Cornering the market on the real estate exorcism business sounds like a top achievement for any realtor. Cleaning homes of ghosts and spirits seems like the perfect way to flip formerly haunted houses to those who need them, but what is it like juggling this unique business and a family with all of the mundane aspects of the industry?
Dan Goldman answers this question in his new graphic novel from Kinjin Storylab titled Red Light Properties: Unfinished Business.
Goldman’s 340-page, full-color oversized hardcover collects the first season of his tropical horror/humor series, and includes over 100 pages of previously unpublished work, plus 50 new pages of epistolary worldbuilding.
We spoke to Goldman about the origins of his story and many of the aspects of creating Red Light Properties in our exclusive interview with the writer/artist.
What are the origins of Red Light Properties and Kinjin Storylab?
Dan Goldman: Kinjin Storylab was founded in 2014 as a creative studio, and became a publisher last year with the launch of our first Red Light Properties hardcover, Unfinished Business.
But Red Light Properties as a story stretches all the way back to the summer of 2001. I was living in a pleasantly haunted house in Park Slope – an artist named Charlie had died in my room sometime in the 1980s, and he hung around a bit – and had the aha moment of crossing these feelings, plus scarier ones you’d expect, with the real estate hustle as my neighborhood rapidly gentrified all around me. The first draft of RLP took place in Brooklyn and braided together its own NY-specific flavors.
Later that year, I traveled down to Miami to visit my mom – I grew up in South Florida – and immediately all the pieces of what I was doing snapped into place. It was clear: this series took place in South Florida, and always had. I moved back down there for a while to soak up the landscape and develop my own artistic voice using digital techniques (vector drawing, collage, compositing) to make a new kind of comic book art.
When I returned to New York, I went hard into comics, self-publishing, and then webcomics, and was eventually validated by others with an Eisner nomination. I spent a few years doing a few political-themed graphic novels before feeling ready to give RLP the shot I knew it deserved. By that point, I was married and had moved with my lady to her hometown in Brazil, where I produced and published the first run of the series on Tor Books’ online portal, who were commissioning original digital-first works.
Red Light Properties encompasses a number of genres. Do you find it hard to balance the humor and horror or do you feel that you need to bring the story back to the center at times?
Goldman: I do not! I am not a fan of creating or even reading rigid genre titles; that feels like a style exercise to me. I want my voice to come through what I’m doing with every project, so scares and laughs and fart jokes and smouldering sexual tension all belong in the mix. To me, I’m the genre that all my work belongs in.
If your characters are well-constructed, their stakes are built-in. From stakes come scares, and real horror, and humiliating laughs can be built around that. I’m also a big fan of emotional whiplash that keeps the audience on their back foot, never sure if where they’re standing is solid ground or not.
Otherwise everything feels like everything else, so why even tell that story?
You previously said that, “Red Light Properties has been with me since my early career, and has continued evolving alongside all aspects of my storytelling practice.” How do you feel that you have grown as a writer and artist through the graphic novel?
Goldman: Man, so much. After the first RLP graphic novel was published by IDW, I went out to Los Angeles to develop it as a TV series. I spent five years out there with a few different combos of producers. During that time, I met several incredibly brilliant mentors from the worlds of comics, animation, television, and video games who taught me, were kind to me, and uplifted me in my career. I’ve learned so much as a writer by working in different mediums; to me, a story is a liquid you can pour into different containers – a novel, a movie, a game – where the story changes shape while the essence is intact.
As far as my artwork, technology is a whole thread I’ve been following. I can usually peg my own leaps forward to experimenting with hardware or software, from the Cintiq and Adobe and 3D modeling to the iPad and Procreate and now to Unreal Engine. It always feels like something new and amazing is arriving to play with, and having an always-cooking storyworld like RLP lets me incorporate new techniques into my practice constantly. It’s a never-ending zhuzh-up.
Which character do you most relate to or is closest to you in Unfinished Business?
Goldman: You’re probably baiting me to say Jude because I “play” him on the page, but truly they’re all me: Jude, Cecilia, Turi, Kako, Rory Partch, Zoya.
I need a character to contain some personal aspect of me to inhabit them and write them convincingly… and so when I’m creating my own work, it’s like having a group conversation between all these facets of me.
Maybe I contain multitudes? I think we all do. What if my answer was: what is the self? What is “I”?
I totally overthought this question.
Have you ever had any actual paranormal experiences and what would be your limit in terms of a home, even if it were a steal in terms of paranormal activity?
Goldman: I’ve had enough experience for them to be more “normal” than “para” at this point. I’m a Mulder in a world of Scullys that I think is funny in its rejection of possibility and steadfast belief in our species’ limited senses. I don’t know how you can own a pet with better hearing or smell than you and still believe that “if I can’t see it, it’s not real.”
My limits re: a haunted home would be vibes. A mellow ghost – like the aforementioned Charlie — is not a dealbreaker. An echo of awful trauma would be. I don’t want to live in a horrible-feeling place no matter how cheap it is.
The collected edition of Red Light Properties contains over 100 pages of previously unpublished work, plus 50 new pages of epistolary worldbuilding. Is this the definitive word on your work and series and why?
Goldman: Nope! This is the definite beginning of the series. Unfinished Business represents the first season of a longer, intricately planned story with a definite end we are currently barreling towards.
RLP will continue to evolve as I do until we reach the final page of its story.
Future projects?
Goldman: Aside from future volumes of Red Light Properties, I’m working with my amazing Kinjin Storylab team on a new graphic novel called The Third Temple. I can’t talk about it yet, but you can expect it early in the new year.
Why is Florida the perfect place to go to die?
Goldman: Is it the perfect place to die? Not for me, it isn’t. I came back to cook my comics for a while, but I hope to die elsewhere.
But to answer the question: maybe because you’ll have lots of company? I grew up here in the 1980s, where retirees were dropping dead all around me my whole life, giving that pastel sunbleached “holiday” vibe a greasy smear of darkness. That darkness has new tenants, coming down from a very different USA: refugees of gentrification and pandemic and culture war. It’s a whole new landscape that I wanted to live, breathe, and channel into RLP.
Because what’s underneath your question is why do people flock down here to die? And what effect does that have on the place? I have my own theories about that, but you’ll have to keep reading Red Light Properties to the end to find out.
Red Light Properties: Unfinished Business is now available in a standard and deluxe slipcase edition from Kinjin Storylab and wherever fine comics and graphic novels are sold.
