Robert Kirkman

Well, there’s no chance of me making a fool of myself if I do it through email. But you guys always want to do phone interviews.

That’s what I’m afraid of.

No that’s actually the first time I‘ve said it. That was just for you.

It just seemed right to say that at the time. I might start throwing that into the vocabulary.

Well see, I’m a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

Oh cool.

Yeah, I’ve actually been talking to Simon Pegg for a while now.

We’ve termed it zombuds. Simon is awesome.

No only been email.

No it’s my understanding that Universal is in control of that and he really has no say. I emailed him and I was like…. What the hell man? I wouldn’t have been able to do it because of my Marvel contract though.

You and me both.

We’re doing full color reprints of my Battle Pope series starting in June.

It didn’t happen last time so hopefully we’ll get something. I should say that we aren’t doing this because of the demise of the pope. We had set this in motion almost a year ago. June 2005 is the five year anniversary of the debut of Battle Pope.

Around February I was like, “Oh man, I hope that Pope doesn‘t die.”

Yeah pretty much. They were like; you know we’ve got to do something to sell this book.

The thing is I’m not too into getting killed. So just depending on how fundamental they are I wouldn’t want them to see the books.

I’m all for selling books, but when guys are burning my house down, that’s where I draw the line.

I just moved into a new neighborhood. It’s kind of weird because I never lived in a neighborhood where people would have a cookout and invite everyone on the street. I don’t want to talk to my neighbors. They invited us over for something the first week we were there. I was like, oh wow I guess we’ll eat over at your house even though I don’t know you. The whole neighborhood was there and they did the whole let’s bow our heads and pray, thank the Lord for this wonderful feast he has bestowed upon us. It’s very strange to me because I don’t know many people that still say grace. If you work at SuicideGirls you shouldn’t be saying grace.

There you go. So apparently I live around a bunch of religious people so I’m a little worried about Battle Pope coming out and them finding out about it.

I told them I wrote comics but usually just talk about the Marvel stuff when they ask.

I’m sick of saying, “Yeah, I do a book called Battle Pope” and then somebody tilting their head and saying “Huh?”

I’m pretty sure that’s happened to me. It wasn’t at a urinal because I don’t use them but I do think it was in a bathroom. That happens to everyone though.

If you’re never at your convention table and someone sees you and have been looking for you the whole day. They’ll pretty much follow you anywhere.

Good Lord no.

I just don’t believe in them. I’m a stall man sir. My dad never set me down and said, son this is how you use a urinal, this is how you avoid splash back. Every time I’ve used one it’s like peeing against a brick wall or something. It’s just not wise.

I will stand and wait for the stall. I will be the awkward guy that looks over and sees three empty urinals with a line behind me. People are behind me are going, what‘s he doing, what‘s going on? I’m just standing there. People just assume that I have to poop.

Oh come on man, who wants to pee shoulder to shoulder with some stranger? Some of those urinals don’t even have the dividing walls. I‘m not into all that.

Well you can kick the toilet handle.

You’ve got your own private room. If the handicapped bathroom is free it’s like an apartment in there.

I’m telling you; when you find the ones that have their own sinks, paper towel things, their own hand dryers and all that stuff I’d never leave. Sometimes I even use those little handrail things and I don’t even need them.

We’ve all got penises man.

Yeah, I’ve been to New York.

No, I was trying like hell to get onto the set of Land of the Dead and it was just not to be. I kept telling that to Simon Pegg, because he went up there and shot some scenes. I told him to tell them that I would fly myself up and let them do whatever they wanted to me. I was hoping there would be a shortage of guys that were ok with having pig guts thrown on their face or something.

I figured on that. So that never happened. I was talking to Jen Vuckovic, the editor of Rue Morgue Magazine.

Oh cool. She said if I flew up there she would try to get me in. But apparently they were checking ID’s because they needed Canadians. If I didn’t get in I would have had to sit in the car all day so it wasn’t worth it.

I have been to the Dawn of the Dead mall. That’s the closest I’ve been.

No not the remake one [snort].

I liked the remake; it’s a fantastic movie. I don’t see why anybody would think it detracts from the original.

I’m vastly entertained by it.

I think the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead by [Tom] Savini is a really good one. I think it’s a little better than the new Dawn of the Dead movie. The only problem I have with the new Dawn of the Dead movie is the instantly up and running and tearing through walls zombies.

Not the running zombies, just the ones that were tearing through bathroom doors and stuff. I was just expecting them to start throwing cars around and stuff.

That was his character arc.

Yeah.

I have trouble writing if I can’t picture how things are going to look. So when I’m starting a new book, I have artists do a bunch of sketches ahead of the time just so I can have them around. I had a little bit of issue seven left after Tony left the book and I had to write half the book knowing that it wasn’t going to be drawn by Tony. That was a little weird because I really couldn’t picture how things were going to turn out. But once I started getting pages from Charlie, I think it was a really seamless transition. He does a really good job with the script and the storytelling and I think one of the bonuses of him coming on the book is that Tony’s art has a lot of gesture-y, cartoony type stuff in which is really good for the action type stuff. But Charlie is a lot grittier and darker and that’s where I want to go with this book. There were some scenes in the first six books, like the campfire scene where everyone turns around and everybody’s got Little Orphan Annie eyes. I’m glad that stuff’s gone.

I am not that deep. I just think, what can these guys do there that‘s interesting? I’m not sitting there trying to make statements and mask my political views. I’m just there to entertain people. I just read a letter where somebody went on for like four pages about how like he had heard The Walking Dead was very popular in White Power circles and how there were all kinds of racial undertones. He was curious to see if I had actually put them in the book on purpose. I printed the letter in issue 19 so when it comes out people can read it. I guess people have a lot of time on their hands to overanalyze things.

Yeah people say stuff like that but I didn’t do it on purpose. The coolest people in every zombie movie have always been the African-Americans. Night of the Living Dead cool black guy, Dawn of the Dead cool black guy, even Day of the Dead cool black guy. I’m keeping that alive with Tyrese, I want him to be the coolest tough guy.

He made the movie interesting. He’s the hero.

“So we’re in the basement. There sure is lot of noise coming from that door there.” It’s funny too, because they had all that wood. They could have built so much reinforcement on that door.

I don’t know what to do. I was watching The Shield the other day and they have this recap at the front of every episode when they want you to remember a certain plot point. I was thinking about doing that in the book just to keep it going. But when I see that recap at the beginning of the show I expect that to be part of the story. I want to try to avoid that in my books because I don‘t want to give away the plot. As far as the trades go, I want to avoid how comics have captions or just really stilted dialogue at the beginning of the pages. The important information you need at the beginning of an issue. Like way they did the old Frank Miller Daredevil issues in the first five pages he always had to state his origins and how he got his powers.

Exactly, but I do know what the problem is and I’m trying to come up with some way of fixing that. But you know what, every time a new trade comes out, just pick up the trades and read them again and you’ll understand.

Oh, new readers. When I first I picked up a new issue of Spider-Man. I didn’t know who Mary Jane was and didn’t know how he got his powers. He was fighting the Rhino and I didn’t know what was going on but I still liked it and bought the next issue. Then over like 12 issues and I slowly picked up what was going on. Readers should still do that.

Yeah, I’m definitely on it. I think Walking Dead is one of the friendliest new reader type books in that every time a new trade is shipped out, a new issue is shipped out at the same time.

That article wasn’t completely accurate. It also said I was completely nocturnal, which isn’t true. That guy sat down and the first question was like “Can you make money off comic books?” So the whole interview was geared toward telling people how much money I made.

I think the guy wrote for the business/financial section. Last year I think I made more from my Image books than anywhere else. I make a lot more off the trades and Image than Marvel.

The nocturnal thing really bugged me. I just said that I worked late. This guy wrote that I worked at night and slept all day.

Well, it’s two different assistants writing them for me [laughs].

It’s two different things. If I’m grumpy I sure do enjoy writing The Walking Dead. If I’m happy I like writing Invincible. I think Walking Dead is more of a stretch for me because I’m a light hearted superhero kind of guy. Butt I don’t find it difficult to switch from mode to mode. I like to think that I keep them pretty different.

Yeah definitely. If I was doing Walking Dead and Invincible ten years from now while doing little stuff on the side, I’d be completely happy. I don’t have endings planned like Brian K. Vaughan has for Y: The Last man or Garth Ennis had Preacher. If sales are still there and I’m still having fun then I’m going to keep doing it.

Yeah definitely. I will say that Rick will probably die before the end of the book. I’ll go ahead and put that in print. Nobody’s safe. I’ve almost killed him three times already.

I can’t reveal these things.

They’re just going to go crazy, man. No they’re fine. They’re not that bad. They don’t need a psychiatrist. You know what they say; the crazier they are the more interesting the book is going to be. You don’t want a psychiatrist. You want these guys all crazy and nutso and doing weird things.

I hate it when books do that. I do have plans for stuff that will happen years down the road and I don’t know how easy it is going to be getting there. But you’re not going to pick up an issue and read “five years later.”

I definitely have character arcs in mind for each character unless I kill them. I have things planned for every character like what they’re doing down the road and coming to different realizations but I don’t have how they overlap. I have Rick’s story but I don’t know how it overlaps with Alan’s story.

Not at all. I know there are a lot of readers that think I’ve got a very crappy marriage just because of the things going on with Rick and Lori but there’s really nothing that’s been like a mirror. I’m just making this stuff up.

When I was developing Invincible I had the pitch written for Image and I was sitting there looking at it on the computer. It was like “spaceman comes from outer space to earth and meets this woman and has this kid and he has super powers and eventually trains his son and they work together and they become super heroes and blah, blah, blah.” I was looking at it and there was just no hook in it and no extra punch. I wasn’t worried about Image accepting the book as it was. I just wanted it to be more interesting and have more of an edge that would make it a more compelling read. I just kind of came up with the idea that at some point he would find out that everything his father had told him was a lie and that he was evil. But apparently that was a cliché in the eighties. I didn’t know that. I know there were a few people that were like “Oh that ruined the book.”

But [Mark’s father] Nolan will eventually be back in the book. There’s still a lot to be done with the Nolan/Mark relationship. People will be shocked when they see where it’s all going.

Issue 24 baby!

What qualifies as Kentucky-ness? Because I take offense to that [laughs]. If you’ll notice anytime they’re off-panel in Invincible they’re playing a banjo. Everyone likes to sit on their porch in The Walking Dead and there’s whiskey stills.

I know that the first issue of Walking Dead takes place in the town where Tony Moore and I grew up and went to high school. So I guess that’s a Kentucky-ism. I try to make it sound Kentuckian but I don’t like it when they make it sound that way phonetically like it. I try to throw in y’alls and stuff like that.

I’m doing Invincible, The Walking Dead and Marvel Team-Up.

That’s a hoot and a holler.

So far it’s been all me. But every now and then I’ve got to throw Wolverine in. When we put in X-23 that got a big jump so that was pretty cool. Other than that, it’s been me picking everything.

Yeah as you will see in issues nine and ten Sleepwalker is on a few pages.

Oh yeah. The thing you have to realize about Marvel Team Up is that the cover is there to lie to you. If, for instance, issue nine has Daredevil and Luke Cage eating hamburgers on the cover, you may or may not find Daredevil and Luke Cage eating hamburgers inside. But if you like Daredevil and Luke Cage eating hamburgers you’ll like this issue. Sleepwalker, Black Cat and Stilt-Man show up in that issue.

I will see what I can do. I’m trying to use as many obscure people as I can. There’s actually an arc coming up later in the series that I don’t want to give too much away on, but it’s all crappy characters.

I may even be bringing back Terror Inc and Super Pro.

Yeah man. He was like a zombie who could take other people’s body parts and put them on him.

He’s a cool looking character though.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck