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DT: Since the allegorical nature of the story has been heavily promoted, how do you balance fidelity to history (since people might be reading the book expecting to learn some 'truth' about the USSR) with the needs of the story you want to tell (since you do want to do more than a mere retelling)?
BK: I don't think that these are mutually exclusive endeavors. One can maintain a fidelity to history and still tell a story within that fabric without upsetting the balance of truth and art. Our characters are fictitious just as Chekhov's characters are fictitious and just as Joyce's characters are fictitious, yet those authors characters still paint a picture of what pre revolution Russia was like and what Dublin was like respectively. In fact Joyce's stories were banned from publication for 7 years due to its authenticity and brutal honesty of an early 20th century Ireland. Our story does no less in the way of illuminating a Russia besieged with terrible leaders--even within a framework of fantasy sci-fi.
CG: Good question. There was a time when I thought that I would not emphasize the allegorical aspect for just that reason. I did have a choice, and my writing partner Bradley Kayl and I gave it a lot of thought. Should we not mention the source material, in this case Russian History, but simply let the work go forward as yet another action tale in the comics world? Should we let people figure it out for themselves? Will they? However, as the writing process continued, I realized that this story owed so much to its source, and that I simply couldn't bring myself to silence the voices that had inspired it: The photographs of the baby-faced soldiers that gave their lives to defeating Hitler on the eastern front, the letters of the artists pleading to Stalin to let them live, or at least allow their work to be seen by the public, the testament of Alexander Solzhenitsyn as he spoke of the millions of his people that were sacrificed on the pyre of Bolshevik modernization; the list is so vast that it is for all intents and purposes infinite. I was too eager to bring these lives to light in any way possible. This choice has turned out to be incredibly satisfying for us and, thankfully so far, our readers. I suppose a lot of writers would consider this a shackle, but for us it's been pure joy. Just as our visuals integrate 2D and 3D elements into a working image, our words have integrated fact and fiction into a narrative that continues to surprise us with its expansive nature. One example, yet to be published by us, takes us to a very crucial moment in the history of 20th Century Russia, the arrest and murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. At first mention, this sounds like something that would make very dry comics material. Something that Fantagraphics would put out by Joe Sacco, someone whose work I very much enjoy but would definitely be considered esoteric by the larger comics audience--well, at least by those who knew the word 'esoteric' (laughter). Yet, through our style of allegory, the murder of the Tsar, and many other such historic events will be adapted to the pages of The Red Star in a very exciting, very dramatic fashion.
The trick is making the story captivating for both those who know the history and those who don't. There's the rub, since we're not pointing out which aspects of the story are metaphor and which are historic. That's up to the reader, and represents our attempt to engage the audience. What is portrayed on the pages as metaphor is an expression of a historic event. An example is Maya's transformation in Issue #1. On the surface, it's a very attractive woman transforming herself into a pillar of destructive energy, but in metaphor, all soldiers that kill for their nation are in fact pulling off such a trick. Her dialogue, "Then, thankfully, the mind is silenced...I am the heat of my nation's anger...the burning will of the state." We all are very comfortable in the West with our notion that 'those poor Russians had to suffer under the despotic communists' but what we don't realize is how such self-righteous pity blinds us to our own patriotic shackles. Maya's loyalty at the cost of her individuality is something that all humans are prone to, After the fall of the Soviet Union, it is now our jingoistic ignorance that should be pitied. We hope, that through exploration of these themes that we stir in the readers a need to question the story in such a way that the historic lesson is made clear. It's ambitious, but it's where our head trip as artists happens to be right now. So far, thankfully, we have found an expanding readership that appreciates the enigmatic nature of the stories. Hopefully this continues...if not, who knows, maybe in a year we'll be jaded by human ignorance and get jobs doing swimsuit issues for Top Cow (laughter).
DT: You're telling a story about very noble people who are saddled with leaders who are obviously not worthy of them. What is it about the people of the URRS (and by allegory, the former USSR) that you think accounts for this?
CG: As Maya says in issue 3, "All the leaders of the world...they are all liars. Petty lords with petty schemes..." I believe this. I believe that not only in Russia, which is an extreme example, but most statesmen of the world are self-serving liars that represent the worst possible strata of human experience from which to draw leadership. Not only in our current time but throughout history. However, to speak of the immediacy of history, there is a great example for us to look to. As it stands right now, the Electoral College will most likely put George W. Bush in the White House. This is yet another example of a leader who is not worthy of his people. There is a lot of nobility in our country, and yet there is enough utter stupidity to put a buffoonish figurehead in the seat of power. The Red Star, in this case, does also gain its inspiration from the internationalist mindset of the early Russian Revolutionaries. No story about the Soviet Era could be complete without giving due time to agitation. How the theme of populist agitation is handled by the author in question has much to say about the stance of said author. As far as I am concerned, and I know Bradley feels the same way, our voices stand for radical political upheaval. This political stance is one of the most subtle inspirations for choosing the material we've chosen. Within this facet of our work lies the core of the story: What is to be learned from the Cold War? Why did this institution of paranoia exist? Why is our nation's hegemony over the world failing to offer the majority of its citizenry the utopian lifestyle we were promised if ever we were able to 'overcome the threat of communism'? We feel very strongly about these questions, and these beliefs expose what might be called our thesis; the greatest irony of the 20th Century is that in outlasting the Soviet Union, the U.S. is not liberated from any struggle against it, but is only revealing its own tyrannical nature. Further, that with every corporate merger, with every sweeping deregulation made possible by the fall of its greatest economic rival, our country continues along a path of reckless economic centralization heretofore comparable in the modern era only with Lenin's Russia.
BK: I think it's the same machinery that allows us as Americans to continually place leaders in office who do nothing in the way of furthering the will of the people while continuing a forceful propaganda stating the opposite. It is all the parts of complacency, fear, and selfishness saddled with a runaway system that was never intended for rule by, for, or of, the people that allows those in power to stay in power. It is no accident that nine out of ten elections in this country go to the candidate who spends the most money on the campaign (this is for all levels of office). Where does that money come from? Special interests, i.e.. corporations. What do they want in return? Enough legislative freedom to mete out the most biased of profit making schemes. The Russian people in the face of a democracy are no different, indeed many US heads are responsible for, and have benefited from, the unprecedented capital flight that has taken place in the former USSR.
DT: What do you think there is, other than propaganda, in the American system that leads so many to believe that it is a government by, for and of the people, and in your own mind, what would a truly democratic or representative government look like?
BK: Complacency. It's not that people believe that our American system ISN'T for the people, it's that the American people by and large don't think about it. They would rather have their minds lulled by Jerry Springer and Survivor than to engage in any sensible argumentation about our legislature, say. And if they are thinking about it, they are not doing so with any sort of depth or understanding. People are happy with their choices of consumer goods and equate this with freedom, equate this with a government FOR the people. They have been lulled to sleep.
Our present state of affairs is dire: Multinational corporations are getting away with grave injustices at an unprecedented rate and neither the government nor the people do anything to stop them. Indeed it is our own people that are complicit in the multinationals' behaviors. If everyone (the People capital P) stopped purchasing Nike brand tennis shoes, then Nike wouldn't be able to get away with paying struggling and often times under aged Indonesian workers 11 cents a hour with no benefits. It's disgusting! Yet the People would rather 'be like Mike' than be concerned with another's welfare, even if that someone (thousands and thousands of someones really) is thousands of miles away in a foreign country. I may be rather cynical about this, but I see more idiots wearing Nikes than I see intelligent people speaking out against such atrocities as I have mentioned.
Okay, onward. What would a truly democratic representative government look like? To tell the truth I don't really know. I don't know how to bake a cake, but I do know that putting bleach in it is probably no so great. We have to change the system we have in increments. First-corporate finance reform (the real kind) is invaluable. We must take representatives of the People out of the pockets of the robber barons that currently run this country. Next, we must pass laws that will restrict the multinationals in their current laissez fair status. If a corporation pays overseas workers less than one tenth of one percent of the total cost of manufacturing an item (ahem..Disney) then the government should be able to step in and say, "Well Mike, you just can't do business anymore until you stop this behavior." We need representatives that have teeth and aren't powerless to use them against those that would move against the will of the People.
