@@@@ What the #$%! is AICN COMICS: Q&@? @@@@
AICN COMICS: Q&@ is our new semi-weekly interview column where some of your favorite @$$Holes interview comic bookdom’s biggest, brightest, newest, and oldest stars. Enjoy this latest in-depth interview filled with @$$y goodness and be sure to look for more AICN COMICS as we gaze into the future of comics every week with AICN COMICS: SPINNER RACK PREVIEWS every Monday and then join the rest of your favorite @$$Holes for their opinions on the weekly pull every Wednesday with AICN COMICS REVIEWS!
Q’s by Matt Adler!
@’s by OFFICER DOWNE’s Joe Casey!
Hi folks, Matt Adler here with an important question for you. Do you miss the good old days when police could beat suspects to a pulp with impunity? Are you tired of waiting months for crooks and scumbags to get their justice in a courtroom? Is Miranda just a character in that crappy new chick flick? Well, there’s good news. On July 14th, writer Joe Casey, artist Chris Burnham, and Image Comics are bringing you OFFICER DOWNE, the next generation of law enforcement; a cop who plays by the rules… the ones he makes. I spoke with Casey to get the scoop on what exactly is going Downe with this new book.
MATT ADLER (MA): Joe, what gave you the idea for OFFICER DOWNE?
JOE CASEY (JC): Who can really say where ideas come from? They sort of exist out there in the ether, don't they? Although, in this case, there is an actual "secret origin" for Officer Downe. I was on a ride-along with an L.A. cop, a friend of mine named Dirk Thompkins. I was doing research on another project I'm working on about NoHo prostitutes and late one night, I watched Dirk give this neighborhood burglar a beat-down that was so viscerally titillating to me, so bloody and beautiful, that the notion of an immortal super cop that takes no prisoners seemed to spring almost fully formed from my brain. It was a situation where, literally, Dirk is pounding this poor soul with his lead-lined nightstick and I'm furiously scribbling notes in his ticket book in the front seat of the squad car. Good times, I'm tellin' ya.MA: Alright. We’ll just keep that little bit between us. But who is Officer Downe as a character? What drives him?
JC: What drives Officer Downe is what drives *any* dedicated cop... serving legal street justice with no compromise. Not even being killed in action keeps Officer Downe from his beat. He's basically a secret weapon/ultimate solution periodically unleashed by the LAPD.MA: What's the environment he operates in? Is it anything close to the real world?
JC: I guess that depends entirely on which "real world" you happen to live in. Here in LA, I would say a character like Officer Downe doesn't take an enormous suspension of disbelief. I mean, we've all seen a mustache like that, haven't we?MA: What kinds of threats does he face?
JC: Well, we could go down the list... there's Headcase Harry, the Fortune 500, Zen Master Flash and the student body of his specialized school for aggro-assassination, not to mention the entire population of the fabled Rats' Nest. Explaining exactly who and what these threats are might spoil the fun of reading the book. And, trust me, there's a lot of fun to be had.MA: Crazy question, but something makes me wonder… are you going for somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek tone here?
JC: I'm not sure how tongue-in-cheek it actually is. But there is a vibe to this book that represents something that DC or Marvel wouldn't dare do... an untamed quality that you can only get from a creator-owned comic book. Here's the thing: we're out to corrupt young minds with this one. When a kid gets a gander at OFFICER DOWNE, he won't be able to go back to GREEN ARROW or IRON MAN or whatever other censored-for-good-taste superhero comic book he happened to con his parents into buying. Nor should he. These kinds of comics -- pure brain-blasts straight out of the minds of their creators -- really are the future of everything.MA: How did artist Chris Burnham become involved with the project?
JC: We first collaborated on NIXON'S PALS and that experience was enough of a motherfucker that I figured he'd be good for this one, too. Luckily, he wholeheartedly agreed. Little did I know how much of his A-game he'd be bringing to this book. Have you seen some of these pages? They'll burn the eyes out of your sockets. They'll peel the paint off your living room walls.MA: I understand you're collaborating "Marvel-style" with him; why choose that method?
JC: With someone like Burnham, who's written his own strips in the past, it's much more interesting to work this way. I work the same way with Tom Scioli on GØDLAND. It's a uni-mind situation, where a writer and artist are trying to get in each other's heads, while at the same time, challenging each other in some fundamental way. It is, as Keith Richards so eloquently puts it, the "ancient form of weaving". You can't tell where the writing begins and the art ends. When things are really cooking, it's a very pure way of making comics, and the end product can be that much more satisfying.But for OFFICER DOWNE, we took it one step further. First, we hunkered down in a Chicago basement in the middle of winter and just broke the back of the story, we hashed out character designs, all the preliminary stuff. Then we hopped in the MOA jet and hit the beaches of Baja Cali for a week and that's where the real work happened. We were sweating it out in the dirty back room of a local burrito stand -- a space we rented for, like, 5 cents per day -- and did a 24-hour comic version of the thing. All scribbles and thumbnails and scrawled dialogue on the walls. Frankly, I don't remember half of what went on down there, but we came back with the bones of the book. Back home at our respective studios, our craft and experience took over and we brought this sucker home. As a method of creating comic books, I highly recommend it. Except for the Chicago-in-winter part...