Three If By Space had a chance to sit down with Becky Cloonan and Shaun Simon at this year’s New York City Comic Con. The two are known for their work together on “The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys”. We discuss frightening childhoods, Halloween, and more.
Three If By Space: “When you were growing up, what movie, book, or show frightened you the most?”
Shaun Simon: “I have no idea, nothing comes to mind. Maybe nothing scared me? That’s a good answer!”
Becky Cloonan: There was a bunch of things that scared me, I was a very frighten-able little kid. Dr. Who used to terrify me, like, keep me awake at night. There was the Sherlock Holmes BBC show, it was on right after Dr. Who and since that terrified me I couldn’t sleep so I used to stay up and watch Sherlock Holmes. There’s a specific episode where this dude got poisoned. I remember it really badly, I was really young, but he was playing piano and then he fell off the chair and started foaming at the mouth and died. I couldn’t speak about it for days and I couldn’t articulate what I’d seen, I couldn’t communicate to people why it scared me. I was like ‘If I wake my parents up, my dad’s going to be really pissed and I was scared of him. I was also terrified because, well you know like being scared to show that you’re scared? Also, there was another time that my dad taught me how to gut a fish…”
SS: “Wow!”
BC: “Yeah, it was pretty cold outside and we were gutting these fish that he caught when he went deep-sea fishing. He said ‘I’m going to teach you how to gut a fish’, great dad, and my hands got so cold from the fish guts and just being outside. I went back in the house, I was also very young at this point, I feel like 8 years old, maybe 9. I went inside and I just stuck my hands in the hot water and they hurt so much. I thought that I had frostbite, and my dad told me that if you had frostbite you’d have to chop off your hands! I thought I had frostbite so I had thought I have to chop off my hands, but I was like ‘If I tell my dad I have frostbite and we have to chop off my hands he’d get really pissed off at me! I was so scared of my dad getting mad, I went through a whole day thinking my hands would fall off and then being too scared to say anything about it! I had a terrifying childhood, I grew up being scared of everything!”
TIBS: “Speaking of scary, do you guys have any Halloween plans?”
BC: “Nope”
SS: “Trick or treating with my kids!”
BC: “I’ll be in England, so I don’t know. I’ll probably watch The Craft for Halloween.”
TIBS: “What’s your favorite Halloween memory growing up?”
BC: “I was a skeleton one year, and a mummy, those were good years. I got good candy!”
SS: “When we were little my dad used to dress up and scare the hell out of us. He’d ring the doorbell as like an old lady, and come in the house and scare the sh*t out of us! He’d take the mask off and we’d all be like ‘oh it was you, asshole!’ It was great, it was actually a lot of fun.”
BC: “I don’t celebrate Halloween, really. I always get too busy and I’m always like I gotta work and have deadlines. Since I’ve left the house, since upper high school and after college I just haven’t had time to celebrate. But I love it! I love the season, I love scary movies, wearing tights with bats and spiders on them! Halloween playlists, my favorite on Spotify! I listen to a lot of Type O Negative in October.”
TIBS: “What’s a book or a movie that’s on your shelf would surprise your fans that you have and that you like?”
BC: “Uhm, I just finished up Rubicon by Tom Holland which is a book on the fall of the Roman Empire. It’s amazing, really good history but also anecdotal. It will change your perspective on a lot of history.”
SS: “I guess the movie, “What Women Want” with Mel Gibson. It’s actually very good.”
TIBS: “Is it informative?”
SS: “Haha actually it is! It’s really good, you should check it out.”
TIBS: “What one thing do you want to create before you die?”
SS: “Create?”
TIBS: “Yeah!”
SS: “Uhm, more drugs? –laughs- No I’m just kidding. Well yeah maybe something that does weird stuff to you! Ha, I don’t know.”
BC: -laughs- “More comics!”
SS: “Yes, more comics.”
BC: “I fly a lot and I travel a lot, so whenever I get on a plane I always kind of steel myself for like a what if. I always think if the plane crashed, it’s getting really dark right now, but if it did and I died, would I be happy? And sometimes I’m like ‘No, no, no I’m not ready I have stuff to finish, I need more time!’ but I mean that changes all the time. I don’t think I have one specific thing I would want to create. That’s a hard question!”
TIBS: “And lastly, what’s one thing from high school or college that you learned that you still use today?”
SS: “Nothing! I barely went to high school, never went to college, so it never did much for me. But I mean stay in school!”
BC: “Yeah, well I dropped out of art school. But I’m trying to think, I had the kind of high school growing up that my teachers told my mom I wouldn’t do well in college and that I’d never get in to art school. There was a lot of negative feelings and ever since I was little my dad would tell me stick to your guns and if you want to do something go out and make it happen, and then he was always like ‘oh you can’t go to art school’ but I said ‘just you watch, I’m gunna do it!’ but I dropped out anyway. I think a lot of the negative things I went through, people telling me you’re not going to make it, you should do this instead, all of that made me want to do it more. That’s something that I took away from it.”
TIBS: “Alright well thank you guys!”
SS and BC: “Yeah, anytime! Thank you!”
