Idwx chap 10

THE FIRST DECADE

C H A P T E R10

C O N T I N U I N G

10yearbook-CONTINUED.qxd:Layout 1 4/2/09 3:28 PM Page 10

In this interview with Mike Gold, a 30-year veteranof the comic-book industry and founder and editorialdirector of First Comics, IDW’s Chris Ryall discussesthe relaunch of Badger, GrimJack, Jon Sable, and Mars.

CR: When I started at IDW in2004, the new GrimJack andJon Sable series were about tobegin. At the time, were youactively looking to get thesetitles back in print on yourown or did we reach out to

you out of the blue?

MG: It was both, actually. I had beenworking for about three years ontrying to clean up the rightssituation with both of thoseproperties. To a lesser extentwith some other properties, Iwas asked to help out on thelegal stuff. That became a littledifficult because the two sideswere at such polar opposites in termsof what everybody wanted as opposed to whateverybody needed. On one hand, everybody wantsto be able to control their babies and that’s terrificand that’s the right thing. On the other hand, there’s

Ted grew up reading the comics published by First

Comics in the mid-’80s, and their approach to

publishing would impact the company he would later

co-found. When the opportunity arose to publish new

stories and collect the original adventures of GrimJack

and Sable, he jumped at it.

141

C H A P T E R

FIRST COMICSRETURNS AT IDW

10

______________________GrimJack by Tim Truman.

10yearbook-FULL.qxd:Layout 1 3/19/09 9:28 AM Page 140

In this interview with Mike Gold, a 30-year veteranof the comic-book industry and founder and editorialdirector of First Comics, IDW’s Chris Ryall discussesthe relaunch of Badger, GrimJack, Jon Sable, and Mars.

CR: When I started at IDW in2004, the new GrimJack andJon Sable series were about tobegin. At the time, were youactively looking to get thesetitles back in print on yourown or did we reach out to

you out of the blue?

MG: It was both, actually. I had beenworking for about three years ontrying to clean up the rightssituation with both of thoseproperties. To a lesser extentwith some other properties, Iwas asked to help out on thelegal stuff. That became a littledifficult because the two sideswere at such polar opposites in termsof what everybody wanted as opposed to whateverybody needed. On one hand, everybody wantsto be able to control their babies and that’s terrificand that’s the right thing. On the other hand, there’s

Ted grew up reading the comics published by First

Comics in the mid-’80s, and their approach to

publishing would impact the company he would later

co-found. When the opportunity arose to publish new

stories and collect the original adventures of GrimJack

and Sable, he jumped at it.

141

C H A P T E R

FIRST COMICSRETURNS AT IDW

10

______________________GrimJack by Tim Truman.


a bankruptcy court and certain things have to be paidattention to, but then again, since I’m really on theside of the creators here, I have to make sure that Iknow that that’s honest and on the up and up. Andthen there’s just the legal technicalities and your basicnegotiation, what you need to do to clean up all ofthe stuff. No two contracts were the same, althoughI either wrote most of them or co-wrote it with KenLevin, so I was familiar with those contracts. I wasfamiliar with the differences. I had to reacquaintmyself but that wasn’t really so hard. It took us agood two years, I think, to actually get to the pointwhere we were able to liberate both GrimJack and JonSable from the quagmire and that put me in a positionof being able to do something with them.

Obviously there’s still paperwork and there’re allkinds of negotiations but this is America, that stufflasts forever. We were talking with a number ofdifferent publishers and then all of a sudden weheard from IDW.

CR: This was probably late ’03, maybe early 2004–IDW had been publishing comics for only about twoyears at the time.

MG: For a bit, yeah. Not long. I was really impressedwith the stuff that IDW had done. Now you know,there’s that Smothers Brothers song, the takeoff onthe Lerner and Loewe song from Paint Your Wagonabout the cowboy outfit: “You see by my outfit thatI am a cowboy, I see by your outfit that you are acowboy too, we see by our outfits that we are bothcowboys, if you get an outfit you can be a cowboytoo.” That’s comic-book publishing. You can gopublish comic books. And that’s great and there’ssome really creative and innovative stuff going onthere, you know. Places like APE and MOCCA andstuff, I love the enthusiasm in those rooms, that’sgreat stuff. On the other hand, there is sort of the, Idon’t want to say more traditional because that’s tooconfining, but somewhat more usual way ofstorytelling. A lusher style perhaps, and a style thatneeds to be heavily financially subsidized. But youcan apply that style to more than just superheroes aseverybody else in the whole world knows except for

those of us in America. That’s always interested me–not that I don’t like superheroes, they can be great.

CR: But there’s room for more, certainly.

MG: But there’s room for a hell of a lot more. I don’tlike segregation and this is cultural segregation. Andyou guys in the beginning had a real commitment toa very commercial genre that wasn’t in comics, thatbeing horror. You found some good people to dosome good stuff, understood a little bit aboutlicensing that I think hardly anybody everunderstood in comics, because the history of mostlicensed projects I think is fairly dismal. There areexceptions. But those are always talent-drivenexceptions, not company-driven exceptions. Youknow Marvel did Conan right in the beginningbecause Roy [Thomas, Conan’s writer/editor] lovedthe stuff and because they had a great artist and theyreplaced him with another great artist. But those arethe exceptions and you guys had an idea. You had–I’m not sucking up to you here, because you calledme–you guys had an idea and you had a sense ofprofessionalism. You wanted to do real comic books.

CR: I think that Ted and the other owners of thecompany had between them a good couple decadesof comics experience, but they didn’t let that cloudtheir business plan. Ted’s a good businessman beforehe’s a comic fan and yet he’s also a fan of this stuff,GrimJack and Jon Sable. So you put all those typestogether and you can really do something special.

MG: And it showed. But even beyond whateverinterest they may have had in GrimJack and Jon Sable,it showed with the material that you guys have beendoing from pretty much the get-go, from pretty muchday one. And yes, there was the experience there, youguys have roots that go back all the way to thebeginning of the West Coast comics publishing daysand that’s good. It shows a certain amount ofeducation. And again, I have to say there’s nothingwrong with the exact opposite end of kids puttingtogether hand-stapled little eight-pagers. That’sgreat, that’s wonderful. But there’s so much more todo in the mainstream approach to comics that hadn’t

143____________________________GrimJack Sketch by Tim Truman.142


a bankruptcy court and certain things have to be paidattention to, but then again, since I’m really on theside of the creators here, I have to make sure that Iknow that that’s honest and on the up and up. Andthen there’s just the legal technicalities and your basicnegotiation, what you need to do to clean up all ofthe stuff. No two contracts were the same, althoughI either wrote most of them or co-wrote it with KenLevin, so I was familiar with those contracts. I wasfamiliar with the differences. I had to reacquaintmyself but that wasn’t really so hard. It took us agood two years, I think, to actually get to the pointwhere we were able to liberate both GrimJack and JonSable from the quagmire and that put me in a positionof being able to do something with them.

Obviously there’s still paperwork and there’re allkinds of negotiations but this is America, that stufflasts forever. We were talking with a number ofdifferent publishers and then all of a sudden weheard from IDW.

CR: This was probably late ’03, maybe early 2004–IDW had been publishing comics for only about twoyears at the time.

MG: For a bit, yeah. Not long. I was really impressedwith the stuff that IDW had done. Now you know,there’s that Smothers Brothers song, the takeoff onthe Lerner and Loewe song from Paint Your Wagonabout the cowboy outfit: “You see by my outfit thatI am a cowboy, I see by your outfit that you are acowboy too, we see by our outfits that we are bothcowboys, if you get an outfit you can be a cowboytoo.” That’s comic-book publishing. You can gopublish comic books. And that’s great and there’ssome really creative and innovative stuff going onthere, you know. Places like APE and MOCCA andstuff, I love the enthusiasm in those rooms, that’sgreat stuff. On the other hand, there is sort of the, Idon’t want to say more traditional because that’s tooconfining, but somewhat more usual way ofstorytelling. A lusher style perhaps, and a style thatneeds to be heavily financially subsidized. But youcan apply that style to more than just superheroes aseverybody else in the whole world knows except for

those of us in America. That’s always interested me–not that I don’t like superheroes, they can be great.

CR: But there’s room for more, certainly.

MG: But there’s room for a hell of a lot more. I don’tlike segregation and this is cultural segregation. Andyou guys in the beginning had a real commitment toa very commercial genre that wasn’t in comics, thatbeing horror. You found some good people to dosome good stuff, understood a little bit aboutlicensing that I think hardly anybody everunderstood in comics, because the history of mostlicensed projects I think is fairly dismal. There areexceptions. But those are always talent-drivenexceptions, not company-driven exceptions. Youknow Marvel did Conan right in the beginningbecause Roy [Thomas, Conan’s writer/editor] lovedthe stuff and because they had a great artist and theyreplaced him with another great artist. But those arethe exceptions and you guys had an idea. You had–I’m not sucking up to you here, because you calledme–you guys had an idea and you had a sense ofprofessionalism. You wanted to do real comic books.

CR: I think that Ted and the other owners of thecompany had between them a good couple decadesof comics experience, but they didn’t let that cloudtheir business plan. Ted’s a good businessman beforehe’s a comic fan and yet he’s also a fan of this stuff,GrimJack and Jon Sable. So you put all those typestogether and you can really do something special.

MG: And it showed. But even beyond whateverinterest they may have had in GrimJack and Jon Sable,it showed with the material that you guys have beendoing from pretty much the get-go, from pretty muchday one. And yes, there was the experience there, youguys have roots that go back all the way to thebeginning of the West Coast comics publishing daysand that’s good. It shows a certain amount ofeducation. And again, I have to say there’s nothingwrong with the exact opposite end of kids puttingtogether hand-stapled little eight-pagers. That’sgreat, that’s wonderful. But there’s so much more todo in the mainstream approach to comics that hadn’t

143____________________________GrimJack Sketch by Tim Truman.142


145

just a fan, that was important to me. So youinfluenced me even in ways you weren’t aware.

MG: I’ll be arrested for that some day. I miss theletter columns and they are less relevant because ofthe Internet. And that’s okay, the Internet stuff isgreat. It’s more immediate and readers who choose todo so can have a more immediate effect on creators,because we read what they have to say instantlywhen the book comes out which may be only twomonths after we did the book, as opposed to fourmonths after. We’re further down the road and wecan think about other things. That’s a good thing,but I love those letter columns and I love gettingthoughts to kick back and forth between the readerson a monthly basis. I mean there’s about as muchcontinuity in some of those letter columns as therewere in the books.

CR: Yeah, we’ve talked at length before about someof the old letterhacks like Uncle Elvis

Orten and T.M. Maple and some ofthe others. There’s the immediacy ofthe Internet but there’s not thetempered, kind of measured andconsidered response that you getfrom guys who sit down and reallycompose a letter. But if we go downthat road, we’re just going to soundlike two old grumps. So, back to thediscussion at hand.

MG: By the way, welcome to thedark side, Chris, you’re now an oldgrump.

CR: When there wastalk of doing newmaterial with these oldcharacters, were Mike

been done and you guys had a real dedicated effortto do that.

I’ve been dedicated to that, too. I took First Comicsand had a master plan. When we started FirstComics, I wanted to start off with stuff that lookedjust like it was a professional comic because therewere no so-called independent publishers other thanEclipse, and Pacific was doing just one or two titlesin those days, so it had to look and feel like a comicbook. But I rapidly wanted to move it a little bitfurther off center.

We had this strip science fiction superhero thing butwe quickly evolved into Sable and GrimJack andAmerican Flagg and then all kinds of weird stuff. Andthen I tried to do some of that at DC and I’m verygrateful that I was given the opportunity to do asmuch of it as I did, and I also did my share ofstraightforward superheroes, trying to givesomething of a different bend to them. You know,The Question clearly was not your average superhero,but The Flash during my tenure was, and I’m just asproud of that, too. But we were doing things likeBreathtaker and stuff that was way far away from theDC superhero norm. And there weren’t a lot of

people who had the professional attitude and thecapability of doing that with a variety of projectsbefore IDW stepped in. So obviously I’m going to beattracted to that and you’re going to pull me in in aheartbeat because it’s attractive to me. You see theworld more broadly. Well, you’re not that good butwhat the hell, it’s your tenth anniversary [laughs].

CR: When I was a kid that’s kind of how I saw FirstComics. You guys were kind of the next stepbeyond–once you outgrow the traditional superherobooks and you want something that feels similar butis a bit more mature and a bit more sophisticated.That’s what you guys were doing and that’s what Iknow IDW set out to do from the start. So I thinkthat also helped to forge a nice partnership when webrought your titles back over here.

MG: Absolutely, absolutely. It was a very comfortablefit.

CR: I mean, hell, I started doing letters columns inour books again just because I wanted to try toinvoke the same sort of feeling your letters columnsin First’s comics gave me when I read those. If I coulddo at all what you did for readers back when I was

144_________________________________More GrimJack by Tim Truman.

_____________________Jon Sable by Mike Grell.


145

just a fan, that was important to me. So youinfluenced me even in ways you weren’t aware.

MG: I’ll be arrested for that some day. I miss theletter columns and they are less relevant because ofthe Internet. And that’s okay, the Internet stuff isgreat. It’s more immediate and readers who choose todo so can have a more immediate effect on creators,because we read what they have to say instantlywhen the book comes out which may be only twomonths after we did the book, as opposed to fourmonths after. We’re further down the road and wecan think about other things. That’s a good thing,but I love those letter columns and I love gettingthoughts to kick back and forth between the readerson a monthly basis. I mean there’s about as muchcontinuity in some of those letter columns as therewere in the books.

CR: Yeah, we’ve talked at length before about someof the old letterhacks like Uncle Elvis

Orten and T.M. Maple and some ofthe others. There’s the immediacy ofthe Internet but there’s not thetempered, kind of measured andconsidered response that you getfrom guys who sit down and reallycompose a letter. But if we go downthat road, we’re just going to soundlike two old grumps. So, back to thediscussion at hand.

MG: By the way, welcome to thedark side, Chris, you’re now an oldgrump.

CR: When there wastalk of doing newmaterial with these oldcharacters, were Mike

been done and you guys had a real dedicated effortto do that.

I’ve been dedicated to that, too. I took First Comicsand had a master plan. When we started FirstComics, I wanted to start off with stuff that lookedjust like it was a professional comic because therewere no so-called independent publishers other thanEclipse, and Pacific was doing just one or two titlesin those days, so it had to look and feel like a comicbook. But I rapidly wanted to move it a little bitfurther off center.

We had this strip science fiction superhero thing butwe quickly evolved into Sable and GrimJack andAmerican Flagg and then all kinds of weird stuff. Andthen I tried to do some of that at DC and I’m verygrateful that I was given the opportunity to do asmuch of it as I did, and I also did my share ofstraightforward superheroes, trying to givesomething of a different bend to them. You know,The Question clearly was not your average superhero,but The Flash during my tenure was, and I’m just asproud of that, too. But we were doing things likeBreathtaker and stuff that was way far away from theDC superhero norm. And there weren’t a lot of

people who had the professional attitude and thecapability of doing that with a variety of projectsbefore IDW stepped in. So obviously I’m going to beattracted to that and you’re going to pull me in in aheartbeat because it’s attractive to me. You see theworld more broadly. Well, you’re not that good butwhat the hell, it’s your tenth anniversary [laughs].

CR: When I was a kid that’s kind of how I saw FirstComics. You guys were kind of the next stepbeyond–once you outgrow the traditional superherobooks and you want something that feels similar butis a bit more mature and a bit more sophisticated.That’s what you guys were doing and that’s what Iknow IDW set out to do from the start. So I thinkthat also helped to forge a nice partnership when webrought your titles back over here.

MG: Absolutely, absolutely. It was a very comfortablefit.

CR: I mean, hell, I started doing letters columns inour books again just because I wanted to try toinvoke the same sort of feeling your letters columnsin First’s comics gave me when I read those. If I coulddo at all what you did for readers back when I was

144_________________________________More GrimJack by Tim Truman.



Grell [Jon Sable’s creator], and [GrimJack co-creators]John Ostrander and Tim Truman always on boardfrom the start, or did they just want to collect whatthey’d done before in new trade paperbacks?

MG: No, it’s their babies. Tim and John will alwayswant to do a GrimJack story. A nice little six-partstory, 132-pager, whatever–whatever the format is. Ifthey had their druthers, which is more on Tim thanJohn because writers can write more than artists candraw, they’d be doing a GrimJack graphic novel every18 months or so. But they won’t live long enoughto deal with all the ideas that the three of us havekicked around, let alone that each of them have hadon their own. At that rate, these guys are going tohave to live to be 200 in order to do just what we’vealready talked about because we’re having way toomuch fun. I think it shows in the book that we arehaving way too much fun. One of these days I’mgoing to just publish a book of our e-mails goingback and forth. We may get arrested for that, too.

CR: That’s actually a nice segue because I was goingto ask you, what level of input do you have whenyou guys are planning out these new stories, likeGrimJack: Killer Instinct and Jon Sable: Bloodtrail? Howmuch of that is a collaborative thing, how does theprocess work?

MG: Every book is different. You know that as aneditor yourself. And every creative team is differentand, in a lot of cases, I will work really hard on theplot and make sure that the pacing is right and thenlet them go and let them do what they want and justsort of backstop, be there in case there’s some troubleand also act as the reader’s advocate–reading the stuffas it comes in from the perspective of the reader whowasn’t part of the process. Other cases like GrimJack,for example, the three of us just have an enormousamount of fun. John will usually, but not always,come up with a springboard and Tim will add to thatand then I’ll do about 50 different what-if scenarios.And through an endless series of e-mails, some ofwhich are actually in English, we refine everything toa certain specific point. And then Tim declares “Okay,I got it,”–which means he doesn’t want to do thisanymore, he wants to actually do the story. So Johnwill come up with the first chunk of plot. If we’redoing a miniseries, it’ll be the first 22 or 24 pages.The way we’re doing the graphic novels now is sort

of framed by the scene. We may be doing two orthree scenes as opposed to a certain number of pages.And then we repeat the process. I take the plot and Imake notes, like an actor’s notes which Johnappreciates because he’s an actor, and then Tim willbe commenting on that and then John will commenton that. And then at a certain point Tim will say,“Okay, I got it.” And then he’ll go back and drawwhatever the hell he wanted to in the first place andthen John will dialogue it and I’ll edit it as a meat-and-potatoes editor.

CR: And you hope it’s somewhere close to where youstarted, but know it’s going to be different.

MG: Yeah, we allow it to grow. We leave it someroom to breathe. If we’re locked into this 22- or 24-page format, obviously there are certain restrictions.The Internet is nicer [GrimJack and Jon Sable, alongwith some other great comics, are currently beingpublished online at www.comicmix.com] becausewe’re a little bit more open. John came up with thisreally great scene and he said we’re going to have todrop something in order to do this because the threeof us just loved it. And I said why? Why do we haveto drop anything? Just add it. It’s a graphic novel, agraphic novel runs another six or eight pages orwhatever and it’s a great scene. Which was the first,and pretty much the only time in my life, I’ve beenable to do that as an editor–to green light somethingwithout having to pay for it. Without having to payfor it in terms of losing something else that you like.

The editorial process for Jon Sable is different. Whenwe were doingGreen Arrow, for example, or Sable backin the First days, Mike and I would sit down and plotsix months worth of stories. We’d kick it back andforth. And then Mike would usually be writing two-parters so there would be 48-page stories and hewould deliver the scripts. We’d go over the scripts alittle bit but they would pretty much stick straight towhatever it was that we discussed. Sometimes whenhe was writing it he’d get into a jam, he’d call me upand we’d just bullshit it out and have fun. That wasfairly rare. I would guess that would happen maybefour times a year. Maybe. And he would deliver thestory right on the money. Exactly the way we haddiscussed and he would draw it exactly the same way.That’s the type of guy that Mike is. When we did thelatest Sable as a graphic novel, we had a couple of

147

______________________________________________Opposite Page: A page from Jon Sable by Mike Grell.146


Grell [Jon Sable’s creator], and [GrimJack co-creators]John Ostrander and Tim Truman always on boardfrom the start, or did they just want to collect whatthey’d done before in new trade paperbacks?

MG: No, it’s their babies. Tim and John will alwayswant to do a GrimJack story. A nice little six-partstory, 132-pager, whatever–whatever the format is. Ifthey had their druthers, which is more on Tim thanJohn because writers can write more than artists candraw, they’d be doing a GrimJack graphic novel every18 months or so. But they won’t live long enoughto deal with all the ideas that the three of us havekicked around, let alone that each of them have hadon their own. At that rate, these guys are going tohave to live to be 200 in order to do just what we’vealready talked about because we’re having way toomuch fun. I think it shows in the book that we arehaving way too much fun. One of these days I’mgoing to just publish a book of our e-mails goingback and forth. We may get arrested for that, too.

CR: That’s actually a nice segue because I was goingto ask you, what level of input do you have whenyou guys are planning out these new stories, likeGrimJack: Killer Instinct and Jon Sable: Bloodtrail? Howmuch of that is a collaborative thing, how does theprocess work?

MG: Every book is different. You know that as aneditor yourself. And every creative team is differentand, in a lot of cases, I will work really hard on theplot and make sure that the pacing is right and thenlet them go and let them do what they want and justsort of backstop, be there in case there’s some troubleand also act as the reader’s advocate–reading the stuffas it comes in from the perspective of the reader whowasn’t part of the process. Other cases like GrimJack,for example, the three of us just have an enormousamount of fun. John will usually, but not always,come up with a springboard and Tim will add to thatand then I’ll do about 50 different what-if scenarios.And through an endless series of e-mails, some ofwhich are actually in English, we refine everything toa certain specific point. And then Tim declares “Okay,I got it,”–which means he doesn’t want to do thisanymore, he wants to actually do the story. So Johnwill come up with the first chunk of plot. If we’redoing a miniseries, it’ll be the first 22 or 24 pages.The way we’re doing the graphic novels now is sort

of framed by the scene. We may be doing two orthree scenes as opposed to a certain number of pages.And then we repeat the process. I take the plot and Imake notes, like an actor’s notes which Johnappreciates because he’s an actor, and then Tim willbe commenting on that and then John will commenton that. And then at a certain point Tim will say,“Okay, I got it.” And then he’ll go back and drawwhatever the hell he wanted to in the first place andthen John will dialogue it and I’ll edit it as a meat-and-potatoes editor.

CR: And you hope it’s somewhere close to where youstarted, but know it’s going to be different.

MG: Yeah, we allow it to grow. We leave it someroom to breathe. If we’re locked into this 22- or 24-page format, obviously there are certain restrictions.The Internet is nicer [GrimJack and Jon Sable, alongwith some other great comics, are currently beingpublished online at www.comicmix.com] becausewe’re a little bit more open. John came up with thisreally great scene and he said we’re going to have todrop something in order to do this because the threeof us just loved it. And I said why? Why do we haveto drop anything? Just add it. It’s a graphic novel, agraphic novel runs another six or eight pages orwhatever and it’s a great scene. Which was the first,and pretty much the only time in my life, I’ve beenable to do that as an editor–to green light somethingwithout having to pay for it. Without having to payfor it in terms of losing something else that you like.

The editorial process for Jon Sable is different. Whenwe were doingGreen Arrow, for example, or Sable backin the First days, Mike and I would sit down and plotsix months worth of stories. We’d kick it back andforth. And then Mike would usually be writing two-parters so there would be 48-page stories and hewould deliver the scripts. We’d go over the scripts alittle bit but they would pretty much stick straight towhatever it was that we discussed. Sometimes whenhe was writing it he’d get into a jam, he’d call me upand we’d just bullshit it out and have fun. That wasfairly rare. I would guess that would happen maybefour times a year. Maybe. And he would deliver thestory right on the money. Exactly the way we haddiscussed and he would draw it exactly the same way.That’s the type of guy that Mike is. When we did thelatest Sable as a graphic novel, we had a couple of

147

______________________________________________Opposite Page: A page from Jon Sable by Mike Grell.146


all would havebeen happy. There is asimilarity in vision for what to do withthe comics business, with the comics medium. Wecan’t do anything about the comics business but whatwe can do with the comic medium is all that matters.There are a lot of people who feel that way but nota lot of people who are in the same frequency range,and the Sable and GrimJack stuff was a great fit. Iwould have loved to, and maybe someday still will beable to, do something else together, even somethingoriginal. That would be fun.

CR: Let’s talk about the other First Comics propertieswe brought over–Mars and Badger.

MG: Badgerstarted over at CapitalComics. I knew Mike Baron because hewould come down from Madison, Wisconsin forthese little one-day comic-book conventions and hewould come down for the annual Chicago ComicCon and I was really intrigued by Nexus. Then oneday, he showed up at one of these things dressed upas the Badger–this was before the first issue came out.That’s when I began to know more about Mike

149

different plots and thebasis of this plot wassomething that we hadcome up with before.Actually we wereconsidering doing it foryou guys. No, I guess itwas right before thatbecause 9/11 interferedand this whole thing wasbased around a terroristact at Rockefeller Centerduring the Christmas treelighting ceremony andobviously that became aplace where we just didn’twant to go in 2002 or2003.

CR: Yeah, even fictionalNew York needed a break.

MG: It was a good story,and all that stuff, but atthat moment in time, wecouldn’t do it withoutfeeling kind of pricklyabout it. So if you’re goingto be reserved about it as a storyteller, that’s going tocome across to the reader, even if the reader canhandle it perfectly fine. And, arguably, by the time itwould come out the reader probably could’vehandled it perfectly fine, some couldn’t, some could.It’s a little different in that I lived in the New Yorkmetropolitan area and the destroyer boats were beingstaged a mile from me out in Long Island Sound sothat was a little creepy. So my perspective on that wasa little skewed but that just illustrates the point. Mikehad that thought, he had that concept, he had thatplot and he held on to the basics of it. We updatedit quite a bit and there were some elements that Iwant to say wound up in a James Bond movie. Thatmay or may not be true but it’s a good guess. It’sprobably James Bond and we didn’t want to look likewe were ripping them off even though we’d comeup with it a couple years earlier. So we changed thatsort of a thing and then I would make a couple of

commercial commentshere and there, like wehaven’t seen Maggie theCat for a long time. She’sa very popular character–really important to theSable mythos–and shelooks gorgeous. So, here’sa good spot for Maggie.And then Mike would say,“Oh, you’re right. Weshould use Maggie but let’suse her over here.” Oh,great, fine, you’re thestoryteller, that’s fine. Somy input would come inthere after we came upwith the basic plot. ButMike just delivers,naturally.

CR: The Jon Sable bookyou produced for IDWcame together prettysmoothly, from what Iremember.

MG: It was basically prettysmooth. We had a lot of unfortunate situations interms of there was sort of a period there where eachperson involved–not you guys but on my end,including me–was either sick or there was a familysituation. I had this flu that I still remember, that’show horrible it was. It was actually getting to beuncannily depressing, just bizarre... It was just onebad thing after another but I think we produced acouple of damn good graphic novels.

CR: You absolutely did. Sure, life intrudes on thesethings but as far as everybody getting along witheach other and producing good work, that was allvery smooth.

MG: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the reason why I’msitting here talking to you. If this was just one ofthose regular work things I would have just givenyou a statement and that would’ve been cool and we

148

__________________________More Jon Sable by Mike Grell.

____________________________________________________________________Opposite Page: Badger covers from the Capital Comics and First Comics runs.


all would havebeen happy. There is asimilarity in vision for what to do withthe comics business, with the comics medium. Wecan’t do anything about the comics business but whatwe can do with the comic medium is all that matters.There are a lot of people who feel that way but nota lot of people who are in the same frequency range,and the Sable and GrimJack stuff was a great fit. Iwould have loved to, and maybe someday still will beable to, do something else together, even somethingoriginal. That would be fun.

CR: Let’s talk about the other First Comics propertieswe brought over–Mars and Badger.

MG: Badgerstarted over at CapitalComics. I knew Mike Baron because hewould come down from Madison, Wisconsin forthese little one-day comic-book conventions and hewould come down for the annual Chicago ComicCon and I was really intrigued by Nexus. Then oneday, he showed up at one of these things dressed upas the Badger–this was before the first issue came out.That’s when I began to know more about Mike

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different plots and thebasis of this plot wassomething that we hadcome up with before.Actually we wereconsidering doing it foryou guys. No, I guess itwas right before thatbecause 9/11 interferedand this whole thing wasbased around a terroristact at Rockefeller Centerduring the Christmas treelighting ceremony andobviously that became aplace where we just didn’twant to go in 2002 or2003.

CR: Yeah, even fictionalNew York needed a break.

MG: It was a good story,and all that stuff, but atthat moment in time, wecouldn’t do it withoutfeeling kind of pricklyabout it. So if you’re goingto be reserved about it as a storyteller, that’s going tocome across to the reader, even if the reader canhandle it perfectly fine. And, arguably, by the time itwould come out the reader probably could’vehandled it perfectly fine, some couldn’t, some could.It’s a little different in that I lived in the New Yorkmetropolitan area and the destroyer boats were beingstaged a mile from me out in Long Island Sound sothat was a little creepy. So my perspective on that wasa little skewed but that just illustrates the point. Mikehad that thought, he had that concept, he had thatplot and he held on to the basics of it. We updatedit quite a bit and there were some elements that Iwant to say wound up in a James Bond movie. Thatmay or may not be true but it’s a good guess. It’sprobably James Bond and we didn’t want to look likewe were ripping them off even though we’d comeup with it a couple years earlier. So we changed thatsort of a thing and then I would make a couple of

commercial commentshere and there, like wehaven’t seen Maggie theCat for a long time. She’sa very popular character–really important to theSable mythos–and shelooks gorgeous. So, here’sa good spot for Maggie.And then Mike would say,“Oh, you’re right. Weshould use Maggie but let’suse her over here.” Oh,great, fine, you’re thestoryteller, that’s fine. Somy input would come inthere after we came upwith the basic plot. ButMike just delivers,naturally.

CR: The Jon Sable bookyou produced for IDWcame together prettysmoothly, from what Iremember.

MG: It was basically prettysmooth. We had a lot of unfortunate situations interms of there was sort of a period there where eachperson involved–not you guys but on my end,including me–was either sick or there was a familysituation. I had this flu that I still remember, that’show horrible it was. It was actually getting to beuncannily depressing, just bizarre... It was just onebad thing after another but I think we produced acouple of damn good graphic novels.

CR: You absolutely did. Sure, life intrudes on thesethings but as far as everybody getting along witheach other and producing good work, that was allvery smooth.

MG: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the reason why I’msitting here talking to you. If this was just one ofthose regular work things I would have just givenyou a statement and that would’ve been cool and we

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__________________________More Jon Sable by Mike Grell.

____________________________________________________________________Opposite Page: Badger covers from the Capital Comics and First Comics runs.


Baron than I wanted to know. He’s a creativewindstorm. He’ll just knock you over. He’s one ofthe most frightfully intelligent people around, oneof the most frightfully creative people.

I wanted The Badger in the worst way. I loved Nexusbut I didn’t think there was as much for me topersonally get involved in. I didn’t edit the FirstComics’ Nexus books, Rick Oliver did. Rick is a goodhands-on guy and he’s a great idea guy. It’s not likelyhe’ll ever come back to comics but he’s a great ideaguy. He loved Nexus and he really loved it for whatit was and he wanted to keep it on that path whileletting creators flourish and expand upon theirvision. Whereas, with Badger, I wanted to get in andget dirty.

CR: And how about Mars?

MG: I respected you guys for going forMars becauseit was mistakenly labeled as the book that broughtdown First Comics, which was ridiculous. The bookran through that 12-part story and ended years andyears before First Comics bit the big one.

CR: Everybody uses the phrase “ahead of its time”–kind of to an annoying degree–but Mars really is abook that was ahead of its time. To the point whereyou read it now and it feels exactly in line with otherthings that we are doing, the kind of thing themarketplace was now ready to accept.

MG: Absolutely. I wasn’t the one who found Mars,but I jumped on it. Joe Staton and Bruce Pattersonwere approached or they approached Marc [Hempel]and Mark [Wheatley] at a San Diego show and theytold me about it. I’d look at anything that Joe and

Bruce would recommend, not just because they wereon staff but because they are very, very talented guys.Joe is a guy that I’ve worked with a great many yearsand I truly admire and respect him. So he says this isreally good stuff and it’s really different and you guysare geniuses and you should be able to sell this. Well,he was right about most of that but not quite all. Iread the presentation and it was one of those thingswhere two or three pages into the presentation youknow you’re going to go for it, you just want to readit from that point forward just because you want tofind out what’s in it, how cool it is. It was really cool!And that started a working relationship with boththose guys, particularly Mark Wheatley, that runs tothis day.

I had to advocate for it at First. It filled the slot thatI had on my schedule for an original superhero, non-costumed property that nobody had ever heard of bypeople nobody had ever heard of. We’d doneoriginal stuff that people had never heard of and weput people that nobody had ever heard of on projectsthat people had heard of, now it was time to go wayout there andMars was a great way to do that. It wasone of those cult classics, which at the time I think Idefined as a book whose comp list exceeds the paidcirculation. It didn’t make First Comics an enormousamount of money. I think that first issue only soldabout 75,000 copies, which means that if it werepublished today and sold 75,000 copies, you’d havea hit.

CR: I think what you were looking for back then isa lot of what we’re looking for today, which is good,non-superhero comics that nevertheless feel like theycan sit alongside those kind of books and reach thesame kind of audience.

151150

_______________________________________________________This Page and Next: Mars by Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley.


Baron than I wanted to know. He’s a creativewindstorm. He’ll just knock you over. He’s one ofthe most frightfully intelligent people around, oneof the most frightfully creative people.

I wanted The Badger in the worst way. I loved Nexusbut I didn’t think there was as much for me topersonally get involved in. I didn’t edit the FirstComics’ Nexus books, Rick Oliver did. Rick is a goodhands-on guy and he’s a great idea guy. It’s not likelyhe’ll ever come back to comics but he’s a great ideaguy. He loved Nexus and he really loved it for whatit was and he wanted to keep it on that path whileletting creators flourish and expand upon theirvision. Whereas, with Badger, I wanted to get in andget dirty.

CR: And how about Mars?

MG: I respected you guys for going forMars becauseit was mistakenly labeled as the book that broughtdown First Comics, which was ridiculous. The bookran through that 12-part story and ended years andyears before First Comics bit the big one.

CR: Everybody uses the phrase “ahead of its time”–kind of to an annoying degree–but Mars really is abook that was ahead of its time. To the point whereyou read it now and it feels exactly in line with otherthings that we are doing, the kind of thing themarketplace was now ready to accept.

MG: Absolutely. I wasn’t the one who found Mars,but I jumped on it. Joe Staton and Bruce Pattersonwere approached or they approached Marc [Hempel]and Mark [Wheatley] at a San Diego show and theytold me about it. I’d look at anything that Joe and

Bruce would recommend, not just because they wereon staff but because they are very, very talented guys.Joe is a guy that I’ve worked with a great many yearsand I truly admire and respect him. So he says this isreally good stuff and it’s really different and you guysare geniuses and you should be able to sell this. Well,he was right about most of that but not quite all. Iread the presentation and it was one of those thingswhere two or three pages into the presentation youknow you’re going to go for it, you just want to readit from that point forward just because you want tofind out what’s in it, how cool it is. It was really cool!And that started a working relationship with boththose guys, particularly Mark Wheatley, that runs tothis day.

I had to advocate for it at First. It filled the slot thatI had on my schedule for an original superhero, non-costumed property that nobody had ever heard of bypeople nobody had ever heard of. We’d doneoriginal stuff that people had never heard of and weput people that nobody had ever heard of on projectsthat people had heard of, now it was time to go wayout there andMars was a great way to do that. It wasone of those cult classics, which at the time I think Idefined as a book whose comp list exceeds the paidcirculation. It didn’t make First Comics an enormousamount of money. I think that first issue only soldabout 75,000 copies, which means that if it werepublished today and sold 75,000 copies, you’d havea hit.

CR: I think what you were looking for back then isa lot of what we’re looking for today, which is good,non-superhero comics that nevertheless feel like theycan sit alongside those kind of books and reach thesame kind of audience.

151150

_______________________________________________________This Page and Next: Mars by Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley.


was lucky. Dick Giordano encouraged that in me.And he said, “You know, if every once in a while wedon’t wind up printing a series we wish we neverstarted then we’re not doing our jobs right.” I lovedthat philosophy and we had a few things that I wishwe didn’t do. Then again I was given the opportunityto doWasteland.

CR: If the things you’re happy you did outweigh thethings you wish you hadn’t done, I think you’vedone okay.

MG: Yeah, yeah. And if these guys will still speak toyou 10 years later that’s even better. There are alwaysnewcomers and there are people I’m very excitedabout and there’s never enough opportunity to workwith all of them and there’s never enough time. Butthere’s also the guys that you’ve worked with foreverand you know how they think, they know how youthink. You know exactly when you’re supposed tospin the plate and when you’re supposed to just leavethe plate on the stick.

CR: Yeah, I’d be happy if in 10 years from now we’retalking about what we’ve done over the last 10 yearsfor our twentieth anniversary book.

MG: You bet. That’d be great. That’d be awesome.And one way or another, we’ll be talking about it ifI’m around 10 years from now.

CR: One way or another we’ll still be griping aboutthe business.

MG: Yeah, everybody gripes about their business.Everybody. If you look at the history of comics, it’salways been a shoestring business. It’s always beena business where the creators have been abused,much more so than now although there’s still toomuch of that now. The difference is that back in theold days when creators were being abused, theywere getting shit. Comics were selling a millioncopies and the owners had boats. Today the ownershave movie deals, the creators are bettercompensated, and some guys who knock one out ofthe park can do quite well. There’s at least theopportunity to do quite well and that’s some sort ofprogress. A lot of people had to pay their dues for us.And a lot of us who’ve been at it for however manyyears, we’re paying dues for the next generation. Itdoes keep on getting better.

You go to MOCCA and APE and you see these 16-year-olds who are stapling comics together or puttingit all up online. And some of the stuff is just god-awful horrible, some of the stuff you just don’tunderstand and some of the stuff is, “Wow, you’rereally brilliant.” And they’ve never heard of Spider-Man. Spider-Man’s a movie to them. They don’tdislike it, it’s just not them. And then again you geta guy like Bendis who does this beautiful indie stuff,

153


MG: Again, we share that frequency. SoMars, I think,really deserved to get out to that broader audience. Infact, I think people needed to be reminded of it. Wedid well with Breathtaker over at DC. DC hatedBreathtaker because it didn’t have Batman in it. As faras the marketing department was concernedanything that didn’t have Batman in it was a waste oftheir time. And the publisher thought somehow fromlooking at the covers that Wheatley and Hempelwere making fun of concentration camp victims,which had nothing to do with the story. It was oneof the more surreal projects and I thought about allthat–and Mars, and the uphill struggle it was tomarketMars–about a year and a half ago when I wasat the Norman Rockwell Museum at their first bigexhibit of graphic novels. They had done a wholething about the history of graphic novels and all thisother stuff. They’d honored 12 graphic novels. Gaveeach one a wall. So here there were these 20 wallsfull of great illustrators’ work and another 20 wallsfull of Norman Rockwell’s original paintings andthen there’s this wall for Sara Bissen, there’s this wallfor Breathtaker. And I’m thinking wow, how cool, DClet this one slip through their fingers. I have the samefeelings towards Breathtaker as I do aboutMars exceptfor the fact that I think that Mark and Marc weremore proficient then. They knew how to tell a storya little more slickly, a little bit better and they werea little bit more adventurous. But Mars was, as thetitle suggests, more unworldly. So you had no ideawhat to expect there. By the time Breathtaker camearound, both these guys had done stuff together, andseparately, includingMars and some mainstream stuffand people had an idea what to expect, butMars justcame out of the blue.

CR: I think that’s why we wanted to do it, because itwas so different. You know, in doing these, one of thejoys of doing new Sable and GrimJack, was you seewhere these guys were 20 years ago and you see theirnew material now and, I mean, they’d progressed asstorytellers and artists. But you could still see the samelevel of acumen that they had back then, whatoriginally attracted us to it in the first place.

MG: Comics are like the rest of show business. Youspend years and years getting up to the level of beinga good amateur and then you get your shots. And

then you spend years and years becoming a goodprofessional. And somewhere along the line eitheryou become brilliant or you don’t. I’ve really beenhonored to be able to work with a lot of people whomade that leap and became brilliant. But then there’sthis other syndrome where you work with peoplewho are ahead of their time. You use the phrase butit’s true.

CR: Yeah, but they had it right from the start.

MG: Yeah, sure, they’re ahead of their time. Ofcourse, we’re talking about storytelling here. You’regoing to be either telling stories about the past,which is behind the time but you can still tell themin a way that’s new and original. Truman Capote didthat. Or you could tell stories of a more speculativenature and therefore almost by definition be ahead ofthe time. The problem is that some people whostarted out ahead of the time, wind up being behindthe time because they don’t grow. There’s that magicmoment when you’re right in time. But then youdon’t grow. And part of the role, I think, of a goodeditor–and it’s hard to do this with superheroes thatare part of the big universe, although I guess it’s justa different type of challenge–but the role of a goodeditor in that relationship is to be an agentprovocateur and to keep on needling the talent,whomever they may be, so that they’re always aheadof the time. Ahead of their own time.

I think that GrimJack really showed that. Marscertainly showed that. Sable showed that but in acompletely different way. It’s really easy to be aheadof the time, to be an hour and a half ahead of thetime if you’re dealing with political issues or socio-political issues, which is what Sable does. That’s notso hard. But Mike was known as a superhero and afantasy artist. He was known for Warlord, he wasknown for Legion of Superheroes, and for Starslayerwhen we did Jon Sable. That was really perceived as ahell of a risk. Mike Grell is doing what? He’s doingsome sort of James Bond stuff ? That’s cool. I’ll checkit out. And it sold through the roof. That agentprovocateur aspect is fun, it’s really great. Particularlyif you’re a prick like me. It doesn’t work witheverybody. Sometimes you come up with some stuffthat just really doesn’t work. When I was at DC I

152


was lucky. Dick Giordano encouraged that in me.And he said, “You know, if every once in a while wedon’t wind up printing a series we wish we neverstarted then we’re not doing our jobs right.” I lovedthat philosophy and we had a few things that I wishwe didn’t do. Then again I was given the opportunityto doWasteland.

CR: If the things you’re happy you did outweigh thethings you wish you hadn’t done, I think you’vedone okay.

MG: Yeah, yeah. And if these guys will still speak toyou 10 years later that’s even better. There are alwaysnewcomers and there are people I’m very excitedabout and there’s never enough opportunity to workwith all of them and there’s never enough time. Butthere’s also the guys that you’ve worked with foreverand you know how they think, they know how youthink. You know exactly when you’re supposed tospin the plate and when you’re supposed to just leavethe plate on the stick.

CR: Yeah, I’d be happy if in 10 years from now we’retalking about what we’ve done over the last 10 yearsfor our twentieth anniversary book.

MG: You bet. That’d be great. That’d be awesome.And one way or another, we’ll be talking about it ifI’m around 10 years from now.

CR: One way or another we’ll still be griping aboutthe business.

MG: Yeah, everybody gripes about their business.Everybody. If you look at the history of comics, it’salways been a shoestring business. It’s always beena business where the creators have been abused,much more so than now although there’s still toomuch of that now. The difference is that back in theold days when creators were being abused, theywere getting shit. Comics were selling a millioncopies and the owners had boats. Today the ownershave movie deals, the creators are bettercompensated, and some guys who knock one out ofthe park can do quite well. There’s at least theopportunity to do quite well and that’s some sort ofprogress. A lot of people had to pay their dues for us.And a lot of us who’ve been at it for however manyyears, we’re paying dues for the next generation. Itdoes keep on getting better.

You go to MOCCA and APE and you see these 16-year-olds who are stapling comics together or puttingit all up online. And some of the stuff is just god-awful horrible, some of the stuff you just don’tunderstand and some of the stuff is, “Wow, you’rereally brilliant.” And they’ve never heard of Spider-Man. Spider-Man’s a movie to them. They don’tdislike it, it’s just not them. And then again you geta guy like Bendis who does this beautiful indie stuff,

153


MG: Again, we share that frequency. SoMars, I think,really deserved to get out to that broader audience. Infact, I think people needed to be reminded of it. Wedid well with Breathtaker over at DC. DC hatedBreathtaker because it didn’t have Batman in it. As faras the marketing department was concernedanything that didn’t have Batman in it was a waste oftheir time. And the publisher thought somehow fromlooking at the covers that Wheatley and Hempelwere making fun of concentration camp victims,which had nothing to do with the story. It was oneof the more surreal projects and I thought about allthat–and Mars, and the uphill struggle it was tomarketMars–about a year and a half ago when I wasat the Norman Rockwell Museum at their first bigexhibit of graphic novels. They had done a wholething about the history of graphic novels and all thisother stuff. They’d honored 12 graphic novels. Gaveeach one a wall. So here there were these 20 wallsfull of great illustrators’ work and another 20 wallsfull of Norman Rockwell’s original paintings andthen there’s this wall for Sara Bissen, there’s this wallfor Breathtaker. And I’m thinking wow, how cool, DClet this one slip through their fingers. I have the samefeelings towards Breathtaker as I do aboutMars exceptfor the fact that I think that Mark and Marc weremore proficient then. They knew how to tell a storya little more slickly, a little bit better and they werea little bit more adventurous. But Mars was, as thetitle suggests, more unworldly. So you had no ideawhat to expect there. By the time Breathtaker camearound, both these guys had done stuff together, andseparately, includingMars and some mainstream stuffand people had an idea what to expect, butMars justcame out of the blue.

CR: I think that’s why we wanted to do it, because itwas so different. You know, in doing these, one of thejoys of doing new Sable and GrimJack, was you seewhere these guys were 20 years ago and you see theirnew material now and, I mean, they’d progressed asstorytellers and artists. But you could still see the samelevel of acumen that they had back then, whatoriginally attracted us to it in the first place.

MG: Comics are like the rest of show business. Youspend years and years getting up to the level of beinga good amateur and then you get your shots. And

then you spend years and years becoming a goodprofessional. And somewhere along the line eitheryou become brilliant or you don’t. I’ve really beenhonored to be able to work with a lot of people whomade that leap and became brilliant. But then there’sthis other syndrome where you work with peoplewho are ahead of their time. You use the phrase butit’s true.

CR: Yeah, but they had it right from the start.

MG: Yeah, sure, they’re ahead of their time. Ofcourse, we’re talking about storytelling here. You’regoing to be either telling stories about the past,which is behind the time but you can still tell themin a way that’s new and original. Truman Capote didthat. Or you could tell stories of a more speculativenature and therefore almost by definition be ahead ofthe time. The problem is that some people whostarted out ahead of the time, wind up being behindthe time because they don’t grow. There’s that magicmoment when you’re right in time. But then youdon’t grow. And part of the role, I think, of a goodeditor–and it’s hard to do this with superheroes thatare part of the big universe, although I guess it’s justa different type of challenge–but the role of a goodeditor in that relationship is to be an agentprovocateur and to keep on needling the talent,whomever they may be, so that they’re always aheadof the time. Ahead of their own time.

I think that GrimJack really showed that. Marscertainly showed that. Sable showed that but in acompletely different way. It’s really easy to be aheadof the time, to be an hour and a half ahead of thetime if you’re dealing with political issues or socio-political issues, which is what Sable does. That’s notso hard. But Mike was known as a superhero and afantasy artist. He was known for Warlord, he wasknown for Legion of Superheroes, and for Starslayerwhen we did Jon Sable. That was really perceived as ahell of a risk. Mike Grell is doing what? He’s doingsome sort of James Bond stuff ? That’s cool. I’ll checkit out. And it sold through the roof. That agentprovocateur aspect is fun, it’s really great. Particularlyif you’re a prick like me. It doesn’t work witheverybody. Sometimes you come up with some stuffthat just really doesn’t work. When I was at DC I

152


drop-dead gorgeous indie stuff and it turns out whathe always really wanted to do is write Spider-Man andThe Avengers. He’s been a worthy writer over atMarvel and has helped recreate Marvel for the 21stcentury. It’s important that someone does that, too.We’re always going to be a superhero medium. We’realways going to be a heroic fantasy medium. I havea couple of superhero concepts and constructs thatI’ve been working on with people off and on overthe years that I think are really different and reallyrevolutionary.

CR: Yeah, I know we’ve stayed away from that forour 10 years. But on one hand we stay away and onthe other, we do Badger. So we find ways to avoidsuperheroes even while still publishing a variationon them.

MG: You’re not going to beat Marvel and DC attheir own game. Nobody does Marvel comics betterthan Marvel Comics. Nobody does DC comicsbetter than DC Comics. That’s it. You want to doBatman, you’re going to be doing it at DC. Andyou’re going to do it DC’s way. But that’s Batmanand that’s part of what Batman’s about. Same thingis true with Spider-Man. So how do you create asuperhero for the less defined market, for the lessdefined platform? That’s an interesting question,there’s lots of ways of doing it. Badger started outdoing that 30 years ago, 25 years ago in Madison,Wisconsin for Milton Griepp, for crying out loud.And that’s an interesting take.

CR: Perhaps we’ll talk more about that in our second10...

155

IDW

___________________________________Opposite Page: Jon Sable by Mike Grell.

_________________________________Badger by Bill Reinhold and Jeff Dee.154


drop-dead gorgeous indie stuff and it turns out whathe always really wanted to do is write Spider-Man andThe Avengers. He’s been a worthy writer over atMarvel and has helped recreate Marvel for the 21stcentury. It’s important that someone does that, too.We’re always going to be a superhero medium. We’realways going to be a heroic fantasy medium. I havea couple of superhero concepts and constructs thatI’ve been working on with people off and on overthe years that I think are really different and reallyrevolutionary.

CR: Yeah, I know we’ve stayed away from that forour 10 years. But on one hand we stay away and onthe other, we do Badger. So we find ways to avoidsuperheroes even while still publishing a variationon them.

MG: You’re not going to beat Marvel and DC attheir own game. Nobody does Marvel comics betterthan Marvel Comics. Nobody does DC comicsbetter than DC Comics. That’s it. You want to doBatman, you’re going to be doing it at DC. Andyou’re going to do it DC’s way. But that’s Batmanand that’s part of what Batman’s about. Same thingis true with Spider-Man. So how do you create asuperhero for the less defined market, for the lessdefined platform? That’s an interesting question,there’s lots of ways of doing it. Badger started outdoing that 30 years ago, 25 years ago in Madison,Wisconsin for Milton Griepp, for crying out loud.And that’s an interesting take.

CR: Perhaps we’ll talk more about that in our second10...

155

IDW

___________________________________Opposite Page: Jon Sable by Mike Grell.

_________________________________Badger by Bill Reinhold and Jeff Dee.154


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