Review Fix Exclusive: Felipe Cagno Talks ‘321 Fast Comics’

Review Fix chats with “321 Fast Comics” Writer and Editor Felipe Cagno, who discusses the new book and its current Kickstarter campaign.

Creating a new comic book style, with far more flexibility than you think, Cagno is a unique new voice in the medium with a cool new message.

Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this project?

Felipe Cagno: It was mainly the desire to work with as many artists as possible all at once. I had just got back from my first comic con as a professional and had met these wonderful people I had admired for years on books like Justice League, Avengers, Green Lantern, etc, and they were all so approachable and encouraging of my next series, I decided I wanted to work with them all.

That was the inspiration to do an anthology series, now the inspiration for what the anthology would be about came from a camera and storytelling exercise from my film school years at Chapman University. Every student had to come up with a short film with no more than 2 characters and 1 location.

I thought that would be a nice screenwriting challenge, to tell a story with 3 pages, 2 characters and 1 twist ending. Since I always had a bit of trouble finishing my stories, this seemed like the perfect way to push myself to get better at it.

Review Fix: What makes this project so special?

Cagno: The “321” narrative formula behind it, I’m sure. Not many people are up to the challenge of telling a comic book story under three pages but for the artists, that’s a perfect fit to take some time from their busy day to day activities.

When you spend week in and week out drawing the same characters, it’s a breath of fresh air to tackle something completely new that won’t take that much time. It’s their chance to be risky, experimental, really let go creatively. I can firmly say that every 3-page story in this book reflects the best work of that particular artist, everyone just had a blast with these.

Review Fix: These comics are almost like Haikus, trying to tell a big story with not a lot of space. How challenging are they to put together?

Cagno: They are as challenging as they are fun. The “321” formula is not to limit creativity, but to push it, and as much as it is very challenging to come up with good stories in that suit, you can write any genre, it opens a lot of doors for stories I never thought I’d see myself writing.

For instance, I never planned to do a western until Fabiano Neves, the artist, asked me to do one because that’s his favorite genre. I did and I fell so much in love with the character and the world we’ve built that we’re now partnering up to evolve this very short 3-page story into an actual graphic novel.

Writing a 3-page story with 2 characters is not the hard part, the twist is, that’s where the challenge is. You want to surprise your reader at the turn of three pages and we’ve managed to do that in every story to some extent. Usually, I come up with the stories from the twist up, basically you start writing with your ending and build the story towards it. Very different from conventional screenwriting.

Review Fix: What comics have you read growing up that have played a role in this?

Cagno: Oh, wow, so many. I started reading Disney comic books when I was a kid, especially Ducktales, those were awesome and the stories really pulled you in even though they were pretty short.

For every genre we’ve tackled on this (and trust me, we’ve covered plenty of different genres) I’d find one or two titles to help me out, for instance, for the western I mentioned above, I knew I wanted something different so I went after American Vampire to get a sense of how they depicted their old west.

Matt Fraction’s Hawekeye was also a big influence, I loved how he tackled the voice-overs. I read many books for very different craft reasons and they all definitely played a role in the “321: Fast Comics”.

Review Fix: Was it difficult to get all of these artists and writers to work on this project?

Cagno: To my surprise, not difficult at all actually. I think because the stories were so short and the concept so innovative, everyone was up for it, everyone just wanted to play with this new comic book, this new toy, you know?

I was very blessed to get pretty much all the artists I envisioned for this first book, very few didn’t think they could fit three more pages to their workload, but most of them accepted upon my first invitation. It was really flattering.

Book #2 of the series is already in the works and I must say the line-up is just as exciting if not more. We’ve been announcing the guest artists on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/321FastComics and I can’t wait to start production on it.

Review Fix: The cover of the book is awesome. What made you go in that direction?

Cagno: I wanted something really different, something that would stand out at first glance. I was always a huge fan of that CG-realistic painting style and I knew that was the way to go. With that concept firmly set, I went after Brazilian artists with a similar portfolio, that’s how I got in touch with Lucas Leibholz, who coincidentally always dreamed of doing comic book covers, it was a match made in heaven.

Not only will Lucas do the cover for book#2, he is also starting to lay out the cover for my next series, “Blind Spot”, you can check out a preview below:

Review Fix: What are some of the Backer rewards? How are they different?

Cagno: You have the “regular” rewards that include both physical copies of the book and digital ones brought to you by Comixology.

The most different ones we offer are definitely the Brazilian and all in Portuguese glossy dust jacket, the chance of commissioning some top notch Brazilian professional artists and taking home an original art, since Con appearances by these guys in the US are rare, this is an awesome opportunity.

And finally, the chance of pitching a 321 story, either a concept or idea, maybe even a genre, and seeing how this gets produced, from the writing all the way up to the lettering. The backer gets credited in the book as co-writer and takes home one original page of a story he either came up with entirely or helped shape, how involved the backer wants to get on the script stage with me is up to them.

Review Fix: How does it feel to get some help on this from Comixology?

Cagno: It’s great, it feels like we’re setting out to do something professional and having Comixology in our corner backs that up. We might be starting our fan base in the US, but everyone involved with this book has tons of experience with comic books, it’s nice to have such an international company seeing and validating that.

Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this project?

Cagno: My ultimate goal would be to see top writers and artists doing their own “321” stories, Scott Snyder, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Brian K. Vaughn, those are just some writers I’d love to see what they would do with just 3 pages, 2 characters and 1 twist ending. Artists like Sean Murphy, Juanjo Guarnido, Humberto Ramos, Greg Capullo, Todd McFarlane, how awesome would that be?

I’m planning a book #3 for 2016, maybe by then I will be able to get a hold of these guys and entice them to take up the challenge, that would be awesome.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why should someone pick this up?

Cagno: It’s fun, it’s genuinely fun. We all had a blast working on it and it shows.

We’ve managed to bring together all these different genres under one roof with a true who’s who of Brazilian artists. It’s beautifully illustrated in different art styles and even if you’re not too happy with one story, three pages later you can jump into another. There are dinosaurs, pirates, samurais, robots, werewolves, pandas and a lot more into one book.

I hope people give it a chance and check us out on Kickstarter, they won’t regret it.