In this episode Frank Barbiere has great taste.
Topics include not being a scientist, behind the scenes at Five Ghosts HQ, hashtag office classics, adventuring help, “Frank wrote this so I guess I’ll read it”, HOWLING COMMANDOS of S.H.I.E.L.D. omg, getting to write the Avengers, robot zombies, steak logos, Spider-Man cameos, Man-Thing talking apologists, the end is now, and what he’s reading!
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Transcription:
Kara: Hello, Matt.
Matt: Hello, Kara.
Kara: We’re here in The Podcast Pit, San Diego Comic-Con 2015, talking with quite possibly the biggest name at the show, Frank Barbiere.
Matt: Inarguably.
Frank Barbiere: Whoa! You guys don’t have a, come on, cheering sound.
Matt: We’ll edit that in post.
[cheering audio playing that was added in post]
Frank: Good.
Matt: You’ve been called the next Bobby Kirkman. Everyone is calling you that online.
Frank: Who’s that?
Kara: Kirkman who?
Matt: I saw it on some message boards. It might have been me on there.
Frank: I was like this was setup by image PR. I mean, Kirkman, a fantastic creator who paved the way for all of us.
Matt: Absolutely.
Frank: That is true, too. The irony.
Matt: People might know you from “Five Ghosts.”
Frank: They might, man…
Matt: We interviewed you way back…
Kara: You might have heard of it.
Frank: No, nbd.
Matt: …when “Five Ghosts” came out, comiXology was the start.
Frank: Me, you, and Jake, yeah, we got in there day one.
Matt: Yeah, that very day. That was…
Frank: Boots on the ground.
Matt: We did have boots on the ground. But now you have a new book, “Broken World,” which honestly I love.
Frank: Thank you so much.
Kara: Every day, I feel like this man is tweeting about a new project. I feel like you’re writing everything. You are writing everything.
Frank: Slowly trying to write all 500 titles that roughly come out a month in the American comic book industry.
No, I was just saying it’s funny, because a lot of stuff I’d been developing for a long time got announced. Everyone saved it for now. I was like, “Oh my God.” I’m like, “Well, they’re now all going to come out at the same time.”
Broken World, issue 2 came out this week, we’ve been talking about since last June almost.
Matt: Wow.
Frank: Right when we started publishing my last BOOM! book, which was “Black Market.” We talked about, “Oh, what should we do next?” I wanted to do something that was very much the opposite. That was much more of a small character story that wasn’t about punching, so to speak, or anything too in-the-genre.
Again, Black Market, I was real happy with because even though it had superheroes, it was still a character story outside of that. Broken World is definitely a departure from what I’m doing. I’m very happy for that, to have that come out alongside, again, Five Ghost and the superhero stuff I’m doing.
People have received it well, which I’m glad, because, again, it is that sci-fi setting about evacuating earth, but we don’t really harp on that. It’s much more about the character stuff and then the twist at the end of issue 1. I was really happy to see people not being like, “Well, how do the spaceships work?” or things like that.
I’m like, “I’m not a scientist.”
Matt: Who cares?
Kara: Enjoy the story.
Frank: It’s weird because we knew the big twist at the end of the first issue was what I used to pitch the book. By the time it actually came out, I was so over it. I thought people would see it coming.
It was nice to hear people actually reading it and responding to it. I mean, “Oh, I didn’t see that coming. Good storyline.” When you set out to do something and then it happens, it’s a good feeling.
Matt: It is.
Who would have thunk it? The way you talk, it feels like years back when Five Ghosts was a miniseries originally, and then it changed into an ongoing.
Kara: Thank goodness.
Matt: Has your process changed at all since Five Ghosts first started, to now where it’s an established title, and you have other titles coming out?
Frank: Not so much. Every company’s a little different. The big thing, the big difference at Image is we have no editorial. It’s just me, Chris [Mooneyham], and Lauren [Affe] who work on the book. It’s like garage comics in terms of making it.
That still remains exactly the same as how we did the first issue, which we self-published. That’s really refreshing in a lot of ways, because it always is that way. I’m repeating and saying weird words, but it hasn’t changed, which is what’s nice about it.
It’s something we do at our own pace, on our own time. It’s awesome that Image picked it up, and puts it out, and supports it, and gave it the huge following. It gave me a career quite honestly, but it’s nice that the actual organic process of making it has not changed.
Working at every other company, I collaborate with editors and a whole bunch of different people. I’ve met a whole bunch of different artists who I didn’t have to have prior relationships with. That has taught me so much, and let me work with a lot of people I had never thought I would get to work on, a lot of characters I never got to work on.
In terms of process, has taught me how to be a "professional writer,” where you’re writing multiple things at the same time, not just working on stuff you create where you do whatever you want, but I really like it. Some people swear by only doing independent stuff or create their own stuff, but I like doing everything.
I believe in working everywhere. I don’t subscribe to publisher wars. Like, “Oh, you can work here, but not here.” I don’t know. I enjoy it. It’s what I wanted to do. I’m not in a position to complain.
Kara: Living the dream.
Frank: Also, you have to keep busy. Even when I started transitioning to writing full time, to do that, you have to have a lot of work. The struggle always is you don’t want to take work that isn’t genuine, work you don’t care about.
Because you don’t want to be jobbing it and putting out bad stuff, especially when you’re new, but at the same time, you have to put the viewers out there, have to make the contacts, have to move forward.
I’m very fortunate that people responded and keep giving me work. If we talk next year and I have no work, it’ll be an interesting counterpoint…
Matt: It’ll be an amazing discussion.
Frank: I’ll be like, “Well, here I am, back at comiXology, starting from the ground up. Hopefully, you’re going to get into some janitorial services here…
…and maybe rub elbows with David Steinberger [CEO of comiXology], and slowly…”
Matt: Barbiere Janitorial Services.
Frank: I mean, I might make more money.
Matt: Five Ghosts is, let’s get back on track here, everybody. We’re all having fun here.
Kara: Talking about comics. Let’s talk about the comics.
Frank: Get crazy, we’re friends.
Matt: We’re all having fun here.
Frank: Five Diet Cokes.
Matt: Five Ghosts is a real office classic. Everyone in the office loves that book.
Frank: #officeclassic.
Matt: #officeclassic, put them in the back of trade three. You can pull quote me.
Frank: Oh, man, I will put, “Matt Kolowski and Kara Szamborski: an office classic.”
No, seriously, I’m running out of book quotes. That’ll be a nice, unique one.
Matt: We’ll be there anytime you need.
Kara: #CMXclassic.
Matt: You can put that on any book you make. For people that don’t read it, combine Indiana Jones with some awesome miniscule sci-fi aspects. It’s not over the top science fiction or supernatural, but you want to give Indiana Jones some spiritual helpers, Sherlock Holmes, a vampire, Nosferatu, if you want to throw out a name.
Kara: Oh, original, OG there.
Matt: He can call upon these five ghosts when he needs them, when he’s adventuring. It’s literally…
Frank: As you do when you adventure. You need a lot of help.
Matt: You need a book that is one guy adventuring. It needs to happen.
Kara: I’ve got say. This is one of those books that forever everyone was like, “Oh, you’ve got to read this. You’ve got to read this.” I was like, “OK. Frank wrote it. So, sure. Fine.”
Frank: “I have very mixed feelings on it.”
Kara: Then the first few pages I was like, “Oh my god, where has this been all my life?” Because you know, like you said, it is. Make a fun, adventure-y book. The first few pages are so striking, because there’s very little dialogue going on.
Frank: It remains in the whole book to be very little dialogue.
Kara: You see these ghosts appearing, and then you get to see how our hero is using their powers for good or villainy.
Frank: It really was the thing though, too, because I had worked with Chris a little bit before that. We’ve been trying to break in, and do our own stuff. Where as soon as he drew the initial sketches, which I put in the new hardcover that just came out. I have the first drawings he ever did.
He literally did one character sheet for Fabian, one sketch of the ghost. I was like, “Oh, that’s perfect, just draw the pages,” and drew those first six pages, and that was the pitch. It was one of the things where as soon as he hit the paper, it’s like, “Oh, that’s what the project is.” You see it and it’s like, “OK, I get this now.”
Kara: The second I saw the ghost of Sherlock Holmes creep up over his shoulder, I was like, “Yes, we’re good. This is fine.”
Frank: Wow.
Matt: Then in the most recent arc, he finally gets the chance to do something that he’s been working for so long, or probably the most recent arc ending. He forced to make a decision on what to do. It definitely was not what I was expecting at that point. I was pissed at him.
Frank: There was someone, I can’t remember early on, someone on Twitter, who kept being like, “When he’s going to get his damn sister back?” On issue 3. I’m like, “This is an ongoing series, and that’s the main plot point. Not for a long time.”
Matt: You should have blocked that person off immediately.
Frank: I mistakenly engaged him and that’s…It’s crazy to do an ongoing series where…we were talking about this last night on a writers panel, where you always had to find some kind of struggle, some kind of character development, but it’s not like we’re going to have one arc, and suddenly, everything’s going to be OK.
We wanted to keep going. It’s about finding those little stories, and moving the character forward incrementally, not like, “Snap. My sister’s back. I’m a good guy. High fives. We did it.”
That’s something that’s very unique to Five Ghosts, that we found a character that can work and that we can keep pushing, versus trying to artificially do that. Specifically, a lot of the other books have done are miniseries, which I really enjoy doing because they’re almost like a really good short film, but you get the full story.
The character move you want to do. That stuff is an ongoing, it’s that in the arcs they built to something bigger. As a creator, you need to master doing both, because it is abnormal to have a series that goes so far. That’s one of the great things that working with Image.
Is, again, you get what you earn, and you can do the book forever because it’s just you guys. It’s not any other infrastructure. As long as we choose to do it, we can do it. #17 comes out next week, and then trade three will be out in August. It’s crazy that we’ve done so much.
We want to keep going, but we’re figuring out scheduling right now. Hopefully, by the winter or spring, we’ll have #18 out, and go from there. It’s one of the things that we do that I feel we’re always doing. It’s crazy.
That’s part of our lives like, “Oh, well,” and then in the back…the people at Image do an awesome job of referring the book for press and everything. I do the lettering and I do the sizing of the pages. I do the cover treatment. Our designer made the logo and everything, but I do a lot of work on the book.
Matt: I didn’t know that.
Frank: It feels like DIY. That’s why I say it feels likes garage comics still. It’s definitely something we do because we like it, and is more work than I have to put in, say, like a book at Marvel, I just write the script, and then clearly see the art come in, and talk about it, but I have to oversee everything.
I frankly don’t understand how some of the folks, who do three to five Image books a month, do it because there’s a level of work there. You have to care about it intensely. It’s not something you could phone in.
Kara: It shows. The care shows.
Matt: Let’s talk about the big news that dropped from Frank, “Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Kara: That was going to be my next question.
Frank: “Of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Matt: Just announced that you will be doing with [Brent] Schoonover. What’s happening in your world, now that you’re doing mega-Marvel titles?
Matt: Although, previously, you were on, was it “Avengers World” you were…?
Frank: Avengers World. It was very surreal for me, because I did not think I would ever get to write any of those characters, and then within a run that I was such a fan of. I had jumped into co-writing with Nick Spencer on 15 and 16, which tied into Axis, which was really interesting because I had to read all of Axis ahead of time.
I’m a huge fan of Rick Remender, and to be able to read his scripts was a really cool, nerdy process for me, but then we had to find a place for our story to fit in and squeeze in. It was a lesson in how to write within a Marvel event, which was very cool.
Because as a fan for a long time, you wonder like, “Oh, how does this all work?” To see how the sausage gets made, so to speak, was very interesting and a process, and every part of me as well, as writer.
Then they were like, “Oh, well, we really want to do an arc that explains what happens in the time jump between ‘Avengers 34 and 35.’ Would you want to do that?” I was like, “Yeah, please.”
Matt: Obviously.
Frank: It was cool to write into The Avengers reading order. I feel like it was a little interesting, because the stuff happening in Avengers World was way past in “Avengers” and “ New Avengers,” and you knew it wasn’t going to pan out well.
It ends on a very optimistic note. People were like, “Oh, well, that’s trash because we know this doesn’t work.” I’m real excited for it to be part of the reading order when people read Jon Hickman’s run and read it all together, because it’s definitely to be read before you read the stuff that starts happening in Avengers #35.
Again, it felt like writing fan fiction in the best way. It was a run I really like, characters I really like, and it was very cool to take some more time with scenes or characters we had seen in that run and explore it. Anyhow, moving onto “Howling Commandos.”
Matt: It was a great setup for “Howling Commandos” by the way.
Frank: Let me humbly brag more about writing into that. Howling Commandos is really cool. It’s a book, and people say it all the time, and I say, “I never expected to write this character.” But Hit Monkey is on our team. I never, ever, ever expected to, I didn’t think anyone was going to write Hit Monkey ever quite honestly.
Frank: He’s a great character. I thought he had had his moment…
Matt: He’d had his time.
Kara: He’s in that Deadpool book.
Frank: …but, no, our lineup and I have to look at the picture, because there’s nine people on the team to begin with the work. There will be more as well, but the lineup starting out is Orrgo, Man-Thing, Hit Monkey, Teenage Abomination, Vampire by Night, Dum Dum Dugan, Manphibian, Zombie Jasper Sitwell…
Matt: My word.
Kara: Wow.
Frank: …and then Warwolf. It’s an interesting team.
Matt: Quite a ragtag team of Howling Commandos.
Frank: The core of it is that Dum Dum figured out in “Original Sin,” that he’s actually a Life-Model Decoy of the original Dum Dum Dugan.
Matt: Spoilers.
Frank: That’s why he has not aged and that’s why he’s still alive. Actually, he’s a crazy Life-Model Decoy where if you kill him another one wakes up. There’s an unknown amount of Dum Dum Dugan replicas in the world. In S.H.I.E.L.D…
Kara: He’s like a robot zombie?
Frank: Yes. He’s like a Frankenstein, which is why he fits in with the team so well. He has the memories of the original Dum Dum. In S.H.I.E.L.D #9, Al Ewing is actually setting up a little bit of almost like the origin of these new Howling Commandos.
You don’t have to read it, but it adds a little bit and textures Dum Dum, where he’s having a conflict of, “Why am I even alive? Why don’t you guys just deactivate me? Why am I here?” That’s part of his struggle.
He ends up taking on a father role for all these other monsters, where they’re part of a division we’re calling “S.T.A.K.E.” versus S.H.I.E.L.D.
Matt: It sounds delicious.
Kara: Stake like a vampire stake?
Frank: Yes, like vampire stake.
Kara: Thank you.
Frank: They’re called S.T.A.K.E.
Matt: I want the logo to be…
Frank: They’re food for other people.
Matt: I want the logo to be a delicious steak on the cover at all times, with dripping juices.
Then it’ll say “An Office Favorite, Matt Kolowski on the back of the first issue…This is the the best, yes.”
Kara: Kolowski-Approved and then like a steak.
Matt: It’s over. We’re canceling the book.
Kara: We’ve gone too far.
Frank: Anyhow, S.T.A.K.E. is a division of S.H.I.E.L.D that basically deals with supernatural threats, and creatures of the night, and the stuff that’s too dangerous, or weird for the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D. They figure, fight monsters with monsters.
Because it’s such a big team and Dum Dum is a soldier, we see them all in the first issue, which is the first mission, but then, going forward, he uses each of them to their strengths, each of the other characters.
They’re like Ellis’ Stormwatch, which everyone always told me, “That’s what everyone bases their team books off of.” I finally read it. I’m like, “Oh, now, I’m going to rip this off, too. Way to go. Thanks Warren Ellis, set us all up for the spike.” It’s cool to have Dum Dum who’s really tactical, and then “monsters” with him. A big part of the book is him turning them into a little bit of a family, and learning to deal with this team.
Everyone’s very interesting and has their own thing going on. Then, on top of that, we’re making new characters, which is really exciting.
Kara: Oh, cool.
Frank: I’m definitely a Marvel kid going up. I’ve always wanted to work here. Again, this is the last book I expected to be able to launch there, but it’s really exciting. I definitely want to do everything I can if it’s the last thing I write.
It’s been my general strategy in comics like, “Oh, well, if this is the last comic I ever get to write, because it may be, let me just put whatever I want in there.”
I was on panel with Charles Soule last night. He was talking about how in his first issue of “Swamp Thing” he put Superman in it, in case it was the only thing he ever got to write at DC. I’m like, “Yeah, that’s a good one.”
Matt: That’s a good idea.
Frank: I look forward to seeing Captain America, Spider-Man, everyone…
Matt: Howling Commandos starring Spider-Man.
Frank: …the insider Marvel Universe.
Kara: When you’re working on Marvel stuff, isn’t there someone at Marvel and their job is, to make sure that characters don’t show up in places where it doesn’t make sense for them to be or something?
Frank: There is. Yeah. There’s a big shared universe and a lot of continuity, but that’s why I actually am so happy to have Howling Commandos that kind of sits in its own little corner. I don’t think our characters are really appearing as it stands in a lot of other books.
Matt: You don’t have someone checking that Hit Monkey shouldn’t be in this scene?
Frank: Damn it, Hit Monkey’s on The Avengers, now. What are you doing with him?
Kara: They were not going to pay attention to what’s going on in your book. We’re going to a random page and, all of sudden, Deadpool will be waving out of the corner, and no one will say anything. He’ll just be there.
Frank: We can hope. We’ll definitely help ourselves. Deadpool’s kind of a zombie in a weird way. He is undying.
Matt: He’s hideous looking.
Kara: Deadpool, if he was in that book, he would be the guy who wants to be on the team and everyone’s like, “No.” He’s like, “Come on, guys, it’ll be great. It’ll be awesome. Look, I made trading cards.”
Frank: It’s like, “You’re not a monster enough.”
Matt: He’s on The Avengers now, right?
Frank: Actually, there’s also “Mrs. Deadpool and The Howling Commandos,” which is a “Secret Wars” book running right now, which people think I am writing, but I am not. It’s Gerry Duggan writing that. It is a great book, but this is not a spin out of that. That is a self-contained interesting Secret Wars book.
What else I could say about it? Well, Man-Thing is awesome. Man-Thing will not speak in Howling Commandos. There was a run in Thunderbolts where he talked. A lot of people are very anti-Man-Thing talking, but this is classic silent Man-Thing…
Matt: I’m glad the…
Frank: …”those that fear him burn at his touch” Man-Thing.
Matt: I’m glad that the Man-Thing talking apologists don’t have to be upset during this run.
Frank: They will have nothing to complain about except his silence. Someone was like, “Oh silent, but deadly.” I’m like, “OK, fart joke. Great. That’s my life here. We’re talking about my art.” It’s definitely really fun.
I hope people embrace it for what it is, because it’s always stressful to launch anything, but this is a book I can honestly say I would read if I wasn’t writing it.
Matt: Cool.
Frank: That’s my high endorsement.
Matt: Maybe you could also put that on the back cover. "If I wasn’t writing it, I’d read it.”
Kara: I’m sold from talking to you about it, because you seem very, very excited about. I’m super looking forward to you being like, “Well, let’s just do what we want with this one, too.”
Frank: I feel like it’s a unique opportunity. I’m really embracing it, because as I said, you’re launching a book, but also a new team in a new little corner. If it tanks, that’s all my fault.
Matt: That’s nothing to worry about. Who cares? Who cares if it tanks, right?
Frank: I’m going to tank not only Howling Commandos, but Marvel as a whole. We’re going down. Movies, everything, it all starts here, ground zero for the…No, I’m…
Matt: What do you seek out?
Frank: I’m staring at Matt…
Kara: No jinxing.
Frank: …thinking about what I said maybe wasn’t great.
Matt: It’s all getting edited out, the whole show.
Frank: Let’s tag like Axel Alonso, tag Marvel, tag the…
Matt: …and then we post it.
Frank: …says, “The end is NOW.”
Matt: What do you, when you pull books or get trades, what are the ones that you seek out or make sure that you get?
Frank: I’m going to say the obvious stuff that I will read anything that Brian K Vaughan writes. I’ll read anything that Rick Remender writes. I’ll read anything that Jon Hickman writes. I feel like, recently, I really, really like “This One Summer” by Jill Tamaki. I bought her new book that’s on Drawn and Quarterly that they have at the show.
I really, really liked “The Realist” that BOOM! Just put out by, it was Asaf Hanuka and his brother. His twin brother actually is Tomer Hanuka, who put out a book on First Second as well…
Matt: I didn’t know that.
Frank: …called “The Divine” and it’s also beautiful.
Kara: Nice.
Frank: I wish me and my twin brother were both artists. Instead, I write comics and he works at Apple Store.
Frank: That’s a full misalignment.
Matt: That’s still pretty good.
Frank: We’re both like Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, man. Why are we the twins? We’re not even the Good Charlotte twins or the Olsen twins. We’re bad twins anyway. I try to expand my horizons a little bit. I like manga a lot. I’ve been trying to read a lot of the really good manga that I missed. I’m reading a lot of Urasawa. I really like “Pluto.”
Matt: I read Pluto this year. It’s easily, top three book I’ve ever read.
Frank: Offensively good, and to think that it was based on “Astro Boy.”
Matt: I couldn’t believe it.
Frank: His other book, “Monster” is great. Then they’re reissuing Viz Classics of these signatures, reissuing an earlier book he did called “Master Keaton.” Volume 3 came out. They’re beautiful editions with foiled covers. The look of Master Keaton, he’s kind of MacGyver. He’s an insurance claims inspector…
Frank: …but also an archeologist/anthropologist…
Matt: Oh my God.
Frank: …and literally he’s MacGyver. He finds this weird artifact, finds out it’s to throw spears, and gets people out of trouble with it. He wears a suit the whole time.
Matt: Sounds amazing.
Frank: The best thing ever.
Matt: I’m going to get it.
Frank: No Hit Monkey in it, but it’s…
Matt: It’s no Hit Monkey, but we’ll see what he can do.
Frank: But it’s close.
Kara: We’ll check out the Frank Barbiere sanctioned list.
Matt: Is this Frank approved?
Kara: Frank approved.
Frank: There’s more good comics than there’s ever been, and that’s even in the States, but then we don’t even account for France, Japan, and globally. I’m trying to be a little more aware of global stuff than I said I would.
Which is why I’m so excited you guys are translating Delcourt books, now because there are so many on the app that I’ve always wanted to read, but too lazy to learn my French.
Matt: That is an exact quote that Kara said about me earlier, when we talked about the Delcourt launch.
Kara: Because I was like, “Here.” He’s like, “Oh, I want to read these books.” I’m like, “Well, learn French.” He’s like, “No.”
Frank: I was like, “They’re still there just in French.”
Matt: Frank, I appreciate you coming back…
Kara: Yeah, thank you.
Matt: …to speak with us…
Frank: Oh, anytime, thank you so much.
Matt: …making time for us. I hope everyone checks out Five Ghosts, Broken World, and…
Kara: Everything you do.
Matt: …Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Frank: If this is interview is edited to be five minutes, know we talked longer than that.
That’s all my fault.
Matt: Thanks again.
Kara: Thank you.
Frank: Thank you, guys.
Matt: We’re good.
Frank: We sounded good. 360 degrees?
Matt: Yes, absolutely.
Frank: Not like Bane in “The Dark Knight.” I want my voice to come from everywhere.