Artist Jon Malin is a very busy man of late. Not only is he working on Jawbreakers – Lost Souls with Diversity & Comics’ Richard Meyer and Brett R. Smith, but he’s also about to launch another IndieGoGo with co-creator Mark Poulton for Graveyard Shift.
We got the chance to chat with Jon about his upcoming project, what his views on the current comic industry are, and get an update on Jawbreakers – Lost Souls.
Bounding Into Comics (BIC): Thanks for taking the time to chat with us about Graveyard Shift!
Jon Malin (Jon): My pleasure!
BIC: What can you tell us about Graveyard Shift? What can we expect to see in this story?
Jon: GRAVEYARD SHIFT was created in 2010 by my co-creator Mark Poulton (HAWKMAN, AVENGELYNE,CAT NAMED HAIKU) and myself. It’s a homage to the Superhero, Horror, sci-fi we grew up on. Much like how Star Wars was built around Kurosawa’s HIDDEN FORTRESS and the FLASH GORDON serials of old, we wear our influences on our sleeves. Readers should feel a sense of nostalgia throughout as we introduce an entire cast of characters and world for them to submerge into.
In it’s simplest description it’s– WHAT IF the Universal Monsters were the X-Men! We took the classic trope of science experiments gone bad as our foundation for their origins much like many of the classic Marvel heroes were created, here we have scientists forced into their own experiments including resurrection chambers that were made to revive soldiers killed in action into stronger, faster, undead killing machines.
The resurrection process is described in the book by our bad guy as being so effective that Generals will want their own troops to die as fast as possible to be re spawned into undead super soldiers giving them battlefield advantage within hours… of course our bad guy funding these experiments has plans within plans.
BIC: You mentioned Graveyard Shift was the work that got you hired by Marvel, has it previously been published?
Jon: We printed a preview copy about 6 years ago that we released at a Wizard World Philly Con, the work aged so a few years ago I redrew those pages and completed 46 pages of art, as I was drawing these pages I sent them off to Marvel. Eventually they brought me in for THUNDERBOLTS and then CABLE. Those 46 pages make book 1 of 2.
BIC: You collaborated with Mark Poulton for this project, what was it like working with him?
Jon: I say it all the time, Mark is the nicest guy in comics. He brings an angle to Superheroes stories that keeps it fun where my ideas tend to be of the more serious nature and through that we strike a balance which I think works out extremely well. We’ve been friends for years and for good reason.
We also have the fantastic colors of ZEE! He’s also a longtime friend that has always been there to help us out, even recently he colored a piece for my Patrons.
BIC: You mentioned in your initial announcement about the project that you will be crowdfunding on IndieGoGo, will there be any special perks?
Jon: Yeah, so that preview book I mention from about 6 years back, Mark went through his storage and found about 65 copies and is looking for more so we’ll add those into the campaign for anyone interested. It’s not as polished and you’ll easily see the difference, fun for artists for sure to see growth.
BIC: Do you have any stretch goals in mind?
Jon: We’re kicking around some basics like book marks, I heard there’s a “Comicsgate” trading card idea and I’ll be checking into that. Overall we’ll keep it very simple until we understand the process and expenses better, book 2 campaign, which I hope to launch in the spring will probably be more extravagant for stretch goals.
I’m a firm believer that having a You Tube channel with 50-60k subscribers or better is the main driver of sales for projects like JAWBREAKERS and CYBERFROG so I’m hopeful to compensate a bit to help raise somewhere between 10-50k with a couple of extras in the stretch goals that JAWBREAKERS didn’t really use much of.
BIC: Does Graveyard Shift connect to the Jawbreakers – Lost Souls world at all or are they completely separate?
Jon: Completely different worlds. I’d love a crossover though, I’m a big supporter of ComicsGate doing a massive DEATHMATE style multiverse crossover GN to bring everyone into one book, have all the artists drawing 5-10 pages of an interconnected story.
BIC: Hit that #2 button below to see Jon Malin’s thoughts on the success of ComicsGate and the state of the comics industry in general.
BIC: What do you make of ComicsGate’s success over the past year? Do you think it will continue to grow?
Jon: It’s astounding! In about 6 months this community raised over a million dollars with just a few titles, good and decent writers/artists in any Indy publisher would kill for what we did while they go broke by passively allowing political zealots to further erode the audience which effects EVERYONE in that publisher/system, when leaders lack backbone in regards to protecting the financial interests of ALL creators and their own company it sets up an environment where no one wants to rock any boats for fear of backlash not just from the publisher but those they view as peers, so the lunatics run the asylum.
That is the current comics industry and by exposing this we had and continue to have no mainstream comic press coverage, we we’re completely blacked out when we did JAWBREAKERS, CBR forbid even talking about us on their message boards, The VP/EIC of Aspen Comics, Vince Hernadez called us “EXTREMISTS” and we had no room full of over paid marketing execs to help get past these burdens or any other benefits of corporate comics that places like BLEEDINGCOOL and CBR kowtow to. We had social media and we leveraged the shit out of it– and won.
As long as SJW representatives of the comics industry as we know it keep telling their customers to essentially get bent, use political intimidation and identity politics to tell everyone where their place is or when they can sit, stand and speak… with no repercussions from the top down we will grow, through the power of YouTube we will expand the comics audience to people who never walked into a comic shop or bought a comic in their life while the castrated comics industry allows a growing handful of political zealots in positions of power to whittle away all customers from within.
BIC: The success has come when the industry at-large is contracting. A report indicated the entire industry shrunk by 6% last year. Do you think they might adapt to tap into the ComicsGate market?
Jon: I think the comics industry still doesn’t understand why they’re failing when they try to bring in people like Zoe Quinn, political dividers to try and continue to bring in an SJW audience of low artistic standards and lower tolerance for wrong think and micro aggressions. They’ll double and triple down on identity politics until they crash and burn completely.
My hope is that the writers/artists leave these companies, take some inspiration from us and help us all rebuild the audience through You Tube channels (Or whatever future social media exists as we grow) and crowd funding, I’d love to reach a point where I, as a customer could pay say $25 on a single campaign and get 5 GRAPHIC NOVELS by industry superstars grouped together pledging their absolute best works because we’ve solidified an audience of 20,000 backers or better. JAWBREAKERS, a comic by relative unknowns will have brought in 10,000 backers so imagine what happens when the energy of top talent leave en masse on a scale SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the Image Comics exodus of the 90’s. I believe without significant change that is coming really fast.
Through this comics and conventions can continue to exist. Publishers and local comic shops as we know them will sadly be a thing of the past.
BIC: Are there any creators you want to work with moving forward?
Jon: Mark Millar is top of my list.
BIC: Where do you see the future of comics?
Jon: Direct Market Marvel, DC, IDW, Image, etc. and local comic shops will die, as we know them, without a drastic change in direction. I believe strong, dramatic action by Marvel Comics can help this industry from top to bottom but they lack true courage to do what needs to be done. It isn’t just the political zealots poisoning the well, it’s piss poor stories, declining art. We need someone with vision in the EIC chair to grab the audience by the throat with fantastic stories and art, rebuild and expand the lines. Marvel is NOT a “lifestyle brand” they are a comic book publisher, not a food channel or whatever else shark jumping they have in store.
Comicsgate has laid out the map for the future of comic books, we built an audience with YouTube by simply talking about something you have real passion for and interacting positively with your fans, treating them with respect regardless of political beliefs and putting ego aside. Do this and should you decide to launch a product I believe you can get 5% of your audience to back it at a $25 entry level and comics will continue in a very real and significant way!
BIC: Do you have an update for us on Jawbreakers – Lost Souls?
Jon: Yeah, I turned in the last page AUG 3rd I do believe and have turned my attention to prepping GRAVEYARD SHIFT, Brett should be wrapping on his end any day now, lettering should be well underway and I’m looking forward to seeing the campaign wrapped and books at my door. I ordered the $50 tier!
BIC: Aside from Graveyard Shift are you working on anything else?
Jon: Yes! I have a goal to massively broaden the comic book readership to larger audiences that may have never read a comic through what I hope to be significantly larger projects, I started by testing Richard’s audience of what at the time was 60k, now I’m going to experiment with others and see what results we can get and how far we can stretch into massive audiences that may not be die hard comic fans. Hopefully more on that soon.
BIC: We will definitely be looking forward to that! How can people keep in touch with you and make sure they never miss an update? Do you have your own YouTube channel?
Jon: I do, it’s @JONMALIN on twitter and MORTAL ENEMY on YouTube, I’ll be ramping up on YouTube in a week or two as we get ready to launch GRAVEYARD SHIFT!