The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn follows the story of a supernatural detective who’s more-or-less a floating skull in a trench coat. The story of a ghost whose only purpose is to help others move on and find peace by journeying across ethereal realms to save lost souls, the series follows Oscar’s misadventures at different points across history – as this comic that got Tri Vuong‘s career moving forward became not just a WEBTOON darling, but in many ways, was a dark delight and a refreshing title.
This collected graphic novel published by Ten Speed Press covers episodes 1 through 65 of the supernatural horror and fantasy webcomic, which debuted on WEBTOON in June 2016. We spoke with series creator and artist Tri Vuong asking about his origins, Oscar Zahn, and more, in this in-depth interview.
CHRISTIAN ANGELES: Oscar Zahn was a popular LINE WEBTOON for years. What’s it like seeing your project blow up the way it has?
TRI VUONG: It’s been a pleasant surprise to see “The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn” find such a devoted following online. When I started the comic, I was pretty burnt out artistically after working for years in the animation and video game industry and was seriously thinking about doing something else with my life.
The comic was purely meant to be a passion project to rejuvenate my shriveled creative heart but along the way it accidentally became a sustainable way to make a living. I guess that was a real learning lesson for me. Staying true to your own creative voice isn’t a guarantee for success, but it gives you the best chance at it and you’ll probably be a lot happier in the long run.
ANGELES: Oscar Zahn stretches from a lot of influences in the mystery detective genre. Can you pitch what makes your iteration unique for someone unfamiliar with it?
VUONG: While there’s been plenty of great supernatural detectives in the genre, Oscar’s a little bit different because he solves mysteries on behalf of the dead rather than the living. The situations he encounters are often more nuanced and can’t be resolved simply by punching or shooting them away (although I dig a good fistfight as much as anybody else) and the greatest evils he encounters are the demons we all battle with everyday.
In many ways, Oscar’s kind of the antithesis of the stereotypical hard-boiled detective, he’s quite bad at being tough and his superpower is empathy and compassion. Unfortunately for him, his skull also houses the Ectopus, a supernatural carnivore that wants to eat the very beings he’s trying to help!
ANGELES: And where’d the idea of the Ectopus come from?
VUONG: The idea for the Ectopus was probably influenced by a lot of imagery from Hellboy, H.P. Lovecraft, and Studio Ghibli films (notably Spirited Away). I also felt that Oscar couldn’t just be an upbeat and aspirational character without his own personal demons. Oscar’s positive attitude needed to be a sort of coping mechanism for him to deal with this monster that lives in his head and is responsible for the destruction of his body but also probably saved him from a complete death.
ANGELES: The book has both scary and funny moments. How’d you strike a balance with both?
VUONG: That might just be the way I keep things fun and interesting for me. Making comics takes a lot of time and to draw something exceedingly dark for months on end can be tough for me mentally. The humor and camp let me touch more sincerely on darker subject matter that maybe I would rather not delve into if I had to tell the story straight.
ANGELES: Most know you for Ninjago work and projects with Skybound, but your career was a bit of a late bloom. Can you share what that journey was like?
VUONG: It certainly hasn’t been a straight road to get here. After high school, I didn’t even go into art school at first because drawing for a living just seemed like an impossible pipe dream. I studied computer science for a few years and was exceedingly bad at it. It wasn’t until after many years of failing that I finally gave up and let myself enroll in animation school. That was a much better fit and I did well, but I didn’t have any other loftier goals from it other than
“I hope I can find a job that will pay the rent”
It wasn’t until after a decade of working as an artist in various studios in Toronto that I realized I was unfulfilled with how my “career” was going. As a kid, you don’t really think about things in those terms, you just wanted to be creative and tell stories and have fun but I had forgotten that on the way to adulthood. Once I remembered why I got into art to begin with, I was able to give myself permission to find my own voice and figure out what I wanted to do rather than just chase the next “career move”.
I’m not going to lie, being a freelance artist is not an easy path and trying to tell good stories is about the hardest thing I’ve ever done but it’s also a very fun and fulfilling job and I don’t really want to do anything else.
ANGELES: If you had to summarize your style or even your career in but one sentence what would that be?
VUONG: Hmmm that’s a hard one. Somebody else once summarized it as…
“80s manga meets Tin Tin with aspirations of Mike Mignola.”
I cannot argue with this…
ANGELES: Besides yourself and maybe Bryan Lee O’Malley, I can’t think of many Asian-Canadian comic artists who had such a cultural impact. How has your heritage influenced your career trajectory?
VUONG: It’s not something I was consciously exploring when I first started making comics but I noticed shades of my immigrant upbringing starting to creep in to my work over time until it became quite an overt theme in “Everyday Hero Machine Boy”.
To be honest, I just try to tell a good story so I can’t really say for sure how concretely my heritage has influenced my career trajectory. It’s not a direction that I deliberately try to push into but there are themes of the immigrant experience that can’t help but inform the stories I tell.
Making comics can often be a very solitary and insular experience, it’s often not until I meet fans and parents that I realize that it can mean something when somebody with my last name is front and center on the cover.
ANGELES: Finally, Words of wisdom for folks wanting to pursue their passions later in age?
VUONG: Whatever age you’re at, the important thing is to just start. Don’t worry about the destination, just take it one step at a time and enjoy the process because ultimately, it’s the process that’s the reward.
THE STRANGE TALES OF OSCAR ZAHN: VOLUME 1 is in stores right now. You can purchase a copy from Penguin Random House here. The entire collected run is also available to read on Line WEBTOON.
