Samuel Cantin’s graphic novel Vile and Miserable is arriving in American comic book shops today. Soon to be a feature film, this laugh-out-loud comedy of terrors for grown-ups is perfect for fans of Simon Hanselmann and Johnny Ryan.
Lucius Vile is a demon condemned to work in a used car dealership-cum-bookstore. With coworkers who seemingly hate his guts, a therapist whose methods aren’t quite sound, an annoying new assistant named Daniel, and a sex life that could be kindly described as highly complicated, let’s just say things are getting a bit hectic for Lucius… But who cares, right? Because today, it’s Halloween, Lucius’s favorite day of the year. Animated by an absurd and transgressive sense of humor, Vile and Miserable is a raw dose of cringe comedy at its best. For Mature Readers.
In this short interview, Samuel Cantin talks about the origins of this project, humor that pushes the envelope, the power of following your creative impulses wherever they might lead, and what it is like adapting his own comic to the silver screen. Vile and Miserable arrives in comic book stores on September 25, 2024.
With Vile and Miserable, what was your inspiration for creating the character of Lucius Vile and the story?
When I was studying film at Concordia in Montreal I made a short film about a guy who showed up at work dressed in a big devil costume, cause another guy had told him it was the Halloween party, but it wasn’t, and he just felt humiliated. The short film was just his day at work dressed as the devil and no one else was dressed up. Now the movie was not that good, but I liked this idea, this image of a guy dressed in a devil costume, just having a normal day’s work in an office. And when [Pow Pow Press editor] Luc was like, “What’s your next book gonna be?” I immediately thought of this little film I made. I liked the image. So I started with this idea, a guy dressed as a demon at work. But then I thought “Oh, what if he’s an actual demon? That’s funny.” I wanted him to be like the ultimate outcast. He’s not even human, he can’t relate to anyone around him. He’s a bookseller, but the bookstore is inside a used car lot. He hates his colleagues, he hates everyone, basically. He’s vile, and he’s miserable.
It sounds like there’s a lot of free association in your work. Do you work out all the ideas before you start drawing or were you drawing it and kind of doing improv?
This one, yeah, it was sort of improv. With Vile and Miserable, I would have an idea for a scene, and I would write it out and then draw it immediately, ink it. And then I would do that in 10-15 page increments at a time. It’s striking now when I look back at it, there’s not much of a story. It’s more like vignettes, just scenes in the life of this guy.
Right. It’s like a portrait of some sort, and you develop him and the other characters over time. I was noticing that with Lucius Vile, he’s really such an awful person, but at the same time, every so often there are these weird moments when you have sympathy for him, or you can understand him. But then you always pull the rug out from the reader right after that, they might feel okay about Lucius for one second and then he’ll just do something that’s really terrible right after that.
Yeah, I think he’s always terrible, but the moments you’re feeling sympathy for him is when he’s with an even more terrible person, like his psychologist, who’s even worse. I was really enjoying writing those scenes because Lucius shifted, he became like a normal person when confronted with this guy. I thought that was really funny.
I wasn’t really thinking of making him sympathetic except towards the end, where I thought there should be some glimmer of humanity. I wanted to take the joke as far as possible and to make the cringiest situation possible. Cringe comedy, or malaise, that was what I was going for.
And there’s a bit of shock humor in it, too, there are moments where you push the envelope quite a bit. It’s definitely for an adult audience. Were there moments where you surprised yourself?
Oh, yeah. Like with the dream sequence. The book was done, and believe it or not, I thought it was too tame or I don’t know, I thought it wasn’t edgy enough. And I had this idea for a dream sequence, which is crazy. I called Luc and I said that I have just the thing that will make this a great book. I drew it out over a weekend and I sent it to him. He was like “Oh, okay. We’re going there.” When I look back on it now, it’s hard to believe everything that came out when I was writing that book. I don’t believe I would write the same book now that I’m in my late thirties. I thought it was too tame when I finished it and when I look back at it now, I’m like, “Wow, this is by far the trashiest of my books.” But I love it.
The main character is in therapy, and you explore some interesting things about psychology, and our interactions with other people and society. It’s obviously very funny and ridiculous, but is there a kernel of honesty or truth inside of it? Were you reflecting on what you see in social life in the book?
Lucius is basically an incel… I didn’t know the term yet when I was writing the book in 2012. Maybe the word did exist, but it wasn’t in the culture. I didn’t know the word, but I think that’s what I was talking about. This sort of sexual frustration and loneliness of certain men. I think he is a perfect example of that. I was trying to make him the worst and the funniest possible, but there is something in his pent-up aggression, loneliness, and sexual frustration that when people started talking about incels later on, I was like, this is exactly the archetype for this guy.
You create this very powerful metaphor of like a person who’s trapped inside of a demon outfit, they can’t get out, and their greatest frustration is the sexual element of that. You create this vision without even necessarily knowing exactly who you’re talking about, and then you realize that later on. That’s fascinating.
Exactly. I think that’s what’s fun about art. Sometimes you just start with the image, say the image of a bookstore inside of a used car lot. I wasn’t trying to say something about the culture, but I liked the image. I thought it was fun. The same thing with the devil costume.
There’s a quote that I love from the filmmaker, Werner Herzog. He’s talking about his movie Fitzcarraldo, where they lift a boat over a mountain and he said “This is a great metaphor. I don’t know what it’s about, but it’s a great metaphor.”
Speaking of movies, Vile and Miserable is being turned into a film, right?
It’s being finished right now. Actually, I just saw the final cut of it last week. We’re gonna send it around to some festivals and then it will come out in February of next year in Quebec.
It was fun, because as I said earlier, there wasn’t much of a story to Vile and Miserable, or so we thought, for a feature. So we changed so much, but that’s what I like about it. It’s different from the book. The book exists, and it’s the same setting, but there is more of a story to it, we added characters, we really had fun with it. I’m proud of the film. It’s going to be a different trip for people who’ve enjoyed the book to go see the movie. That’s what I like.
From the way you’re talking about it, it sounds like you were pretty involved in the creation of the film. Can you talk a little bit about what your role was?
I co-wrote the script with the director, so I was involved throughout. I wasn’t involved with the shoot, per se. When they were shooting it, I usually wasn’t there. I came on set like four or five times, and then I had a little cameo in it where I played a waiter (which is some of my best work I’ve done!). I really enjoyed writing it. When I was in film school, I used to hate being on a set, I couldn’t sleep the day before a shoot. I really hated the energy on a set. But with this I was glad to be there. Just watching and having no responsibility at all because I think it’s some of the most stressful chaotic environments. Like editing is cool, editing reminds me of doing comic books, but the shoot in itself is a bit of a nightmare, I think.
When you’re a director, you have to answer so many questions and make so many choices and you have to be like a boss.I don’t know. It’s different. You have to have the two, the artist side and the manager side. Not everyone can do it.
Who would you like to pick up a Vile and Miserable in a shop in the States? Who do you think would be like the best audience for it in your opinion?
Wow. That’s an amazing question. I immediately thought of my favorite comedian, Norm McDonald. I would’ve wanted him to read it, but he’s dead.
Well, let’s just say a kind of person, I’d say someone who loves comedy and books, like booksellers and people who love to hang out in bookstores. I think the parts where Lucius is sort of sympathetic, it’s when he shows his love of books and literature. And it’s the part of myself that I put in that, that I put in him. So booksellers and people who love to hang out in bookstores. I want them to enjoy it the most. Yeah.
Well, if a bookseller likes it, then they’ll pass it on.
Yeah. I feel like when Vile and Miserable first came out in French, it really got a sort of buzz, word of mouth. A lot of people working at Planet BD and other bookstores, they really pushed it. I love going to bookstores, I love hanging out there. There’s sort of an homage to it in the book. The little boss in the book has this epiphany that the profit margin on books is so much better than on cars and he’s like “Books, they’re the future!” I always thought that was really funny.
I love it. Dare to dream, right? Let’s make it happen.
