I met up with Karl Kerschl about his new series Isola during the 2018 Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Karl was kind enough to chat with me about the title among a few other things too.
Karl helped create a wide array of comics and graphic novels in his career, including Adventures of Superman, Majestic, All-Flash, Teen Titans: Year One and Gotham Academy for DC Comics He’s also known as the author of the webcomic The Abominable Charles Christopher. Karl attended the 2018 Toronto Comic Arts Festival along with Brenden Fletcher in support of their new series Isola from Image Comics.
Isola has become so popular that the first issue just received a third printing. Karl talked about his response to that success: “I was afraid of getting negative impact about people not understanding what is happening. It’s been very surprising. Everyone has been onboard. I’m delighted.”
Karl also talked about his influences for the series including Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke: “It’s heavily inspired by that, but not directly.”
Karl said that he looks to nature for inspiration: “I used to draw animals almost exclusively as a kid. When I started my webcomic The Abominable Charles Christopher it started pouring out of me. I just wanted to draw animals and nature.”
He explained why the majority of the panels don’t have dialogue as part of the storytelling press: “So much of the storytelling I like involves nuance — subtle character behaviour, body language and reactive glances and moments.”
On the subject of work on creator-owned vs license character books, Karl said “It feels good. I got a taste for that when I started my web comic.”
Karl also reflected on his publisher Image Comics: “They’ll basically leave you alone to create whatever you want. Which is amazing. But then they do have a very strong support system of production people and marketing people who will guide you through the business of it, which is something totally different when you’re doing freelance work.”
With many movie studios having an increased interest in turning comic books into films, Karl even speculated on the potential of Isola making it to the silver screen. “It would be great to do an animated feature. I think that would be amazing.”
You can discover more about Karl on Twitter at @karlkerschl and online at karlkerschl.com
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