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Barry Kitson is one comics' top pencilers. He first attracted notice on the science fiction title L.E.G.I.O.N. '89, and has since done stints on some of DC Comics' most famous characters, including Superman, Batman, and the Justice League of America. Last summer he branched into creator-owned comics, publishing Empire with longtime creative partner Mark Waid under the Gorilla imprint for Image Comics. The story of an evil overlord who falls victim to none of the classic blunders and does take over the world, Empire's first two issues were a fascinating glimpse of a world gone mad. Look all you want for sympathetic characters; those few you find may not be around long. Unfortunately, the Gorilla partners were misled by people outside of Image on certain matters of funding, and the resultant financial problems meant the end of Gorilla. For some time it looked like Empire would not be back.
Fortunately, Waid and Kitson have found a new home for Empire at the Homage Comics imprint of DC's Wildstorm division. Fresh off the news, I had the chance to talk to Kitson about the book, its new lease on life, and his career.
DT: So what is the news with Empire?
BK: Basically that the book will be becoming an Homage title as part of the DC group and that we will get a chance to - at last - publish the whole story without having all the problems with were struggling with at Gorilla - none of which were Gorilla's fault! Mark and I will retain creative ownership and the whole team will be as per issues 1 and 2 . . . [with inker James Pascoe and colorist Chris Sotomayor] which we are hoping to have reissued in a special package so people who missed it first time round can pick up on the story!
DT: Now what exactly is the difference between publishing through Image and publishing through DC/Homage?
BK: The main difference is that under Gorilla's arrangement at Image we had to pay for all the publishing, printing, a fee to have the Image 'I' and pay all the creators upfront - well before the books could come out. Also as a smaller imprint the printing costs were vastly higher under Image than for DC so the book cost alot more to produce than it will under the DC banner. We could have reduced quality of paper, story length, etc., but we really didn't want to do that! Actually I may have got that wrong about the order the bills came in - printing, etc. may have been after publishing... but before we made any money :-)
DT: Are they handling more of the logistics? On the Gorilla message boards, it sounded like you were one of the guys having to keep track of all the pieces.
BK: As to the logistics - it's true there really was no one other than ourselves putting everything together for production at Gorilla. Ann Busiek was working really hard to keep all the editorial pages running and stuff, for which we will be eternally grateful - but as for getting all the pages put together it was down to us and paying the guys at Comicraft to do the work - like put 'film' together for printers etc.
DT: Which must have made the financial issues even more fun. At some point I'd like to get back to the whole Gorilla project, but for now let's talk about Empire itself. You say you're going to publish "the whole story" -- does that mean that Empire is a finite series now?
BK: Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything about the length of the Empire tale other than it can go on being told . . . right from the start we said it might run for years or it might end tomorrow . . . we want people not to be able to assume too much . . . We have got definite objectives to reach in the story and we know where it will be going for a certain number of issues, but we also wanted the characters to drive the book - so that we will be 'in their hands' to some extent. It's very possible that all the characters we've seen so far will not survive for long :-)
DT: That element of surprise has got to be one of the fun things about the book. Even though I should have, I never saw Sebirus' death coming in the first issue.
BK: That was exactly what we wanted... in fact it surprised us a little in our initial planning he had been going to be an ongoing figure! That's what I meant about character driven events! :-)
DT: At exactly what point did you realize, "No, he has to go?" And was there any resistance on your part to change plans right from the get-go?
BK: We just realized half way through plotting issue one that killing him was the 'logical' thing for Golgoth to do despite their history. Retaining power is Golgoth's paramount concern.
DT: OK, that brings up something else I've been curious about. The credits of the book say Mark's the writer and you're the penciller, but it feels like you're involved in the plotting. How exactly does the creative process with Mark work?
BK: Well we used the term 'storytellers' for both of us on JLA Year One and that confused a lot of people :-)
DT: I saw you had that credit on the first issue of Brave and the Bold, then switched to more conventional titles on the second issue.
BK: What happens is that we discuss the story together initially and form a rough outline of events then Mark will prepare an initial plot, which we'll go over together. Next I provide a set of 'thumbnails' for the story for Mark to look through and react to with new ideas etc. and we have another discussion - after that I will draw up the pencilled pages and Mark will add the dialogue to those. So every step of the way we're in contact and honing the story - I really enjoy the process!
DT: Does that work better because you've worked together on so many other projects, or is that an approach you can take with other writers?
BK: The approach generally depends on the writer - but I've been lucky enough to work this way with a lot of my past collaborators - Alan Grant in particular. Doug Moench is also very open to sharing ideas, but he likes to get everything down in plot form first before I get involved. Karl Kesel was also kind enough to let me chip in on the plots on Adventures of Superman too. I think it was really only on Azrael - where Denny O'Neil liked to work with full scripts - that my input was pretty minimal as to the plot lines.
DT: Getting back to Empire: what is it, in general terms, you want to accomplish with this story? What motivated you to make it your first creator owned story, and what motivated you to work to find a second home for it?
BK: We wanted to tell a story that had elements that readers would feel familiar with . . . costumed characters etc, but be able to take a totally fresh look at the genre . . . which I think we were [doing]. . . we wanted to try something away from all the accepted conventions of superhero books . . . i.e., the bad guys won, major characters die, etc., etc. Just play with the conventions and people's expectations and have fun! The reaction to the book was so positive and we enjoyed working on it so much that we really didn't want to let it just disappear because of things outside the creative process. It was important for us to tell the story if we could and keep the creative team together - we'd all enjoyed working on the book, the readers had liked it and we didn't want to stop! :-)
DT: We're running short on time for this first section, so let me ask you this: besides Empire, what else do you have in the works?
BK: I'm just finishing up a Legends of the Dark Knight arc, written by Doug [in issues 146-148]. There will be a second one to come too. I have a prestige format book with Howard Chaykin and David Tischman [a sequel to the Secret Society of Super-Heroes miniseries] coming up and there's a good chance of a regular DC monthly book too - so I'll be going back to pencilling only :-)
