Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Clandestinauts
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1983
WEBSITE: https://www.timsievert.com/
CITY: Minneapolis
STATE: MN
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1983.
EDUCATION:Graduate of Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
ADDRESS
CAREER
PUNY Entertainment, Los Angeles, CA, worked as designer/producer in animation and interactive media for eight years. Character designer on Netflix animated series 12 Forever.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Tim Sievert is a cartoonist, animation artist, and author of graphic novels. He has worked on animated television series including Netflix’s 12 Forever, and his graphic novels include That Salty Air and The Clandestinauts. After publishing That Salty Air, he acknowledged that creating such books is challenging. “It was super hard,” he told CBR online interviewer Van Jensen. “Everyone says it and I didn’t believe it until I tried it myself, but making comics is extremely hard work. It’s also very fun.”
That Salty Air
That Salty Air tells the story of a bereaved fisherman who becomes angry at the sea. The fisherman, Hugh, and his wife, Maryanne, live in a ramshackle seaside home on a small income generated by the fish that Hugh catches daily. Hugh’s love of the ocean turns to hatred when he learns his mother has drowned. At the same time, Maryanne finds out she is pregnant. In emotional turmoil, Hugh responds first by drinking excessively, but then he sets out in his boat with the goal of killing as many sea creatures as he can.
The story grew out of Sievert’s own grief after his mother’s sudden death in 2004, he told Jensen. “Making That Salty Air was my way of trying to deal with that.” Sievert explained. “The ocean has always offered an incredible mental escape … being such a powerful and mysterious force that we know so little about, housing life forms too numerous and bizarre to understand. … I think I chose the ocean for the setting because it offered that mental retreat that I was looking for.”
Several critics considered That Salty Air a promising debut. In Booklist, Kevin King termed it “an amazing, strong, well-paced graphic novel about relationships and what we must be do to keep them on course.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer thought some aspects of the story were predictable and unsubtle, but commended Sievert’s “deliberate, accomplished pacing” and “facility with light and shade.” The reviewer called him “a talent to watch.” Andrew Wheeler, writing online at Comicmix, reported that the plot “made this reader roll his eyes more than once,” but he allowed that the book “has a lot of strong points–the particulars of characterization, the evocation of a particular landscape, the inky blacks and assured panel-to-panel transitions.” Sievert, he said, will eventually be “someone to reckon with.” King maintained that the author had already achieved much with That Salty Air, he summed up the novel as “terrific.”
The Clandestinauts
The Clandestinauts is a fantasy tale of adventure, with references to the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) role-playing game. It involves a group of D&D-style characters–wizards, warlocks, and other supernatural types–who go on a quest to steal the Goblet of the Crimson Wizard. The goblet has magical powers, and the team members have been promised a large reward for it. Obtaining it is not simple, though, and they must battle a variety of monsters in the course of their quest. Sievers renders their story largely in black-and-white cartoons.
Some reviewers pronounced The Clandestinauts an effective mix of violent action and self-aware comedy. “What makes this book entertaining is the sheer unpredictability of its twists and turns, as well as a modern-day sensibility in terms of its humor,” remarked Rob Clough, writing online at High-Low. He noted that it “combines high fantasy with grit and guts; it’s like seeing how the sausage of a fantasy quest is made.” A Publishers Weekly contributor praised Sievert’s “distinctive character designs,” which “pop off the page,” adding that the author sends them on “a disgustingly fun quest.” The critic recommended the novel to those “who enjoy sword and sorcery with a heaping helping of absurdity.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2008, Kevin King, review of That Salty Air, p. 89.
Publishers Weekly, April 14, 2008, review of That Salty Air, p. 43; February 19, 2018, review of The Clandestinauts, p. 62.
ONLINE
CBR, https://www.cbr.com/ (March 19, 2008), Van Jensen, “Tim Sievert Breathes “That Salty Air.’”
Comicmix, https://www.comicmix.com/ (April 2, 2008), Andrew Wheeler, review of That Salty Air.
High-Low, http://highlowcomics.blogspot.com/ (May 11, 2018), Rob Clough, review of The Clandestinauts.
Tim Sievert website, https://www.timsievert.com (June 23, 2018).
TIM SIEVERT
Tim Sievert is a cartoonist in Minneapolis. His first graphic novel, That Salty Air, was released by Top Shelf Productions in 2008. The Clandestinauts, his, cursed, maniac D&D adventure comic is available July 7, 2018. After graduating from of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Tim spent 8 years at PUNY working as a designer/producer in animation and interactive media. Tim currently works as a character designer on Netflix's animated 12 Forever, and he's loving every minute of it.
Oh, and he's available for freelance work and commissions if you need anything, just shoot him an email.
CONTACT
Quoted in Sidelights: “It was super hard,” “Everyone says it and I didn’t believe it until I tried it myself, but making comics is extremely hard work. It’s also very fun.”
“Making ‘That Salty Air’ was my way of trying to deal with that. The ocean has always offered an incredible mental escape to for me, being such a powerful and mysterious force that we know so little about, housing life forms too numerous and bizarre to understand. … I think I chose the ocean for the setting because it offered that mental retreat that I was looking for.”
Tim Sievert Breathes “That Salty Air”
03.19.2008
by Van Jensen
in Comic News
Comment
From “Maus” to “Blankets,” independent comic books have long been a personal, emotional outlet for creative minds. The latest offering in that tradition is April’s “That Salty Air” by Tim Sievert, an ugly yet reaffirming grieving process played out in comics form. Though it goes unmentioned in the Top Shelf book, Sievert undertook the project after the death of his mother in 2004. He transformed his sorrow and anguish into the story of Hugh, a poor fisherman who unleashes his anger on the sea after his mother drowns.
“In the fall of 2004, my mother died very suddenly,” Tim Sievert told CBR News. “Making ‘That Salty Air’ was my way of trying to deal with that. The ocean has always offered an incredible mental escape to for me, being such a powerful and mysterious force that we know so little about, housing life forms too numerous and bizarre to understand, and ultimately for me being a midwesterner, it has always seemed so foreign and far away. I think I chose the ocean for the setting because it offered that mental retreat that I was looking for at the time.”
In the book, Hugh learns of his mother’s death just as Hugh’s wife, Maryanne, learns that she’s pregnant. The conflicting emotions send Hugh into a confused fury. He first drinks himself into a stupor, then goes out in his boat and kills as much marine life as he can, eventually drawing the ire of a giant octopus. Those scenes – of Hugh fighting the ugliness of life by unleashing his own ugliness – served as a cathartic release for Sievert.
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Pages from “The Salty Air”
The depiction of Hugh makes the book a challenging read, as the protagonist is rather unlikeable through most of the book, at least until he makes peace with his grief. But Sievert said it was right for the story. “I never really saw a decision to make Hugh a more likable character,” he said. “Making this book was how I dealt with my own grief at the time. Hugh was how I grieved. I couldn’t allow myself to collapse in self-pity so I made him do that. I couldn’t try to enact revenge on the universe so I made him try that too.”
Ultimately, Sievert said, “That Salty Air” is about the balance of life and death, and coming to terms with it. “In the undersea world we have a balancing act or life and death, of eating and being eaten,” he said. “We’re governed by the same forces on land, though we often believe that we aren’t or at least shouldn’t be. That’s Hugh’s mistake.”
Pages from “The Salty Air”
While “That Salty Air” defies archetypal roles, Hugh’s “antagonist” is a massive octopus that acts as a violent agent of balance in the undersea world. As with the rest of the sea life in the book, the octopus is depicted in a stylized, high-contrast blacks and whites. “I struggled with it a little earlier on in the development process,” Sievert said. “I would try to depict the octopus as accurately as possible, but like you said, I lost a lot of personality that I felt it needed to have. Not that octopus’ don’t have personality, anyone who’s experienced them up close will tell you that they really do, I just couldn’t portray it they way I thought it needed to be done. So ultimately I had to let go of what I thought an octopus needed to look like and allowed it be more of how I feel about them. As part of the creative process I spent some time with the octopus handlers at the Mall of America aquarium after hours and assisted in feeding and observing them.”
Sievert grew up in Davenport, Iowa, which is squarely in Middle America and hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. He later moved to Minneapolis, where he studied in the comics art program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. And while he said he spent very little time near the ocean, he’s always been fascinated by it and the creatures living in it.
Pages from “The Salty Air”
“Sea life is totally more fun to illustrate than things on land,” he said. “Everything is really weird looking down there. At the Mall of America here in Minnesota they have a pretty remarkable aquarium for being in mall. I spent a lot of time there getting acquainted with underwater life.”
The choice of octopus came after spending time at the aquarium and finding a connection with the creatures, Sievert said. “I originally wanted the creature to be a giant squid. I felt that the giant squid offered a mythic and mysterious creature, that as in the story, could really work ‘behind the scenes’ underwater to maintain the balance that nature requires. But as I said before, being more familiar with, and spending time with octopus, I really felt a stronger connection to these highly intelligent animals. They seemed to know things, and have personalities that I wanted to try to portray. As I read more and more about giant squids in legend and reality I stumbled upon a few references to ‘colossal octopus’ so I thought that would work better.”
Sievert has plans for his next book, but it isn’t official yet. With one now finished, Sievert says he fully appreciates the difficulty of creating a graphic novel. “Yeah, it was super hard,” he said. “Everyone says it and I didn’t believe it until I tried it myself, but making comics is extremely hard work. It’s also very fun.”
Quoted in Sidelights: "distinctive character designs," "pop off the page," "who enjoy sword and sorcery with a heaping helping of
absurdity."
6/5/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Print Marked Items
The Clandestinauts
Publishers Weekly.
265.8 (Feb. 19, 2018): p62+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Clandestinauts
Tim Sievert. Uncivilized, $15.95 (232p)
ISBN 978-1-941250-25-9
Giant bouncing eyeballs, monsters arising from spilled blood, goo-soaked warlocks, and deadpan transitions
like "Meanwhile, back at the bloodbath" combine to create a disgustingly fun quest in the latest graphic
novel from Sievert (That Salty Air). The Clandestinauts are a dungeoneering team seeking the Goblet of the
Crimson Wizard, which takes them on a byzantine quest with so many layers, it could use its own
Wikipedia page. Sievert builds a complex, Tolkienesque world, illustrated by cartoons as violent as
Benjamin Marra 's and as silly as Sergio Aragones 's. Distinctive character designs--such as the one-eyed
Crimson Wizard and mummy like Ganglion--pop off the page, and Sievert gives every automaton and
warlock, among the dozens of characters, memorable personality. The monochromatic color palette shifts
with each scene, acting as a visual soundtrack to the mayhem and helping pace the narrative, which is
parceled out in episodes of varying length. The simple color scheme also takes some of the queasiness out
of the stabbings and bile puddles. Comics readers who enjoy sword and sorcery with a heaping helping of
absurdity will get on board with this insane ride. (Jun.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Clandestinauts." Publishers Weekly, 19 Feb. 2018, p. 62+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529357543/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ce6168fc.
Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529357543
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Quoted in SidelightsL “an amazing, strong, well-paced graphic novel about
relationships and what we must be do to keep them on course.” "terrific"
That Salty Air
Kevin King
Booklist.
104.17 (May 1, 2008): p89.
COPYRIGHT 2008 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* That Salty Air.
By Tim Sievert. Illus. by the author.
2008. 112p. Top Shelf, paper, $ 10 (9781603090056). 741.5.
Gr. 11-12.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
No, this isn't a Classics Illustrated edition of Moby Dick, but it is a terrific graphic novel about an obsessive
man battling large creatures from the sea. Dirt poor, Mary-anne and Hugh live in a shack by the sea.Their
only source of income is the fish Hugh catches each morning, a chore that seems to bring him much
enjoyment.The news that Hugh's mother has drowned destroys his love of "that salty air," and he turns to
the bottle, leaving pregnant Maryanne pretty much alone. Sievert uses a monstrous squid to represent the
bad news that storms into the couple's lives, and in the end the couple's battle with the creature symbolizes
both humankind's struggle with the elements and Hugh's struggle within himself.Words are few and
carefully placed. The crisp, black-and-white illustrations on slick paper do most of the work, taking readers
right into the eye of the metaphorical and physical storm and giving them a taste of the intense emotions
nature can elicit in those who interact with it. An amazing, strong, well-paced graphic novel about
relationships and what we must be do to keep them on course while we are submerged in the complexities
of life. This is as much for adults as it is for teens.--Kevin King
King, Kevin
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
King, Kevin. "That Salty Air." Booklist, 1 May 2008, p. 89. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A179133218/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7efd2666.
Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A179133218
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Quoted in Sidelights: “deliberate, accomplished pacing” and “facility with light
and shade.” The reviewer called him “a talent to watch.”
That Salty Air
Publishers Weekly.
255.15 (Apr. 14, 2008): p43.
COPYRIGHT 2008 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
That Salty Air Tim Sievert. Top Shelf, $10 paper (116p) ISBN 978-1-60309-005-6
Sievert's first graphic novel is a small, understated fable about Hugh, a fisherman who learns that his mother
has drowned. Deciding that the sea has become his enemy, he sets out to teach it a lesson. Of course, the sea
is more powerful than Hugh imagined, and his journey involves a torrential storm, a whale, a giant squid
and a series of emotional revelations. The story's sentimental twists aren't exactly subtle; its dialogue is
mostly undiluted melodrama, and its conclusion is a predictable heartstring-tugger. But the metaphors for
grief and depression are given life by Sievert's deliberate, accomplished pacing. Almost every page is partly
or entirely wordless, and he lets long, elegantly composed sequences of people and animals quietly
interacting with their environments, or images of the land and sea and sky, establish the mood and tone of
each scene. The book's also full of subtle formalist tricks, like a house window whose frame cuts off the
edges of a speech balloon. There's certainly room for growth in Sievert's cartooning--his facility with light
and shade, as well as the deliciously blobby lines he uses for sea creatures in the nature scenes, give way to
hurried, CraigThompson-lite caricature when he draws human characters--but he's a talent to watch. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"That Salty Air." Publishers Weekly, 14 Apr. 2008, p. 43. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A178218532/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=74d11b6a.
Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A178218532
Quoted in Sidelights: "What makes this book entertaining is the sheer unpredictability of its twists and turns, as well as a modern-day sensibility in terms of its humor," "combines high fantasy with grit and guts; it’s like seeing how the sausage of a fantasy quest is made."
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2018
Uncivilized Books: Tim Sievert's The Clandestinauts
Uncivilized Books has never been afraid to publish unconventional genre comics, especially in the realm of fantasy. Tim Sievert’s book The Clandestinauts combines high fantasy with grit and guts; it’s like seeing how the sausage of a fantasy quest is made. The book’s promotional materials make a number of references to Dungeons and Dragons, and the narrative has the twists and turns of an especially sadistic game master and players expertly and accurately acting on the chaotic and evil natures of their characters. The reader is thrown into the narrative in media res, so the book starts with a battle rather than the boring stuff of how the party was hired, etc. Characterization is doled out in the middle of and after fights, which are exceptionally gory—on the level of Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit series.
The reader is given a roster of characters and a brief description, and there’s the usual group of fighters, wizards, fighter-wizards, a humanoid slug-creature and even a fighting construct. In this world, becoming a warlock means forming a pact with a demon, entailing one’s eventual doom. The narrative itself is quite simple: the titular group is on a quest to steal a chalice from a powerful wizard and bring it back for a huge reward. Of course, nothing is ever quite that easy, as one member dies and is sent to hell right away. One of the members of the party is a bandaged warlock named Ganglion the Grim, and he’s the kind of wild card that has his own agenda.
What makes this book entertaining is the sheer unpredictability of its twists and turns, as well as a modern-day sensibility in terms of its humor. Indeed, the book reads like a gorier version of Lewis Trondheim & Joann Sfar’s Dungeon series, as there’s a level of self-awareness at play here in the way genre customs are being warped, but never so much that it breaks the fourth wall. Indeed, this world has its own unpleasant logic and rules, which the characters react to and defy as much as they can. Like Dungeon, the art is cartoony in terms of its character design but otherwise naturalistic, in order to truly capture the visceral quality of its violence and putrid environments. It also asks an important question: if a party has characters who are at each other’s throats, then why do they stay together? If they answer is “money”, then what happens when their reward shrivels up? Sievert plays that scenario fairly as the group falls apart at the end. Speaking of which, while there is a conclusion to this story, it feels like Sievert could easily write a number of sequels. There are any number of dangling plot threads that could be picked up again, and in this way it feels like it’s an adventure that’s part of a greater overall campaign. Readers looking for comics that are inspired by D&D’s nastier elements should seek this out, but this book isn’t aimed at a general audience.
POSTED BY ROB CLOUGH AT 3:00 AM
LABELS: TIM SIEVERT
Review: ‘That Salty Air’ by Tim SievertAndrew Wheeler April 2, 2008 Review: ‘That Salty Air’ by Tim Sievert2011-05-12T18:31:57+00:00Reviews
That Salty Air
Tim Sievert
Top Shelf, 2008, $10.00
For a book about the sea, That Salty Air feels awfully Minnesotan. (Or maybe I’m just reacting to the underlying Norwegian-ness of both Minnesota and Sievert’s story – but there is something hard and dour and northern about That Salty Air.)
Maryann and Hugh are a young couple who live in a lonely cabin by the sea, and whose main source of income seems to be fishing. One day, the postman delivers two letters from the local doctor – it’s immediately clear that Maryann’s letter has told her that she’s pregnant, but we get a couple of montages of sea life (red in tooth and claw, for some immediate symbolism) before Hugh gets his letter.
From it, he learns that his mother has drowned, and he immediately turns against the sea, blaming it for her death. Really, he curses the sea and throws a rock, beaning an important squid far below (which action will be important later). Hugh curses his life, runs off to town to get drunk, and generally behaves badly through the middle of the book, while Maryann sits at home, trying to keep things together.
She also hasn’t gotten a chance to tell Hugh she’s pregnant yet, since he flew off the handle so quickly and so completely. He eventually does come back, and they reconcile, with each other and with the sea…more or less.
That Salty Air is an exceptionally symbolic story, very obviously so. Sievert is clearly young and energetic, and I expect he’ll be someone to reckon with once he settles down a bit. This particular book has a lot of strong points – the particulars of characterization, the evocation of a particular landscape, the inky blacks and assured panel-to-panel transitions – but its story made this reader roll his eyes more than once. It’s a bit much to swallow.
But, on the other hand, it’s only ten bucks for over a hundred pages of comics by a real talent. It’s hard to beat that. And I expect Sievert’s next book will add some subtlety to the already impressive strengths of That Salty Air. He’s definitely a talent to watch.
Andrew Wheeler has been a publishing professional for nearly twenty years, with a long stint as a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club and a current position at John Wiley & Sons. He’s been reading comics for longer than he cares to mention, and maintains a personal, mostly book-oriented blog at antickmusings.blogspot.com.
Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Andrew Wheeler directly at acwheele (at) optonline (dot) net.