD: That sounds lovely. I can imagine it opens up creativity a lot more because you can work on whatever idea is grabbing you most at any given time.
KONYU: It makes it much more personal. Not all of my books are really personal, but Downlands feels quite personal, as did The Junction. You’re not working with a team; it’s one person’s vision the whole way through, for better or worse.
BIRD: Like you mentioned earlier, the geography and history of Sussex plays a huge part in the comic’s story. What drew you, as an artist, to explore it?
KONYU: I don’t live far from it myself. I live in Battle, on the other side of the South Downs from Brighton. I’ve gone hiking and walking there multiple times and work visually, so my first ideas are always visual. Walking around the South Downs already creates a visual, so I just had to create a story to explore in that locale. I’m Canadian, and we don’t have this depth of visible history. The indigenous and native population of Canada has been there for thousands of years, but much of their history is unrecorded. There’s not much of a visual record left behind. I’m constantly amazed when I walk around; there’s something Roman, something Neolithic, and it gets to the point where the people who’ve lived here for a while don’t even realise it anymore, but it still stuns me. Folklore, too. We don’t have the same folklore – you’ll hear about a scary house, but it was built in 1950. It’s so different here.
BIRD: I can relate to that. I’m also not from England originally and it consistently shocks me to see pubs that are several hundred years old, and similar historical places. They’re caked in history, and you can feel it when you walk around and see old stones worn away with time.
KONYU: I live in Battle, near where the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. Next to that are the ruins of an Abbey that was destroyed after Henry VIII began the Church of England, and then there’s an effigy of a knight, and beyond that, there are concrete blocks called Dragon’s Teeth, which were tank traps in case Germany invaded during the Second World War. There’s so much history within 500 feet.
BIRD: You play with that in the book as well by exploring how much can happen on one street. You must have extensively researched British folklore for the book. What’s your favorite piece of folklore that you learnt about?
KONYU: It’s gotta be the centrepiece of the comic, the black hound. It’s not specifically British; there’s a lot of folklore across Europe and even in places like India that see a black hound as an omen of death. It’s alluded to in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and while there isn’t specifically one named in this area, there are plenty across Britain who have names. It speaks to me a lot, especially looking back at when I was a kid. I collected Conan The Barbarian comics, and I had some of the old Barry Windsor-Smith issues, one of which was about a black hound, and it’s resonated with me ever since then.
BIRD: Barry Windsor-Smith is one of the greatest artists to work in comics. Speaking of art, I think your art style is incredibly distinctive, blending the cute and calm with the unnerving and unsettling. What advice would you give artists trying to figure out their own style?
KONYU: That’s a good one. My style came out of my work as a professional animator. In animation, it’s always a team effort working with a director and someone else’s designs. I had no idea what my own style was anymore after so many years working in animation. My first book was really an experiment in finding a style, and I don’t know if you can point anyone to finding a style. It really is personal, and if you give advice, it veers away from being their style. It has to come about naturally.
BIRD: That’s one of the most interesting differences between animation and comics, in my opinion. Often, it’s harder to single out the individual touch with animation, which makes it even more significant when you hear stories like Don Bluth’s experiences. His movies still look incredible, but not everyone thought they worked at the time because they didn’t fit with everything else.
KONYU: When he split from Disney, they had a very specific style of animation at the time, so when he made his first film, The Secret of Nimh, it looked like it, but had a much darker tone underneath. I think that’s more what the audience struggled with at the time. It’s similar to Return to Oz, which looks beautiful and playful and colorful, but it’s very dark. People couldn’t really wrap their heads around something looking pretty but being dark at the same time.
BIRD: Is that something that applies to your work as well? The contrast between the beautiful and the macabre.
KONYU: Yes, I think so. I think a lot of people have commented on, in a positive way, that I like using a lot of bright colors even when what’s happening is dark.
BIRD: I find that dissonance really interesting. I remember when I first watched a movie that scared me as a kid, and it was both exhilarating and unnerving at once. It’s quite a palpable experience, that first-ever encounter with darkness. Was it important to you to explore a young person’s first experience with death?
KONYU: It was similar to what I explored in The Junction, but handled very differently. I always find things scarier when they involve children. It’s this idea of a crime against innocence, so many of my main characters are children of varying ages. You also need something to drive a character, and grief is a massive force of change and will always make people do things they may not want to do. It aids in the suspension of disbelief because if someone’s going to do something, something is pushing them to do it.
BIRD: Is it difficult to write grief, given that in and of itself, grief consists of so many contrasting feelings and emotions?
KONYU: People always ask me if I’ve been drawing on my own experience, and I’m not. We all have it at some point, but I’ve never had that experience yet. I’ve never had to deal with that sort of loss. A lot of people tell me I nail it, but that’s just projection, I guess!
BIRD: Your upcoming comic, The Space Between The Trees, comes out later this year. Can you give any hints as to what people can expect from it?
KONYU: No grief in this one. Ahah. I would describe it as a twisted episode of The Twilight Zone. It’s a simple, one-track story as opposed to Downlands, which explores a lot across different times and places. It’s a twisted little tale.
BIRD: One thing I loved about Downlands was the exploration of the past, especially the prose sequences of the graphic novel. Do you like experimenting with form and structure?
KONYU: Absolutely. With my longer works I often have a story in mind that I write out in cue cards, and then I play around with taking all of those individual story beats and putting them in different orders to see what I could do to make the story more interesting and preserve any twists to as close to the end as possible.
BIRD: What other works of yours would you recommend to readers who enjoy Downlands?
KONYU: If they enjoyed Downlands, then The Junction would probably be the next closest thing. The Space Between the Trees is coming out soon, and I also did another book called A Call to Cthulhu, which is very different. It’s Dr. Seuss meets H.P. Lovecraft, an irreverent look at the Cthulhu mythos.
BIRD: Have a lovely day.
KONYU: Thanks!
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