Jeff Parker is a comics veteran who has written for just about every major comics publisher in the United States. He’s currently writing “Ninjak” for Valiant, but he’s also just launched a Kickstarter for a new book, “Blighter.” Here’s how the book is described on its Kickstarter page:
BLIGHTER is an original graphic novel by writer Jeff Parker (X-Men First Class, Flash Gordon, Batman ’66 and Future Quest) and artist Drew Moss (Vampirella/Red Sonja, Star Wars, The Crow, Army Of The Dead, M.A.S.K. and Heavy Metal). Available in both paperback and digital download editions, BLIGHTER is a dimension-spanning, action-packed suspense ride, chock-full of monsters, and a swaggeringly brutal Tiger-man who fancies himself a living legend.
Jeff sat down to talk with us about the book, why he went the Kickstarter route, and some of the best talking tigers in history. The Kickstarter is open until October 21st, so there is plenty of time to back the project, which has already surpassed its initial goal by almost $9,000 as of press time.
Would this comic have existed 15 years ago, before Kickstarter?
Jeff Parker: Wow, that’s a good question. Well, I would have had to go with my cup in my hand to one of the publishers and say, “Hey, here’s this thing I want to do,” and sell them on it. And obviously, I’ve done that in the past (“The Interman,” 2003). There was no crowdfunding then; I just borrowed money and printed it. But it also took me years.
I realize the pitfalls that you can get into, because a lot of people go into it, and they haven’t worked on a regular schedule, or had to put out a book before and deal with retailers, all that sort of thing. So it’s all new, and they tend to over promise stuff that ends up costing more than the thing raises. That seems to happen a lot. We didn’t want to do that. So we’re not promising a bunch of swag. Even though people keep asking, will there be swag? And they’re like, no, I’m sorry. Unless something just irresistible pops up. It’s like that Bill Watterson thing; they could never get him to license “Calvin and Hobbes” for anything. The only thing he ever went for, I think, was a couple of coffee mugs, because he could get a whole strip on one.
So we’re kind of the same way. We’re just trying to focus on the book. And, yeah, but to dodge your question. I’m like, I think I could have gotten it done back then. More and more publishers like they just want to deal with licensed properties or, here’s the other thing, they want in on your IP, and, I’m not big on that, Brian. That’s not my thing, sharing my IP with people.
I understand why.
JP: I’m really cool with sharing it with Drew Moss because he and I are going to be spending the most time creating the story, and making sure everybody else gets paid indefinitely for everything that’s published. I just want things to get closer to what traditional publishing is, where they give you an advance, they promote your book, don’t make you do it yourself, you know, and they, and then at the end of it, they don’t own it, you know, they just own the rights to publish it. It’s like, why can’t we do that in comics?
That’s interesting. You know, I’ve heard a lot of arguments for Kickstarter. I’ve never heard that one before.. I do want to talk about the speed in which you met your initial goal, which I thought was great. But you never know. Were you surprised by the speed that the Kickstarter got funded?
JP: I was because, again, I don’t know. I have no idea. I’ll admit it: I was afraid. “Do people really like my stuff? Or did they just like the characters I get to work on? Are they Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel, Agents of Atlas fans? Or do they actually actively seek out what I work on?”
And this has been a huge shot in the arm for me. to use a vaccine metaphor. It encouraged me like, okay, people do pay attention to the creators. We obviously want to hit a much bigger goal, because we want to get the whole team paid really well. We’re not going to do something wacky with it. Like, I don’t know, go out and invest it in Bitcoin or anything.
Continued belowYeah, I just totally zinged the Bitcoin crowd. You didn’t see it coming!
We just want to get paid and make sure I get those books. And there’s things like, now people have to pay for shipping afterwards. There’s some unpredictable shipping rates these days. That’s always scary. So I’m encouraging a lot of people that you might want to just get the digital. It’ll show up really fast, nd you won’t have to pay almost as much as the book if you live in Europe, you know, right. That’s why I get a lot of mine when I order this way. Also, because I only have so much room in this house.
[At the time of publication, the Kickstarter has reached three of its five stretch goals] When you are setting up these stretch goals, how much of this is based on what you wish you could have done in the first place? Like for instance, the final stretch goal is an extra 20 pages in the book. Would you have always liked to have made it a 110 page comic, but you had to bring that back because of printing costs or just time management?
<JP: I always want to go longer because once you get into it, the more ideas you get, especially once art comes back in. Drew drew something and then it’s like, “oh, man, now I love this character I just thought was a kind of little side character.” And I want to see more than and I’ve got a good idea for a scene, and then you just start getting stuff like that. I do try to function like a director and not just put in everything, but it always comes out that there’s more stuff that I wanted to do. And so yeah, if we can get to that stretch goal, then the book gets longer and I’m happier and the readers are happier,m so and it’s a worthy goal because it’s just more about telling more story
How did the “Blighter” story come together?
JP: There’s an early proto version of this and “Dark Horse Presents” years ago, with me and my buddy Benjamin Dewey. We only had like, a week to do this short story. So I had certain things in there that I liked, but it’s just not enough time to develop something. We did this and it was an entertaining little story, but it was quickly forgotten about. But it just kept sticking with me over the years. Like, I like the name Blighter. I like the concept. I don’t think we fleshed out the characters well enough. And there’s some things about the setup that probably weren’t working, but they were fine for a short one off story.
And I talked to Ben awhile back, and he’s got a lot of stuff on his plate right now. So I said, “Okay, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna just take the concept and I’m gonna retool it, and when you’re free again, you and I can create something new.” And he was up for it. I finally faced the fact that like, I kept talking a lot in my notes about Shere Khan from The Jungle Book. I just wanted Blighter to feel a lot like that character. And then I finally realized also, he’s a not an unlikable character. But he’s definitely not somebody you would want to be your friend or trust to be your friend. He’s more in the Treasure Island mode, where a kid befriends a pirate, and it’s like, at the end of the day, still a pirate, right? This is still a tiger, by the way, that you’re dealing with, nd I’m not one of those sweet tigers. This is not Hobbes. This is a killer. And I realized, in the earlier version, we have been going for this kind of alien look for the other dimension, that Blighter and all these creatures are from and, you know what? This should have occurred to me earlier on: if you’re going to have a character who is a huge pain in the ass and untrustworthy and just kind of mean, he should look kind of adorable to mitigate some of that. But then I decided: he’s just gonna be a tiger. And then I realized like, oh, now we kind of added to the pantheon of talking tigers that I’ve always liked, like Hobbes, or Koj from Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo’s “Tellos,” or Tawky Tawny who, as a kid,was one of my favorite characters because he wears a suit. I mean, that’s the other thing: He wears a suit. I mean, Mr. Tawny, he’s the best and Evan “Doc” Shaner and I got to you know, put him in that Shazam ‘Convergence’ story and, and you know, that was a highlight. We had to bring him in on a nice big splash page because I knew Evan was dying to draw him.
Continued belowBut he doesn’t have an ascot. And Blighter here has an ascot.
JP: Pretty soon I’ll show some other rough drawings I did, and Blighter’s got a whole lot of wardrobe, and he’s constantly like doing wardrobe changes throughout the book and you’re like, “why is he changing his clothes so often? The world he’s from is essentially a big steampunk Victoriana sort of thing, so they look down on our world as just some little backwater or whatever. “This is something we colonize, except for we’re not even interested in it.” So they start kicking out their criminals to Earth, like the way Britain used to do with Australia. We’re a penal colony, essentially. And then at some point, they figured out someone’s guilted the Empire into it, and they’re actually really wrecking society for the inhabitants of this world. So they let some killers go loose, like Blighter, to go in and take care of them. And Blighter loves it, because he just wants to kill things, and it’s his big shot. And there’s more to his backstory, I don’t want to spoil, but that’s what he’s here for.
You talked about Benjamin Dewey not being able to commit to this right now, so you’ve got Drew Moss working on the book. And I’ve been a fan of Drew’s for a little while now, but I think he’s a name that maybe the average comic reader isn’t as familiar with. So if you could sell someone out there who hasn’t read a Drew Moss comic on what makes this story so great., how would you describe his work?
JP: Well, the one thing when I finally arrived at, “okay, he really just needs to be a big, big, hulking Tiger guy,” I did some sketches. And I hadn’t worked with Drew before, but I’ve worked a lot with Nate Cosby, the editor of this, and Nate’s worked a lot with Drew and everybody Nate’s ever put me with has clicked like a machine. So I knew like going into it was probably going to work. And then I couldn’t believe it; Drew just picked it up so fast. He immediately started doing cool stuff I hadn’t thought of it yet. He got the whole sense of getting Blighter’s whole, swaggering personality and making you yet still root for him.
Thanks again to Jeff for chatting with us, and check out the Kickstarter here.
