Alfredo Cáceres is the author and illustrator of the new middle grade graphic novel Through the Black Gate. He lives in Chile.
Q: What inspired you to create Through the Black Gate?
A: At first, I was moved by the idea of making something for an older audience. My friend Victoria Maderna (a wonderful illustrator) told me I should make a comic book and it kind of made sense.
When confronted with that horrible blank page I drew a scene in which an older woman tells someone that her cat is not a cat but a vessel of her late father’s soul. Then Valdivia, the city where I grew up appeared, and everything started to take shape.
Ever since I lost my father 20 years ago, I dream of him visiting and leaving. I tell him a few things, but he always has to go, and it’s a devastating feeling having to say goodbye over and over again.
The story changed a lot through the years, but the spirit remained—a walk through the uneasy parts of life getting to know each other’s more vulnerable stories. Solitude is the real enemy in each of the character’s stories.
Q: How did you create your characters Irene, Francis, and Moses, and how would you describe their dynamic?
A: Irene is sort of based on a lot of people I know. She started as an old woman who confesses something supernatural while having breakfast and then progressed into a girl who is determined to follow Moses just to be sure that what happened is real and not just a bad dream.
Francis is based on my brother who plays guitar and in some ways on the character Ralph Macchio plays in a movie called Crossroads. The first thing I thought about his guitar playing is that it should progress from classical music to more modern jazz (a Pat Metheny sort of guitar player). Since I’m no musician, my guitar teacher Diego Farias composed a lovely lullaby that is played all through the story (Sam’s song).
Moses represents the unknown, the frustrating truth that we can’t control what happens in our life.
The idea was for them to start as antagonists and later become friends after having confronted their own demons together. A very important scene is when Francis loses his guitar in the forest and Irene helps him retrieve it, understanding the sentimental value it holds.
Q: How did you create the world in which the novel is set?
A: The story started as a Lovecraftian tale of two people (Irene and Francis) interrupting a ritual to bring someone back from the dead.
Near Valdivia there’s a town on the coast that is called Niebla, which translates as fog or mist. I took the Spanish forts on the coast and made them part of the Graylands, a place between life and death. I even made a map of the stages one must pass on the way to life’s exit door (Dante and Virgil had an influence on this).
Thinking about this, there is a lot that goes unexplained that I could blabber on about for hours. For instance, with what happens to Irene’s parents, you only get a glimpse and make up your own mind if they were playing with something no one should ever play, or they just had bad luck.
I also wrote about the mechanics souls use to haunt objects and how the ferryman’s vines worked corrupting the places they were burrowed.
But I decided to focus on the point of view of someone who is mourning and just wants to say goodbye to someone they love.
Q: Did you work on the text first or the illustrations first--or both simultaneously?
A: It was a nightmare of my own creation. I visualized the story, then drew it, then wrote the script which influenced the pictures that then influenced the words—basically a never-ending cycle of doom.
But my agent, Jennifer, and her husband, Ben, helped me a lot with the loose ends, and Julia, my editor at Atheneum, had the faith I was missing to see it come to life.
I always thought graphic novels were something much cooler folk than me made and there were a lot of times I lost confidence and started comparing with everyone I could think of. Overcoming those feelings and finishing the story is a reward I will treasure for the rest of my life.
Now I think I’m ready to tell more stories even if there are complicated parts. In the end everything comes together if you keep rowing in the same direction, which was not an easy thing to do.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My deal with Atheneum is for two graphic novels and I already have the idea for the next one. I have two actually, and I’m having a blast with the world building.
One of these stories is set on the town of Lican Ray (South of Chile) and its surrounding areas and the other is based on an old forgotten boardgame we are re vamping with a friend.
Maybe not all these ideas are home runs, but there is magic on trying stuff and seeing how far you can go. Through the Black Gate started like this and it’s surreal to see the final product.
The second idea could also be an illustrated novel about magic and learning to tell stories in a world full of people telling you how to think and feel about everything.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Well, maybe a sort of thank you to the universe for being an illustrator, in these times. The world seems to be out of control with people seeking power, money and don’t care about others or the environment.
When we tell stories, borders seem to fade, people of different origins can talk about it, and share their favorite part or even disliking it together.
My goal in telling this story was to open up about grief and how I have tried to overcome it. Many of the things Sam and Ruth say are things I have told myself in dark times.
Nobody knows a whole lot about how to live the perfect life, but I feel sharing stories is a fantastic way to go through it instead of wanting to own half of the world.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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