This week I am very excited to bring you an interview with one of my favorite current indie writers – Brian Clevinger! We’d talked to him before, and I decided I definitely want to do a follow up because a new volume of Atomic Robo is coming out THIS WEEK! Volume 4 – The Revenge of the Vampire Dimension! So I got in touch with him and what follows is an informative look into the world of Clevinger, Robo, and the Vampire Dimension.
Oh, and FYI, you should probably be pre-ordering the CRAP out of the new volume by clicking here. I know I’ve already pre-ordered. Why haven’t you?
So — Atomic Robo volume 4! What can you tell us about it as far as the basic premise goes?
Volume 4 is what would happen if Volumes 1 through 3 had a baby in direct violation of the laws of nature.
In case that’s not enough of an explanation, somehow, let me get specific.
There’s four issues this time around. Each one is a one-shot and completely independent of the others. But they all take place on different days of the same week, so they’re loosely connected too. It’s basically, “An average week in the life of Atomic Robo,” only instead of an average week it’s his most hectic!
We’ve got the vampire dimension, the Japanese version of Tesladyne, Science Team Super Five, the return of Dr. Dinosaur in a story that picks up where his introduction in Free Comic Book Day left off, and the introduction of Robo’s newest nemesis who also happens to be his oldest nemesis. Whew!
Volume 4 appears to be shorter than the other volumes. Is there any particular reason for a more condensed story?
As with every Volume of Atomic Robo, we only do as many issues as we have story for. This time it was four issues. Which is just as well, really. Given how far we have Robo travel in this series, from NYC to Japan to French Polynesia and back to NYC, it would’ve stretched credibility (beyond, y’know, the robot and the dinosaur) to have it all happen in one week if we’d crammed another adventure in there.
It’s my understanding that the title to volume 4 (Revenge of the Vampire Dimension) was not the original title planned? What was the title supposed to be?
It was supposed to be Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness. The original title was a not-so-veiled reference to the youths of Scott Wegener and Brian Clevinger being wasted on Palladium Roleplaying Games. Chief among them RIFTS and, this is the one important to the question, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. And that’s why Volume 4 is a series of one-shots. “Other Strangeness” screamed “anthology of weird” to us.
But there was a miscommunication between Team Robo and Red 5 and they thought the title to issue 1, The Revenge of the Vampire Dimension, was the title for the whole series. Scott and I didn’t find out about the error until the solicits were out and at that point you’re better off just sticking to what’s in the system. Diamond has a hard enough time with books like ours that change title with every mini-series. Changing the title within a mini-series sounded about as fun as getting hit by a bus. And, hell, it’s a cool sounding title anyway, so who cares!
So Dr Dinosaur will finally return to the books. How does he fit in with the overall story, and given how much you seem to love the character, would you consider him Robo’s nemesis?
Robo has lived too long and been too ornery to be limited to just one nemesis. He’s got Helsingard, Dr. Dinosaur, a shadowy organization that we’ll learn more about in some upcoming online mini-comics released concurrent with Vol 4, and the all new nemesis that’ll debut in the last issue of the volume!
Continued belowAnd we’ve got more of ‘em planned too. But, y’gotta wait for those. Sorry!
In regards to the online comics that go along with the latest volume, are those comics going to be strictly online, or are they going to see print in some fashion? Like, I assume something might pop in a trade, but for those like myself who have bought the issues, will there be some kind of “b-sides” comic we can get, so to say?
While that question is of course part of the interview, I have to admit it’s also a fairly selfish question on my part too, haha.
We’re moving our mini-comics, B-Sides, whatever, to the internet. We release them there for free while the issues are coming out and then collect the online stuff in a trade with the issues. We figured this way the artists could enjoy greater flexibility to fit our pages in their schedules, and it’d free up space in the issues to include a nice old school letters column.
What is your usual process for concocting the characters that appear in the Robo books? I’ve noticed that, for the most part, no one really has “origins.” Instead, they just appear when needed (such as Dr Dinosaur in the FCBD book last year).
Scott and I have a grueling process by which we go, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” I could say there was more to it and make us NOT look like a couple of morons, but that’d be a whole lotta lying.
We draw our inspiration as much from history books and documentaries as from old school pulps. The modern world is weird enough that you don’t need much embellishment to make it consistent with a walking, talking robot main character. I mean, really, you look at Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters. These are worlds very similar to our own with just a few nudges into the strange.
We tend to stay away from origin stories, you’re right. They’re a little too pat. I just don’t like the idea of having a whole character’s history recorded in excruciating (and ever-changing) detail. That’s not how you interact with real history, and it’s certainly not how you interact with real people. There’s always going to be that element of mystery; those moments beyond the veil of your own experience; the time “from before” where all myths comes from. Maybe you’ll hear about those times, or infer things about them from other evidence, but there will always be an element of the unknown, and that will always make them more interesting than they ever actually were. I guess that’s just a long way to say that leaving out the origins makes the characters feel more real.
That said Volume 5 is technically an origin story for a character you haven’t met yet. And while that origin will be the engine that moves Volume 5 forward, the story is really more about Robo and his relationships to the people around him.
Other fun facts about Volume 5: not only will it represent our first origin story, it’s a semi-prequel to the end of Volume 4, and it’s our first fully continuous narrative.
A while ago you wrote on your website that you have the titles up to volume 11. What is it like to have Robo’s future planned out so far?
It’s frustrating. It’s a constant reminder that we’ll always have more stories to tell than time to tell them in. I mean, that’s easily seven years worth of content. Imagine all the other stories we’ll come up with by the time we get to Volume 11.
As far as problems go, it’s not a bad one to have. My hope is for nanobot bodies and cloning so Scott and I can finally have enough manpower between us to get these things done as fast as we think of them.
Atomic Robo is slated once again for a Free Comic Book Day book. Considering last year’s was easily the best in the FCBD lot, what does this year have in store for us?
I feel no shame in admitting that last year’s story was probably the best one we’ll ever do in terms of execution. It was a perfect pay off to a perfect build up. So, we’re not even trying to top that. And I’m already annoyed because I can just see everyone tossing around the word “disappointed” because we only hit a nine instead of a twelve on a ten point scale.
But whatever.
This year Robo will conduct some paleozoology in South America. As you might guess, the zoology has different ideas about how paleo it is and things go real bad real fast.
What can you tell us about the Atomic Robo animated short that has been announced?
It’s being made by the fine folks at The Fictory. They came to us asking if they could make an animated short based on Atomic Robo. We said “Go for it!” Scott and I promised not to sue them for it and then put together a quickie first draft script based on the kind of story they had in mind. They’ve been hammering away at it ever since.
We’ve seen a few snippets of test animation and it’s lookin’ pretty hot.
Depending on how well the short is received, are there any basic plans to put Robo into an animated series? (It seems he’d be perfect for a cartoon similar to the Tick or Sam and Max)
It’s natural for folks to think like that, but that’s not what we’re trying to accomplish. What The Fictory is putting together is a high quality demo real for their company that happens to use our intellectual property because they enjoy our comics. They get a very cool product to show off their capabilities to prospective clients, and we get a very cool product to show our fans.
If anything beyond that happens, that’s great and we’ll look into it, but it’s not even on our radar.
You recently announced on Twitter that you were writing a Marvel mini-series. What can you tell us about that?
At this time? Not much if I want to keep the gig. And I do. Sorry! I’ll do you the favor of summarizing the available info though.
It’s a mini-series. It’s for Marvel Comics. It’s not a series currently in print.
I want to thank Brian for taking the time to talk to me, and I’d like to remind you all that the new volume of Atomic Robo starts this week. No, you don’t have to have read the previous volumes. Yes, you should definitely buy it.
