Fialkov, Joshua Hale 1979–

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Fialkov, Joshua Hale 1979–

(J.H. Fialkov)

PERSONAL:

Born August 19, 1979, in Sacramento, CA; partner of Christina Rice (a historian). Education: Emerson College, bachelor's degree, 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Home— Los Angeles, CA. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Hoarse and Buggy Productions, Los Angeles, CA, cofounder, 2004—. Script supervisor for the television show Easy Listening; production coordinator for television shows, including Fox's Funniest Outtakes, Life's Funniest Moments, Pet Star, and The Michael Jackson Interview: The Footage You Were Never Meant to See; cocreator of the comic "Punks the Comic."

WRITINGS:

(And director and actor)Real Things(screenplay), Reel Things Production (Boston, MA), 2000.

Elk's Run(graphic novel), art by Noel Tuazon, colors by Scott Keating, lettered by Jason Hanley, chapter title art by Datsun Tran, edited by Jason Rodriguez, Villard (New York, NY), 2007.

(Adaptor) Yasunori Mitsunga,Princess Resurrection, translated by Satsuki Yamashita, lettered by North Market Street Graphics, Del Rey/Ballantine (New York, NY), 2007.

(With Mark Wheaton)They're among Us(television screenplay), 2008.

Also writer of comics, including "Vampirella," Harris Comics; "Punks the Comic"; and "The Cleaners," Dark Horse Comics.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joshua Hale Fialkov is a writer who has worked in a variety of media. As a child Fialkov read voraciously, often frustrating his teachers with his desire to go beyond the reading limits for his grade level. In a Pop Thought Web site interview with Alex Ness, Fialkov explained: "I read at least a novel a week still, sometimes more. I was also, and still am, a huge fan of episodic TV, which led me to comics, and so on." Fialkov eventually worked for television after graduating from Emerson College in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in theater and film. He wrote, directed, and even acted in the independent film Real Things, a movie that challenged the concept of reality and the sanity of the lead character. Over the next few years, Fialkov worked as a script supervisor for the television show Easy Listening, and as a production coordinator for various television shows, including Fox's Funniest Outtakes, Life's Funniest Moments, Pet Star, and The Michael Jackson Interview: The Footage You Were Never Meant to See.

After several years of problems with various publishers, Fialkov published his first graphic novel,Elk's Run, in 2007. The setting of the book is an isolated community that never allows anyone in or out. Elk's Run, West Virginia, was founded by Vietnam War veterans who made a pact to keep their children free from the dangers and influences of the outside world by completely removing themselves from any contacts outside of the close-knit community. When a fatal car accident incites mob justice in the town, the situation escalates as townsmen go on a murderous rampage to protect their exclusivity and to prevent their children from leaving.

Reviews for Elk's Run were mixed. A contributor to Publishers Weekly wrote that "Fialkov builds the suspense incrementally until the cycle of violence becomes a wave of disasters." Marc Bernardin found the story "compelling" in an Entertainment Weekly review. Carl Hays, writing in Booklist, found the "engrossing and ultimately moving" narrative "more powerful" than the drawing style. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described the graphic novel as "a potentially fantastic piece of work, marred by flawed execution." While interviewing Fialkov on the Pop Thought Web site, Ness described the story as "a dark, emotive work, that gives me substantial chills." In a School Library Journal review, Robert Saunderson thought that the book "is precisely and cleverly rendered with believable dialogue, expressive facial and body language, and captivating childhood flashbacks."

Fialkov told CA: "From the time I was a kid, I have been obsessed with storytelling. I would do radio serials on my Fisher Price tape recorder with long continuing plots and recurring characters (very much in the vein of the television show ‘The Goon Show,’ which I was a big fan of as a tyke). It just seemed to me that writing was as essential to living as breathing.

"In addition to ‘The Goon Show,’ which had a huge influence over my use of humor and sense of storytelling, I have also been a hopeless devotee of the film directors Frederico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and François Truffaut as storytellers. The writer Russell Banks has also influenced me. He writes the way I always hoped I would be able to one day. All of the aforementioned writers and directors use style and technique to guide what may seem to be mundane stories into something epic and meaningful. I think that is a skill set missing from most artists, and it is something I have desperately tried to cultivate in myself.

"I tend to write in bursts. I will get very hot on an idea, and will spend weeks fleshing it out to see if it is something real and worth pursuing. I have a very addictive personality, and it is pretty obvious both in my work and my work habits that I get fixated on things and they just creep into everything I am doing.

"I don't know if there is a profession other than writing that is so clearly based on ‘just showing up.’ You can be the best writer in the world, but if you don't just sit down and do the work, it's worthless. I think over the past few years of fully committing myself to writing, I'm constantly amazed at how much I improve the more I do. So much of a writer's day is filled with idle daydreaming, and yet forcing yourself to use that material and do the work really does have a huge benefit.

"The high-minded artist in me says that Elk's Run is my favorite of my works, but, realistically, it's ‘Punks the Comic.’ It's a down and dirty burst of what's going on inside my head, and I think it represents something that's just not seen in literature (especially in comics) these days."