Life means something different to all of us. To some, it’s a struggle; to others, it’s a beautiful experience, but for Nick Klie, Life is something more—Life is a savage mercenary.
To the comic book-loving denizens of Kamloops, Klie might be best known as the manager of High Octane Comics and Collectibles, but to others he’s also known as the writer and artist behind the independent, crowd-funded comic book series, Life the Necropolis.
Recently, Klie published the fourth entry in the series, titled Life the Necropolis: Six Doomwrecked Knights.
For many people, the idea of writing a comic book may be daunting, a method that is hard to conceptualise, even with explanation. When speaking with Klie, however, it becomes clear this is not a problem for him.
“It’s a very fluid process,” Klie said. “Typically speaking, it’s all very loose and informal. My second comic [for example], I wrote based on a song lyric. I listened to a soundtrack for a movie, and I was like, ‘Yeah, this inspires an idea.’”
When talking about his inspiration for his artistic style, Klie pointed to the works of Ralph Bakshi.
In animation circles, Bakshi is well known as a prolific artist and director who pushed the boundaries of mainstream animation with his adult-oriented, often gritty style, which began in 1972 with an X-rated cartoon titled Fritz the Cat. As one might imagine, the film earned very mixed reviews for its adult content and, at the time, controversial themes. Despite any negative reactions, it nonetheless helped Bakshi make a name for himself, leading Warner Bros. to choose him to helm the 1978 animated Lord of the Rings.
“In that movie they did a lot of rotoscoping. So, I used that, where you take a picture of a cityscape, and then you do the punk rock, high contrast, black-and-white photo, and then you build off of that,” Klie said. “I would do these collages of photos where I’d find some ground, some background buildings, a ladder, and I would collage those all together in high contrast. I’d colour them a certain way, and then I would draw my characters completely on my own on top of [that background].”
The process and the end product, Klie explained, were very deliberately done as an homage to the legendary artist.
That said, it was not just the art style and direction of his own comic that was inspired by the animated feature, but also parts of the general storyline from J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, upon which the movie was based.
“The story, more specifically, [is like Lord of the Rings] because it does follow [the kind of style] of the Ringwraiths; it is a very classic Conan the Barbarian story where you have a wandering mercenary, barbarian, or whatever it is, going on an adventure to help the princess save the kingdom from the evil king, type of thing,” Klie said.
In contrast to a lot of the content in his previous three comic books, Klie said the storyline in Doomwrecked Knights takes a more serious, darker tone, featuring elements that, although uncomfortable for him to write, were a necessity for the overall arc.
“My third [comic book] was way more inane, way more asinine. This one is meant to be more serious,” Klie said. “Comparatively, it’s very tame. I don’t think anyone would notice it. But for me, personally, there are story elements I don’t feel too comfortable dabbling in. This was a little darker, a little more serious for me, but I felt the story needed it.”
With his fourth comic book now unleashed upon the world, The Omega wondered what stories are left for the character and if Klie had conceived a scenario when Life would come to an end.
“I have a lot of ideas where [Life dies], but it’s a story [and] a character that I want to keep using, as long as I feel that it’s fresh to me. If I find that it’s too repetitive, too monotonous, maybe I’ll take a break from it as I work on other projects, but I also have these bigger stories in mind [for now],” Klie said.