“Knuckleheads” is one of Monkeybrain’s finest comics at the moment. A funny, energetic and completely off-the-wall book that revels in absurdist humor, geek culture references and puke gags. You have to love the puke gags. There aren’t enough in comics anymore!
And, as all good things eventually do, this week “Knuckleheads” is making the jump to print from digital via IDW in a collection entitled “Knuckleheads: Fist Contact.” Collecting the first hilarious arc, it’s a real side-splitter of a book featuring great jokes by Brian Winkeler and gorgeous, humorous artwork from Robert Wilson IV. It’s definitely a can’t miss title of the week.
So with a print collection out in stores this week from IDW and the boys set to do their first big signing and show of the collection at none other than San Diego Comic-Con, we sat down with artist Robert Wilson IV to catch up from our last chat two years ago. Also, be sure to look for Robert Wilson IV on Multiversity’s gameshow podcast The Hour Cosmic next week.
We actually talked before “Knuckleheads” had come back back in the day, for Artist August. Between the original print run of the book and then when it came back at Monkeybrain, what do you find were the differences in getting it out to a different audience in a different medium?
Robert Wilson IV: Well, the biggest difference for me is just that, when I drew “Knuckleheads” the first time around, I had maybe drawn ten or twenty at most sequential comic pages before starting on the book. I was super green; for all intents and purposes, “Knuckleheads,” that special print edition as Brian and I call it, is my first comic. I still feel like I’m in the learning and craft-building stage of my career, but back then I was a baby comic artist, you know? [Laughs] I didn’t know what I was doing. There’ve been a few hundred pages between now and then, so just knowing what I’m doing has made a huge difference.
It’s really great. It’s great to not to be terrified that you’re doing it wrong constantly.
What was the time difference between when you’d actually drawn the first “Knuckleheads” and when you revisited the book for the Monkeybrain release?
RWIV: I think it was about two or three years.
Can you remember what it was like approaching the first time?
RWIV: To a degree. I was a lot more conscious of what I was doing and what I was trying to accomplish. Also, Brian’s scripts were a lot different then too. They were a lot more dense. The panel count was a lot higher. The original version of “Knuckleheads had a lot more dialogue, too. Especially for a newbie, it just really required a ton of thought in thumbnailing and breaking down the pages. I remember that taking forever. Whereas now, it’s a much more intuitive thing for me. I definitely like to let a page sit once I’ve thumbnailed it and done the breakdowns, at least for a day, and just stew on it for a bit. You know, see if my brain tells me something that would make the page stronger, or improve it somehow.
But for the most part, it’s really intuitive. I’m not thinking a ton when I’m breaking down the comic.
So I guess the difference is mostly that you’ve become more comfortable with your craft in the current iteration of “Knuckleheads?”
RWIV: Yeah, absolutely.
I don’t think we talked since the book came back digitally, but what caused “Knuckleheads” to come back?
RWIV: Well, Brian and I had always planned on doing more “Knuckleheads,” but when we first published it, we basically just paid for a print run from a local printer and it was something like two thousand dollars. We thought, ok, we’ll sell these and as soon as we make our money back we’ll go for issue two. And we started working on issue two right away, but really quickly realized that we are not making two thousand dollars just selling these by hands and trying to get comic shops to carry them. It really was an economic thing. I’ve even got a few pages inked from what would’ve been issue two back then, but once it became pretty clear that it was not going to be financially feasible and that doing self-published comics in the style of the 80’s black and white boom just wouldn’t work anymore. It doesn’t work in this direct market landscape, mostly because there are less than half the comic shops there were during that bubble, and because of non-returnability and stuff like that. Our lack of distribution just made it not feasible.
Continued belowI had actually met Chris Roberson and Alison Baker at either Heroes Con or Baltimore Comic Con, I don’t remember which one. I’d given Chris a copy of “Knuckleheads” and we’d become buddies, and so when him and Alison were in the planning stages of Monkeybrain, I think he actually approached Brian at San Diego. And as soon as they knew they had this thing that was going to be on Comixology, it was perfect for us. It takes so much of the cost out of self-publishing a comic, aside from the already crazy intense labor costs of comics. We definitely are excited to handle that part and do the work, but man, when you add these weeks and months of labor that you’re not getting paid for, and then you have to pay to print and distribute? It’s a crazy proposition.
But the changes to the landscape of comics, even in the past couple years, has been so huge in terms of how we get and distribute and pass comics around — Comixology, Kickstarter which you also used for “Like a Virus.”
RWIV: Yeah, it’s been amazing. I think it is really wonderful and allows the best stuff to kind of get the exposure it deserves, because not everything fits into the rubric a given publisher has set up. I don’t know if there are too many publishers that “Knuckleheads” would fit well into their catalogue, but I still think it’s a really good comic and that it deserves to exist. So having platforms like Comixology or Kickstarter are really wonderful and allow for new and weird things to have a life of their own. I think of “God Hates Astronauts” in the same way. What a fantastic comic, and without the internet and Kickstarter no one would’ve known what it is, you know?
Sure, yeah. So, revisiting and re-doing and updating “Knuckleheads,” what were some of the things when coming back to the book that you were looking at and say, ok, these are the things that I want to do differently than the first issue and whatever had existed of issue two?
RWIV: Well, there were definitely a few storytelling things. We actually didn’t use any of what would’ve been issue two in the Monkeybrain run, but I would say for the most part it’s storytelling and design choices. I look back at the monster especially from the original version of “Knuckleheads,” and, ugh, it’s dumb looking. [Laughs]
I also remember, when “Knuckleheads” #1 was coming out on Monkeybrain, Brian was making fun of Pacific Rim a lot too due to the odd timing of releases there.
RWIV: That always happens to me, too! I’m working on another project that is way in the early stages of development, and me and the writer have a couple pretty obscure influences on this — and there was just an announcement that one of the main influences that we thought was buried and would never come up? It’s being developed as a major, Hollywood motion picture. That’s just how the zeitgeist works. The things that influenced me are influencing hundreds of other people, and a few of those people are going to end up making a comic or a movie or a videogame or who knows what.
So, with the characters. When coming back to the series you had a much sharper take on how to draw people just in general than maybe originally, but was there anything with the cast of the book that you thought needed to be updated? The way the personalities come through with the characters is so eclectic and bombastic and hilarious, and I love that the art matches their personalities in unique ways.
RWIV: I think the main thing was just getting comfortable with drawing different face shapes and different ethnicities and stuff like that. When I originally drew the first version of “Knuckleheads,” it was always such a conscious struggle to stay on design, and I think part of that was just lack of experience. Part of it was having not drawn the characters very much too, but I spent a bit of time in trying to get comfortable in how I wanted to draw each character, and doing that kind of work beforehand — doing design work beforehand — always pays off. It’s generally a really bad idea to try and design things on the comic page.
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One thing that I really like about the book, but there’s so much going on in the background at any given time. Little easter eggs, little nods, such as the graffiti on the bathroom stall. What are the things you do for building up the backgrounds? It gives the world a much nicer, fleshed-out feel when there are all these little things you could discover at any time.
RWIV: I think setting and background is super important, and it get short changed occasionally in comics. So for one, I always make sure to design the sets and the setting; I hate to design anything on the comic page because I feel like you always end up with a fake, 2D-looking environment. Just putting in that design work beforehand is big for me. I also a lot of research; I think I do more research on backgrounds than anything else, especially the diner scene.
The diner scene, that bathroom stall, I spent so long looking at diners and trying to figure out the layout of that restaurant, because I knew that there were certain things that were going to happen. I knew that we were going to show the bathroom, I knew that there needed to be a counter for a guy to sneak behind; just fitting all those pieces together and making it feel like a diner, like a real diner, because everyone knows what a diner looks like, or a car or a horse, but unless you do your research on those things or you just draw those things all the time, I think that it’s going to come off really false, at least for me.
It takes me out of the story when I have to work to figure out the setting as a reader. I never want my reader to have to work where things are taking place or what does that place feel like, that spatial relationship of all the characters in that place.
One thing I would like to talk about is comedy in comics, at least in terms of timing and pacing and structure. Since “Knuckleheads” is a very funny book, is it difficult to get the comedy of that onto the page beyond whatever the dialogue is? In terms of looks, or interactions, or that wonderful scene in the sixth issue with decompression?
RWIV: Hmm. You know, I’m not really sure. [Laughs] I’ve been working with Brian for a long time, and I feel like we have developed a cartooning shorthand for his comedy. It’s really natural with Brian’s scripts, really easy with the characters that we have, just because by now I feel like I know them so well. I know how they’re going to react and their personalities. I don’t know if it would be so easy with another writer, though. I think that’s just due to Brian and I’s collaborative relationship.
Is there anything in this book that you’ve done so far, in the six issues that we’ve had, that you are particularly proud of? What’s the sequence that you’re most proud of so far?
RWIV: Lets see… You know, I still think the scene that I have the most fondness for is when they go out in the first issue, and they run out and see the monster for the first time. But I’m also really happy with the seventh and eighth issue, which I finished a few months back. There’s some design stuff in there, character design stuff… I like Herzog the Dog. Drawing aliens is fun.
I also liked that entire sequence with Herzog. Though, that does bring up the question: the way that that scene plays out in issue #6, how the scenes mirror each other on both pages, is that stuff that you and Brian discuss beforehand, was that in the script?
RWIV: That was in the script. Brian and I talk about large story arc things, but I draw more or less straight from the script. I usually don’t see the script until it’s done either, so that was all Brian.
What are the types of things you guys discuss?
RWIV: It’s kind of casual and informal. We talk out major beats. He told me he wanted to do a dog scene, where the dog was talking and we were doing the “Timmy In The Well” bit, but I didn’t know how that was going to play out at all.
Continued belowSo, with the next arc of the book, what can you tease about what’s coming in the book? Issue #6 ended with a nice cliffhanger, and it certainly opened up the realm of opportunity, so to say.
RWIV: Yeah, because we really haven’t seen any sort of supernatural threats or elements since the first few issues, right? I guess all I can really say is you’ll be seeing some more fantastical stuff, for sure.
And before I let you go, I would be remiss not to bring up the other stuff that you’ve got going on as well — the posters that you design. You just did that really great Say Anything poster, and I remember I first came to your work from the posters that you’ve done; I think I bring up that Mountain Goats print you did that I have, like, every time we talk.
RWIV: Yeah, I’ve been doing the whole poster thing for probably creepin’ up on three years, I guess. I actually had to take a pretty long break when I was working on “Knuckleheads” just to keep things coming out in a pretty steady pace to keep things going for our IDW print deadline. Now that that is done, I’m planning to do a lot more posters. I did that Say Anything poster, I’m doing a poster for Ray Lamontagne and a few for bands that I’m super excited about but not allowed to talk about yet. I’m also going to be in Spoke Art gallery’s Stanley Kubrick show, and their Wes Anderson show called “Bad Dads.” I’m really excited; they’re my first two Spoke Art shows and I’m super, super hyped about the subject matter that I’m getting to work with.
