Cynthia von Buhler Discusses MINKY WOODCOCK: THE GIRL CALLED CTHULHU

Eric McClanahan chats with author/playwright/artist Cynthia von Buhler about her latest graphic novel collection, MINKY WOODCOCK: THE GIRL CALLED CTHULHU.
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“Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law.”

I look forward to New York Comic Con every year. As a steady worker who rarely finds time for vacation, this is often the closest I get to relaxing over the past several years. I’ve been leaning more into unconventional invitations over the past few years, like sneaking off to see the stage show ‘The Shark is Broken,’ interviewing Max Brooks about Minecraft books, or speaking with David Dastmalchian about his newest graphic novel. I delight when I get an invitation that piques my interest for a property that I’d never even heard of before, and I get a few each year.

Cynthia Von Buhler’s MINKY WOODCOCK: THE GIRL CALLED CTHULHU is currently available from Hard Case Crime/Titan Comics. I was unfamiliar with the author, the title, and even the imprint when I got an invite to a NYCC afterparty aboard the Frying Pan Boat at Pier 66. An open bar, expansive food spread, and complementary black velvet capes? Of course I said yes.

The boat is an actual relic reclaimed from the sea, dredged from the bottom of the ocean and restored into a floating nightclub. The capes had all been claimed by the time I arrived but I enjoyed the gathering all the same. I found Cynthia Von Buhler holding court at the head of the boat, her head bearing horns and her own luxurious cape billowing to the ground. She offered me a reading from a single tarot card.

Finish the article on AICN

“Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law.”

I look forward to New York Comic Con every year. As a steady worker who rarely finds time for vacation, this is often the closest I get to relaxing over the past several years. I’ve been leaning more into unconventional invitations over the past few years, like sneaking off to see the stage show ‘The Shark is Broken,’ interviewing Max Brooks about Minecraft books, or speaking with David Dastmalchian about his newest graphic novel. I delight when I get an invitation that piques my interest for a property that I’d never even heard of before, and I get a few each year.

Cynthia Von Buhler’s MINKY WOODCOCK: THE GIRL CALLED CTHULHU is currently available from Hard Case Crime/Titan Comics. I was unfamiliar with the author, the title, and even the imprint when I got an invite to a NYCC afterparty aboard the Frying Pan Boat at Pier 66. An open bar, expansive food spread, and complementary black velvet capes? Of course I said yes.

The boat is an actual relic reclaimed from the sea, dredged from the bottom of the ocean and restored into a floating nightclub. The capes had all been claimed by the time I arrived but I enjoyed the gathering all the same. I found Cynthia Von Buhler holding court at the head of the boat, her head bearing horns and her own luxurious cape billowing to the ground. She offered me a reading from a single tarot card. I accepted, and she drew The Swords. I asked its orientation and her eyebrows rose. I said “It’s different if it’s upside down versus right side up, right?” She asked how I knew that, and I reminded her that it’s in her book. Apparently, my swords were in the direction that bodes well for me, though a change is coming for me, whether I want it or not.

MINKY WOODCOCK: THE GIRL CALLED CTHULHU is, unbeknownst to me while reading it or interviewing Cynthia about it, the third collected adventure of its titular heroine. Before she was branded an eldritch horror, Miss Woodcock had also HANDCUFFED HOUDINI and ELECTRIFIED TESLA. Having not read those adventures, I only knew of her what I read, though I’ve learned since then that everything appears to be fairly surmised.

Minky Woodcock is, in my layman’s terms, sexy Forrest Gump. She traipses through history, buffing up against notable figures and inadvertently inspiring them to their greatest legacies. I offered this armchair Cliff Note to another partygoer aboard the Frying Pan and after a brief moment of reflection, he agreed. We both agreed, however, that it was quite reductive.

Minky Woodcock is singular, empowered, emboldened, and unbridled. Shouldering the weight of her listless actor brother and absent father, Minky embroils herself in the cases of Woodcock & Son Private Investigation. In this installment, she is visited by Aleister Crowley who asks for her help clearing his name from the slander of one Bettie May, who accuses the man of killing her husband. Minky’s investigation sends her straight to the hip of Gladys Michael, a new fast friend, as they confront the Tiger Woman, Bettie May. Dodging death, they encounter H.P. Lovecraft, Josephine Baker, Ian Fleming, and trigger-happy soldiers engaged in World War II derring-do.

As the Frying Pan Boat party wrapped, I was invited to an afterparty at von Buhler’s loft. Another open bar and lively discussion of the art on the walls, many of which were her creations. Cynthia Von Buhler isn’t just the author of the Minky Woodcock series but also its principle illustrator. Her work is hand-painted and largely based around human models, most notably Pearls Daily as Minky Woodcock. The works presented in her loft apartment helped to deepen my appreciation for her artistic talents.

After too many drinks, we sat on von Buhler’s opium bed to discuss MINKY WOODCOCK: THE GIRL CALLED CTHULHU. This is typically when I would link the video interview below in a YouTube clip for you to enjoy… but we were both far too inebriated to allow that. You’ll have to settle for a cleaned-up transcription.

[Cynthia von Buhler aboard the Frying Pan]

Eric McClanahan: So we’re talking about Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu. Where did the idea for this book come from?

Cynthia von Buhler: That’s an interesting question. Originally I wanted to do something about Ian Fleming and how he was a very interesting character. I thought about Minky working one of her cases and running into him while he was working for the government and coming up with all of these ideas for the British government on how to end World War II. So I was thinking in that direction and told the publisher and they said “oh…” because apparently Titan Comics had just taken on the entire Ian Fleming bibliography and were going to be doing graphic novels of his works. I don’t know if that panned out but that was the line, so they didn’t really want to do something else with Ian Fleming at the time. They said he could be in the book but he couldn’t be the primary focus, as I had envisioned. I even had a title in mind; something about Minky Breaking her Bonds or something like that.

EM: Some fun nod.

CvB: Something like that. I liked the idea of Minky being almost like a female James Bond and that Fleming would meet her and be inspired by her to come up with the James Bond character. Have you read the book yet?

EM: I have.

CvB: So you know that in the end, I kept all of that. She’s reading the book, THE BIRDS OF THE WEST INDIES, from which the actual name of James Bond comes. So I was told that the title couldn’t be about Fleming, so Nick, the head guy at Titan, said how about something on Lovecraft? Then his wife said how about something on Aleister Crowley? So we were having this meeting and they’re just throwing out names so I said okay, but I need to just go away for a year, do some research, and find this story. Because these people aren’t really related in any way and they’re even in different time periods. But the thing about Lovecraft and Crowley is that their work is so similar in a lot of ways. Their characters’ names are so similar so I thought it would be interesting if they had come into contact at some point. And maybe they did. That’s what I was researching. But the whole idea behind this book is, going back to Ian Fleming, that authors helped end World War II. In this story, I’ve got all these authors: Aleister Crowley, Ian Fleming, Basil Thompson - their ideas, their stories, helped to get this Operation: Mincemeat going and that tricked Hitler, and that’s what the whole book is about. How authors, creative people, came up with this idea that ended World War II. I don’t think that anyone’s ever done a book about that. There are so many books and movies about World War II but not the idea that authors had such a big part.

EM: So tell me about bringing some of these historical characters into the book and taking ownership over them, in terms of putting words in their mouths.

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*Original source*