Does Stephan Franck sleep? That’s a question I wonder often when I see him in pop culture news because he never seems to stop. From his award-nominated work in animation and comics to directing to writing and more, Mr. Franck is a creative dynamo, one that doesn’t seem to have any hint of slowing down. And in his storytelling, Franck is a Swiss Army knife creator in the best possible way; he can shift from fantasy to horror to hard-boiled detective tales, pouring his expertise and flare into every project.
In other words, Stephan Franck always knows the assignment.
Just look at his work on his detective series Palomino, the story of a duo of father and daughter gumshoes navigating the world of crime in the early 1980s. Palomino is unlike any crime story we’ve seen, but, after reading it, leaves wondering why this hasn’t been done before.
Mr. Franck recently launched a Kickstarter through Dark Planet Comics to make Volumes 4 and 5 of Palomino a reality as well as publish his Romance in the Age of the Space God graphic novella. I spoke with Stephan Franck recently about the return of Palomino, where we find the world of Palomino in this new volume, the Kickstarter itself, and the impermanence of art and life and how that’s a good thing.
I’ve spoken to Mr. Franck several time in the course of writing for FreakSugar and his excitement for his work is always palpable. You can always count him to engage you with his art and storytelling. His art doesn’t just wash over the reader; it always engages and creates a conversation with the reader. You can’t read a Franck piece or witnessed his world-building without walking away feeling you’ve had an experience.
Palomino Volume 4 cover
FreakSugar: Where do we find our characters at the start of the new volumes of Palomino?
Stephan Franck: The first three volumes of Palomino took place in 1981, and we followed a super fun and unlikely duo of detectives: Eddie Lang, musician by night and P.I. by day–a hardboiled kind of guy–and his teenage daughter Lisette, who might even be more hardboiled than he is. In Palomino Vol. 4, we jump 14 years to 1995, and we focus on Lisette–now 29 and going by Liz–as she reopens the case her father couldn’t close, and takes the lead in the investigation. Once she’s opened Pendora’s box, Liz finds herself running a deathly gauntlet, out of which the only way out is through.
FS: How has Liz changed over the years—in temperament and focus? How much has she changed and how much has she become more set in her ways?
SF: Liz was already a super fun character as a teenager because she was always an old soul and was not afraid of adults. Now, at 29, she’s still the same badass, but with the full agency of her own adulthood. That said, the multiple tragedies haunting her past have been a limiting factor on her emotional growth, and there’s a level of immaturity about her that makes her a really wild character. On some level, she needs to give herself permission to live her life, but at her core, she’s a classic noir character–the type who doesn’t move on or let things go as long as something doesn’t sit right. She will fix it or die trying.
Palomino Volume 5 cover
FS: You play with time jumps in the new volumes, with a 14-year fast-forward to 1995 from where we left off in volume 3. In the press release, there are mentions of how Liz is coping with e-mail and cell phones and new technology. You’ve said Palomino is about impermanence. Can what we see as progress also be looked at as impermanence? Do you see that reflected in your work on the book?
SF: When you really think about it, in terms of everyday life, 1981 isn’t very different from 1965. However, 1995 is a world on the cusp of a digital revolution that will drastically change the texture of everyone’s life. In the midst of all that, Liz’s apprehension towards change, is a symbol of her state of arrested development. Many characters are in need of redemption. What Liz needs is nothing short of rebirth. Impermanence is just another way to say that you can’t stop time, and that everything changes, which isn’t good or bad, it just is. In real life, the inability for people to accept change is the source of most conflicts, from personal to global, so of course, art will always reflect that impermanence. Ironically, most of what’s left of the fallen empires of the past is their art.
FS: What is your favorite part of revisiting the world of Palomino? You work on a wide range of types of storytelling. What does Palomino give you specifically that other projects don’t?
SF: I realized recently that almost every story I tell ends up being about family in one form or another. In Palomino, the family unit is reduced to a single dad and a daughter, who are both haunted by the same loss. To me, family means being each other’s last line of defence against the world. It’s about having people who will always have your back no matter what. So, whether the story is about gaining that status, losing that status, or living up to the promise of that bond, that’s a theme that I find extremely powerful. I have variations of it in all of my stories, but Palomino has the rawest version that I got to do so far.
FS: Following up on that, you say in the press release that this is the most personal work of your career. Why do you say that? What makes Palomino stand apart for you?
SF: Palomino is indeed rooted in many of my lived experiences. For starters, having played in clubs as a musician for many years is one of them, and I’m trying to capture that very specific vibe in the book. However, the story at the heart of this series is the parent/child relationship, and we get to see it from both Eddie and Lisette’s point of view. I know what it is to have lost a parent at a young age when you’re too young to really have known them as a person, and I understand Liz’s early adulthood feeling that she doesn’t have the full user’s manual to her own existence.
FS: What can you tell us about the Kickstarter itself?
SF: This campaign is the most ambitious campaign we’ve had so far, because it showcases all our new releases, including two full Palomino volumes (Vol 4 + 5), and as a super rad slipcase that will turn your existing Volumes 1-3 into a beautiful boxset, as well a new wide print run of Romance in The Age Of The Space God, a comic that combines sci-fi dystopian thriller, slice of life, and a tad of political satire. Then there are also a bunch of really cool goodies–some that you can already discover on the KS page, and others that we will announce along the way! So that’s a big one, but we have the goods!
FS: If you had a final pitch for the new Palomino Kickstarter, what would it be?
SF: Palomino is first and foremost a super fun crime mystery, and it’s LA neo-noir like you’ve never seen it before! It brings you into a world that–maybe because it is so lived in–feels real, and is populated by characters who feel like actual people that you can place and care about. On a more meta level, it spans a crucial moment in American history–from the start of the Reagan revolution to the onset of the Digital Revolution–so in the background, there is an evocation of the end of a certain American century.
The Kickstarter for Stephan Franck’s Dark Planet Comics—including the Romance in the Age of the Space God standalone graphic novella and the return of the Ringo Award-nominee crime mystery Palomino—is now live! Stephan Franck is one of the most talented and interesting creators in the comics medium so you know these books will be well worth your time!
From the official press release about the Kickstarter:
Acclaimed cartoonist and award-nominated animator, writer, and director Stephan Franck’s PALOMINO — his Ringo Award-nominated neo-noir graphic series set in the lost culture of Los Angeles’ country music clubs — is back for its fourth and fifth volumes, complete with a significant time jump from the neon-soaked 80s to the grimy 90s. Franck and his company, Dark Planet Comics, are returning to Kickstarter to crowdfund volumes 4 and 5 of the planned six-volume graphic novel series. The prelaunch page for PALOMINO Volumes 4 and 5 is now live on Kickstarter.
A captivating neo-noir crime mystery, PALOMINO begins in 1981 Los Angeles where we meet Eddie Lang, an old-school, hard-ass, hardboiled former Burbank PD detective juggling his 6-nights-a-week gig in the Palomino house band, his P.I. business, and Lisette Lang — his teenage daughter, who might be even more hard-ass and hard boiled than her dad is. But tragedy looms large over their past, and a brand new case that’s hitting a little too close to home upends their lives, sending them each down very dangerous paths.
PALOMINO: Volume 4 picks up with a 14 year time jump to 1995. The world has moved on from the unsolved Eileen Wilcox case, but Lisette — now 29 and going by Liz — hasn’t. Still a hard-ass, and animated by a profound sense of justice that often puts her at odds with the world, Liz is a bit of a misfit who hates this new fangled thing called “e-mail”, doesn’t own a cell phone, and writes for one of the Valley’s free weeklies. But when a routine assignment reopens old wounds and Liz takes it upon herself to revisit the case her father was never able to close, she finds herself entering a world of deception and danger — and the only way out is through.
“As PALOMINO time-jumps 14 years at the beginning of Volume 4, not only do we transition from the club’s heyday to its twilight moments, but we also pass the baton from one detective to the next,” said Franck. “At its core, PALOMINO is about the impermanence of all things we wrongly assume will always be there for us, as a society, as a culture, and about how the only thing that truly remains is the moral fiber of individuals, passed-down from one generation to the next. “
Stephan Franck has worked with some of the most popular characters of all time—including Spider-Man and the Smurfs — and has contributed to classic contemporary animation projects, including Despicable Me, The Iron Giant, and Marvel Studios’ What If…? as head of animation and director. But writing and drawing the graphic novel series PALOMINO is Franck’s passion project. “From my years playing music in clubs, to having raised two amazing and quite hard boiled daughters in Los Angeles, many of my lived experiences converged in PALOMINO with my absolute passion for noir, to create the most personal and lived-in work of my career,” added Franck.
Told with action, suspense, humor, drama, and slice-of-life irony, PALOMINO, 1981 (Volumes 1-3) takes place at the Palomino club’s high watermark, with Eddie leading the investigation in the Wilcox case, while PALOMINO, 1995 (Volume 4-6) takes place in the twilight years of the club, with Liz leading the case and bringing the story to its epic conclusion. The Kickstarter will feature copies of all five available volumes, as well as PALOMINO, 1981 box sets and slipcases, signed book plates from the in-world fictional syndication catalog of Lamaz Television, and other titles by Franck (including SILVER, ROSALYND, and ROMANCE IN THE AGE OF THE SPACE GOD).