Out of Clay and Mud, Comes Adam Circa 1580 – Back Again!

An interview with Chanan Beizer

By Sarah Elliott

 

What’s a Golem like you doing in a place like this? Don’t know what a Golem is? Then you’ve not read The Golem of Venice Beach! Get ready because following the cliffhanger of the first graphic novel, we return to Venice Beach. Why and how? Let’s chat with Chanan Beizer, the one who resurrected the golem for a whole new audience and who concludes this tale (for now) in The Golem of Venice Beach: Book 2 which is available on Kickstarter from September 12th, 2024.

 

Bio: Chanan Beizer has had a varied career including computer programming, film-making, and TV sports production. In 2018, Chanan’s script for The Golem of Venice Beach won the very first ScreenCraft Cinematic Book contest for graphic novels. For the past three years, Chanan has been working with Eisner-Award winning editor, Chris Stevens (Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream) to assemble a dream team of artistic collaborators to bring the story of the Golem to life.

 

This links perfectly to the first question…

Sarah: You have a wealth of artists who have contributed to The Golem of Venice Beach. Why so many and how did you recruit them all?

Chanan: My original idea for the graphic novel was to have three artists. One for the Golem’s origin, one for its rediscovery during WW2, and one for the primary story taking place in the present. Each would have a distinct look and feel. I also thought it would be fun to add a bonus visual map of Venice Beach. That morphed into a total of four bonus pin-ups, hence we had seven different artists for the first book.

When it came to the second book, the main story in Venice Beach continues and there’s a bit of the WW2 storyline to wrap up. We were lucky that both Vanessa Cardinali and Jae Lee agreed to finish what they had begun. Instead of an origin story, we have what I call a vision quest and the symmetry of three artists to depict the story aspects in each volume made sense to me. I’m very grateful that David Mack came on board for that.

My editor, Chris Stevens, had the brilliant idea for an actual bonus story rather than bonus pin-ups for Book 2. I came up with a concept that involved the four seasons and a framing device to bring it all together. That meant an additional five artists. Here again, I was thrilled with the results by Dean Haspiel, Howard Chaykin, Stan Sakai, Juan Jose Ryp, and Nick Dragotta.

I don’t want to give too much away but there is a huge confrontation that takes place in the second book. I wanted to pay tribute to one of the iconic Marvel clashes, Hulk vs Thor, but use two characters from The Golem of Venice Beach. Das Pastoras created a great homage not only to the battle, but also to the legendary comic book artist Sal Buscema, who drew the original splash page that I fell in love with as a child. Add in Ferran Delgado’s 1970’s inspired lettering and graphics and the result is quite spectacular.

Finally, we needed an artist that could match the magnificence of Book 1’s Bill Sienkiewicz cover. And Frank Quitely really knocked the ball out of the park with his phenomenal wraparound. Both covers are very different from each other but are perfect and exquisite.

As to how we recruited such a large number of talented artists, I have to give the credit to my editor, Chris. He had the contacts and the wherewithal to convince everyone to join the team.

 

Sarah: Did you originally write a complete story and intend volume 1 to end on a cliffhanger with volume 2 planned, or was there a different process?

 

Chanan: Originally, it was supposed to be a screenplay. I turned that idea into the graphic novel. I didn’t have a set number of pages in mind so I just let the story take me where it willed. I had a strong origin, a definitive ending, and a few cool settings for stuff that happens in between.  As my writing progressed, the page count kept getting higher and higher. Eventually it reached 346 pages, way too long for a newbie such as myself.

Once the decision was made to break the story up, I had to painstakingly go through everything and find a good concluding point for Book 1. That left me with a very lopsided page count wherein the majority fell into the second volume. My editor, Chris Stevens, helped me figure out what I could shift from Book 2 into Book 1, and then what I needed to cut out completely. There’s this phrase I’ve heard regarding the writing process – “Kill your darlings”. I kept that in my head as I eliminated quite a bunch of pages that I had spent many hours creating. But the net result was worth the effort.  

Sarah: What can readers expect in this second volume?

 

Chanan: For those who haven’t read the first book (yet), we were introduced to Adam, a Golem created in 1580 and resurrected during WW2. Adam currently finds himself in Venice Beach, of all places, where he is connected by the blood of his creator to Jake and Jake’s Uncle Steph. The first volume ends with the Golem trying to save two runaway teen girls from a vicious street gang.

Book 2 picks up immediately after the cliffhanger that ends Book 1. Adam’s confrontation with the gang causes a ripple effect that not only puts Jake and Uncle Steph in danger, but also threatens the entire Venice Beach community.

In both books, you can expect great art from some of the finest illustrators working in comics today. And hopefully you’ll enjoy the story of The Golem of Venice Beach. 

Sarah: Where did you get the inspiration for the story?

 

Chanan: The inspiration came from a variety of sources. First is my love of folk tales and myths, so taking a creature from Jewish legend and placing it in a contemporary setting is something I’ve always wanted to do. And the sources for my second, third, and fourth inspiration? Location, location, location, as they say. Having just moved from Manhattan to Venice, what better place to set the tale of a 400-year-old Golem than Venice Beach? It’s such a unique place. Coming from New York, I like to call it “the East Village on steroids, with a beach.” The people, the backgrounds, even the smells, are all creative fodder for a multitude of ideas.

 

Sarah: What was your research process, considering the historical and modern aspects of the story?

 

Chanan: Research for the majority of the book that takes place in present day Venice Beach was easy. All I did was open my front door and take a look around. I incorporated a lot of actual places into the story, such as the skate park, the graffiti walls, and above all else, the boardwalk. I also included a few “famous” street performers.

For the 16th Century origin, I read books about Golems and learned more about the man who is said to have created the Golem, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel. He was an actual philosopher, scholar, and mystic best known as the Maharal. There’s even a statue of him in the city of Prague. I was also able to find illustrations of what medieval people wore in that region of Europe and passed that on to the artist for that part of the book.

For the WW2 pages I went online and viewed photographs of German soldiers and of Theresienstadt concentration camp, which is about an hour northwest of Prague. It was hard to look at the images but I’m glad for posterity’s sake that it’s well documented.

 

Sarah: How did you flesh out your characters and who was your favourite one?

 

Chanan: I love Adam the Golem. I wanted him to be a “human” looking Golem instead of the typical creature made of stone, mud, or clay that I’ve seen in other depictions. He may be 7 feet tall, weigh 645 pounds, and capable of incredible violence, but he’s also quite playful at times. For fun, I made him a fan of palindromes, those phrases that read the same backwards and forwards like “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.” He’s also a voracious reader of books that philosophize about the meaning of life and the idea of good vs evil.

It was also interesting to come up with new characters halfway through my writing. I found myself very much invested in the back stories of two runaway teen girls named Izzy and Sasha. They form a unique bond with Adam and they are quite pivotal in what happens. They were never even a flicker of an idea for the first few years that I worked on the book. After I created them, I went back and rewrote pages to better integrate them into the storyline.

 

Sarah: If it could be turned into a film, do you have any thoughts on actors you’d like to work with?

 

Chanan: The intention was always to make the film. I’ve got all the locations mapped out as to where I’d love to shoot. If you’re familiar with Venice and Santa Monica, you’ll definitely recognize a lot of the scenes depicted in both books.

I have thoughts about actors, especially as inspirations for characters in the book. Unfortunately, one noted actor is no longer with us, the great Lee Strasberg for the part of Uncle Steph. He’s best known from The Godfather Part II in which he played Hyman Roth. I also envisioned younger versions of the actors Danny Trejo and Vincent Cassel for two important character roles.

For the actor to play Jake, a main character and the descendant of the Golem’s creator, I think Evan Peters would be an intriguing choice. I first saw him in his many unique performances in the various seasons of American Horror Story. And I loved him as Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past. He’s a very versatile and interesting actor.

I’m a bit stuck as to who can play the Golem. He’s got to be capable of incredible violence and brutality, yet also naïve and innocent in ways. On the bright side, the visual effects needed to portray him as a huge, nearly immortal, engine of destruction is already being used in films.

And there’s this one major part for the perfect femme fatale – a woman of beauty, mystery, and danger. Check out the book and if you have any suggestions for the role of Erica, I’m eager to hear them.

 

Sarah: What’s next for you?

 

Chanan: I do have a short story that I set aside a while ago and I’m thinking about reworking as a graphic novel. It features the great Detroit Tiger baseball player, Hank Greenberg, while he was a soldier during WW2. I take many liberties with what actually happened to him so it’s a bit of alternative history. Interesting fact about Greenberg is that he was drafted into the army and was released with other men over a certain age. But after Pearl Harbor he re-enlisted, putting his baseball career on hold for over four years. He was a true American hero.

 

A displaced mythological creature? A story that spans historical events? Tied together with a modern setting? I’m in!

 

Here’s more about the book in Chanan’s own words:

“Picking up immediately after Book 1’s cliffhanger, in The Golem of Venice Beach: Book 2 we find Adam the Golem in the midst of gang warfare while trying to protect two runaway teens,” said writer and creator Chanan Beizer. “To make matters worse, Jake comes under the scrutiny of the very same gang while Uncle Steph tries to mend a rift that has formed between Adam and Jake, and things come to a head when Stephan is kidnapped. It’s up to Adam and Jake to save him—but first, Jake must first find a way to make Adam whole again and restore the Golem that has been part of his family legacy for over 400 years.”

Superstar artists Frank Quitely, David Mack, Nick Dragotta, Howard Chaykin, Dean Haspiel, Jae Lee, Das Pastoras, Juan Jose Ryp, Stan Sakai and are teaming up with artist Vanessa Cardinali, writer Chanan Beizer, and letterer Ferran Delgado for the stunning star-studded second and final volume of graphic novel The Golem of Venice Beach. 

Both volumes of The Golem of Venice Beach are available on Kickstarter.

The Golem of Venice Beach: Book Two is a 184-page oversized deluxe hardcover and features:

• A thrilling wrap-around cover suitable for framing by renowned Scottish illustrator Frank Quitely (New X-Men, All-Star Superman, Batman and Robin) 
• A four-page flashback sequence that completes the emotional depiction of the Golem’s resurrection during World War Two that began in Book 1 by Jae Lee (Seven Sons, Batman/Superman) and colorist June Chung
• A unique six-page vision quest sequence of existential exploration by David Mack (Daredevil, New Avengers)
• A striking homage to an iconic Sal Buscema pin up from 1973’s groundbreaking Avengers/Defenders War by Spanish painter extraordinaire Das Pastoras (Metabarons) 
• A nine-page Golem bonus story, featuring the combined talents of Brooklyn-based and Emmy Award winner Dean Haspiel (Covid Cop), the critically acclaimed Juan José Ryp (Frank Miller’s RoboCop), best-selling artist Nick Dragotta (X-Statix), comics legend Howard Chaykin (American Flagg), and superstar Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo)
• Kickstarter Exclusive prints, 8″ x 10″ and ready to frame and hang on your wall, featuring art from each of the ten contributing artists in Book Two.
• All seven prints from the artists in Book 1 (Michael Allred, Stephen R. Bissette, Vanessa Cardinali, Jae Lee, Nick Pitarra, Paul Pope, and Bill Sienkiewicz)
• A Kickstarter Exclusive Hardcover that features a unique signature plate signed by Quitely.

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To support the campaign, visit Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cloverpress/the-golem-of-venice-beach-books-1-and-2?ref=1xmrpi