Somewhere in a hidden layer in an undisclosed location in Oak Park, Charles D. Moisant is planning, plotting, scheming, if you will, his next creation.
Whatever Moisant has in store for his legions of readers, you can be sure it will involve zombies, haunted houses, unicorns or roller derby girls with super powers.
For the last eight years, Moisant and company have run Silver Phoenix comics, an independent comic book company that primarily produces standalone, or one-shot, books that tell the entire story in a single issue.
Moisant is an artist, writer and publisher, but has worked with some of the biggest names in the business, including creators from Marvel.
Sporting a long mutton chop-style mustache and wild hair of a mad genius, Moisant fits the profile of a gifted visionary.
While his focus is primarily on horror and fantasy, Moisant also has done educational comics about the history of Oak Park and is currently working on a series that promotes healthy life choices.
Moisant said he started the business with his mother, Elizabeth Moisant, who runs the business end of the comic label, leaving Moisant to focus on the creative side. Whether he provides the art, lettering or editing, Moisant says he gets to leave his fingerprints on each book somewhere along the way.
Silver Phoenix distributes through Diamond Comic Distributors, which also puts out the biggest comic companies in the industry, Moisant said. He said he gets the biggest response from comic book conventions he attends about once a month.
While he has relied on various methods for raising money to publish and distribute the comics, in recent years, Moisant has turned to the online crowd-funding website Kickstarter.com.
“It’s amazing how Kickstarter changed the game,” he said.
Moisant has funded at least three comics with Kickstarter, raising more than $3,000 to produce Whispers from the Void, which tells the story of four monster women in Chicago, where many of Moisant’s stories are set, “who come together to join the forces of evil.”
Moisant also has been successful in using Kickstarter to raise funds for the title Zombie Annihilation, where Doc Zarvin — a character who unsurprisingly resembles Moisant — and a band of zombie apocalypse survivors battle the undead in the city of Chicago.
He says that zombies in the Silver Phoenix universe do not suffer from a disease, but are the recent dead who “suffer possession from another dimension and move through the form of telekinesis.”
The artwork for the two issues of Zombie Annihilation pays homage to the style of famed Marvel Comics artist Jack Kirby, co-creator of titles such as the Fantastic Four, Thor, Iron Man and X-Men, Moisant said.
“[Kirby] was so incredibly fast, he could get an entire issue done in two days,” Moisant said, noting he wishes he had the master artist on staff at Silver Phoenix.
Reaching back to earlier styles is typical at Silver Phoenix, Moisant said, noting that he frequently draws inspiration from older comic styles.
“With all the books I try to give a feel that it’s a book you’ve picked up from the ’60s or the ’50s,” he said.
Moisant is working on a Kickstarter campaign for the title Myth-Told Tales, a humorous fantasy series.
In addition to horror and fantasy, Moisant and Silver Phoenix have become sponsors of The Chicago Outfit, a Chicago-based roller derby team. Moisant said he was first approached by the group in 2008, and he soon began working on Roller Derby Drama where the roller derby girls use super powers to fight evil.
Their powers are based on their pre-existing roller derby names, Moisant said, noting that Scream Printer — a roller derby girl with The Chicago Outfit — can scream and “make her tattoos teleport into live creatures that go around destroying things.”
Another character named Graves “can put people in the grave pretty quickly or she can resurrect the recent dead to work for her,” Moisant said.
While Silver Phoenix has primarily operated in the world of the imagination, Moisant said he’s also published a book about the history of Oak Park titled Our Village. The book, illustrated by Marvel Comics’ Cynthia Martin, tells the stories of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, novelist Ernest Hemingway and Oak Park’s efforts toward racial diversity.
Moisant said he wants to continue publishing educational comics that focus on health and wellness. One title he is working on addresses the issue of obesity, encouraging kids to make healthy eating choices. Moisant said he believes “our country is sick” when it comes to obesity and providing free comics online and in economically depressed areas could help educate families.
In the meantime, Moisant said he’ll keep plugging away with horror and fantasy – and anything else that strikes his fancy.