Ed Brisson was at C2E2 last weekend giving autographs and promoting his new Image series, “The Mantle”. In a spare moment, he answered some questions about the book and revealed the genesis of the general premise.
Can you describe the premise of “The Mantle”?
Ed Brisson: The premise plays on the superhero trope of a power that passes from one host to another as one host dies, something like Green Lantern or the Phantom. Our story’s about Robby, who gets struck by the power, and all of a sudden he’s the most powerful human on Earth. He finds out the whole history of it, and that he’s the 38th host in the last ten years. So, the mortality rate is very high, the turn-over rate is very high, and the chance of survival is very low. “The Mantle” is about him trying to deal with this new knowledge, his new power, and trying to avoid this being that’s trying to kill him.
How long have you been developing the idea?
EB: It happened pretty quick, I think. I know exactly when I came up with the concept. It was the first of July, 2014.
That’s kinda specific.
EB: Yeah, I was helping a comic shop move and the story was born out of a friendly argument I was having with one of the employees about some superheroes who have powers that pass from one host to another. Usually with those books, the power passes to someone and that’s our hero, that’s the person we follow through the whole story. I feel like those stories never deliver on the promise that the hero can die and someone else can take over. If it is done, it’s always temporary. If someone loses it, they come back from the dead or something. But, I wanted to make that the primary focus of the book.
From this conversation, I contacted [artist] Brian [Level] within a week to talk about it and we started putting it together. We got some pages done and I think we pitched it by October of last year. Now it’s finally coming out in a few weeks.
EB: Yeah, the first place we pitched it to was Shadowline Image, and they picked it up.
Most of the other stuff I’ve read from you has had a noir feel, like your recent “Murder Book” from Dark Horse. Will “The Mantle” touch on similar themes?
EB: There’s not going to be much crime, it’s more of a straightforward superhero book. It’s definitely got some stuff that people have come to expect from my writing. It’ll get pretty gritty and it’s definitely not what it initially seems. There will be quite a few twists as we go along.
If sales allow you to do this for as long as you want, do you have an end in mind? Or do you want this to be an ongoing book?
EB: This is something we could do forever if sales warrant it. Brian and I have talked about some ideas going forward and the passage of the power. We’ll sit back and see how sales go to decide if we can make it last. We could probably just go on forever because of the built in idea that the hero can still die.
But that’d be temporary, of course.
EB: Ha, yeah. Ha, but there’ll also be a lot of side characters that will be fun to focus on and have their own shot at the spotlight.
What else do you have going on right now?
EB: Right now, I’m working on Captain Canuck stories for Chapter House. The first one comes out Free Comic Book Day, and in that I wrote a brief history of Captain Canuck. Not a flashback, but just an overview. Starting with issue one that’s due out at the end of May, I’m writing new stories of classic Captain Canuck as backups to the regular series.
I also “Secret Wars: Battle World” that comes out in a couple weeks and a new crime book coming from Image in October that I can’t say too much about right now.
Continued belowI also have a series called “Cluster” coming out from Boom! right now. Both the first and second issue have been reprinted so it should be available.
Have you ever considered drawing your own comics?
EB: I drew my own comics for 17 years. It was about 5 years ago where I was like, “forget this.” I actually enjoy writing more than I do drawing. It’s funny, the only reason I ever started writing was because I wanted to draw and I didn’t know anyone who wrote. This was pre-internet so there was no way to meet people. I started writing my own stories out of necessity and that eventually took over as the thing I enjoyed doing the most. I started to focus in on that.
Are any of your old books still in print?
EB: No, I try to keep them out of print. It was all self-published so it was small print runs anyway, but I have a hard time looking at that era now. Especially since I haven’t drawn in about 5 years, it’s hard to even look at it.
“The Mantle” #1 hits stores May 13. Don’t miss it!
