In the opening panels of Bun—the new comic book released by local artist and real estate agent/property manager Brian Silveira and his wife, Lisa Nguyen—a bearded man sits atop what appears to be a horse. Beyond them there’s an expansive landscape, including windmills in the distance.
Soon a subsequent panel reveals the man and his mount from the front, and it’s clear that the land this character inhabits is far from anything you or I would call home. The “horse” is no such creature, though resembling one vaguely in shape. Instead it’s a bulgy-eyed, beaked, and eight-legged beast. Its body is segmented, like a great arthropod. It’s a mix between praying mantis and spider, only large enough for this mysterious bearded character to ride upon.
The reveal is jarring, and it’s supposed to be, explained Silveira, as he wanted the reader to feel the same jolt that his main character, Milo, felt when being transported to the mysterious world from his familiar—and somewhat mundane—home in Los Angeles. The bearded stranger rescues Milo in that opening scene, after the kid is almost devoured by razor-toothed creatures coming out of the ground. It only gets weirder after that.
“I really want you to feel like you’re that poor kid, who doesn’t know what the hell is going on,” Silveira said. “The first few pages, there’s shark slugs, spider camels, salt flies, and weird things like that.”
The bearded man is aided by a young woman, who we later learn is his daughter, and she immediately interrogates Milo, only it’s in an entirely alien language made up of unintelligible symbols.
The only reply Milo offers is to pull something out of his sweater’s large pocket: a big, white rabbit. This is Bun, the title character of Bun. That character, Silveira said, was the original inspiration for the comic.
“I don’t know why, but I just started drawing this goofy, cartoony looking rabbit, and all kinds of crazy stuff just recoiling in horror from it,” he said. “It was always a rabbit with monsters, vampires, and demons, everything just scared of the rabbit. I always thought that was just funny.”
The idea of the rabbit being “garlic to a vampire,” intrigued Silveira, and he began conceiving a story.
Influenced by generations of fantasy, science fiction, horror artists, comic books, films, and writers, Silveira wanted to create his own “other world” with its own people, languages, and cultures. There’s even a religion in this mysterious other world, which actually plays a central role in understanding the cryptic history of this place in which Milo finds himself.
“I used to always draw all these little sketches in my sketch books, about me as a kid, finding portals to other worlds in my closet,” he said. “H.P. Lovecraft is a big influence, I think it’s pretty obvious, too.”
Though the influence of Lovecraft and artists like Ralph Bakshi plays heavily, Silveira really tried to create something all his own. From the mysterious goddess that the inhabitants of this other world worship, to the race of creatures at war with those people, and the coded languages he invented, there are many layers woven into the fabric of Silveira’s story.
He wasn’t alone in fleshing out his imagined world, Silveira explained. His wife, Nguyen, did the lettering for the story, as well as the editing work, but she also helped him fine-tune the plot. Her collaboration was an important part of the process, he said.
“She’s a big reason why it is as cohesive as it is,” he said. “If it was just me, I don’t think it would be as well presented.”
Right now, Bun is a passion project of Silveira’s, and copies are available only by donation. He isn’t selling copies yet, but all the donations will go toward publishing the first book of Bun. He’s already drawing the second book.
Silveira envisions that Bun will take six books to tell, but he’s not sure how it will get done. He may self-publish, go through an indie comic book publisher, or put the entire thing up for free on the internet once he has the funds to do so.
Mostly, Silveira explained, he just wants people to read and see his art, and spark a dialogue. The last page of Bun welcomes comments, fan art, and questions.
“I’ve always been very collaborative, that’s how you do something, and I’m open to collaboration with Bun,” he said. “It’s a little tricky, but I want people to collaborate on the concept without revealing too much of where I’m going with it. I think I can do it.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne is trying to decipher the secret language in Bun. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 7-14, 2016.