LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT - SerioComics 55 + a Q&A with Author Graham Chaffee!

LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT written and drawn by Graham Chaffee, published by Fantagraphics

How I Met Graham!

Graham and I met via Instagram.

And I went to his tattoo shop in downtown LA.

The Purple Panther!

We talked about his career.

How he got started by mailing a comic to Fantagraphics back in the day.

And then I shared a version of my graphic novel, Should We Buy A Gun?

He was excited to check it out and made a comment about how he’s always curious about what the next generation is doing in the medium.

I’m not sure if I told him I’m not that young anymore ;)

A year or so later…

Graham sent in a new blurb :0

Graham’s Blurb for Should We Buy A Gun?

It’s great!

I had been meaning to enthuse about his latest book published April, 2024.

Which I went to a signing of for at Secret Headquarters in Atwater Village now.

So now’s a great time!

And stick around at the end for a Q&A with Graham!

Graham Chaffee

Graham Chaffee can draw anything you want in ten minutes. A graduate of Art Center College, Graham has a background in freelance illustration and comics. He has several other graphic novels published by Fantagraphics Books, including The Big Wheels, Good Dog and To Have And To Hold. He has been at the Purple Panther since 1995 and has been drawing and painting his whole life.

LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT

LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT written and drawn by Graham Chaffee, published by Fantagraphics is available from the publisher and Amazon and local shops.

Graham Chaffee's first graphic novel in seven years, Light It, Shoot It is a classic tale of noir below the spotlight.

Fresh out of prison for an arson conviction, clueless 20-year old Billy Bonney finds himself drifting through the seedy and unsavory world of cut-rate moviemaking, even more out of place amongst his peers than he felt as a teen six years earlier when he got busted.

Following his brother to the sets of grade B and exploitation 1970s Hollywood seems like a path of least resistance, until he accidentally lands a job as a handler to a has-been actor.

But the bright lights burn harsher and show more than he anticipated as he steps lucklessly into a gangster-driven plot to burn down a studio for the insurance money, and finds himself in over his head.

Drunken, washed-up stars. Scrambling, past-their-own-prime producers.

Teenage girls on the make, slick hustlers, and violent fixers.

Drawn in bold brushstrokes, and hand-painted in subtle washes, Chaffee brings vintage LA to the page in a propulsive adventure.

Black and White NOIR

Graham Chaffee’s style is so perfect for black and white!

I was on a date two Sundays ago and mentioned that I had made a graphic novel.

We had been talking about Color Theory.

And when I mentioned there’s a lot of color theory in graphic novels, she was surprised.

She said she thought all graphic novels were in black and white.

This is a not uncommon misperception.

Because it’s based in some fact.

It’s been a lot easier to print in black and white than color.

This can impact the quality of the reading experience.

Because sometimes books look better in color.

But Graham Chaffee’s style is so perfect for black and white because it well matches the content.

Noirs were usually made in that color spectrum.

LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT truly feels like a neo-noir brought to life on the page.

Fires and Los Angeles

Just like last week’s A FIRE STORY, this book also has a major fire theme.

Arson is common in big cities and especially LA.

We are still seeing reports of what might have happened to start the fires in January 2025.

And Chaffee does an excellent job showing both the draw toward arson, the business reasons for it, and the calamitous effects.

It’s less direct than A FIRE STORY’s depiction of how fires are endemic to SoCal but in many ways it’s an even truer story about the seedy reasons they are seeded…

Masculinity then and today

Graham kindly praised how I handled masculinity in the American Zeitgeist today.

And he similarly does an excellent job working with that subject matter then.

I particularly liked how the Uncle Actor character was both heroic yet ridiculous.

And how people both respected him for his talents and history.

But also maligned and didn’t trust him.

There was something both outsized and also real about this character.

Something tough but also ethical.

That really stuck with me.

What I Learned for Future…Kinetic!

I really loved Graham’s active art style.

There really is a propulsiveness to the book.

These are not just static images.

Which is something I’d be interested in exploring with collaborating artists in future work.

How to find that kinetic energy in the visuals.

Q&A with Graham Chaffee!

1. SerioComics: Hi Graham! I’ve read two of your books now, this LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT, and also TO HAVE AND TO HOLD, and both are set in Noir worlds with similar themes of down on your luck men and women making difficult choices. What attracts you to these worlds and themes? Are you inspired by noir movies, tv, books or comics? Does it have anything to do with your own personal experience?

   Graham Chaffee: from a fairly early age, i have always loved noir across all media - from the hard-boiled pulps, to the cold war paranoia of the post ww2 years. i dunno why i find it so attractive - its just the theme that speaks to me i guess

   

2. SerioComics: I remember after I read TO HAVE AND TO HOLD, which is about a very difficult marriage falling apart in treacherous ways, I told you it helped me make a decision regarding a current relationship I was in, and you were stunned and said you had never had that response before. What kind of responses have you gotten from readers for LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT so far? Anything else particularly strange like mine LOL?

   Graham Chaffee: well very few people write me at all - most folks who do contact me about my work, are cinephiles who are interested in my influences and filmic references - mostly within-the-genre type questions.

3. SerioComics: I don’t have any tattoos but I love them on other people. And yours are very artistic. Is there a relationship between tattooing and cartooning? How are they similar and different? Do you take what you learn from one medium to another?

   Graham Chaffee: well, they are both pretty lowbrow artforms - so there’s that - and both primarily commercial artforms. tattooing is more about formal draughtsmanship and cartooning is more about fluid gesture, i guess

4. SerioComics: You told me that you post your panels on social media to drive sales of your graphic novels and that inspired me to start making these reels of panels intercut with other images from other media. I think that community in the sense of meeting other artists is one of the major reasons I live in LA. What has living in LA done to inspire you in terms of the content of your work? But also the people you have gotten to know living in the city for a long time?

   Graham Chaffee: if i didn’t live in LA, i would probably not have been inspired to make an LA noir type book - and i definitely value the friendships i have formed here with other artists and whatnot. but i would not say it has any particular advantages over other towns and cities, as far as that goes. there are a lot of creative folks in LA to be sure, but so there are in other places, too, and i should probably be roughly the same person in minnesota as i am here

   

5. SerioComics: Do you have a sense of what comics project you might do next? How do you pick what you work on? And can you tell us why these things take so long, 7 years for LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT, and if and why you think that’s an important part of your and the process?

   Graham Chaffee: my next project is a work-for-hire job, doing the finished art for an educational non-fiction book on the subject of mass incarceration. and after that, there is a shortish golem story i am working on with my partner susan and after that i dunno - hopefully i’ll think of something by then lol LISI took 7 years because i have a day job and a very young child to mind - i could probably have knocked it out in a couple of years if i had no other tasks lol

LIGHT IT, SHOOT IT written and drawn by Graham Chaffee, published by Fantagraphics is available from the publisher and Amazon and local shops!

Thanks for Reading!