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Jeff Johnson Talks Rogues Kingdom A New Kickstarter With James Robinson
Enter The Rogues Kingdom
Rogues Kingdom is a new Kickstarter campaign from writer James Robinson and artist Jeff Johnson and Tripwire caught up with artist/ co-creator Johnson to find out more…
TRIPWIRE: What was the genesis of Rogues Kingdom?
JEFF JOHNSON (JJ): James Robinson and I have been friends since the 90’s when we were both at Malibu Comics and I always wanted to work with him. I’d been a fan of his since The Golden Age and Starman. His writing was visually inspiring and you can’t beat his characters and his dialogue, but I never got the chance to draw anything he had written. Then after decades of us each doing lots of other stuff, we finally started kicking around the idea of a creator-owned book. Once we settled on a genre and some themes then everything else sort of fell into place and Rogues’ Kingdom was born.
JJ: The collaboration has been super easy. We began by talking about what kind of book we wanted to make and the kinds of stories we wanted to tell then I would do some drawings or James would write a scene. We just played back and forth with our favourite ideas and eventually honed those into an entire world. In the end, we had a book that I knew would not only be a blast to draw but also felt like the kind of comic that people would really enjoy reading.
JJ: I think it’s been a very close relationship. We spend a lot of time on the phone just sort kicking ideas around and daydreaming about the world and the characters.
JJ: Wow. Great question. I think the Pros and Cons of drawing a fantasy book are basically the same. One of the biggest Pros is that I get to create everything. I get to decide what the environments and characters look like. I get to make everything up and am only limited by my imagination.But that is also the biggest Con. I have to make up everything from the wheels on the carts, to the emblems on the shields, to what every peasant is wearing in the backgrounds. Even though it can sometimes be overwhelming, it’s actually my favourite part of the process. I love figuring out how all the pieces fit together in order to make a believable world. I want everyone and everything the reader sees to have a history and a personality.
Unfortunately, I have a tendency to take it too far. For issue #1 of Rogues’ Kingdom, I did an entire character sheet for a wagon cart driver that only shows up in one panel before he dies. Which was not the most judicious use of my time. Luckily, James figured out that he has a twin brother that will show up later in the series.
JJ: I actually think the industry is experiencing a bit of a renaissance at the moment.When I first broke in there weren’t that many options for getting published. You had Marvel and DC and a few small publishers but that was about it. Of course, you could always create and self-publish your own work, and a lot of guys made some brilliant books but the avenues for reaching an audience were severely limited and printing copies to sell was pretty expensive.
Nowadays creators can get their work out to the world with a just the push of a button. The process of making a comic is still gruelling and time consuming but reaching your unique audience has never been easier. Which means more writers and artists can produce a wider variety of material and connect with their fans on a more personal level. It’s a pretty amazing time to be reading comics.
JJ: I don’t know if it qualifies as pithy but how about this – “Two outlaws and a mysterious princess must join forces to save the kingdom from total annihilation!”Or maybe – “The Three Musketeers meets Dungeons and Dragons, and shenanigans ensue!”
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