By Jorge Khoury and Eric Nolen-Weathington

M O D E R N M A S T E R S V O L U M E T W E N T Y - E I G H T :

RICOWELL

EPRICOWELL

EP

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Table of Contents

Introduction by Robert Ben Garant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Part One: A Guy Walks into a Book Signing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Interlude One: Tom Sniegoski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Part Two: It Aint the Name, Its the Rep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Interlude Two: The Gist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Part Three: The Goon Rides a Dark Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Interlude Three: Scott Alie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Part Four: Hollywood and the Big Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Interlude Four: Dave Stewart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Part Five: Storytelling and the Creative Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Modern Masters Volume Twenty-Eight:

ERIC POWELL

MODERN MASTERS: How do you look back at yourchildhood? Is that pretty much what defines what you dotoday?

ERIC POWELL: I kind of think so. Its weird. Im sureeveryone says this, but your childhood through highschool really forms who youre going to be down the roadmore than any other time in your life. Yeah, I had a prettygood childhood, but its weird. I grew up in therural South, and to me this place hasalways been kind of creepy. Its woodsand sheds. Where I grew up lookslike a backdrop for a 70s slasherhorror movie. But even when Ithink about it now, this timeof year [November] makes methink even more about it.The Fall is a pretty vividchildhood memory,when the trees are allkind of scraggly anddead, and there are leaveson the ground. Just oldramshackle sheds andthings like that, andplaying around inold barns and stuff.And its just inher-ently creepy, and Ithink that atmosphereprobably shaped the kindof content I find appealing.

MM: Do you have other siblings?

ERIC: Yeah, I have an older sister.[laughs] I could tell you a bunchof stories about how I torment-ed her as a kid. I have a twistedsense of humor, so my oldersister took the brunt of lots ofteasing. My room was right next to hers, so any time shewould walk out I would sneak in there and take this onespecific doll and move it around the room. Just subtly, atfirst, so she would start noticing that the thing had beenmoving. After a while it got to the point where she waslike, Are you moving the doll? Of course I denied it. No,its not me. I dont know what youre talking about. Sheended up throwing it away. But it was my job to take out

the trash, so I saw it and put it back in her room. [laughter]Thats a typical story of how I used to just terrorize her.

MM: Would she often babysit you?

ERIC: Yeah. We didnt really have babysitters. Back thenyou got left home by yourself when you were kind ofyoung and you could go down the highway sitting in theback of a pickup truck, which you cant do now.

MM: So the television became your babysitter?

ERIC: Oh, yeah. I spent a lot of time sitting infront of the TV watching reruns of The TwilightZone and The Andy Griffith Show.

MM: What got you into art? Were youalways artistically inclined?

ERIC: I was always drawing. One ofthe last things my grandmother gave

me before she passed away was adrawing I did as a very youngkid. Its the earliest drawing ofmine I have. Its Superman

flying through the air, anda plane getting struck bylightning, on fire andstuff. I was probablythree or four when I drew

it. I dont remember a timewhen I wasnt drawing. I was

always drawing and alwaysmaking up stories to go with the

drawings.

MM: In school you were the artguy?

ERIC: Yeah, especially in juniorhigh and high school. T-shirts andposters for my friends who hadbandsstuff like that. I was

always the guy they came to. Sometimes it got me in trouble,because I would [laughs] draw little things I probably wasntsupposed to. I remember one time one of my teachersrooms had, I dont remember if it was the presidents orsomething lining the top of the room, but I think I drewPinhead and stuck it up there with them. She went a longtime without seeing it. And when they were electing class

Part 1: A Guy Walks into a Book Signing...

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presidents I drew Judge Death from JudgeDredd in a Judge Death for President poster,a kind of gory poster. Some of the studentswere allowed to work in the school office, soa friend of mine who was working in theoffice stuck it in the office window with theother posters, and it was up there for a whilebefore any of the faculty noticed it, so wekind of got in trouble for that.

MM: Did you ever think of studying film atany point, or was comics it for you?

ERIC: I really wanted to do special effectsmake-up at one point, but being in the middleof Tennessee.... When you live just outside ofNashville and youve never really been out ofthe state very much, going to Hollywoodand learning how to do make-up, effects, andstuff didnt really seem very realistic.

MM: We were growing up in a time whenthere were guys making it look like youcould do it. If you look at Clerks, youd think,Anyone can do that. It wasnt inconceivable.Robert Rodriguez wrote that book [Rebel with-out a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with$7,000 Became a Hollywood Player] where for$5,000 you could make your own film.

ERIC: That stuff came right as I was gettingout of school; I didnt really catch on to any

of that while I was in school. So to me itseemed like making films was just unachiev-able. I thought you had to have some specialin somewhere so that you could get into aschool that would teach you that.Or that it was a tradecraft,like you would have tolive in the same town thatRick Baker lived in andthen somehow knowhim, and then he wouldteach you and youwould get a job. I feltlike it wasnt somethingthat you could discoverhow to do yourself and justwork to achieve. You had tosomehow mysteriously fallinto it. I never really thoughtdirecting a movie or doingspecial effects would really everbe anything that would happen, so it wasntanything that I ever tried to pursue.

MM: What made you think comics wereachievable, that you could get to Marvel orDC?

ERIC: It just seemed simpler, because I wouldread a magazine about comics, and the guy islike, hes working at home, hes sending in

Previous Page: Ericdrew this preliminarySuperman sketch inpreparation for histhree-issue run on ActionComics. This image wasused as a starting pointfor the cover of ActionComics #855. Left: A Defenders illofrom Erics sketchbooks.Below: A Spider-Manpencil sketch from Ericssketchbooks

Superman and DCComics. Defenders, Dr. Strange,Hulk, Namor, Silver Surfer,Spider-Man and MarvelCharacters, Inc.

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the pages, all that going through FedEx. I could do that. I could draw athome and FedEx pages to the publisher and I wouldnt have to live inNew York or L.A. or anything like that. So it seemed more achievable,and the fact that I could do it all by myselfI didnt need a film crew togo out and make something. I could sit at my table and pencil and ink acomic and not need any other assistance. It just seemed like an easiergoal to reach. Plus, I loved comics, and Im kind of introverted, so theidea of sitting in my room by myself and doing a book seemed appeal-ing and less stressful than trying to go out and do something else.

MM: When did it become obsessive that you wanted to get intocomics? Straight out of high school?

ERIC: Well, Im one of those guys that grew up with comics and justlet it go and rediscovered it later on. When I was in junior high I hadthis friend, Andy Day, who was into comics. I cant remember whatbooks he loaned me, but Im drawing all this crazy, weird stuff, and hegoes, Do you like comics? And I said, Well, I dont have any, but,

yeah, I kind of like comics. And he startedtelling me about this stuff he was reading,and it was sothis was after Dark KnightReturns and comics were getting grittier. Ifound it really cool, so he started lettingme borrow some. And then another friendof mine who liked to draw, he let me bor-row Aliens vs. Predator and Hard Boiled. I sawHard Boiled and, just, Oh, my God. Youdont let your parents see this, right? Howthe hell did you even buy this? It reallyblew me away, because as a teenage boytheres nothing better than an ber-violent,crazy, oversexed comic, yknow? I didnteven know anything like that existed. Itblew me away.

And then I was really getting into theBernie Wrightson stuff. At that time he wasdoing Batman: The Cult. There are so manygreat books that I look back on from thattime. Even if they werent done specificallyat that time, I was just discovering themthen. Like The Killing Joke and BrianBollands other work, like his Judge Dreddstuff, and that Kent Williams and Jon J.Muth Havok and Wolverine mini-series.

MM: Who was the first artist you recog-nized by his art?

ERIC: That was Bernie Wrightson, becausean uncle of mine had a bunch of SwampThing comics just sitting in his basement.

That sounds creepy, but its not. [laughs] He had abunch of Swamp Thing comics sitting in this littlewoodworking area in his basement, and I wouldgo down there and play with my cousins and lookthrough these comics. The style of it automaticallydrew me in. Youve got all the light work that hedoes in there and all the feathering. All of my lovefor the EC stuff, and Frazetta, and Wally Wood,Jack Davis, and all the stuff that really influencesme sprouted from Bernie Wrightson. I really gotinto Bernie, and I read stuff about him and hisinfluences, and I just started looking for that stuff.It all flowered out from Bernie Wrightson.

MM: You certainly appreciate the way they usedto do comics, like, the way Frazetta and Williamsonwould do comics, in that theyd sketch it out, andthen theyd pose and photograph it, and thentheyd draw it. Its a long, tedious process, I guess,to the guys today to do comics that way.

ERIC: I dont even think its that thought out. Theprocess is not what hits me about it. Its just thatimmediate impact of looking at the image. Peoplejust have different tastes, and thats what Im drawnto. I dont know why. Will Eisner, Jack Davis, WallyWood, Frazetta, Williamson, all that stuff. I thinkI just appreciate that those guys are real artists.You look at their work, they know the anatomy.They distort it, but they really know the stuff, andtheres something about the way that they ink thepages. That classic comic art just appeals to me.

MM: You didnt go to art school. Were there anykey art books that you read that helped you?

ERIC: Well, I think the thing that really helps me is thatIm kind of overly analytical. I really look at somethingand try to see how it works, and I think that I appliedthat to art. I really studied and looked at a lot of differentkinds of art. Something thats also helped me is that Ididnt just study comic art. Im not being as repetitiousas some people, I think, just because I looked at othertypes of art. I had a high school art teacher who reallygot me into the Renaissance painters. He was alwaysletting me borrow his art books, so I was looking at theway they did things. And Im a big [Norman] Rockwellfan, so I studied a lot of his work. And then I mixedcomics with that, just experimenting and studying otherpeoples work and not limiting myself to comics.

MM: What about the comics that were coming outwhen you were in high school, like the Jim Lee workand the Image style? Did that do anything for you?

ERIC: Oh, yeah, it did. I was right along with every-body else buying all the big stuff of the day,the Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane stuff.

Previous Page: Two ofthe big, early influenceson Eric: Hard Boiled(issue #1 shown here)and Swamp Thing asdrawn by BernieWrightson (original artfor page 13 of issue #10shown here).Above: In 2006, Ericbegan a nine-issue run asthe cover artist forSwamp Thing. Shown hereare the pencils for thecover of issue #24 of theseries.Left: Sketch idea for thecover of Swamp Thing #29,Erics last issue and thefinal issue of the series.

Swamp Thing and DCComics. Hard Boiled and Frank Miller and Geof Darrow.

MM: What do you remember about meeting Eric?

TOM SNIEGOSKI: Whats interesting is that when I firstmet him he hadnt gotten any work yet. I was doing asigning with Bernie Wrightson [in 1995], and I believe EdMcGuinness was there, too. This was one of Eds first sign-ing tours, and wed been flown down there. Ed and I werepromoting Vampirella, because Ed had just done an issue ortwo of the regular series with me. This guy approached thetable with a portfolio. His wife was with him, holding ababy. I believe that was Erics first child, Gage. He reallylooked sad. Thats the one thing I remember. Hell poo-poo

it, though. He lookedas though the world had

been pulled out fromunderneath him. Hejust looked really bad.I said to him, Hey,how are you doing?Whats going on?Blah, blah, blah.He just stood therefor a minute, then

lifted his portfolio and said, Would you please look at thisfor me and tell me if I have a chance? He just looked like,Can you just tell me something? Am I wasting my time? Hejust had that look. I will always look at portfolios. I lovelooking at portfolios. I love to see what new talent mightbe hiding out there, so I was more than happy to do that.But I saw this stuff that was just blowing my mind. It wasreally, really nice. He would probably say it wasnt all thatgood, but I gotta tell you something. I had done a lot ofwork in independent comics, and Id worked with a lot ofup and coming guys. This stuff just blew me away.

Now, as Im opening the portfolio, hes telling me hedsent copies of his work to all the major publishers multipletimes, sent follow-up letters, and he couldnt get anybodyto even respond. Hed just told me this seconds earlier, butas I started flipping these pages all of that was completelygone from my head, and I was like, Who are you workingfor now? He said, Nobody. I cant get anybody to talk tome. I was literally dumbfounded, because he had such aunique look, but at the same time ridiculously familiar. All Icould think of were people like Mike Ploog and a lot of theold horror artists from EC. Throw in a little Sam Kieth,throw in a little Jack Kirby. You know what I mean? It wasjust really exciting. Bernie was right next to me, so I said,Bernie, look at this. I slide it over to Bernie, and Berniesflipping through it saying, Wow, this stuff is really nice.Who are you working for? Nobody. I cant get anybodyto respond to my letters. Ed came over and was praising itup and down. I actually saw a glimmer of, Oh, my God.

This is great. Somebodys actually talking tome. [laughs]

MM: You gave him hope.

TOM: How could you not? As a writerworking in comics and trying to do allkinds of different projects, I saw him asthe golden egg. So I gave him all myinformation right away and took informa-tion from him. When I got back toMassachusetts I was on the phone withhim a day or two later saying, What doyou want to do? Lets do something. Howcould I let this go to waste?

We did up all kinds of crazy characterdesigns for original ideas I had, but thefirst workI had been doing some workfor London Night Studios on a book

Interlude 1: TomSniegoski

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MM: Whats your earliest memory of the Goon? Where didhe come from?

ERIC: Well, I remember doing the first drawing. The wholeidea actually came from just the word goon. I was tryingto think of a creator-owned thing to do, because I just feltlike I wasnt getting to do the stuff that I was good at andwanted to show what I could do. I had this thing I wasdoing, which was this ogre character that got sentenced toEarth, on probation or something like that, to hunt downmonsters. It was a pretty weak idea. At one point I drew aflat cap on him, but it wasnt like a 1930slook, it was more of like a punk rocklook. He had a leather jacket on,and I just put a flat cap onhim. He had long hairsticking out of it andstuff. I thought thatlooked cool, but Ididnt like the char-acter.

One day I wasjust doodlingaround andworking on somestuff, and I wasthinking of allthe stuff that Ilikegangstermovies, the1930s, and allthat stuff. The wordgoon just popped intomy head, and I wondered ifthere was already a charactercalled Goon. Pretty commonslang term for a bad guy. Butapparently not. I just started drawingthis big, long-armed guy in a wife-beater with a flat cap on.I dont know why, but for some reason I put these giantbuckteeth on him. [laughs] It was like, Oh, no one willhave the balls to put buckteeth on their main character,because it looks so goofy and stupid. I did three littledrawings on one piece of paper. One was just a back shot,so it was his silhouette. I stole the pose from a Frazettapainting with some kind of a demon silhouette against themoon. I stole that pose and just drew this big, long-armedthug with a flat cap on, and beside that drawing I did a

profile shot of him with the big buckteeth, and then I didanother drawing with his giant hand holding out a pistol,and that was the very first drawing I ever did on him.

I did a little synopsis of a story breakdown which wasmuch more serious than what the book ended up being. Itwas all about this mob enforcer. Its kind of like Luca Brasifrom The Godfather except in reverse. It wasnt his thug thatwas assassinated, it was his boss who was assassinated, andthen he goes on a killing rampage to get revenge for hisboss death. And I was just like, Thats too serious. I want

this to be funny and fun, and Iwant to have fun drawingit, so I made it a little bit

crazier.

MM: And this was all inthe mid-90s?

ERIC: Yeah, it was some-where between 94 and 96. I

dont remember exactly.

MM: So you spent fiveyears thinking of stuff,developing this character?When you started at

Avatar, did youhave enough ofthe landscapeready?

ERIC: With Avatar, I gavethem the first issue a yearbefore the book even cameout, so by the point that the

first issue did come out, I already had ideas for stuff. Idbeen thinking about it for quite a while.

MM: You waited a year for it to come out?

ERIC: There was some reasoning they had behind it. Theywere going to do a bunch of new books or something, andI think that had something to do with it. I dont rememberthe exact reasoning, but I sure remember waiting a longtime for it.

MM: Did you pitch them a series?

ERIC: Yeah, it was supposed to be a series, but it didnt gothat way, and we parted ways.

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Part 2: It Aint the Name,Its the Rep

MM: What happened? Did you get any inter-est from the public for the book? Did you seepeople start coming up to you at shows tellingyou they read it?

ERIC: Well, the book didnt make a ton ofmoney for them, because just starting outand doing a black-&-white independentcomic, youre not going to get a whole lot ofsales. So I dont begrudge them anything asfar as that goes. We had some conflict overthe quality of the production. I wasnt happywith it, and it wasnt making enough moneyfor them to bump it up. I was pretty disap-pointed after waiting a year for it to comeout and then having it on really not the bestpaper; the quality was pretty poor. So afterthree issues I decided to go in a differentdirection.

MM: In those first Avatar issues you can see aheavy Mignola influence in the art. It lookedlike the Goon could have fit into that world.

ERIC: Well, hes definitely a big influence,but I dont see it in those issues. With all thelittle crosshatching stuff I was trying to do inthe first few issues, I always thought it seemedmore Bernie Wrightson-ish.

MM: What happened after the problems atAvatar?

ERIC: I had to wait for the contract to expirewith Avatar before I could publish The Goonagain. During that time I started doing work forDark Horse on the Buffy comics and starteddoing some inking for Marvel. But then all ofthat dried up. And in hindsight it seems kind ofweird how I had to wait out the contract justwhen I got some other work, and then the workended right when I needed to start doing TheGoon again. It was actually a pretty bleak time,because I really thought my career was over.

MM: Why keep going with The Goon when itwasnt a sensation right away?

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Previous Page: Ericsfirst sketches of TheGoon.Above: The openingpage of The Goon and akey page from the thirdissue which shows thesource of Goons motivationthe death ofhis Aunt Kizzie. ThoughEric only had threeissues published byAvatar, his style evolvedconsiderably during thattime. Printing from thepencils when depictingflashback or dreamsequences is a techniqueEric continues to use inthe series.

The Goon and Eric Powell.

ERIC: I didnt think it was given achance. Three poorly produced

issuesnot just from a productionstandpoint, but on my part, too.

This was the first book Ihad ever written myselfand put out there. Plus, I

was still developingmy art. It wasntthe best stuff Idever done. Its prettypainful for me tolook at those three

books. I dont know...I just liked doing it.

Thats the main thing. Ilike doing the comic,

and I like the characters.And it was the only plat-form where I could do

anything I wanted to do.

MM: You just kept getting ideas for it?

ERIC: Exactly. I have a little notebook, and Iget a funny idea and scribble it down. Thatsthe great thing about The Goon. If theressomething I want to drawthe issue Imworking on now, I wanted to draw a giant,demonic gorilla with glowing eyes. All right,I can work that in there somehow.

MM: Anything goes on Lonely Street, right?You can have zombies, you can have aliens,and nobodys going to be surprised.

ERIC: Not only can I do that, I can do anytone of story I want to do. I can do a reallyoff-the-wall Looney Tunes kind of episode, or Ican do something like Chinatown, which isreally somber. Its just a great way to go backand forth and have a lot of freedom.

MM: Do you see the Goon being an exten-sion of your personality? Is he saying thestuff you want to say sometimes?

ERIC: Oh, theres definitely stuff in there Iwanted to say to people. [laughs] Ive nevermurdered anyone with a hammer, so I cantsay its too much of an extension of my per-sonality, but I think anyone who writes any-thing, theres always a little bit of themselvesthat they put into the characters. I vent insome ways in the comic. [laughs] I know thatI vent a lot. There are some jokes in therethat are aimed toward stuff thats pissing meoff at the time.

MM: The Goon cant ever love a woman,because it will always be a downfall.

ERIC: Yeah, hes cursed. Hes cursed. Thewhole last story arc that I did before we justrelaunched was about him realizing andexpecting that hes never going to be happy.And hes come to the point where hes like,All right, thats my lot. So be it.

MM: And Franky is just insane. There are norules for him, are there?

ERIC: Hes Joe Pesci from Goodfellas. Hes justgoing to stab you in the face with a pen. Hesextremely loyal to his friend and would killfor him. But thats his only redeeming factor.[laughs]

MM: When you started, did you have the ideathat, I could take this concept to a hundredissues? Did you have your Goon storiesmapped out?

Above: Design sketch ofthe giant zombie chimpthat appears in The Goonvol. 1, #1.Right: Frankys look didntcome together as quicklyas Goons, as shown inthese early designsketches.Next Page Top: Thefirst mention ofChinatown came at theend of the first issue.The basic story behind itwas one of Erics firstideas for the series,though he didnt get totell the story until severalyears later.Next Page Bottom:Unused art intended forthe cover of Erics firstforay into self-publishing:The Goon Color Special.

The Goon and Eric Powell.

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ERIC: No, because its not a concept book. Itsreally just the characters, and thats the reason Ican do so many weird things with it, becauseyou take these characters who are defined andyou look at them. You dont even have to readanything that they say. The first time that yousee them, you get the gist of what theyreabout. You have the big, burly guy and a little,mean-looking sidekick with beady eyes, andyou can almost hear the conversations already.It makes it easy for me. You take these two guysand you plop them down in any situation andyou just let it go. The very first issue had a ref-erence to Chinatown in it. The idea forChinatown came from the first time I did a draw-ing of Goon and put scars on the side of hisface. I was like, Where did he get those? Oh,he got them from this bad thing that happenedto him in Chinatown. So stuff kind of snow-balls from there, but its not like, Heres howthe arc is going to go.

Of course, [laughs] I do have a Goon projectthatI dont know how to put it without giving stuff away.It kind of shows where things are going. Its not like thestory has a beginning, middle, and end, because thats notreally what Im doing with it. Im just letting the thing floworganically. But it is bleak. [laughs] The basis of the wholething is that this is a town that has a curse on it, so noth-ings going to be happy. Ill just say that. [laughs]

MM: Whered you get the money to self-publish after Avatar?

ERIC: I got a $5,000 loan from the bank. It was prettyfrightening, actually, because I had no idea how I was goingto pay it back. I was going to start mopping floors or some-thing. Because, like I said, all my other work had dried up,and I got to the point where I felt, Ive got to give this onemore shot, showing what I can do, and if it doesnt work, Illat least know. If I was going to go out, I was at least goingto show people what I was capable of. And by that point intime I had become a better artist and a better writer, so theissues that I self-published were much stronger all the wayaround, and I think thats really what propelled the book.

MM: Did you set a plan for yourself, in terms of marketing,for how you were going to get the word out? Did you havea business plan?

ERIC: Yeah, I did. I did some illustration work for a printercompany that was trying to show off this new printer thatthey had just gotten. In exchange, I told them I didnt wantany money, just free printing. So I got a ton of colorcomicsthe Albatross Color Specialprinted up for free,and I just sent them out everywhere. I found the address ofevery comic shop I could and wrote a letter and sent thosebooks out everywhere. I think that helped out a lot,because so much independent stuff gets put out there, and Ican understand why its hard for shops to be able to order alot of that stuff, because, along with all the good stuff thatsout there, theres a lot of bad, and Im sure they get burneda lot. I think it helped that the shops got to see the level ofquality of the book before they decided whether theycould sell it in their stores or not.

MM: How much work did you have ready? When you gotthat $5,000, what did you do first?

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MM: When I saw Hieronymous Alloy for the first time [in The Goon #2], I thought hewas a Mexican wrestler. Are you ever going to have something like that in there? Itseems like Goon should face-off with Mil Mascaras or someone like that.

ERIC: Yeah, I was actually thinking about doing something like that, butthen Mignola did that Hellboy in Mexico story, so Im not going to doit now, because it would just seem like I was copying him.

MM: It would be a natural fit.

ERIC: Yeah. Maybe down the road people will forget about the Hellboystory. [laughs]

MM: I liked the Spanish-speaking monster in Goon #6. Who does theSpanish dialogue for you?

ERIC: Oh, I do. Me and www.freetranslations.com. [laughs] And this is just mebeing a jerk. I wanted to get someone to try to translate the Spanish and thennot be able to translate it. So it starts out as gibberish. It starts out as, That monkeyswine spanked my chicken. And then I translate it through freetranslations.com,wh ich, I mean, its a website, so its not going to translate it perfectly. I take asentence that doesnt make any sense and run it through a bad translation,so it really doesnt make any sense. Some people actually got mad aboutit. This guy was telling me, hed taken it up to hisfriend at work whos Latino and asked, Hey,what does this say? And the guy was like,

Part 3: The Goon Ridesa Dark Horse

It doesnt make any sense. Hes a total idiotthat cant speak Spanish. I replied, Yeah, Iknow I cant speak Spanish. Its supposed tobe funny.

MM: It felt like you had a lot of fun with thefootball issue [The Goon #9]? I think that wasone of your best stories.

ERIC: Well, Im a big Green Bay Packers fan,so I thought the Goons world needed itsversion of the Green Bay Packers. That wasa lot of fun.

MM: Thats one where we started seeingyour art shift. It seemed like you were begin-ning to trust your storytelling a little more.You didnt over-render; you gave it a classicand nostalgic feel. Were you aiming for that?Were you looking at old football picturesfrom the 50s?

ERIC: I was. I was looking at a lot of oldleather-helmet era football photos.

MM: They romanticized the game morethen, right? They were these tough guys.

ERIC: Well, its guys in leather helmets andwearing sweaters out there smearing eachother in the mud. It was just grittier thantodays football.

MM: The Christmas story you did [in Goon#10] was all in pencil. Were you trustingyour pencils more?

ERIC: Its all just in context of the story andwhat Im trying to get across. So if its like,This scene would work really well in pencil,because I want it to feel gritty, then I do that.Its all about setting a mood for the story.

MM: Where did Willie Nagel come from?Hes a great character.

ERIC: Yeah, hes the only zombie Im keep-ing around. All the other zombies are gone.At first, he was a throwaway character. Ithought, I should have a zombie just wanderinto the bar like, Hi, guys, just oblivious tothe fact that he shouldnt be there, and thenthe Goon kicks his butt and throws him out.It was just a little throwaway gag. And thenthe next issue, I was laying it out, and Ithought I should have that same zombiecome back wearing a human mask, like hestrying to sneak back in and get anotherdrink. And then the Goon sets him on fire

and kicks him out again. I dont remember ifit was that issue or the next one, I had himsneak into the bar again, and the Goon looksat him and says, Forget it, and leaves himthere. But thats a character that just totallygrew out of nowhere. It wasnt like I had anidea for this guy I was going to throw in. Itwas just a throwaway gag, and I ended up lik-ing him.

MM: Willie never took it personally. Nomatter how they treated him, he kept comingback.

ERIC: He was also the perfect way to explainhow some of the zombies were talking andsome of them were just brain dead. It cameto me, Willie Nagels got personality. Thatswhy hes talking.

MM: I think thats one of your best lines,where he says some people were zombies tobegin with.

ERIC: Yeah. Willie Nagel is sitting on acouch talking to Franky, and Frankys like,How come you can talk and youre not amumbling slackjaw like the rest of the zom-bies? And Nagel says something like, Well,I guess I wasnt a zombie when I was alive. Ihad personality, I was a free thinker, and itjust kind of carried over when I died.

Previous Page: A pencilsketch of El Hombre delLegarto (the Lizardman)for the cover of TheGoon #6, along with apanel from the story. Above: An ink washpanel from The Goon #9,wherein Goon becamethe star halfback andlinebacker for the localfootball team, TheCanners. In true time-ambiguous fashion, Ericdrew the teams in equipment from the earlyto mid-1900s.

The Goon and Eric Powell.

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Previous Page: Pencilsand inks for page 105 ofChinatown. The friendshipof Goon and Franky isone of the underlyingthemes of the series.Below Left: Christmascard artwork featuringEric and one of theNashville Rollergirls. Below Right: ThePontani Sisters, led byAngie, track down RoxiDlite. The Sisters and Ms.Dlite are all well knownburlesque dancers.

The Goon and Eric Powell.

ERIC: I dont know. Its funny, I have a lot ofreally attractive women tell me that theyhave a crush on the Goon. Even yesterday,one of the burlesque performers who had acameo in the last issue, Angie Pontani, waslike, Oh, throw me in The Goon anytime. Ivegot a crush on him. I think its funny. I dontknow. My girlfriends very attractive, and Ilook like a lump of dirty laundry, so I dontknow. Maybe it does happen.

MM: It was at this point when Dave Stewartcame on board as the colorist. When you workwith Dave, do you have a different mindset?His colors are really starting to come out.

ERIC: Dave is so good about catching anatmosphere that I really dont have to go overa whole lot with him. I gave him very basic,simple direction at the beginning, and thenIve given him very few notes since. The onlydirection I gave him was that nothing shouldlook new and no one should look healthy. Igave him a palette I wanted with lots ofbrowns, lots of sepia, and he just ran with it.I never had to give him any other notes.

MM: When youre inking, do you render alittle less now, telling yourself, Dave can dosomething here?

ERIC: I actually do, and weve been workingon that lately, because Ive been over-render-ing. I would go in and do a bunch of pencilshading and washes, and then he comes backin and lays the colors, and separately theylook good, but together, when its printed,your stuff usually prints a little darker. It kindof muddies things up. So weve been goingback and forth and talking about it. Ive beenpulling back a little bit on some of the wash-es and pencil tone in certain areas just sowere not muddying up the page. And thestuff weve been doing lately is much better.

MM: You can see the progression. Its one ofthe most vibrant comics out there right now.

ERIC: Yeah, its all Dave. Issue #36 came outgreat. Thats the one where we really started

Below: Labrazio makeshis return known in thispage from The Goon #22.Next Page Top: Goonsshort stint in prison gaveEric the opportunity toreference classic prisonmovies.Next Page Bottom: Aseven-panel page (a raresight in The Goon) fromErics collaboration withEvan Dorkin in The Goon#35.

The Goon and Eric Powell.

talking about it and figuring out how to com-promise our two styles and really meet in themiddle, and I think we really started hittingour stride with that one.

MM: In 2008 you had a big marketing pushwith The Year of the Goon. How did thatcome about, and did it work?

ERIC: We hit this level where we got a goodreadership, a really loyal fan base, and TheGoon just kind of hovers at this spot. And Iwas like, I really want to try to expand andget it out there to more people. I had thisreturn of Labrazio story, a Goon story thatwas not just a one-off. Because this story wasgoing to carry over into multiple issues, andbecause I felt that the bimonthly schedulewas too long of a wait to get the story and

remember it, I decided to do it monthly, bothto try to boost up readership and so thatstory would make a little bit more sense.

MM: You also did a lot of appearances andinterviews. Did it pay off? In the end, did thesales bump up? What did you learn from thatexperience?

ERIC: I dont really know if going to showshelps your sales or not. You can sell a fewbooks at the convention or whatever, but Ireally dont know. Its a hard thing to gaugewhether or not it actually helps your sales.

MM: Basically, youre mostly meeting fansthat you already have, right?

ERIC: Pretty much. I mean, they just come upand they want you to sign the books that theyalready have, so Im not sure it does very much.Ive gotten to the point where I dont reallylike conventions anymore. You get over themafter a while. But when youre first startingout, and youre sitting in your room drawingcomics, and youre there by yourself all thetime, and then you go to a convention andpeople come up to you and tell you howmuch they like the work, its really rewarding.

MM: Im not wasting my time.

ERIC: Exactly.

MM: Youre not a Twilight fan, I take it. [laughs]

ERIC: No, not a fan of the Twilight. [laughs]

MM: You used the baseball scene in issue #34.

ERIC: I dont have Showtime, but they had afree weekend, so I was flipping channels, andthey were showing the first Twilight movie. Idheard it was really lame, but I wanted to seewhat all the fuss was about. I watched abouthalf an hour of it before I had to turn it off. Iturned it off right after it got to the baseballscene. I was like, You have to be kidding me.Vampires playing baseball? Seriously? Youthought this was a good idea?

MM: In the rain!

ERIC: We have to play in the rain, becausewere so strong, it makes thunder! It was theworst. [laughter] It was uncomfortable to look at.

MM: How did you like working with EvanDorkin [The Goon #35]? It must have been weirdfor you, working with somebody elses script.

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MM: Is it true you get a lot of fan mail from prison inmates?

ERIC: Yeah. Yeah, I get a lot of fan mail from prison. [laughs]

MM: What do you think of that?

ERIC: I guess Id want to laugh if I were in prison. Maybeits because hes a thug and they can identify. I dont know.[laughs] But its funny, all the mail I get from prison is thesweetest mail and so nice. Its odd, because I get some mailfrom regular comic book fans thatsto be honest, some ofits really rude and just mean-spirited and nasty. And thenyou get a letter from some guy in prison that makes youwant to cry. Its an odd thing. Its an interesting littlesocial experiment.

MM: Thats why, in this industry,you have to do things for yourself.Because if you just look at the comicsfans, all they seem to want ismore Marvel and DC books.Reading up about the videoyou put together, I was sur-prised to see how manyfolks were, like, Howdare you speakbadly about Marveland DC?

ERIC: It was a weirdthing with the video.For the most part, it got areally positive response.But the people who gotpissed off about it didnt wantto hear anything I had to say,and probably dont even readmy book anyway, becausetheyre just sucked into thesuperhero universes and dont wantto see anything else. Thats whereall the crap came from. And theargument got so twisted out of whatI was trying to direct it towards. Iwas trying to get some unity in thecomic book industry, to get creatorsand publishers and everyoneto say, Hey, we need newcontent. We cant keep just

reselling the same thing to people. Maybe thats why ourindustry keeps shrinking, because were selling the sameproduct over, and over, and over again. And I love that stuff.Jack Kirbys run on Fantastic Four is probably my favoritecomic book series of all time. But we cant keep selling that.We have to create new product, just like any other indus-try, to keep people interested. In my humble opinion, thatsthe reason the comic industry has been shrinking for thepast few decades is because were just selling people the

same stuff. And then the new stuffthat comes out gets no real push.It has to have a movie or someother kind of tie-in to getpeople to even look at it.

MM: Or to get yourstory picked up onNewsarama orComic BookResourcesif yourenot Marvel or DC

or some big-namecreator, youre goingto have a tough timegetting coverage.

ERIC: Yeah. Its thetruth. If you can say,Well, I worked on X-Men, and Im doinga book over here,then you might getsome attention off of

it. And therere somany shops out therethat wont even carry

your book unless its forMarvel or DC. Its just sad.

MM: I saw a comment in your bookwhere you were trying to get yourbook into Diamonds Top 100 chart. Iwould have thought that was automatic!

ERIC: That was a half-hearted joke.Its an attempt to boost my sales,

while also making a joke aboutthe fact that theres no way itsever going to be in the Top 100.

Part 4: Hollywood and the Big Two

MM: Why not? Youre a good artist.

ERIC: Well, thats the sad state of the industry.Im just using myself as an example, so I dontwant this to come off as arrogant or anything,but my book has 13 Eisner nominations. Its afive-time Eisner Award-winner. In any otherindustry where theres that kind of criticalrecognition, you see a boost in the sales.And, as much as I think the Eisner Awards arevital to the industry, especially toas WillEisner put itgive some recognition tobooks not based on sales, it doesnt help,because people wont pay attention to itunless its a Marvel or DC book. You cannotcrack the Top 100 comic books unless youhave some kind of tie-in, some kind of filmor television show, or you have fame in someother way. It just doesnt happen. Honestly, Ijust bang my head against the wall, because Idont understand this business. Marvel andDC should be publishing creator-ownedcomics to revitalize the industry, too.

MM: You would think they would, becausethey have the money for it. But they dont.

ERIC: I understand that its a completely newregime there, but Image Comics should havenever happened. Marvel should have said,You want to do your own book? Well publishit. Thats what book publishers do, right?They publish books. And instead, these twogiant companies which are controlling theindustry are really only concerned aboutmaking the quick buck and pushing theseproperties that they own. Im not sure thateven rates as a publishing company.

MM: Its more evident than ever now.Theyre not even trying anything different.

ERIC: Oh, yeah. Because the industry is insuch a bad state right now, and you havecomic shops closing left and right, and theamount of shelf space out there keeps shrink-ing and shrinking, so theyre fighting for thatlimited space, and theyre trying harder andharder to push everybody else out of the way.

MM: I think other publishers were concernedthat DCs New 52 was going to take awayshelf space from their books, because shopswere ordering heavy on that and not orderingthe independent books.

ERIC: Its true. It did happen. My salesdipped. My sales dipped when that launched.

And its a shame, because we put out a greatissue. It was the issue that Evan Dorkin wrote.I thought he did a great job, and I wanted it toget a lot of exposure and get out there becausehe wrote such a fun comic. And our sales dippedbecause it came out during the 52 relaunch.

MM: Are the collections where its at for younowadays?

ERIC: Yeah, if I were living off of the floppycomics, I would be broke. The collections arewhere Im able to make a living.

MM: Were you surprised when Marvel andDC came calling? Did that mean youd finallyarrived?

Previous Page: AFantastic Four drawingcomplete with aKirbyesque machinefrom Erics sketchbooks.Above: A page from TheGoon #39, which parodiesthe superhero tropesprevalent in todayscomic books.

The Goon and Eric Powell.Fantastic Four, Reed Richards,Thing and MarvelCharacters, Inc.

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ERIC: I remember the first job I was offered.Mark Chiarello called me and asked me if Iwanted to do some Batman covers, and I waslike, Oh, my God! They actually called me!That was a really awesome moment.

MM: Youd never met him before?

ERIC: I had never met him. That was a reallynice moment, because someone wasapproaching me, and I wasnt the one beg-ging for the work.

I just want to touch on this. Some peoplecriticized me for making that video, saying,Well, you worked for Marvel and DC. Yourea hypocrite. No, Im not. Because Im stick-ing my neck out there. If Im criticizing theseguys, Im also taking the risk that theyrenever going to offer me work again. Imdoing this because I want to help the busi-ness, and that means that Im putting myselfat risk for the sake of other people. So thatreally irritated me when people were sayingIm a hypocrite for taking work from Marveland DC. Thats not the case. I am very thank-ful for any job anyone has ever given me, butthose guys made money off of my name aswell. I can criticize them and still be appre-ciative that they gave me work.

MM: These are the same people who think ifyou dont work for Marvel or DC you cantsurvive as a comic book artist.

ERIC: Yeah, I mean, its the same thing. Ivehad people come up to me at a conventionand go, Dont worry. One day youll get ajob at Marvel. Thats the most insultingthing anyone has ever said to me at a con-

vention. Dont worry. Just keep chuggingaway. One of these days youll get anotherjob at DC. That is so insulting and conde-scending. If I wanted to quit working on TheGoon and go work on a superhero book, Ithink I could have already done that. I think Ihave enough name recognition at this pointthat I could have made the leap, if thats whatI really wanted to do.

MM: You worked at Marvel early in yourcareer. What books did you work on?

ERIC: I havent done much for Marvel. I didsome inking work on Hulk and Black Panther.That was actually on Kyle HotzKyle wasdrawing that. Then I did some cover workfor them, and a one-shot that was DevilDinosaur versus the Hulk for Marvel Monsters.

MM: But before 2003?

ERIC: Just inking work before then.

MM: And it wasnt like they were looking foryou, it was Kyle who helped you out.

ERIC: Not as an inker before I did The Goon.No, no one was looking for me.

MM: With both the Superman story and par-ticularly the Marvel Monsters work, I felt theywere capitalizing on you. You were now EricPowell.

ERIC: I dont know, thats hard to say. Theymight have had that project in mind before Icame along. In fact, I think they offered theMonsters book to Mignola before me. But Iwas happy to take the job.

This Page and Next:Preliminary sketches andfinished pencils for thecover of Arkham Asylum:Living Hell #5. A roughbackground for the imagewas drawn separately.Eric then combined itwith several differentpreliminary figure sketchesin Photoshop until hefound the compositionhe liked best. Using thatcomposition as his layout,Eric then did the finishedpencil drawing shown onthe opposite page, whichhe then painted over.

Magpie, Poison Ivy and DC Comics.

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MM: Who are the five artists you feel were your biggestinfluences?

ERIC: As far as modern guys, I think my biggest influenceshave been Jeff Smith and Mike Mignola for a number ofreasons. I mean, their writing and their art and their busi-ness model. They really inspired me to try to go out anddo my own book. I followed their lead. With a lot of guys,theyll do a comic and build a little popularity, and thentheyll jump off and go do some work for Marvel and DCto get a decent paycheck, but then the thing they createdloses all its momentum. So I look at what those guys did.They stuck with one thing and kept their focus on that. Ivefollowed that model of, Im going to stick with this book,get it off the ground, and make it as big as I can.

Will Eisner is a big influence, the way he really looked atthe comic page in a different way. Its not just going to be abunch of boxes. You see a lot of guys who try to say, Oh, Imthinking outside the box. Look at the way Im designing thispage. But you cant read it. [laughs] Look, I have panels likeshattered glass on this page! Isnt this cool? Well, graphically,thats nice, but I cant read it. I cant follow it. Whereas WillEisner could break down something and it still reads like acomic, but it doesnt look like a typical comic book page.

MM: Thats three. [laughs]

ERIC: Im narrowing it down. Its hard. Wrightson is definitelyone. I was really influenced by him. Wally Wood and JackDavis have to be in there. This is insanely hard. Ill say WallyWood, Jack Davis, Frank Frazetta. [laughs] See, I cant narrowit down to five without, Well, that guys just as much of aninfluence as this guy. Then theres Kirby. And Alan Davishiswork has influenced me. So thats way more than five. [laughs]

MM: When youre in book mode, how do you go about yourday? Do you follow a schedule? Do you shut off the phone?

ERIC: Well, it depends on which thing Im working on atthe time. When Im writing, I have to turn everything off. Icant listen to music, I cant have the TV on as backgroundnoise. It has to be kind of quiet, otherwise I get distracted.And when Im laying stuff out, its usually structured. I havea schedule worked out where I need to get this manypages laid out today, I need to ink two pages this day.When Im laying stuff out, I usually listen to music orsomething, but it still is something where I cant be toodistracted, because Im going back and forth between thescript and concentrating on turning my stuff out. But oncethe stuff is on the paper, once theres something for me togo by and Im just tightening up pencils or inking, I usuallylisten to audio books or the news or something like thataudio commentary for a movie.

Part 5: Storytelling and theCreative Process

MM: Theres a lot of isolation, right?

ERIC: Yeah. If youre not cool with being byyourself a lot, youd probably need to getanother job. Its a pretty lonely existence.I understand why guys start studios, but,unfortunately, I live in the middle ofnowhere, and therere not any other

comic book artists around. Ive actuallythought about opening up a tattoo shop justso I would have a studio atmosphere. Startinga comic book studio in Tennessee isnt reallya viable option. Now, if I was in Portland, itdbe much easier.

MM: Have you thought of relocating?

ERIC: I have, but the more time goes by, themore Im just really happy where I am. Noplace is perfect, but Ive been able to travelenough to know that I like the good thingsabout where I live. The good things far out-weigh the bad things.

MM: Is there anything you do to loosen upbefore you start penciling a page? Do youdoodle a little beforehand?

ERIC: My day is kind of a slow build. WhenI sit at the table, its not like Im going ahundred miles an hour. Ill just kind of doodlearound on a panel a little bit and get warmedup. I dont really pull out a sketchbook anddo a couple of sketches to get fired up. Tome, that feels like Im wasting time. I have to

get started. I dontdive right into apage and startgoing at it, but

Ill skip around on pages and go around a littlebit to get warmed up. I usually dont startdoing anything major on the pages until laterin the day.

MM: So you dont doodle outside of yourwork?

ERIC: Oh, yeah. Its funny, I have a sketchbookcompulsion. If Im out somewhere, a bookstoreor an art store, I always come out with asketchbook. And Ive got tons of sketchbooksI havent even filled up yet, and probably wontbe able to fill up, because I have so many.

MM: Do you ever go to the park or the mallto observe the scene?

ERIC: No, I might throw a sketchbook in mypocket if I know Im going to be sittingsomewhere for a while. Like, my girlfriendplays roller derby, so if Im going to a rollerderby bout, I have to be there early becauseshe has to be there early, and Ill put one ofthe sketchbooks in my pocket and go have abeer and doodle a little something. Or if Imjust at home, a lot of the times Ill pull out asketchbook.

MM: Have you done any life drawing classes?

ERIC: I never went to college or anything, soI missed out on those life drawing classes. Ihave tried to take some locally, but theywerent very appealing. I remember one whereI wanted to study muscle tone, and Ivealways had a problem with backs. Backs areextremely hard for me because, depending onthe position youre in, they change. Its weird.I saw that this place was offering life drawingclasses, and I call in and say, Well, what areyour models like? Im not prejudiced againstdifferent body types, but Im looking for aspecific thing. Im trying to learn musculature.

Above: A doodle fromErics sketchbooks.Below: One of Erics lifedrawings.Next Page: A study of awomans back... amongother things, along with ahumorous sketch of whocould have been hismodel at his first lifedrawing class.

Artwork and Eric Powell.

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And theyre like, Oh, yeah, our models are in great shape.So I went in, and it was a 70-year-old lady. If I was going into study that body type, that would have been fine. But Iwas looking for someone who was muscular. I didnt goback to that class.

MM: Whats your equipment of choice, pencil and brush-wise?

ERIC: Pencil, I just use a mechanical pencil. Brush, I useWinsor & Newton sable brushes. I use Winsor & Newtonink, which has lacquer in it, which isnt too good for yourbrushes, but its the most dense ink Ive been able to find. Ialso use Dr. Martins watercolors to get some of the effectsI want. I use black colored pencils to get some pencil toneover the inks and stuff like that.

MM: When you send the art to Dave Stewart, do you justsend him scans?

ERIC: Yeah, I scan everything.

MM: What is the most challenging part of doing The Goonnowadays? Just sitting down and drawing it?

ERIC: Yeah. Like everyone else says, its the blank page,and thats the hardest thing. The easiest thing is when thepage is laid out, not even drawn, just laid out, so you have

a roadmap of where youre going. I think I waste moretime just staring at a blank page than anything else,

trying to figure out what the hell Im doing.

MM: When you write the book, where do youstart? You said you dont really write.

ERIC: No, I think I work in a non-typical way.I dont work from a full script. Ill just gothrough and kind of map out the story. I do

Eric Powell

Art Gallery

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Top:Wraparound cover art for The Goon Fancy PantsEdition vol. 2, a hardcover collection of The Goon.Left: Cover art for a French collection of The Goon.Above: Artwork for the 2009 DragonCon guest badges.

The Goon and Eric Powell.

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Below: Live bands, burlesque dancers, and comic booksnow thats a 10th Anniversary party!Right: Cover art for The Goon: Noir #2. The Noir three-issue mini-series featured Goon stories written and drawnby other creators.

The Goon and Eric Powell.

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MODERNMASTERSVOL. 28:

ERIC POWELLERIC POWELL is a sick, sick man.Sick... but brilliant. How else wouldhe have been able to come up witha concept like THE GOONasmarter-than-he-looks brute raisedby carnies, who runs the citys un-derworld while protecting it frombeing overrun by zombies? Howcould anyone not love that idea?Nows your chance to take a lookinside the sick mind of this ModernMaster, courtesy of co-authorsJORGE KHOURY and ERICNOLEN-WEATHINGTON. Through a career-spanning interview and heaps of fantastic artwork, including rareand unseen treasures from Powells personal files, this book documents his amazingcareer and details his creative processit even includes a gallery of commissionedpieces in full-color. Experience the work and wonder of this master of modern comicart in MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 28: ERIC POWELL!

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