ECCC ‘08 - Catching Up With Robert Kirkman

Article originally published 05/19/2008 at popculturezoo.com

If Robert Kirkman knows one thing, its how to stay busy. These days the ‘Marvel Zombies’ scribe is firing on all cylinders with his comics being produced by both Image and Marvel. ‘Walking Dead’ and ‘Invincible’ are hitting issue #50, ‘Astonishing Wolf-Man’ is going monthly, he just finished up a successful run with ‘Ultimate X-Men’… and then there’s that little Killraven side-project with Rob Liefeld. Despite this multitude of projects, Kirkman was able to take a bit of time to make an appearance at the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, Washington. We caught up with him for a brief Q & A session about all the current happenings in Kirkmania.

PCZ: First off, let me say that I’m a huge fan of ‘Wolf-Man’. I picked up the Free Comic Book Day issue and saw your name on it and initially, I didn’t know what to think. The art seemed very… Saturday-morning-cartoonish. But I read the first few pages and was just blown away. How has the reception been to ‘Wolf-Man’?

RK: It’s been received very well. It was a Free Comic Book Day comic, there were hundreds of thousands of copies of (the first issue). So, the book has been very well received. I think it was issue one or two that had more fan mail than I’ve ever gotten for a series. I’m having a lot of fun doing the book. We’re going monthly starting with issue eight in July. We’re going to ramp up production and put it out more often.

PCZ: Are you looking to maybe add more monsters into the ‘Astounding Wolf-Man’ series? You’ve already included vampires and werewolves…

RK: I don’t know. I don’t think we’re going to include like, Frankenstein’s Monster… it’s not going to be like Van Helsing. But it is a universe where that kind of stuff exists and we’ll be showing more of it as we go on. It could be a lot of fun.

PCZ: So, Wolf-Man will be involved in the ‘Monster Pile-Up’ issue coming up this summer, right?

RK: Yeah, he’ll be in it. There will be a new story that takes place between issues seven and eight that will appear in the ‘Monster Pile-Up’, which is shipping in August.

“The first page shows the main character punching a hole through somebody’s head. Whenever that can be your first page, it’s a pretty good sign.”

- Robert Kirkman on the upcoming Marvel Max ‘Destroyer’ series

PCZ: With ‘Waking Dead’ and ‘Invincible’, which are two of your longest running books, there are quite a few changes happening right now. A number of characters in ‘Walking Dead’ have been killed, Invincible is getting a new costume… what’s driving all these changes?

RK: Well, you’ve got to shake things up… you’ve got to keep it fresh. People who read the book like the book for what it is. If you don’t change things then after a while things start to get kind of boring. You can’t just do the same things over and over and over again. So, when I reached issue 50 (for both books) I stepped back and took a look at things and said “what can I do that’s different?” But not too different, you know? Because I don’t want to drive people away by changing the book too much. The book is obviously working as it is or it wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has. But I don’t want to feel like I’m sitting on my ass, letting the book just sell itself. It’s hard to look at both books and decide what I can do now that’s still cool. Being able to have the books last that long and have that much back story does allow me to do things that I couldn’t do when I was starting out. I think that, going forward, both books after issue 50 will be much richer and have more depth. I’ve got some very cool stuff planned for both series so I’m really excited to see them last for as long as they have. I think we’ll make it to issue 100 pretty quickly.

PCZ: In the Marvel panel yesterday, you talked a bit about the upcoming Marvel Max series you are writing which features Destroyer. It sounds like you are bringing back one of Stan Lee’s first characters with this five-issue series.

RK: Yeah, according to Wikipedia he’s one of Stan’s first characters. I haven’t asked Stan though.

PCZ: Is this book something that you pitched or did Marvel come to you with the idea?

RK: That started with my editor who worked with me on ‘Ant-Man’. He said had read ‘Brit’ and said “Brit is a real kickass book about an old man. Would you like to something else about an old man kicking ass?” I thought about it… and I said “yeah, I do!” Mainly, to work with Cory Walker again, because he had done some issues of ‘Ant-Man’ and I was looking forward to working with him again… it would be fun. So, I came up with some really cool ideas for it and I brainstormed a lot with Cory… we’ve got a lot of cool stuff planned. It’s going to be a really dark, dramatic series. It’s about a superhero at the end of his life. He’s in his 90’s and finds out that his heart is about to fail. So his villains aren’t left to take over the world when he’s gone, he decides that he’s going to hunt them all down and murder them. So, it’s five issues of him hunting these villains… when he’s 90. But he’s still got his superpowers.

PCZ: A lot of your books focus on some of the more hard-core, visceral themes in comics. Is this something that drew you to working within the Marvel Max line? Would you be interested in tackling other characters within Marvel Max?

RK: Yeah, I like the Max line and I wouldn’t be opposed to doing more books. The things that we’re going to be able to do in ‘Destroyer’ are going to shock a lot of people, so I like that aspect of it. The first page shows the main character punching a hole through somebody’s head. Whenever that can be your first page, it’s a pretty good sign. It’s pretty exciting stuff.

PCZ: Do you have any updated information about the ‘Killraven’ book you are doing with Rob Liefeld?

RK: Yeah, totally. He’s knee-deep into it. He’s pretty much done with the first three issues. We’re going to be moving forward now. Jeph Loeb was I guess a little bit late with his ‘Onslaught Reborn’ script, so we started issues one and two while he was working on that, so we’ve got a good amount of lead time. Hopefully it will come out around the end of the year.

PCZ: Do have more ‘Marvel Zombies’ planned, or is that line done for now?

RK: It’s possible but I think we’re going to let it rest for a while. Series two definitely had an open ending, so maybe someday. But right now there are no plans.

We’d like to thank Robert Kirkman for taking a few moments at this year’s Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, WA to chat with us. For updates on all of Kirkman’s projects, ramblings and musings, check out his Kirkmania website.