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In season two of the critically acclaimed CW show Riverdale, Cliff Chiang’s intricate layouts led to the unexpected and not always unexpected rewards when devising the many homages to the original Archie comics and the town the show is set in. Chiang’s clever layouts help create a cohesive story and an environment where the series can explore all sorts of thematic areas in the Archie Universe.
Chiang shared his process from the moment he first hears about a particular plot to the scene that depicts the gory, pointillist details.
“Working from a series bible and the scripts, I’m kind of in the moment constantly, really exploring the scenes that are unfolding as the writers ask,” says Chiang. “The writers and myself, we constantly talk about themes. There are always storylines we know from previous seasons that we want to use, that we can’t use. It’s about finding great, rare little moments in those back-up stories and then borrowing, sometimes, from those stories that we really love. Or, breaking down the script and following the story in different ways.”
Chiang enjoys the challenge of moving past the “out of place and ridiculous” source material in the comic books and working out how to tweak and redo the original designs so that the comic story comes to life in the show’s set design.
“There’s a lot of references in there that it helps to have and there’s always going to be people who will tear you apart if you throw a nod or a joke out of it, but if you know the show so well and you know the original Archie comic books, you’ve done a pretty good job of giving your story that much stronger foundation,” says Chiang.
Chiang shares there are plenty of unexpected rewards when combining a lot of different materials and the line drawings he has done throughout his career have rubbed off on the process, including elements from The Wizard of Oz, poetry, and even jigsaw puzzles for emotional connectivity.
“That’s a secret,” says Chiang, with a smile. “It’s very emotional. There’s a lot of physical, expressive touches that I put into all of the characters, but they’re usually implied. You know, the facial expression changes, a little change with an arm or something. I can still be subtle about it.”
But, what the show’s most loyal fans don’t know is that in the winter finale, Forest Grove, Oregon comic shop owner Thorpe is also an unusual character in the story.
“I got there for an all-hands meeting and he introduced himself and he talked for a while. I couldn’t believe the kind of cartooning. He knows the detail. He knows the period, the imagery. And he’s done a lot of research.”
For Chiang, it was like going back to school in a sense, in his birthplace, the Loquatra Comics store was like having the art department all to himself.
“He actually sent me an email the next day saying ‘hey Cliff, you’re the hero!’ So that was great.”
Riverdale is one of the shows to watch this TV season.
Click HERE for more of Cliff Chiang’s Behind the Page series.