Pro On Pro: Adam P. Knave Talks to Seth Jacob About Memoirs of a Crimefighter

I edited Seth Jacob's book Memoirs of a Crimefighter so you may think me biased, but I didn't take the gig until I read through some of the book and realized it really was something worth reading. It's a book that uses the superhero genre to tell a story of family, and personal growth, keeping honest and still finding ways to have fun. I got to talk to Seth post-release about the novel.

APK: Let's start simple - what's the premise of the book, for people who don't know.

Seth Jacob: It's about a young, reckless and irresponsible superhero called The Spectacle. His father dies of a drug overdose, and he finds out that his dad was a superhero too, a crimefighter called Jack Titan. The Spectacle finds this big cardboard box filled with all the stuff that Jack Titan saved from 40 years of crimefighting, and he decides to use the stuff in that box to find out more about his dad's life as a superhero...but it's stolen from his apartment, and he has to go on a journey into a seedier, darker underbelly of costumed crimefighting to find out who stole it and get it back.

APK: Why did you do this project as a prose novel instead of a comic?

SJ: I love comics, but writing a comic script is a very weird experience for me. I'm typing up something that no reader will ever see, not in that form at least. I'm trying to conjure up imagery and ideas for the artist to illustrate, something that will convey clearly and concisely what they're drawing. When I sit down to write a comic book script, what I'm really doing is writing a letter to the artist. The final product is this synthesis of my writing and the artist's work, and when it works, this strange third thing emerges, this final product that's more than the sum of its parts.

I did Memoirs of a Crimefighter as a prose novel because I wanted to write a story that was a direct communication to the reader. A comic book script isn't for the reader, it's almost never seen by the reader. And that's not a bad thing...but for Memoirs of a Crimefighter, I wanted to conjure up those images and ideas in the reader's head, to beam that letter directly in their brains. I wanted my every word to be exposed.

APK: What is it about superheroes, as a genre, that attracts you for telling this particular story?

SJ: I've been obsessed with superheroes my entire life. I recently wrote an essay about why I think I might be so fascinated with costumed crimefighters, but I'm honestly not totally sure what the answer is. I have a few ideas though.

It's been said before (by much better writers than me), but I think superheroes are mythology. And that made them perfect for this story. Memoirs of a Crimefighter is about a young man going on a journey to find out who his father was. It's about a young man leaving his comfortable world, and crossing over into an unknown, uncomfortable world. It's about going on a quest, and being changed by that quest. These ideas are inherently mythic, and the book was built that way from the start, to be mythological in its structure and ideas.

APK: Removing the genre concerns, the emotional core of this story is solid as hell, what about it spoke to you?

SJ: I liked the idea of a superhero writing about his life in his own words. Originally, the concept was for a superhero to write a tell all autobiography that covered the sixties to the present day. The book would show the silver, bronze, and modern age of superheroes, and the ups and downs of this superhero's life throughout those cycles of history.

I found that the idea was much too big, and it wasn't emotionally resonant...but if the story was about that character's son, if it was about his journey to find out about a father that he never knew, that was much more interesting on an emotional level.

I don't think that people are affected emotionally by the differences between the silver, bronze, and modern age of superheroes. Finding out where you came from, and in the process finding out who you are, struggling for closure over the death of a loved one, understanding the flaws of your parents and overcoming them, breaking cycles of self destructive behavior that have gone on for generations...these are all ideas that appeal to me on an emotional level, much more so than the differences between Silver Age silliness and Dark Age deconstruction. And I'm hoping they appeal to other people too.

APK: You built a wide world for this book, do you have other stories set in it in mind?

SJ: I do. The book ends in a way that very obviously suggests where the next one would go. If this one's successful, then I would definitely write another one. I can't talk much about my ideas for a second book, but when you get to the last chapter of Memoirs of a Crimefighter, you'll probably have a good idea of where I'm going with it.

There's also a lot of other characters in the book that could be explored. There's about twenty superheroes and over a dozen supervillains in the book. Some of them are more developed than others, but I think a lot of them could sustain their own story. Dr. Delusion, a second generation supervillain carrying on the name from his father, could be an interesting parallel story to Memoirs of a Crimefighter set from the perspective of the villain rather than the hero. The Superb 6, the premiere super team, allows for a lot of storytelling options to take. Even Jack Titan, who wrote about his entire life in spiral notebooks, his story could easily be a spin off of Memoirs of a Crimefighter.

Ultimately, these are just ideas I'm throwing out there. None of them are set in stone, but yeah, I did try to populate the world of Memoirs of a Crimefighter with original superheroes and supervillains that could potentially exist in their own stories.

APK: Do you also have plans to write comics, and if so would you consider using the novel's world for those?

SJ: I do. I have a comic with Ramon Villalobos, who illustrated the cover of Memoirs of a Crimefighter, that's been in development for a while but should be coming out in 2015. It's called Abstract 3, you can check out some pages here. I have a couple other comic book projects that are in the works, but I can't talk about them too much yet. They're super top secret, and I'd have to smash my computer to bits if I even typed details about them.

I would definitely consider using the novel's world for comics. I think it might be interesting to make a 70's style Superb 6 story, complete with coloring and printing to make it appear more old school, like it's just been sitting in a time capsule for decades. I also like the idea of exploring one of the more pathetic supervillains in the book, like Captain Haiku or Master Boson, and giving them a narrative beyond being the butt of every joke.

Again, these are just ideas, and it's tough to really talk about anything specific because you never know what's going to happen. But given the opportunity, I'd definitely use the world of Memoirs of a Crimefighter in comics. 

Thanks, Seth! Seth also let me know of a progressive sale on the book starting Thursday 1/22: the book will be 99 cents on thursday, 1.99 on friday, 2.99 on saturday, and 3.99 on sunday until midnight when it will return to its normal 4.99 price. So it is well worth picking up and you can do so on Amazon right here.