FROM THE VAULT: SWEET TOOTH PART 2

The Monthly Grind....

Last installment I talked in detail about the origins of Sweet Tooth and how it ended up as a monthly series at Vertigo. But that is obviously only half the story. And what came next is a lot harder to discuss because it was really a blur. Both writing and drawing a monthly comic is a very time-intensive and grueling schedule. So, once the book started, it never really stopped. The term “monthly grind” is very accurate. You finish one issue and you are jumping right into the next. This sounds like I’m complaining, but I’m not, I absolutely loved the grind. I loved the routine and the schedule, and I loved having this story that I could explore and expand in any direction I wanted to. Not every day was a joy, of course, there were weeks and months where I wanted it to just be over so I could get a break, but all in all, I loved drawing Sweet Tooth.

Here for the first time anywhere, are the pencils and layouts for issue 1 of Sweet Tooth!

I started drawing Sweet Tooth in the tiny basement studio of my first house. Doing the Nobody for DC/Vertigo was a huge leap for me in that it was the first time I received a page rate for my work. And the financial comfort of having that every month was a huge relief for us, as we were expecting our son that same year. I think I drew the first half dozen issues in that house before we moved to a larger house, and I got to move my studio into an upper bedroom with windows and natural light!

But let’s back up. I didn’t make Sweet Tooth alone. In addition to Bob Schreck and Brandon Monclaire editing the first dozen or so issues of Sweet Tooth, there is also the amazing Jose Villarrubia. I had met Jose briefly when I was doing Essex County at Top Shelf during San Diego Comic Con. Jose had worked with Alan Moore on Mirror of Love, which Top Shelf published so he was also around the Top Shelf booth and we were introduced. I immediately loved him. He is such a warm and kind person and so easy to talk to. Jose had also colored a couple of books I loved, including Punisher: The End, which influenced Sweet Tooth and Jae Lee’s work on The Sentry for Marvel (who I would, ironically, revive some years later for a short-lived series). So, when Bob and Karen asked who I would like to color Sweet Tooth, Jose was my first choice and it proved to be the start of a great collaboration and friendship.

Maybe Sweet Tooth was cursed because I also went through many editors during my 40-issue run. Bob was fired by DC not long after we started the series. Brandon Montclaire, his assistant, took over for a while before he left DC and then Pornsak Pichetshote took over. Pornsak was amazing and he and I would become very good friends over the years. And Pornsak would go on to become a successful writer of comics as well. His work includes the great mini-series Infidel drawn by Arron Campbell and Edited by…Jose Villarrubia (comics is a small world) and the recent The Good Asian.

After Pornsak moved away from Vertigo editorial Mark Doyle took over until the end of Sweet Tooth’s run. Each of the editors were great to work with. They all were very hands-off and let me do my thing but were also all a phone call away if I got stuck on a story point or needed to riff ideas or figure out scheduling things. And of course, my friends Matt Kindt, Emi Lenox and Nate Powell all pitched in too, drawing key issues of Sweet Tooth when I needed a break or to catch up on the schedule.

At one point I needed to take a few months off to finish my graphic novel The Underwater Welder (a separate From The Vault coming about that book at a later date) and Matt stepped in to draw three consecutive issues that told the origins of the Sweet Tooth mythology. Those issues remain among my favorites.

I think Sweet Tooth’s success caught many people at DC by surprise. Karen and Bob obviously believed in it, but I think the power-that-be at DC proper saw it as something of an aberration, at least at first. I heard through the grapevine that one DC executive at the time had the cover for Sweet Tooth #1 hung on the door of his office with some mocking graffiti scribbled on it.  A part of me gets it. Sweet Tooth looks NOTHING like any other monthly book DC has ever published.  I know my art style is hit or miss with people. You either love it or just don’t get it at all and think it’s hideous.  I came to peace with that a long time ago. I can’t draw like Jim Lee or Brian Hitch. I can only draw like Jeff Lemire, and I am more than okay with that. I know that my art can sometimes look awkward, but I also think that those flaws are part of the charm and energy of the work and wouldn’t change it for anything. I am who I am, and luckily enough people like what I do that I get to keep doing it. That’s good enough for me.

Anyways, that DC exec who mocked Sweet Tooth around the offices is loooong gone from the industry and Sweet Tooth is now a Netflix show watched by over 60 million people. So…Gus and I won that battle in the end ;)

Despite the detractors, Sweet Tooth also had some big, and unexpected, champions at DC proper including Dan Didio. Dan told me early on that he loved the simplicity and clarity of my storytelling. He also made it clear that he would not cancel Sweet Tooth when he took over from Paul Levitz, and gave me the freedom to see the series through to whatever conclusion I saw fit. I know that Dan also has his detractors. He is a big personality and he rubs some people the wrong way. But Dan was never anything but incredibly supportive of me and my work. This support would lead to me starting to write mainstream DC comics for other artists, and opening up a whole new side of my career, but I want to save that for the next installment.

Sweet Tooth remains one of my favorite things I’ve been able to do. I’m very proud of it, and still think the ending of the series is one of the best things I’ve done. It was incredibly emotional drawing that last issue. Gus, Jepperd, and the rest of the characters had become such a big part of my life, it was sad to finish the story and let them go. But I channeled those feelings into the ending.  Here is some of the original, uncolored artwork from that final issue…

The Netflix show is a whole other thing. I’ve spoken about that in previous posts which you can find in the archives. Season 2 is shooting right now in New Zealand and I hope to get to set soon. Sweet Tooth will always be a huge part of my body of work. I still love drawing Gus and the gang when I get a chance to do so at conventions etc. and they will always be a big part of me.  And, as I said, it would open many other doors for me.

So, next installment will get into how I started writing comic books at DC and I’ll share some of my early scripts with you.

Until then…

-Jeff