The State of Valiant in 2016 with Shamdasani, Simons, and Pierce

I don’t think anyone at Multiversity could have predicted just how successful the Valiant relaunch would be. But, here we are, almost 4 years later, and the company is thriving, changing, and growing every single day. We wanted to get to the bottom of why this was the case – why has Valiant succeeded, when so many other publishers have struggled?

To answer those questions, I spoke to Valiant’s brain trust – CEO/CCO Dinesh Shamdasani, Editor-in-Chief Warren Simons, and Publisher Fred Pierce – about all things Valiant, specifically looking at 2015’s accomplishments and 2016’s goals.

In addition, we have a bevy of exclusive first looks at a number of Valiant titles, which are peppered throughout the issue. A big thanks to Hunter Gorinson at Valiant for facilitating all of this, and make sure to check out what Valiant is up to in 2016 – you won’t be disappointed.

One of the things I wanted to talk to you guys about is, over the summer I had one of the Multiversity staffers shoot me and email and said, “Hey, I really am interested in getting into some Valiant titles but I’ve never read Valiant before. Where should I start?”

It was right around the time that the “Book of Death” crossover was starting. I said, start with the crossover. He read the first issue and shot me and email back and said, “I have never read a more accessible event comic in my entire life.” I think that’s a real testament to what you guys do and I think that’s a pretty standard reaction from people who are trying to jump into Valiant.

How important is it for you guys that you are able to give people clean jumping on points where people are not going to be overwhelmed by what’s hitting them but there’s still a richness and vastness to the universe?

Warren Simons: For me, as the editor-in-chief, it’s paramount. In addition to selling great stories it goes hand in hand with telling great stories. We want the books to be as successful as possible, especially our crossover events. It’s something I talk about with all of the creators.

We’re really lucky to have good group of writers up here, whether it’s Jeff Lemire, Matt Kindt, Rob Venditti, Fred Van Lente, Rafer Roberts, or Jody Houser. I feel like we have a team of really, really, really dedicated writers and this isn’t the fourth or fifth most important project they’re working on that month. We talk to them about what Valiant is and how accessibility is important, and they are very responsive to that.

When you have characters like X-O Manowar, Quantum and Woody, Archer and Armstrong, or the Eternal Warrior there’s enough within that concept to generate compelling new stories over and over and over and over again. That’s what we try to do, as opposed to telling a story about the first time that X-O Manowar did something, we’re trying to build that story out so that you don’t have to have read all 45 issues of “X-O” to understand what’s happening.

Fred Pierce: Also, what we’ll try to do is we’ll try to create something where it’s an easy time to jump on. So, we’ll do something like “The Valiant,” and then we can point to it and say, look if people don’t know anything to pickup have them pick up “The Valiant.” That’s the best thing to pick up today to really jump into what’s going on into the Valiant universe.

If you look, we are always telling you in the book, on the inside front cover of the book, what happened before. Any one of our books, as far as we’re concerned, is going to be the first book that somebody picks up and we’re looking to get them hooked right from whatever story that is. It’s easier to jump in at a number one and we’re assuming that when we do something like “Faith” #1, that a lot of people who are generally interested in Valiant just because of the diversity of the character will jump in but really we hope that you can jump into any of our titles.

Dinesh Shamdasani: Your story, Brian, makes us all smile. Thank you for telling us that. That’s what we fight day in and day out for is to get someone interested enough that they jump into one of our books. We don’t know what that book’s going to be. Hopefully it’s one of the books that is built to be some of the story but if it’s not we kill ourselves to make it super accessible and to make it to be the best book that we can make it.

I think you know this, but we don’t publish as many books as other publishers. We try and keep our line very small so we can keep the quality very high because we know we’re only going to get one shot at someone’s first Valiant book. We’d better make it the best it can be so they get hooked.

You know it’s interesting, we see this all the time, this is something that almost our entire company is based on. The convention circuit that we do, we have a very aggressive convention tour. I think it’s the most aggressive of any publisher in the business.

WS: 26 shows or something like that.

DS: Almost 30 shows we did this last year, including ones all over the world. We find that Sunday is our biggest in terms of sales and that’s because Friday and Saturday at the show we we’ll get new readers coming on board.

They’ll try their first Valiant book. We do $9.99 trades and we’re very friendly at the shows so people tend to come over. They’re drawn in by the energy, they buy the books, they’ll read them that night or that Saturday night and Sunday they’ll come back and say, “I want one of everything!” Not just everything, say “Harbinger” if they bought “Harbinger” Volume 1, but I want everything you guys are doing.

Sunday is a huge day for us because people have seen what our quality of the content is and then they come back and buy everything that we’ve published.

WS: Yes. Which is atypical as I’m sure you know. Usually it’s Saturday is your biggest attendance day.

DS: Right. It’s great, it really pisses the other publishers off because they look at our booth on a Sunday and we’re jam packed and they’re thinking what happened, why aren’t we like that?

That leads really well into my next question which is, you guys talk about keeping the line nice and small. What is it, about six monthly issues on average?

WS: It fluctuates between seven, I think our lowest of the year was seven in November and it goes up to about nine or ten or eleven in peak summer months.

I know you said it’s very good to keep the line small that way you keep the quality consistent but is there a part of you that wants to just keep pushing out more and more and more? If so, what do you decide is the book that next? For instance, “Shadowman: is a book that I, when I think of Valiant from the past, “Shadowman” is the first book that pops into my mind.

There hasn’t been a “Shadowman” ongoing in a little bit of time. What is your process for keeping that line small and deciding, is this is the right time for this book?

FP: If we want to have “Eternal Warrior” and “Archer and Armstrong” – we have a lot of different titles – they fight for air time, so part of that is it will be the right time for something to launch. Like, if we’re doing a particular crossover you might need a particular character and then part of it is Warren is always asking for, let’s hear a pitch. Let’s hear a pitch, let’s hear a pitch, let’s hear a pitch. Sometimes the best pitch wins.

DS: Every idea is best. We’re only about the best ideas. Stories is the number one thing we focus on in the company. We want to answer your question, Brian, and we want to publish a lot more than we’ve published. We wish that we could publish twice as many books as what we have now but we have to make sure the quality is high and we have to make sure that we’re cognizant of our fan base.

We want them to be able to buy everything. We want to encourage that readership so we want to make sure the line is tight enough and small enough, much like Marvel in it’s first ten years.

When Stan Lee was creating those characters, much like DC in it’s first seven, eight years the line is small enough that you can read everything and you can watch that shared universe grow organically.

WS: Also, the universe itself moves in certain directions. To a certain extent it is organic. “Bloodshot” and “Harbinger” launched at the same time but ultimately things change, and some last longer than others before ending, or changing. We have an idea on the horizon for what we wanted to do with them but that lead to that.

WS: Which led to “Bloodshot Reborn” in the same way that “The Valiant” was really key to what Jeff did with Bloodshot. In the same way that we have “Ninjak” now, we have Shadowman now under the auspices of Ninjak in “Ninjak” #10. A lot of it is organic in how the universe moves on its own and how we channel that. That’s a big part of how many books we’ll be publishing.

That’s a key role because, as Fred pointed out, we don’t want to get 16, 17, 18 mediocre books out there. We want to do seven to ten or eleven books that are perfect or as close to perfect as we can get under extremely tight deadlines which is what the industry demands so to speak.

It’s a great question.

FP: I could say to your our books are as good as any books out there. When we can do that with more titles we’ll do that. Right now, also remember, we haven’t been around all that long and it takes a while to grow into that.

DS: It’s interesting given our fan base, they want 30 titles now a month, they want movies, they want video games, they want action figures. It’s a fantastic place to be. It’s surprising to me how quickly we got there.

FP: We’ve been publishing for about three and a half years now.

Right. That was one of my questions I wanted to talk about as well. When the line started in 2012, I think just about everybody I know was impressed with the quality of books that were coming out initially.

I think it’s doubtless that you guys are continuing to pump out incredible content month in month out. You talk about publishing the best books that you can publish. For you guys, what does that mean? For the three of you, what does it mean to publish a book that is as close to perfect as you can get?

DS: It means everything. It’s the one thing that we all started with here. If we are going to take on these two giant conglomerates in Disney and Warner Brothers we have to make sure the books are as good as anything that’s ever come before and certainly better than the books we’re competing against because they have machinery that we’re not going to have. They have tools that we’re not going to have. We have to go back to the basics.

Specifically, what are the things that you look for in monthly books. What are the hallmarks of quality that you say, this is what each book needs to have?

WS: You want the tools of the trade. You want the secret sauce.

FP: I’ll give you one. The books have to be compelling. You have to care about the characters. You have to care about what’s happening to the characters and the books have to be compelling. I find that comics are no different than any other good creative work and I think we do that as well as anybody does that.

WS: All the pages have to be colored. If you can hit that check mark every month we’re ahead of the game. [Laughs]

No, I think it’s building a collaborative environment with our creators. It’s getting our creators jazzed up about the great stories that they’re going to tell. We have some really premier, exceptional creators here. I feel very lucky with the Rolodex that we have right now. I feel that part of it is because the creators want to tell good stories and they want to tell compelling stories. We want to put ourselves in an environment where we allow that to happen.

We are able to work with the guys and they are able to work with us. To me that’s a good start. If you can start in that place where everyone is really trying to build the best book possible, as crazy as that sounds, it’s really a great starting place.

FP: That’s not true for everybody in this industry.

Right. No, that’s certainly true. I want to talk about your creators for a minute and I want to talk specifically about, you guys have been doing a real nice job of locking up artists to exclusive contracts, lately. Just recently I know you guys locked David LaFuente, Raul Allen, Mico Suayan is elusive too right?

FP: Yes.

DS: Yes. You don’t know the half of it, Brian. The number of creators we have listed that we haven’t announced is, we have a deep, deep bench.

WS: We’ll probably be releasing an announcement sometime soon outlining even more of them.

What do you guys see as the value of exclusivity? Why is it important for you to lock up this talent and make that they are just working with you?

WS: Well I think we pride ourselves on having a really high level of talent at the company and I think it’s important for us to be in a position where we can continue to work with them and where they’re not under siege from larger companies.

DS: You went there!

WS: It’s true. As an editor I’m responsible for a certain extent for staffing the books along with the rest of the team but we do see, we’ll put a guy on a book like Raul Allen who’s exclusive with us. Raul is an incredible draftsman, his storytelling is magnificent, he’s one of the most talented newer guys that I’ve worked with in a while.

If we put out a couple of books with Raul at the helm doing sequential storytelling and he’s not exclusive, he will be gone within 60 days because that’s how this industry works right now.

There are talent scouts at both the companies, they read our books every month. Not to say they don’t have extraordinary talent, they do. By the same token, we really pride ourselves on operating at a very high level.

Also, what we have going for us is that a lot of the creators want to tell good stories and they know we’re one of the few places in the industry that places that above all else.

It’s more important for us to tell good stories than it is for us to try and boost numbers. It’s more important for us to tell good stories than it is for us to try to tie something into a franchise that’s coming out.

DS: We don’t have that to worry about. We don’t have a corporate parent saying we’ve got this giant franchise moving coming out in December so you need to change your publishing plans to follow that or we’ve got this license deal so you’ve got to change your story to service that.

We can just focus on making sure the story is the best it can be and should be.

WS: Right and when you see the opening pages of “Bloodshot Reborn” #1, by Jeff and Mico, Bloodshot does come crazy stuff in there. Stuff that would be perceived as crazy at other companies. I think for us right now, the idea that this is how someone suffering from PTSD might operate, how one person may operate, the honesty of that, that’s what’s compelling about that particular story because it’s truthful and it’s honest. I think that’s what makes our books strong.

DS: We’re very aware of who we are, Brian. Here’s who we are at the moment: we’re a publisher that’s won a few awards and gets nominated and some some great creators and has told some great stories. We publish a small amount of books but they are probably among the best books in the industry every time they come out.

Everyone else is looking at us thinking, how do we get a piece of that? They look at the creators and the secret sauce of what we do and they try to reverse-engineer it. They try and take the creators so we have to protect that because we know we’re on a much longer trajectory. We know we have a long plan. People said we wouldn’t get to where we are today when we started out.

We knew we were going to get there. We knew we were going to get much further, so we’re protecting the assets that we have today. We’re protecting our process so that we can continue to build and we’ll continue to build. Like Fred likes to say, we’re aiming for number three. We’re aiming to be the number three publisher in the business.

We’re very happy about where we are now. We’re headed where we thought we’d be now. We’re on our way there.

FP: Just imagine if you’re a small company like ours. People think about Valiant as this juggernaut, but we’re a small company. We have to protect our assets. These guys like to get the best talent themselves. If we have the best talent, they’re going to go after our talent.

It’s interesting you guys are talking about the idea of now having to kowtow to a big blockbuster film coming out, not having to worry about protecting somebody’s else’s character, that sort of thing. You are also are expanding quickly and you announced a deal with Sony this summer to bring about some Valiant films.

How do you think that will change what Valiant is when we start seeing a more multimedia presence for the company?

DS: I don’t think it’ll change it. If it does change it, we’re dead. We’ve taken a lot of time and we’re very well financed and we’re not afraid of not doing a film if it’s not going to be done the right way. If it’s going to affect who we are our core.

I think the differentiating factor for us is that we’re a comic book publisher and we want to be a comic book publisher. We don’t want to be a movie studio or a video game company or a licensee. We’re very happy to be a comic book publisher.

Part of being a comic book publisher today means that yes, action figures, video games, and movies are part of the business. In order to make sure the characters are best represented we take the steps towards those media forms in a way that honors the characters so we have a lot of say in the room with the films we’re putting together.

In fact, we instigate that when we develop them. We build them in house, for literally years, before we involve other partners like Sony. Sony has bought into the system. They are in love with the books and the characters. They love what we’re doing so I think we’ll be able to work very collaboratively going forward. What you’re not going to see from us is us changing the core concept of the characters because something had to be done in film to align it there.

In a way we have the benefit of others like Marvel and DC trailblazing this media format. This cross-formation between the two media forms and us being able to watch ans say how can we do it, knowing what’s coming up for us?

One of the things I find interesting is, pick any DC or Marvel property that had an adaptation for television or film, you can see that the film or television is not always the same type of interpretation of the character that we’re seeing in the pages of the comic. Are you going to make a more conscious effort to make sure that there is consistency so that when someone sees Bloodshot they’re getting ‘their’ Bloodshot?

DS: Absolutely. It’s interesting that you mention that. I think a lot of times Marvel or DC does that or any large corporation does that. They are doing it because they’re adapting the material for film or TV and there are different media forms there are different structures and different things to take advantage of. Fred and Warren and I have all talked about the fact that we have to make sure that when someone goes to watch the film, if they read the Bloodshot comic books for instance, they get the same feel, tone and atmosphere and the character feels the same. Even though the specifics aren’t necessarily the same.

The other way around as well. If you come to Bloodshot from the film first, if y you go and read the comic, yes it may be a different story that you’re seeing and the specifics may be different but the character feels the same and the tone feels the same.

It’s something that we’ve worked very hard to make sure translates to the big screen.

Let’s talk about “4001” for a minute here. You just announced your big 2016 summer crossover that will launch in the Valiant Free Comic Book Day issue. “4001” is obviously something that’s been building too for a long time. That year has a lot of importance …

DS: 2000 years in the making.

Exactly. Let’s pretend another Multiversity staffer comes to me in May of 2016 and says I want to jump on Valiant, what’s this “4001” all about? Give us the elevator pitch.

WS: Well, Japan has launched off of the face of the earth and is now a floating city that orbits the earth but it’s also fallen under the hand of an austere A.I. dictator names Father. Father has these guardians that he creates that do his dirty work. One of them is named Rai. Rai discovers that Father is not all he’s cracked up to be and rebels against him. Father expels him down to earth, kicks him out of New Japan.

What we’ve seen really here is Matt Kindt creating this massive sprawling space epic along with Clayton Crain who’s one of the finest artists working in the medium now. Matt sort of secretly built a whole new second universe for us over the last year that we’ve been publishing “Rai.” We’re going to begin to unveil that now and see what the Valiant universe is going to look like 2000 years into the future.

You guys love setting up futures! You guys are not shy about taking a shot at what things are going to look like in the very, very distant future and I think that’s a really cool approach to take. It’s a pretty fearless approach to take.

WS: It’s also what of the things that’s so great about the universe that we inherited when we walked in here on day one. The Valiant universe has always been a place that’s operated in the present but also in the future and in the past. We’ve tried to tap into that and really make that a fundamental part of who we are. It’s a hell of a lot of fun to play with.

FP: Brian, tell us we’re wrong. In 2000 years you and I should get together and they’ll tell me got it wrong.

DS: Warren made a good point. We’re fearless about creationism. I think they looked at the characters and thought we can build them and we understand how we built them. We understand the secret sauce so we can break them, because we know how we can build them anew again in something fresh.

Out of that comes a sense of not knowing what’s going to happen and being surprised and that’s the kind of storytelling that’s unfortunately a little bit rare in comics today. I think the fact that we’re doing it helps us and there’s a larger life being shown in it because others aren’t necessarily doing it.

They’re afraid to break the characters. We don’t really have a choice.

FP: We’re also very aware with that, in our universe there’s a very thick thread of time continuity that binds everything together.

Fred by the way it’s a date, in 2000 years. We’ll get together and have a drink.

FP: I’ll meet you in Tokyo.

Okay, that sounds like a plan.

I want to talk about 2015 as a whole. Was there one creator, one book, one moment that was the unexpected all-star for this team? The thing that when you look back on it you’re going to say that was what really made this year for us?

WS: Fred Pierce. It was definitely Fred Pierce.

FP: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DS: He’s had enough time to finally get there he had to win one eventually.

FP: I don’t think you want to say ever that this was my favorite. We had a lot of great surprises this year. A lot of the things that we were building worked really well. The book of death event went really well. “Divinity,” I think, caught everybody by surprise.

DS: “Divinity” going to five printings. It’s almost unheard of in comics. “Book of Death” was the biggest selling independent event of the decade. Plus we had 20 nominations at the Harvey awards. It’s hard to pick a single thing. There was a lot that really went well.

FP: Our small company is making a very big footprint and it really is a lot of things happening, some big and some small but they all add up to why we’re talking today.

DS: I’m thinking about it again. “Bloodshot Reborn” with Mico Suayan on interiors that’s been one of the best read books in the business. Ivar, Timewalker, Fred’s books was for six months the best reviewed book in the business.

FP: Fred Van Lente, not Fred Pierce.

DS: That’s a phenomena story that he told over there.

FP: I love all of my children equally, I’ll say that. It was a great year.

WS:I do feel like all of the creators are really putting their backs into it which is really really important which is what I think yields “Rai,” what that book looks like, how it feels, or yields “Bloodshot Reborn” or “Divinity” or “Book of Death.” It’s great. I’ve been really proud of the teams.

If you had to project forward, you’ve been publishing books for about three and a half years, three and a half years from now what do you hope the Valiant line looks like? In terms of scope, obviously I’m not going to ask for plot points, the general health. Where do you hope the season lies three and a half years from now?

DS: Oh we know, we’ve plunged that far ahead. We’re not telling all of these stories in book of death and 4001 not knowing how we’re going to get there to a large extent. I am really looking forward to in three and a half years, “Britannia” is a massive book for us. “Savage” book doing really well. “The Outcast,” “The Visitor.” X-O, I think what we’re going to do with X-O and the war thing with X-O. “The Three Brothers,” “World War GIN-GR,” it’s going to be fun stuff.

WS: All solid gold here Brian, so many teases.

WS: I think to address an earlier point as long as we continue to value the stories and above all else our relationships with our creators we’ll be in a really good shape. Internally, as long as our team remains intact and cares and loves for each other like we do today I think will be really valuable. I think that’s part of the secret sauce.

Last two questions, for each of you, I want you to answer this individually. 2015, define it in one word for Valiant. What was the one word that defines your company this year?

DS: Warren, what do you think?

WS: One word?

DS: Um is a word.

WS: Awesome.

FP: Successful.

DS: I can only come up with two words though. I can’t whittle it down …

WS: You can hyphenate them.

DS: Can I do two words, Brian?

FP: Do two words, make believe there’s no space in there.

Sure, sure.

DS: Fred Pierce.

FP: Don’t go there!

DS: I’m staring right at him I can’t help myself. He’s got a bright red t-shirt on. One day I’m gonna find the mirror in his attic and smash it so he finally ages.

FP: Uh huh.

Last question. Each of you, it has to be a different word. Give us a word to use for 2016.

WS: Oh, fun. Dinesh you’re full of teases today why don’t you go first?

DS:: I gave up all of my teases. I’m very excited about Britannia. I think Britannia is going to take people by storm.

FP: Was it one teaser or one word?

DS: One word, so my word is Britannia. I stole yours I know.

WS: Stalingrad.

DS: Ah, that was a good one.

FP: I’ll be boring. I’ll say 4001.

DS: That’s a good one. It’s sure to be at least twice as good as 2001.

Well 4002 will be twice as good. This could be … 1.999999.

FP: There you go and we’re going to call it 4002, a Rai Odyssey.

WS: I think you just cracked the tag line, Brian.