We have another interview this week at Multiversity Comics, and it’s one we’re really excited to present. If you haven’t heard of Axe Cop yet, you’re really missing out on one of the most entertaining and original comics on the market. Ethan Nicolle is the artist of the title, which he co-created with his five year-old brother Malachai. Ethan spoke to us about the web sensation, and he even spoke to his parents about for us about the success of the project and how it affects Malachai.
Thanks so much to the Nicolle family for participating, and for sharing this comic with the world. Check out the interview after the jump.
A lot of readers already know this, but where did Axe Cop come from?
Ethan Nicolle: Christmas of ’09 I was visiting the family and as Malachai usually does, asked me to play with him, but this time he asked me to play “Axe Cop.” I immediately got this image in my head of this stone cold cop with an axe instead of a gun, so I played along, and as we went on our imaginary adventure fighting dinosaurs and holding try-outs for new team mates the whole story with this character playing out in my head became something I just had to draw. I first drew it as something just to enjoy with my family, I never imagine anyone beyond that would really enjoy it like us.
How surprising has the success been?
EN: It’s been shocking. I never expected anything even remotely like this. I thought the joke of Axe Cop was largely partial and that I mainly liked it because I adore Malachai. When the whole viral thing happened it just caught me completely off guard and me and my friend Anthony who built my site (and in the realm of websites we are pretty amateur we admit) were totally unprepared.
The popularity of Axe Cop has largely been created virally. Have you even had to do much to promote it or has it all come together naturally?
EN: It was almost effortless. We put links to Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Digg and all those things on our site, but everyone does that. We didn’t really go around asking people to read it. It was never my goal to make Axe Cop big because in my mind I was putting it online as my web comic experiment. In my mind, web comics have such a small market anyway the idea of getting such massive exposure was not even in the cards. Axe Cop seemed to break out of that little niche web comic genre and attract all sorts, but at the same time the web comics community embraced it instantly and that was really awesome.
Axe Cop has become a hit across all demographics. Why do you think that is?
EN: I hadn’t intentionally made Axe Cop for any audience but my family… but what I realized in making Axe Cop for my family after it blew up was that my family represents the 4 major demographics… the kids, the teens, the parents and the seniors. I wasn’t making this comic for the comic world, I was making it for my family who only reads comics when I make them and while they support me I don’t know if they fully understand why I would spend so much time working on such odd creative endeavors. So Axe Cop was for non-comic readers of all ages… my family. I just figured it was exclusively funny to us, but it turns out Malachai personifies that fun “Calvin and Hobbes” kind of 5 year old spirit in a way that everyone can enjoy.
As far as art goes, who/what would you say are your biggest influences?
EN: Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, Doug TenNapel, Simon Bisely, Sam Keith, Jhonen Vasquez, Eric Powell, Evan Dorkin to name a few.
Continued belowGiven that your creative partner/brother is just five, how difficult is it to balance letting him be a kid and expanding on this truly random and amazing story?
EN: There are boundaries I have to put up. For instance I constantly have to block his attempts at working heroes like Ben 10 or Spider Man into our stories. I also will try to encourage him to think of something new when he gets repetitive with an idea. But in general he amazes me with the stuff he comes up with and usually he gives me a ton to sort through and organize into a comic. Sometimes I will take a few things he said at different times and combine them, but in general I rarely make up anything from scratch. Everything is based on Malachai’s ideas.
Has he always been so imaginative and hilarious?
EN: Yes, our family in general has always encouraged use of imagination even if it gets a little scary what comes out. Malachai loves making things up and he gets really excited when he does so.
As the older of the two creators involved in this project, a lot of the responsibility in making sure Malachai and your intellectual property is safe is left solely on you. How difficult is this for you to handle?
EN: I haven’t been too worried about it. It’s copyrighted and what’s special about Axe Cop to me is not the character but the fun time I have with Malachai. If someone stole Axe Cop and tried to make it without Malachai and I it would cease to be Axe Cop. Axe Cop is not a cop with an axe, Axe Cop is Malachai and me having play time converted into a web comic. I think we could do another story about hawk with a beard or a Wizard with a machine gun and it would be just as entertaining. So fine, steal Axe Cop we’ll invent chainsaw cop and he’ll saw you head off.
How far would you like to see Axe Cop go?
EN: I’d love to get some books done. I want to do it as long as Malachai and I enjoy doing it, and I would love to go where ever it takes us. TV, film, toys, books, games… I’d love to do it all. I think the property lends itself to all kinds of possibilities, and I’d love to explore any that come our way, and even if it remains just a web comic, it’s pretty awesome and I am very proud of it.
As far as some of the more “famous” lines of Axe Cop are concerned (such as “I’ll chop your head off!”), how much of it is created by Malachai and how much is written by you?
EN: Man it seems like almost every line of dialog in Axe Cop turns into a catch phrase. Some of the lines are straight out of Malachai’s mouth. I’ll ask him what Axe Cop would say in a situation and he 99% of the time says something to the effect of “I will chop your head off.” When we were playing he told me to sign up, handed me a fake clip board and then we went and killed donosaurs. It didn’t go as smoothly as it goes in the comic, but I just recreate the moment with Axe Cop sliding a clipboard up to Flute Cop and saying “Sign up here. We’ve got a gang of dinosaurs to kill.”
There are a lot of breakout characters from this series already. Who would you say the biggest is? Besides Uni-Baby, because clearly you don’t get much bigger than Uni-Baby.
EN: Yeah, amazingly we have over 30 characters now and in comic form Axe Cop is about 30 pages so far, so we are averaging one new character per page. There has been a lot of love for the various incarnations of Flute Cop. There seem to be two teams… the dinosaur soldierians and the avocado soldierians who are in kind of a war over who was a better character. I prefer dinosaur soldier just because he is so much fun to draw, but Avocado soldier, especially with a unicorn horn, is just so epically bizarre you have to laugh at it.
Continued belowWhen are we going to see Axe Cop: The Movie?
EN: I never saw Axe Cop going further than a tiny corner of the internet where a few people randomly might come by and go “teehee, that’s adorable.” After realizing it’s appeal I really have gained a vision of it as a film. I think that what makes Axe Cop exciting is that it is a comic that has the balls to let a five year old run the show. It is totally unpredictable, but it is solely focused on being awesome. It is pure sugar, but it’s a blast. I don’t think all entertainment should be like this, but if you are going to make hollow popcorn entertainment, this seems to be an epic way to do it that no one has really tried. I created a fake movie trailer for an Axe Cop movie on youtube and it has sort of gone viral too. It claims to be the greatest action movie ever made, written by a 5 year old boy. I think if a movie did what the comic does… let a 5 year old run the story, people would be fascinated. I want to see it, live action, big screen, Axe Cop fighting Dinosaurs in the land of volcanoes and sticking bombs in their heads. There has been interest from Hollywood and the best thing people can do to support that idea of Axe Cop as a movie is to help spread the YouTube video, share it, rate it and comment on it.
Axe Cop Trailer (Editor’s Note: For those that haven’t heard, Episode One is out and it is amazing)
Besides Axe Cop, are you working on anything else?
EN: I was working on my next book, Bearmageddon. Sort of a zombie movie, but with mutated bears. But Axe Cop really took off and being the opportunist I am, I have been trying to keep Axe Cop fans happy for now and I’ll get back to Bearmageddon when I have figured out how to juggle both of them.
Are you a regular reader of (web or print) comics yourself? If so, what are you enjoying in particular?
EN: The only comics I regularly read these days are the Walking Dead trades and any new Doug TenNapel book. I love a good graphic novel, but I have not been buying them lately. That’s what amazes me about Axe Cop, it has attracted the super hero comics crowd, and I rarely read super hero/mainstream comics. I never envisioned myself making anything that would get that group’s approval.
Do you think the success of Axe Cop could lead to more comics written by children? I’m hoping my unborn son could take over Avengers once Bendis is off the book.
EN: I don’t know, I was really amazed at how revolutionary everyone thought this idea was. I didn’t think of it as any sort of genius when we did it, it was just goofing off. I have really had to try to ignore the kudos and continue to see it as Malachai and I goofing off because that’s what makes it fun. I never thought a comic written by a 5 year old could really hold an audience, but so far is has been awesome to see the new ideas come out. I sit on the edge of my seat just as much as our readers wondering what will come next.
Here is the section where we asked Ethan and Malchai’s parents some questions.
When Ethan first came to you with this idea, what did you think?
Nicolle Family: We thought the Axe Cop idea was funny and clever. We were surprised how you took a game you were playing and made it into a comic.
Outside of being incredibly imaginative what is Malachai like? What was Ethan like at Malachai’s age?
NF: He is a typical 5 year old, loves video games, cars and playing. He is the most advanced reader in his kindergarten class. Ethan was always a sweet guy. Before he was two he could spend hours drawing. He had an ability to tell stories with his drawings.
Continued belowMalachai clearly has a rather vivid imagination, which is important for kids and seemingly not as encouraged as it was in the past. What do you do to encourage him?
NF: Nothing specifically, we talk to him like he is a peer not a baby, he is never talked down to or discouraged in being himself. And he is very loved.
How exciting is it to see your child have such success at such a young age?
NF: We consider this to be Ethan’s success not Malachai’s. Malachai is playing and talking about his game called Axe Cop. He has no concept on this success and we don’t want him to have local fame, we want to protect his innocence.
With all of the mainstream interest in this comic and all of the people curious about it, the pressure on Malachai must be concerning. How do you balance that out and let him be an ordinary kid?
NF: We are not making a big deal about him, we focus on Ethan.
How far would you like to see Axe Cop go?
NF: It would be fun to see it as a movie, and even have action figures for kids to play with. Dad would like to see everyone wearing a T-shirt, lunch boxes,
ect… just like Disney.
Does Malachai read comics (yet)? If so, which ones?
NF: We do not have comic books in the house but he has read books that are in comic form that he has gotten from the library, like, Sponge Bob, Spiderman. He is not particularly interested in comics, he likes to play. Ethan is into comics.
Thanks to the Nicolle family for talking with us, and if you haven’t yet make sure to check out Axe Cop.
