Ron Marz: Shinku
Tags: DC, marvel, Dark Horse, Ron Marz, Shinku, Top Cow, green lantern
Ron Marz has been a comic book writer for many years, with a long list of credits at Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Top Cow and just about every other comics company there is. His career has notably included a long run on Green Lantern.
In recent years some of his best work has been for Top Cow, where he’s been writing the company’s flagship comic Witchblade. He transformed the tile from a comic that was known in its early years for T&A into a complex superhero fantasy story that has led to Marz writing a series of miniseries (First Born, and Artifacts) and ongoing series (Magdalena) for the company.
Marz is leaving the series with issue #150, and is busy writing a Green Lantern one shot and the Voodoo series coming from DC this fall. His big project this summer though is Shinku, a bloody horror story set in Japan that involves samurai and vampires, and is just as cool as it sounds.
ALEX DUEBEN: You’ve been interested in Japanese culture and the medieval period for many years as we’ve seen in books like Samurai and The Path. What is it about the culture and that period that you find so interesting?
RON MARZ: I think first and foremost the period is so visually striking that it’s a natural fit for a visual medium like comics. Also, the nature of all drama is really conflict, and that’s a period and a culture that had nearly constant conflict. Plus … people with swords, you know?
AD:
After thinking about this for a time, Samurai and vampires seem very different but both see themselves as superior to everyone else. They make their own rules. They are a law unto themselves. It’s not a culture or ideological clash. I thought that was interesting.
RM:
That’s really where a large part of the inspiration for the Shinku series came from, that sense of superiority, of a segment of the society holding itself above the rest. I was very intrigued by the similarities, especially the aspect of not abiding by the rules that apply to others.
AD:
When you had this idea, did you consider just making it a period story? Or to your mind was it always set in the present and then flashing back?
RM:
I think because I’ve done a number of stories set in the classical samurai period, I wanted Shinku to have those elements, but to contrast those elements with a contemporary time frame. I wanted to examine how something as structured as a samurai clan hierarchy would survive down through the centuries.
AD:
Now you mentioned at one point that the initial idea was for the book to be in black and white with red - which would have been really awesome. What was the thinking behind doing the book in full color?
RM:
Truthfully, the suggestion to go full color came from Eric Stephenson, Image’s publisher. He felt like there’s still a stigma attached to black and white material in the marketplace, and the book would have a better chance of survival if we went full color. In hindsight, the color work that Mike Atiyeh is doing has turned into one of the hallmarks of the series. Virtually everybody has heaped deserved praise on Mike’s work
AD:
Some people might not be aware of just what it means to put out a creator owned book through Image because everyone involved is working for free. Which isn’t easy for a writer, but it’s a lot harder and more time-consuming for an artist. Talk a little about what’s involved, how many people it takes to assemble a comic and why you’re releasing the book as a series of miniseries ala Hellboy.
RM:
Shinku is intended to be an ongoing, assuming we have the sales to sustain it, but we’ll be taking a month or two off between story arcs to get caught up and make a couple of bucks doing work-for-hire projects. The reality is that doing a creator-owned book means working for free for months on end, and then hoping the tough market embraces the book enough that there’s at least a little profit to go around. As you said, it’s toughest on the artists, particularly Lee Moder, who has the most time-consuming job on the team. That said, everybody who has contributed to the book -- Lee, Matthew Waite, Mike Atiyeh, Troy Petri and Phil Smith – have gone above and beyond on a regular basis. All of these guys are my friends and all of them take great pride in their work, so there’s never an instance of “good enough” with them. Everybody wants everything to be perfect. I’m very thankful for all of them.
AD:
Shinku is a dark fantasy/horror book not a superhero or superhero-ish tale. Was that important? I ask in part because Witchblade for example often felt like it could have been more fantasy/horror.
RM:
Shinku is very much the book we wanted it to be. That’s one of the liberating aspects of doing creator-owned material: you tell your story in exactly the way you want to tell it. I’ve certainly written my share of superheroes in my career, but I’m forever preaching about the need for more genre diversification in comics. For so many people in America, when you say comics, it’s immediately translated into “superheroes” in their minds. Superheroes are great, but that’s not the only kind of story you can tell in comics. Comics are a storytelling medium, not a genre.
AD:
I did want to ask about the recent announcement that you’re leaving Witchblade at #150. You’ve been writing since issue #80 and while you didn’t create her, I think it’s fair to say that she’s “your” character as much as any character you don’t own can possibly be. What made this the time to leave?
RM:
There were a number of factors, including how full my schedule is with things like Shinku, Magdalena and finishing up Artifacts. Stjepan Sejic and I are leaving Witchblade together, and moving over to a new project at Top Cow, a project I think makes sense for us, and that we’re both excited about. I think we’re both proud of what we’ve done on Witchblade, but the chance to start something else from scratch is pretty alluring.
AD:
I remember when I picked up a couple of the trades a few years back, and having never read the comic before, what struck me after reading them was that it was a superhero book where things changed. There is no status quo. Obviously Top Cow was very willing and interested in doing this but I was curious about the freedom that this offered and how much you enjoyed that aspect of the book.
RM:
The majority of comics, especially superhero comics, are more about the illusion of change than actual change. Obviously, that’s understandable, particularly when you consider so many of the characters have become worldwide, multi-million dollar franchises. For something like Witchblade, which has been around for 15 years, I think we stayed true to the core, while trying to evolve the characters and concepts, so there’s a feeling of forward motion. The amount of freedom Top Cow gives me is great, because it allows me to tell stories that matter and have lasting consequences. I feel like stories about “becoming” are always more interesting than stories about “being.” The journey of becoming a hero is usually more interesting than the story of maintaining the status quo and being the hero.
AD:
You are still writing another series for Top Cow, Magdalena, who’s not as well known to casual readers. Could you talk a little about the character and the series and what people can expect when picking it up?
RM:
Magdalena was actually the book I asked to write for Top Cow before they suggested I take over Witchblade. In a lot of ways, I think Magdalena is among the best concepts that Top Cow has in its universe. There’s one Magdalena in each generation, someone descended from the bloodline of Christ and Mary Magdalene, who essentially serves as the Catholic Church’s monster hunter and enforcer. So you’ve got ready-made stories about a woman with this great costume, and the Spear of Destiny, fighting monsters. The added wrinkle is that the current Magdalena isn’t terribly trusting of her Vatican masters, so there’s an additional layer of tension.
AD:
It was just announced that you’re working for DC writing Voodoo. I have a vague memory of reading an Alan Moore written miniseries about the character but otherwise...nothing. How did you get the gig? Who is she? What can we expect?
RM:
How I got the gig is fairly simple – the phone rang one day and DC offered me the gig. The “who” part of it is a little more complicated, because that’s part of the mystery of the series, and I don’t want to give away too much. I can say that the Voodoo character who is being introduced into the relaunched DC Universe will have a lot of similarities to the original Wildstorm character, but there are some new elements as well. The series provides an outsider’s perspective on the new DCU and its heroes for story-driven reasons. The short version is that the series is a sexy spy thriller set in a superhero universe, and I think it’s going to surprise people.
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