Are you a fan of cryptozoology? This may be the book you have waited a long time for!

We spoke with Alex Grecian about PROOF, a comic that features a certain sasquatch.

TheBigBadWolf: Can you give our readers a brief synopsis on what PROOF is about?

Alex Grecian: After the famous Patterson/Gimlin film of Bigfoot walking around the Bluff Creek area, a joint effort by The United States and Canada set out to discover the truth behind the urban legend. Two years later, they captured him. To everyone’s surprise, the sasquatch was at least as intelligent as a human being and very sophisticated. This wasn’t his first encounter with human society.

Now Bigfoot, who goes by the name John “Proof” Prufrock, helps the government track down other cryptids.

TheBigBadWolf: Who are some of the main cast members?

Alex Grecian: Of course, there’s Proof himself. A sasquatch has a much longer lifespan than a human being, so there’s a lot of his history we’re waiting to explore and we drop a lot of hints in the series about where he’s been and what he’s done.

His partner is Ginger Brown. She’s a young FBI agent who got herself promoted to The Lodge, where Proof works. The idea that there are undiscovered species, secretly living so close to humanity, is new to her, so she’s got a bit of a learning curve. Riley’s said before that Ginger’s the hardest character for him to draw, but she’s also the most rewarding.

The Dover Demon is probably my favorite member of the supporting cast. He doesn’t experience time the way people do, so he has kind of a pixilated world view. He’s constantly referring to things that haven’t happened yet.

And a small town sheriff named Elvis pops up in the second issue. He was supposed to die at the end of the issue, but he kind of took over aspects of the story and ended up becoming a major character. He’s been a lot of fun to play with.

TheBigBadWolf: How did you come up with the idea for this book?

Alex Grecian: It pretty much came to me in a restaurant. Friends and I were talking about the government keeping secrets from its citizens. Assuming he exists, Bigfoot’s a pretty huge secret. What if the government knows he’s out there. What if he works for them? That could explain why he gets sighted, but nobody can turn up any decent evidence.

When the subject came up, I tuned out my friends and left my wife to carry on our end of the conversation. I wrote the entire first scene on a napkin in the restaurant. It helped that my collaborator, Riley Rossmo, loved the idea and really ran with it visually.

TheBigBadWolf: Can you give us any hints about what other monsters we may see in this book?

Alex Grecian: The entire first story, which runs through the first five issues of the series, is called “Goatsucker” and is about El Chupacabra. That’s another case of wondering why something’s a secret. Tons of people claim to have seen this thing, so where is it?

I imagined a farmer. One of his cows has been exsanguinated, but where’s the culprit? What if El Chupacabra sucks everything out of an animal and lives in its skin? What if the creature that drained that cow’s blood is standing right there behind the farmer, mixed in with all his other cows? And then what if that creature decides it might be interesting to live inside a farmer instead of a cow?

We’ve also got the Cottingley Fairies running through the book and they’re not like any fairies you’ve ever seen before. The mating rituals of fairies turn out to be very disturbing.

We’ll be dealing with pretty much every cryptid out there: dinosaurs in the jungles of the Congo, Mothman, krakens. And some things that have become folklore, but probably started out as cryptids, like Springhell Jack and an Oni.

TheBigBadWolf: Another interesting thing about the book are the Cryptoid's. Can you tell us a little more about them?

Alex Grecian: The Cryptoids are kind of like the pop-up factoids in music videos. They solved a couple of concerns for us. A lot of comics these days go by too quickly. You can read the average comic book in five minutes, which isn’t very good value for three dollars. We wanted Proof to be denser, to have more there for people to read, but we didn’t want it to be a drag or have huge long text pieces that interrupted the flow of the stories.

Plus, when we introduce something like the Cottingley Fairies, how do we explain what they are or the very specific history behind them? I really didn’t want to do the whole cliché bit of two characters standing around explaining the story’s background to each other. Who does that? I wanted naturalistic dialogue and that meant we’d have to find a more direct way to include information.

Cryptoids are a fun way around both problems and I’ve ended up using them to throw all kinds of interesting facts about anything at all into the book. Proof’s a sophisticated guy and his comic book’s an educational experience. You’ll learn about what states have the most Bigfoot sightings and what size shoe Proof wears, but you’ll also learn the difference between a paramedic and an EMT.

TheBigBadWolf: Is this going to be an ongoing or a mini series?

Alex Grecian: An ongoing. We just have too many stories to tell to let the series end after “Goatsucker.” Immediately following the Chupacabra story, we dive right into a story about Bigfoot hunters who eat their prey, then we’ll be showing how The Lodge was founded. After that, we have some one-issue stories about Thunderbirds and mermen before getting around to a little bit of Proof’s past and his one true love. 

TheBigBadWolf: When is the first issue due out?

Alex Grecian: Issue one goes on sale October 24 in comic book stores everywhere. After that, there’ll be an issue out every month. We’re already working on issue seven, so we don’t see any reason we’ll be late. We’re really excited about this and haven’t been able to slow down.


TheBigBadWolf: Have you always been interested in Cryptozoology?

Alex Grecian: Who hasn’t?

There might be hairy men running around in our forests. There probably are krakens, dinosaurs and stranger things in our oceans and lakes. If I were a zoologist, I’d probably gravitate toward the scientific fringes and try to pin these things down.

I love zombie movies, but while I’m watching them a part of me knows there aren’t any zombies. It’s pure fantasy. I have no idea whether Bigfoot exists or not. That means I can tell stories that are rooted in the real world.

TheBigBadWolf: Have you ever had any Crypto experiences?

Alex Grecian: Oh, boy, this is where I get the chance to seem like a weirdo. I actually believe in ghosts, although I can’t say whether they’re dead people or not. Riley and I have talked about that and he believes in ghosts, too. We’ve both seen some things that have bothered us, but if we’re just talking about things like Bigfoot, I’d have to say no. I tend to stay away from the woods at night. I’m a city boy, through and through.

We have an ongoing column in the back of Proof, though, written by actual Bigfoot researchers. These guys do go out in the woods at night and put themselves in situations where they hope they’ll see something strange. I get to read this stuff as they send it in and it’s fascinating. At some point you kind of have to throw up your hands and say “okay, there are obviously things out there that we don’t understand yet.”

TheBigBadWolf: Do you frequent any Cryptozoology web sites?

Alex Grecian: I hate to step on anybody’s toes or leave out any good sites, but I think Cryptomundo’s probably my favorite one out there, in terms of breaking news and interactivity. Some big names in cryptozoology hang out there, so it’s always pretty interesting. I visit a lot of sites, though, including cryptozoology.com. It’s always exciting when somebody thinks they’ve snapped a photo of the Dover Demon walking across a road or there’s a new fuzzy video of someone in a parka who might be Bigfoot.

TheBigBadWolf: Where can fans find out more about you? Do you have a website or MySpace page?

Alex Grecian: We’re all over the place. You can find me at www.AlexanderGrecian.com. Riley’s at www.WrinkleGraphics.ca. We have MySpace pages for ourselves and a separate one for the Proof comic. I’m also at www.ComicSpace.com/AlexanderGrecian, where I’ve posted a 10-page preview of the book. And Proof has its own forum at www.ImageComics.com. Drop on by. We’d love to hear from you.

TheBigBadWolf: Thank you for your time Alex! Be sure to check this book out in October, and remember keep your camera handy at all times!

Talk about the PROOF Comic Book Interview.