Courtesy of Brooks and Hogan
Audio By Carbonatix
Denver graphic novelist R. Alan Brooks had his heart broken at the end of 2017. It wasn’t an uncommon story, the infidelity of a partner, the breaking of trust — but like all breakups, it hurt. Brooks was a rapper back in those days, and says he wanted to express that pain through his art, but at the same time didn’t feel it was right to make anyone the villain, no matter their choices.
“I didn’t want to devote my time to writing about how terrible anyone was,” explains Brooks. “Particularly since so many men unfairly portray women, even if my complaints came from a valid place, I didn’t want to risk adding to that noise.”
It was only after Brooks had moved from music to graphic novels that he addressed that story of a romance gone wrong — a script that he sent to an artist, who ghosted the project. Eventually, Brooks put the script in a drawer. The act of writing it had done the personal work Brooks was looking for, he says, healing a lot of the trauma and confusion that surrounded the pain.
Enter Brooks’ childhood friend Victor V. Hogan II. The two had grown up together as church friends in Atlanta, Georgia. Brooks would eventually go away to college, while Hogan started working in television production at the burgeoning church, which itself grew from around 100 people to over 20,000 by the time Brooks returned, and joined Hogan working together there as producers. Despite the job being “one of the worst” Brooks says he ever had, the two became as tight as they had been when they first met, back when Brooks was 14 and Hogan was 16. “Which is significant,” Brooks says, “because no matter how many years pass, he’s always closer to being an old man than I am.” They both laugh at that. “Make sure that goes in the article,” adds Brooks.
When news happens, Westword is there —
Your support strengthens our coverage.
We’re aiming to raise $50,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to this community. If Westword matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there.
It’s a moment that demonstrates both the friendship and the deep connection these two creative men have, one that’s culminated in the short film Always, Most of the Time, with Brooks as writer and Hogan directing. The film is already making the rounds at film festivals worldwide, earning praise at many of them. The film makes its Denver debut at Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Beacon Hall on Friday, November 14, followed by a Q&A with Brooks and Hogan, moderated by State Legislator Leslie Herod, directly after.
While Brooks moved from rapping to writing to art and onward, Hogan struck out on his own. “I’ve been in the industry for 32 years now,” he says, “and worked in scripted film for the past ten. I learned so much over the years from working as an editor. Sitting in that editing suite, you see what everyone is doing — what the director is doing, what the cinematographer is doing, you see everything. That helped me sharpen my craft and become the director I am now.”
It was an experience of filmmaking doldrums following two Hollywood strikes that moved Hogan and Brooks to partner up again. Hogan was working on editing one film where he’d become used to working on up to five; Brooks responded by asking if Hogan had any personal projects to keep him busy and have something to point to when things once again picked up.
“He adds so much to existing projects,” Brooks says of Hogan, “using his skill in editing to enhance bad shots or poor performances. What would it look like if you had great shots and strong performances? If you didn’t have to spend time saving a film, but could amplify what’s already there?”
It was in this talking-out that it occurred to Brooks that he had that graphic novel script languishing in a drawer. “I sent it to him,” Brooks recalls, “thinking this might make a short film? But no pressure.”
“When he told me about the story,” Hogan says with a dubious look, “I knew what he went through, and I wasn’t sure what his approach might be. But Alan’s approach to the story was so fucking brilliant, taking this angle from her point of view. It was beautifully written, taking us through a journey with this character. It wasn’t about him — it was about her. And that was perfect. I asked him, ‘How have you been sitting on this for years, man?’ And yes, yes, I want to film this. Can you make it a screenplay? By the next day, he had, and it was waiting for me in my inbox.”
It helped, Hogan said, that the project had been a graphic novel idea first, since it lent itself to storyboards easily. “I could see the shots,” Hogan effuses. “I could see all the shots. I just knew at that point that it would be a beautiful, beautiful film.”
In Always, Most of the Time, Delilah discovers that she can time-travel after a painful split from her boyfriend and attempts to fix all of her past misdeeds that contributed to the end of the relationship.
While the film makes its rounds, finding appreciative audiences, Brooks says he’s now working on the comics adaptation of the film that itself started as a graphic novel. “There are some things that I left out of the film script that I want to re-establish,” says Brooks. “In comics, you can be surreal in a way that you can’t in a movie. So it’ll be its own thing, but of course I’ll acknowledge that it’s also a film because that’s fucking cool.”
Always, Most of the Time debuts at Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Beacon Hall, 3844 York Street, at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 14, followed by a Q&A with Brooks and Hogan. The event is free, but seats are limited, and an RSVP is requested.
