Midnight Sun creator Ben Towle talks about not just one but two upcoming projects he’s working on … the first being a book he plans to pitch to SLG called Oyster War. So what’s it about?
I’ve been reading a lot about the Chesapeake Bay at the turn of the century, and in particular about the town of Crisfield, Maryland. Around this time Crisfield was the center of a huge boom in oyster production, and with the building of a railroad into the town, it became the seafood capital of America… and with the influx of money inevitably came an influx of lawlessness, prostitution, corruption, crime, and all that other good stuff. For a while, Crisfield was a little like Deadwood, South Dakota in the 1870s, but instead of gold, it was oysters that were fueling the fervor. The oyster beds were such a valuable asset that an Oyster Navy, established by the state of Maryland in the late 1800s, was involved in skirmishes in which shots were fired as recently as the 1950s.
In and of itself this isn’t necessarily a great story waiting to happen, but add into the mix that just across the bay is Smiths Island, founded and populated by Methodists. Already this idea of a decadent economic boomtown right across from a Methodist colony seemed like a great story setup—and a great opportunity to use the locations for some ham-handed narrative metaphor—but when I read that there were watermen who lived in the off-season as pious Methodists, but who in the oyster season would shift “loyalties” in favor of easy money oyster-tonging on the Bay and selling (and spending) their catch in Crisfield, I was sold.
He says it’ll be “less melodramatic and more fantastic” than Midnight Sun. The other project, speaking of airships, is doing the art for a book called Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean:
I haven’t officially “signed on the dotted line” yet, but I’ve got the official go-ahead to mention this project publicly: I’ll be handling the drawing phase of production for a book called Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, with writing and layout/thumbnails handled by Sarah Stewart Taylor and Jason Lutes respectively. The book is being published by Hyperion and is part of the same series, done in conjunction with the Center for Cartoon Studies, that’s so far comprised Houdini: The Handcuff King and Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow. I think the John Porcellino book, Thoreau at Walden, is due out this month.
The book will look at a pivotal moment in Earhart’s life — her team’s “tricky departure from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, from which they launched their 1928 transatlantic flight.” He adds it’ll be out before Oyster War, as the story’s written and thumbnails are being done now. Lutes and Towle on a project together? Very nice.
Related: “Hey Teach” mini-comic by Ben Towle
