An Interview With W. Maxwell Prince
In the past, the comic book industry has seen dozens of influential and creative writers responsible for numerous innovative works that have successfully played with genre, style, and form that comic fans love and admire for challenging the way comic book stories can be told. It’s happened before, with works such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Alan Moore’s Watchmen immediately coming to mind, and we’re seeing it today with W. Maxwell Prince’s wildly original horror anthology series, Ice Cream Man. A comic book like no other, it has enraptured comic fans for its short, Twilight Zone-esque bizarre stories, featuring an enigmatic, demonic ice cream man.
Recently, I got into contact with the creator of Ice Cream Man himself, W. Maxwell Prince, to ask him about his writing career and to share any advice he’s had with those interested in pursuing an artistic career.
How exactly did you become interested in writing, and in writing comics especially?
W. Maxwell Prince: “I think certain people do enough reading and start to think they should be giving as much as they’re taking. I started to feel selfish, consuming so much art and not offering anything in return.”
You often explore and experiment with different forms of storytelling in your work (including entire issues of Ice Cream Man and One Week in the Library where there is no dialogue, or issues written in prose, stories that could be read forwards as well as backwards, or the highly-regarded “neapolitan issue” of Ice Cream Man). Do you ever have trouble writing these sort of complex, experimental types of stories, especially those that are not told in a strictly linear or traditional fashion?
W.M.P: “Those issues are actually easier for me than standard stuff. I’m a problem-solver by nature, so presenting myself with a kind of structural puzzle gets me excited and pushes me forward in a way that a more traditional script doesn’t.”
Do you outline at all, or do you typically write a first draft without planning anything out, preferring to let the ideas and dialogue come naturally to you as you’re writing?
W.M.P: “I outline, but later in the game than most comics writers. The bulk of my writing starts with language — small little sentences or bits of dialogue. I then build stories around that, at which point I might loosely outline the plot of the thing I’m trying to do. But it always changes, always transforms in the doing.”
What exactly is your editing process like? How many drafts do you typically go through until you feel you’ve reached a final, finished product? Do you begin editing immediately after you finish an initial draft, or do you wait some time before returning to it? Do you edit alone or in collaboration with someone after receiving their feedback?
W.M.P: “I have a background in editing, so I don’t really rely on anyone else but myself. That’s the nice thing about Image [the comic book publishing company many of Prince’s work appear under] — you’re free to live and die by your own intuition. No one sticks their finger into the cake batter.
“Regarding process, I edit pretty rigorously, sometimes all the way through the final lettering pass, right before the files need to be uploaded to the printer. Even then, I tend to feel like I’m giving up or abandoning the piece, rather than achieving some perfect final version.”
What do you believe is the biggest challenge you face when writing? Do you usually encounter any problems or challenges during the writing, research, or editing processes at all?
W.M.P: “I think I probably speak for a lot of people when I say that the hardest thing is exerting sustained amounts of attention on a project and not getting distracted by all the beeps and buzzes from my phone. Even now, answering these questions, I’m actively resisting the urge to look at Instagram.”
How often do you typically write? Do you usually set a word or page limit for yourself?
W.M.P: “I have a full-time job outside of comics, so I don’t write as much as I’d like to. I average about 3 days a week, maybe four hours at a time. But I also get a lot of important work done — be it editing or writing or just thinking — on the subway, or at the gym.”
How do you handle such things as writer’s block or self-doubt in regards to what you’re writing?
W.M.P: “If you read enough about writing, you’ll find it axiomatic that you have to just work through all of that shit. Probably every writer feels that they’re uniquely burdened with doubt and lockjaw. But you put in the time and then edit into oblivion. It all works out, until you abandon it and move on to the next thing.”
What advice would you give to someone looking to start off in the comic book industry?
W.M.P: “This is a bit of a stock answer for me, but I highly recommend trying to reverse-engineer comics scripts. I.E., take an issue of comics that strikes you as really well crafted, and see if you can recreate the script for it. Note how many panels there tends to be per page, how much dialogue per panel. Over time you start to internalize the natural rhythms of good comics, which then might embolden you to mess around with what you’ve come to understand as standard(ish) structure.”
What are some steps people who are interested in writing professionally should be taking right now?
W.M.P: “Write, read, and get off your phone.”
Can you talk a little about any upcoming projects that fans can look out for in the near future?
W.M.P: “I’ve got a weird little book with BOOM! coming out this Spring. It’s called King of Nowhere and concerns a guy getting lost in a weird town. It’s drawn and painted by Tyler and Hilary Jenkins, who are geniuses. I’m also working on a book about clowns for Image with a bunch of different artists. That’ll be formally announced this summer, I think.”
Lastly, are there any comics, movies, books, songs, or shows that you love and recommend people check out as quickly as possible after they’ve finished reading this interview?
W.M.P: “I thought The Farewell was really lovely. And the new season of The Bachelor seems bonkers — it’s like a circus.”
(All images used provided from Image Comics’ website, imagecomics.com, specifically Images’ creators’ page. I, the author, do not take any credit for them.)
