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MyHeadHurts

Date:

April 15th, 2009 10:54 AM

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Paul Maybury on PARTY BEAR

Bulletin:

Paul Maybury, creator of last year’s critically-acclaimed Image graphic novel Aqua Leung and a longtime member of New York’s Act-I-Vate comics collective, is hard at work these days putting together his next opus–a 230-page graphic novel called Party Bear, which explores characters looking for hope in the seemingly-hopeless life of lower-middle-class America. Maybury, having just crested the halfway point in creating art for the book, contacted Blog@Newsarama to discuss the project.

Blog@Newsarama: What’s the overview? What’s happening in the series to make people want to read it?

Paul Maybury: Party Bear takes place in a fictional neighborhood in Boston. It examines the absence of fathers in the lives of Milsap and his best friend Seal, who have Mothers with very different views and paths in life.

It’s also a study of the roles people adopt as a result of the pressures of their neighborhood and social class. And how it’s seemingly impossible for them to get out of the dismal cycle of helplessness and apathy that stems from lack of education and opportunity.

The mysterious mute character Party Bear acts as an icon of something new and exciting that sends the neighborhood a buzz with new ideas and hope. His silence is interpreted in various ways by everyone around him, acting as a mirror in some cases for their true intentions.

The story centers around Milsap and Seal, and how they both plan to get out of their neighborhood and better their lives, and how Party Bear alters their paths.

I know that’s somewhat vague, but there’s a lot going on.

I do not have a publisher for the project. I’ve been in talks with a couple, but I’m sort of just letting it get finished and riding out the economy crisis until I can ask for the deal I really want.

Blog@: How specific is Boston to the story? Certainly it’s a popular setting for a lot of different kinds of stories–and it’s often a character unto itself.

PM: In a way it’s just another city, It’s a big northern city, and similar to NY and Baltimore in a lot of ways. It’s a very racially tense city, a smart and busy city, but it’s also a little more working class, old and still very much segregated. All of the characters are loosely based off people I’ve known. I grew up in the city of Boston, so it made sense to place the story there, as I feel I can speak from experience.

Blog@: What sort of names are Milsap and Seal?

PM: Seal is named after the singer. His mother wanted to give him the name of a more sensitive man than his father, which is revealed a little later in the story. I used the name Milsap because I wanted him to be that person who’s always on the edge of being that kid who gets picked on at school. He’s been dealt kind of crappy cards, which is why he’s overly rambunctious to cover up his insecurities and flaws. So the name sort of reflects that a little in contrast to his behavior.

Blog@: Books like Mystic River examine the relationships of fathers and children, too. Do you think the whole Irish Catholic thing, with a kind of muting of emotion and a prohibition on contraception and abortion, lends itself to that kind of story?

PM: Yeah I think so. I’m half Irish, and half Spanish, and really culturally I think it’s kind of the same across the board, in Boston at least. My family was pretty different compared to a lot of my friends and neighbors, meaning I had a pretty free-thinking liberal window to look through. But abortion wasn’t something that most families really considered as far as I could see. Books like Mystic River really work well when placed in a city that is notorious for keeping it’s issues to itself. In Party Bear both Milsap and Seal are without strong father figures, which sort of gives them a hole in their lives that they’re always trying to figure out and assimilate by looking to every other older male character be it good aspects or bad. This sort of lends to the lack of direction and motivation to really grasp the tools to live a life beyond what immediate opportunities present themselves. Which is why I want to show to very contrasting Mothers for Milsap and Seal, so the reader can see the effect their parenting has on both characters by the end of the book.

Blog@: “It’s also a study of the roles people adopt as a result of the pressures of their neighborhood and social class. And how it’s seemingly impossible for them to get out of the dismal cycle of helplessness and apathy that stems from lack of education and opportunity.” …So is this graphic novel going to come with an all-Springsteen soundtrack CD?

PM: Hah, maybe some Springsteen, Nas with some Bad Religion peppered in.

Blog@: Is Party Bear an actual bear or is that, like, somebody’s club name or something?

PM: Party Bear is an actual bear who wears a red striped Party Hat. I wanted to have a character who was goofy and ridiculous, then throw him into a very serious story and see how long I can ignore the fact that he’s a giant bear. Sort of a modern fairy tale where you just have to accept that it’s weird and go with it as the reader to see where it goes.

Blog@: When your entire motivation is to get the hell out of Dodge, what is success?

PM: I think success can come in many different forms. It could be achieving great wealth and moving out and living your dreams. Or something as simple and the awareness that things could be better, and the very idea of improving your life. I don’t believe everyone is given a fair chance in life, and Party Bear examines a group of people trying in different ways to get there despite many disheartening obstacles.

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