Joe Mulvey Runs a “Scam” on Kickstarter [Interview]

Regular readers of the site are probably aware of Joe Mulvey and ComixTribe. Whether it be through our coverage of their books or Joe’s column here at the site, we’re not shy of supporting their work (as bias free as possible).

With that in mind, we’re very excited to help promote Joe’s current Kickstarter for the collected edition of his series “Scam” into a deluxe hardcover. In addition to the four issues of Joe’s series (including a double-sized first issue and a double-sized finale), the book will collect the currently unreleased “Scamthology” one-shot, which features a litany of talented creators adding their own takes to the ever-expanding “Scam” universe. Including ComixTribe staples Tyler James and John Lees, the book will also feature stories written and illustrated by Ben McCool, Joe Eisma, Nick Pitarra, CP Wilson III, Nolan T. Jones, Rich Douek, Paul Allor, Amy Chu and more, as well as a pin-up gallery featuring Riley Rossmo and Tommy Patterson to name a few.

It’s a book bursting with story and talent, and we think you’re going to like it.

With that in mind, we  hosted a very candid conversation with Joe Mulvey. Read on as we talk about all things Kickstarter, ComixTribe, “Scam” and more.

Let’s start off with the softball question. This is just something I usually like to ask anybody the first time I ever talk to them, but: why comics?

Joe Mulvey: Wow. That is a good question. Why comics? Just because it’s something that fits for me. Like, I think once I picked up my first comic, there was something about the language and the imagery and the storytelling that just spoke to me. So, it’s been my favorite mode of entertainment, or definitely one of my favorites. I like drawing, but in the end or middle of high school, I found comics, so it was a natural fit; once I went from, “Oh man, I just like being an artist and doing all these things in school” to “Holy shit, I can draw Wolverine?”

I think I’ve said this before, but “What If” #6 … or, I don’t know what the number was. It was “What If Inferno Never Happened to the X-Men,” the first book I ever picked up — and I didn’t know who the X-Men were, I didn’t know who Inferno was, I didn’t know anything but I just saw this really cool (what I then later found out was Wolverine) image on the cover with, like, fire everywhere and this dude with claws and this devil face and I was like… “Holy shit, I could draw this.”

From then on, comics just became kind of it. I could combine my love of drawing and art and painting all that shit and then tell a story with it too. So it’s been like that since I was at least maybe twelve or thirteen.

So when did you start getting into drawing comics as less of a hobby and more of a profession?

JM: I was in college I had wanted to comics for a while. In high school, I think it was… maybe the end of the Image boom, now that I look back on it after watching that Image doc? But at the end of high school, all of a sudden I thought, “Wow, you could do this for a living.” And I thought, I don’t even have to go to college! I’ll just draw and I’ll make millions of dollars because Todd McFarlane is on the Home Shopping Network and on financial news networks, and Rob Liefeld is on MTV and all this stuff! That’s what I could do, I don’t have to go college.

So I started doing some drawing and I went to shows and I really didn’t understand the samples part of the deal so well; I just kind of did drawings of Die Hard or Wolverine or Cyclops. I got some positive feedback from people who said I had to do story pages, but it’s hard to do storytelling sequentials like that. So I kind of fell out of it and was doing extra work in movies and building sets; I was a drama major in college (don’t brag about that degree — studio art and theater tech!).

I ended getting back into it because I was kinda getting bored doing extra work in TV and movies. It just happened one day; I ended up drawing on a napkin or something at a restaurant and the waiter was like, “Did you do that?” And I said yeah, and it ended up he was interning or working for a toy development company, and he gave me a number. I called them, starting working for the toy development company and from there that was a lot of close ties to people in comics, so it flowed one into the other.

As far as origin goes, I think that’s pretty unique to you.

JM: It’s definitely a chance thing, yeah.

I think for a lot of people, myself included, the first time we heard about you was “Scam” a couple years ago. You had that huge Vegas billboard and there was all this fun press behind that. How did you get started working on “Scam?

JM: The original onus of the idea was, when I was a kid.. no, like, 18, my father asked me to see my fake ID. And I was like, “Naw, dad, I don’t have a fake ID,” and he’s like, “Let me see your fucking fake ID!” So I showed it to him and he said, “This is a shitty fake ID. It’s not even you. You live in the city, go get a good fake ID and lets go to Vegas together.” [Laughs] So I got a fake ID and we went to Vegas and it was… ridiculous. It’s a playground amongst playgrounds. And the weirdest thing was, except for Disneyland, it was the only place I’d been to outside of New York — and people are holding doors open for you and being polite and nice to you, and I’m suspicious of all of it! Is this guy going to take my wallet? What’s going on?

So I’m having this great bonding time with my father. We’re sitting at a table — I’m 18, sitting at a table with my father, and he… He used to read the comics that I read. He used to check them out, and he was like my early art director. “Do you see how you don’t draw enough down shots? Do you see how you don’t draw enough stuff like this?” and he’d point out different issues. But in Vegas, he said, “You know what? If I was like those characters in your comic books, I wouldn’t be putting on tights — I’d go to Vegas and have some fun over here.”

This idea stuck in my head and I thought, when I grow up as a tribute to my old man, I’m going to draw or write an X-Men story where they go to Vegas and get into hijinks and a caper or something like that.

As I started to get more back into comics later, I still had this idea. I thought it would be really cool, but I kinda started to fall out of love with superhero comics and the Big Two. I kind of just wanted to make it into my own thing, so I made “Scam” from that idea and building on it.

I think it’s interesting that you mention that you were falling out of love with the superhero idea, but this is still kind of like a superhero comic. Is it more that you had disdain toward Big Two stuff, or do you mean the superhero thing in general?

JM: I think, at a certain point, you get that fatigue from reading Big Two stuff. You know nothing matters anymore, you know what I mean? You know — and I’m just going to give off some early points from my life — I remember being like, “Holy shit, they took the metal out of Wolverine! Oh man, what’s going to happen?” And then I remember walking in the comic shop and the owner saying, “That stuff will be back in six months or whatever.” When you have that magic taken away of the story mattering for some reason… Once that hit me, I was like, yeah, you’re right. Every issue there’s a big cliffhanger, will this person die, or this person? And no, they never die. Nothing happens. There’s really no everlasting effect of any story; I kind of took that to heart and wanted to make something where I could.

So originally, I was just making “Scam” as a graphic novel. I wanted to make it that I can do whatever, so it stands as its own work and doesn’t fall into the regular big tropes of comics.

It was planned as a graphic novel, but it was broken down into four issues? What spurred the decision to break it up like that?

JM: One answer: Tyler James. That was it. He saw the process stuff I was doing on my website, reached out to me and we started talking about it. He was getting into moving ComixTribe from more than just an online resource into publishing and he had some ideas, so we kind of gelled and said, OK, lets release it as issues instead of a graphic novel. And that’s where we’re at today.

And you and Tyler have done a lot together now, right?

JM: Yeah. We talk almost every day. We’re just trying to run ComixTribe as smart as possible. Tyler is the head honcho along with Steven Forbes, who is very heavy on the website as well. I’m just kind of a creative guy who also tries to help and, you know, review pitches or bring new books to them, or new creators. I just try and help steer the ship as well.

How do you balance regular comic work with that ComixTribe work? I imagine it goes hand in hand pretty easily, right?

JM: Yeah, it’s not that hard. It’s kind of nice to every once in a while be able to scratch a different itch. If I’m having trouble writing a script or work out an idea or something, I can stop and go read a pitch, or stop and review layouts or look at colors. Especially with our Ultimate Collection, we have so many different stories and things to look over. I would hand off editing chores to other people at times, but then I could go look at the files themselves and check them out and see if there were any tweaks here or there that I wanted. It’s a pretty fun experience.

Do you find that any of your editorial work influences what you do in terms of your own creations?

JM: Now, I do. Yes. Now, but originally, even with that first issue of “Scam,” Tyler’s input was invaluable. Before it, I didn’t really have that much editorial mandate from myself. I just didn’t know, or I thought I knew a lot more than I did. Tyler stepped in and steered me in the right direction. So now, between doing all this stuff for the “Scam” Ultimate Collection and going through the mini-series, the learning curve has been huge.

I think that’s pretty interesting. In terms of how you originally created “Scam,” were there any major changes that working with Tyler brought in for you?

JM: Oh, a lot. A lot. But I just remember, the bigger thing is — working with Tyler, Tyler is the #1 person who helped give me a complete business sense to the idea of making a comic, rather than just making a comic and putting it out and that’s it. Now I have this hunger to get as proficient as possible with the business side as well as the creator side. I think that seems to be the way a creator has to go regardless with the way creator-owned comics are kind of going and booming right now. It just makes you a better creator to know everything. I’m not saying you have to do everything, but you’re better off to know everything. Working with Tyler, that has been gigantic.

Let’s talk about your process a little bit. Based on how you describe how you came up in the industry and all the things you learned from your dad, how do you start laying out your pages?

JM: I like to get nude. I like to get nude and I like to have a Bloody Mary.

I pretty much just look at the script. It’s not going to be anything that’s that much different. The only thing I will say is, I have to print out a script. Maybe sometimes I’ll look on my iPad if it’s late at night or I’m in bed. I print out a script so I can look at it and do thumbnails next to it, but the only thing that I found that is steadfast, that I can not do, is I can not be in my studio when I’m doing the initial read through. For some reason I have to be somewhere else; I have to be out in my yard if the weather’s nice, or down in my living room or in my basement with a bar — I can sit at the bar, I’ll feel like I’m at the neighborhood bar so I’ll sit and read it two or three times to get the image of comic in my head.

Specifically now, because I’m in this phase where I’m trying to do as much as I can and get noticed as much as possible, I’m really trying to push the layouts so I can establish myself as visually different. I don’t want to do anything that’s planned or “regular,” I want to try and be as dynamic as I can, so it feeds off that early process.

And in terms of breaking “Scam” down into its four issues and then eventually looking forward into spin-offs like “Scamthology,” what was the process of translating your graphic novel idea into a mini-series?

JM: It broke down pretty easily. I remember discussing with Tyler what the idea was, what the quick plot was and where it was going… Originally it was going to be six-issues. We made it four just to not to stretch our time with our distribution. We wanted to put out issues as quickly as possible, even though that flubbed a little bit. So, technically, it’s six-issues worth of material but in four issues worth of material, since the first and last issue are double-sized.

What ended up happening was, we had to say, ok, where’s the cliffhangers? Where’s the page turners? Where’s the beat you could end an issue on to get people to want to check out the next issue? I know people who have read the series and that was one of the biggest things people would say, that every page was a “Holy shit!” moment where they wanted to see where we’d go. It kind of worked out pretty well.

That actually leads well into the next question that I had, which is: ComixTribe is up and coming as a publisher, and I think now a lot of people are paying attention to smaller press and creator-owned comics. How have you felt that the reaction to the book has been so far?

JM: Way better than I would’ve ever thought. You go with an unknown party and a relative no-name into a retailer base, but all of a sudden people really welcome you. That billboard definitely helped with the first issue; that was something outside the box that people hadn’t done before. We went from micro-distribution when we had 25 retailers, and now we’re sitting at over 250 retailers that stock us when we put a book out. That’s definitely a climb we’re enjoying and we’re grateful for, and I’m definitely pleased by.

And now you’ve taken everything and you guys are bringing it to Kickstarter — and it’s not the first Kickstarter of ComixTribe, you’ve done quite a few of them now, so I imagine that you guys have sort of worked out the kinks?

JM: Oh, yeah. This has been the attack plan since Day One.

We had this idea of “Scamthology,” where we tell a story and let people look at the “Scam” bible, check out what they want and then come back for the rest of the story. We ended up asking twelve, thirteen people, and we figured we’d get some no’s back, but no one said no. Everyone we asked said, “Yeah, I’d love to tell a story, absolutely.” All of a sudden we start getting all these pictures in, and wow, this is good, this is good and this is good — alright, let’s put it all in!

So with Kickstarter, it gives us this nice platform for distribution and also to have fun with marketing and product. In “Scam,” there’s a character called Pint who is probably one of the most popular characters that I’ve come up with, that I get requests to draw or talk about, who is pretty much an alcoholic Popeye. The more he drinks, the stronger he gets. We started marketing him in and giving him his own pint glasses and bottle openers and all this kind of stuff, so that’ll be fun to play around with. Kickstarter is a great platform for creators to really put their business sense, put a good product forward.

The nice thing is, the book is done. You kind of alleviate slightly the worry of, hey, we have this idea and want to do it. We’re not even doing that. We’re saying, we’re done. And on the strength of the ComixTribe name and the Scam brand, thankfully people have said they’d help out with that. Ben McCool, he’s a big name in comics and he said yeah, he’d love to work on something for this. Joe Eisma from “Morning Glories,” who you’re more than familiar with, and Nick Pitarra and CP Wilson, a beast artist; him and newly announced Vertigo writer Amy Chu are on it. It’s a good book with a lot of talent and a lot of cool people.

I think a lot of people are always sort of wary about Kickstarter these days, especially based on a number of particular projects that don’t get finished or have excessive issues along the way. You Kickstarter something in November 2011 but you still don’t have the book in 2014. What are the challenges you guys have found from doing multiple Kickstarters that, by now, you expect this problem so you already know how you’re going to react to it?

JM: I think… It’s a concerted effort. We don’t ever want to drop the ball. Like you had said, we’ve done this before; “Oxymoron” was the first one that we did that was a raging success, and we fulfilled it — and we fulfilled it quickly by Kickstarter standards. “Epic” just wrapped out and that’s already been sent out for fulfillment. The point with “Scam,” once it is funded and we get to that last day, it will go to print that day; we will have the files ready that day and we will have the numbers ready that day. We’ll know exactly how many tip plates, we’ll know exactly how many artist sketches. Everything will be done down to a file program being sent out to everyone involved with instructions of what they have to do and what we need for the extras and the bonuses, and then it’ll be run like an assembly line at a proper business. It’s not something that is taken for granted.

I think at a certain point, the problem that you mentioned with Kickstarter is that people don’t really take into account the enormous amount of business is done. Once the Kickstarter campaign is done, the campaign is maybe like 25% of the work, you know what I mean? And then the other work begins where you have to format and do all these different things for shipping… Trust me, I hope to be stuck with the problem that I have fifty thousand books sitting in my house somewhere, stalked up to the ceiling with my kid running over them like a jungle gym. I hope that’s where we end up with this thing.

But, it’s true — you have to account for all of these things and think about all of it in advance, so we’ve been planning this launch for a year and nothing is by mistake. Everything we’re doing is to try and use the platform as the best possible platform that it is.

In terms of the Kickstarter, do you find that honesty is the best policy with the people you’re trying to convince into funding? Like saying, ok, here’s how we do it, here’s what the money is for?

JM: Yeah, but I don’t think that we’ve really done it to a big extent. I don’t know if people really want the honesty of the project or if they just want the entertainment of the project, you know? Our goal is $25,000 dollars, which is no small amount. And people saying, “$25,000? That’s a lot of money.” Well, the book is 265 pages or something; it’s going to be big. Then you have to factor in shipping, you have to factor in getting the book made, and the printing alone — if I told you the printing bill, you’d want to vomit a little in your mouth. It’s all prepared, it’s all thought out, all the creative that was paid on the book… It’s all for that specific month.

As far as giving truth, I don’t know what else we can give besides, here’s the people involved, it’s a great book. We’re in the early days right now, we have 31 days as of this interview to go, and we’re about a little more than a third of the way there. We’re plugging away and hoping that it’s going to be a big success, and we’re hoping that based on just the strength of product that people will dig it.

With ComixTribe, as the company grows, do you guys plan to always have Kickstarter as your publishing model? Have you talked about just doing a “Scam” trade by yourselves and putting it out there without the crowd funding?

JM: We have. It would work, it would sell, but at the same time I think that when you’re a reliable source (and I’ll put ourselves in that category), Kickstarter is just another weapon for distribution. So, we get to reach out directly to our fanbase and directly to a fanbase that might not know us, and we get to engage them for X amount of days. You have, say, 30 days to a campaign (even though ours is a little longer), and you have that long to engage people and to show them what the product is and new and exciting things that they can get. Only through you and your brand and your publishing name. Then you deliver on it and hopefully get the response of people being blown away by this timely product as well as the great quality of it.

I know, for us going forward, Kickstarter is something that has been a real game changer in the fact that we can distribute ourselves directly to people comfortably. Especially as fulfillment services step up, with the more money that floods into Kickstarter, I think it’s something that a lot of people are going to be using going forward.

In terms of how you see the future of “Scam,” I believe that this is “Scam” Volume 1, and there’s that epilogue that’s illustrated by you and written by — I’ve never, ever pronounced his name right, Jason–

JM: Jason Ciaramella. You have to say that right. He is as rough and tumble a gentleman in comics as you will meet. We were at a hotel and someone was checking his bag, and they said “Mr. Cia.. Mr. See-ara-mella, can I help you?” And he just put out a cigarette in the guy’s eye. So you need to watch out. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Thank you. So, do you have more ideas for “Scam?” Do you want to do more in the future?

JM: I have the idea of “Scam” written as a trilogy. “Scam” has a definite beginning, a definite end, but the “Scam” Ultimate Collection/”Scamthology” show? The world is vast, there’s all these different and fun side-stories. My next plan would to do the second volume, and that’ll happen down the line, but right now I have something else planned work-wise to do for ComixTribe. We’re launching a new property later this year.

Beard Preacher, right?

JM: Beard Preacher is going to be huge! But that we’ll do through Multiversity.

One thing I wanted to ask about, and I fear this might throw you for a bit so don’t worry if it sounds strange…

JM: No, my wife’s not a beard.

[Laughs] No, no. In terms of you, do you feel that you yourself are a pretty good brand in terms of helping promote your comics? Because I find, ok, people know of ComixTribe and people know of “Scam” and Kickstarter and all these things, but when it comes to your work specifically I feel like the appeal is directly related to you, your personality, how outgoing you are, how passionate you are, things like that.

JM: I think a lot about my brand and that kind of stuff. Number one thing I want is for the product to do well. I want “Scam” to do well. Obviously it behooves me, but I want ComixTribe to do well, too. ComixTribe is a bunch of really good guys who put out really great books. We put out tremendous books. They don’t get as seen as much as other books because we’re a “lower tier” company, but at the same time, the work is there, the books are there.

So when it comes to my brand, I don’t think I can help but be myself, which seems to be irreverent… Some would even say obnoxious, others would say charming. My wife would say charming! I don’t know. When it comes to my brand, and this is a good question, but I know the next project that I am doing will not be as a brash a subject as “Scam.” Superpowered con-men in Vegas definitely scratches my personality itch, but the next project is more of an action-oriented story.

Am I answering that correctly? Are you saying, do I myself get myself out there enough?

Sort of. I just think that you, of all the people that I’ve seen working in comics, I think your personality alone helps sell your books as much as the actual content of the book.

JM: For the longest time, in the articles that you guys run on Multiversity, I believe in the advertising of comics in any way — and the quickest and most direct way that I can advertise my books is through my big mouth. So, at conventions, a lot of times I’m not behind the table. I’m not sitting there, I’m not quiet, I’m not reserved; I’m out in front like a used cars salesman trying to pull people over and check things out. I want to engage people on every single level; people who aren’t into comics, people who are into comics. If you’re into comics, I’ve got a book for you! If you’re not into comics, I’ve got a book for you too! I feel like that’s the only way I’ve ever known how to be.

Secondly, I’d love to see more comic people out and about. I love seeing Robert Kirkman on television shows. I feel like comics needs more of that, to at least get the word out on the books. The point of the articles that you guys run for me is that people don’t know what comics really are, and that was really my idea behind “Scam.” I can’t sell someone the idea of Peter Parker and twenty costume changes and dead, alive, all this continuity, I can’t sell them on that as much as I can sell them on the idea of — if you had super powers, would you go to Vegas? You know what I mean?

It’s a quick sell for people who aren’t into comics, and I want everyone to be in comics, which I know is a lofty dream but I want everyone to know how great they are. I love them, hopefully other people do too. And I guess the only way to do that is to be myself and be as outgoing and engaging as possible. Sometimes drunk. You’ve seen it. Sometimes drunk.

In terms of where comics are today, we’re definitely noticing this big push from the creator-owned market in terms of getting the awareness out there. Kirkman on TV, you guys and your billboard; Do you think now is a better or worse time for creator-owned comics? Certainly Image is doing well, but I think Image is the exception, not the rule.

JM: Image is the exception, but if it was the only exception I don’t think you’d see such a rise with things like Monkeybrain or BOOM!. There’s a real thirst out there for new material. I think that Image is definitely the most established model of creator-owned; at this point, and this is just me with a business hat on, if “Scam” had gone through Image, you would’ve had a bigger boost in sales because that Image “I” — after years and years and years of a proven track record, it is now attached to quality. So people might not have ever picked up an Image book, but they know that the company is around and they’re not going anywhere. And there is something to that familiarity and faith in a publishing line that gives to readers who are either Wednesday Warriors or digital guys or casual, and it gives retailers faith of a book coming out. I think years ago, there was an instability with independent comics where people weren’t finishing products and, OK, I’ll put out one or two issues of something and sell the rights and just fall out of line with doing it — there was an instability with just doing it, and now more than ever, the creators want to keep doing it, they just need the audience to back them up and buy the books so they can afford to keep doing it.

So I think now is a better time than ever. I think ComixTribe, I know it because I see our numbers, but we continue to grow and get stronger… It’s an exciting time for us now. “Scam” is the first series to wrap up and finish from ComixTribe. “The Red Ten” and “The Standard” will be next, and then we move into the whole next wave of books. Then we have the strength of this finished library, and I think there’s something to that finished library, finishing a book, finishing a project and having it there. It’s comforting and reassuring to readers and retailers and everyone who wants to give you a chance.

So generally speaking, in a ComixTribe Against The World mentality, are you guys happy with the market as it is today? I imagine it’s a continuous uphill battle, but a worthwhile one?

JM: It’s worthwhile, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. But it’s definitely… Happy? We’re happy that we’re making books. Now we just want to see our numbers climb and climb and get to a better space. We’re using things like digital platforms and using things like Kickstarter to get out there to more people, to get books directly in peoples hands. I know many people who have picked up a ComixTribe book at a convention, because that’s the most quick and direct way of seeing the reaction; people respond to every single quick pitch we have, and once they pick up the book it’s a sale. People give it that chance.

Never heard of “The Red Ten?” Well, what if we were able to kill the Justice League; the Justice League were set in a murder mystery. Boom! Someone picks it up, they’re in.

“Scam,” same thing. Super-powered con-men on a revenge heist in Las Vegas. Boom! Pick it up, it looks like it’s a quality done book, people buy it.

Going forward, yeah, we want creator-owned books to keep booming and stuff like that, for people to give us more of a chance. The nice thing is, from 25 shops saying they liked our books and they sell well for them to now 250 shops saying our books do well and sell well for them? You kind of just keep spreading the word and pushing along, and eventually those numbers keep climbing and so will book sales, and hopefully ComixTribe will have a long and prosperous life.

The “Scam” Ultimate Collection is available on Kickstarter now.