Marty Grosser Talks Brilliant’s The Gun Hand

How The West Was Weird

Marty Grosser is best known as the editor of Diamond’s Previews catalogue. But this year, he has made the switch and is writer/ co-creator of Brilliant’s The Gunhand, a horror western comic coming this autumn drawn by Matthew Plog. Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows caught up with Grosser to find out more…

Tripwire: What was the genesis of The Gunhand?

Marty Grosser: I have always been a “monster kid”. From a very young age, I was fascinated with the Universal Monsters and the Toho kaiju, and really anything weird and scary. Like many monster fans, I have my favorites, and the Frankenstein Monster has always been in my top three, along with Godzilla and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The monster (as well as the Creature to a certain extent) is a sympathetic character. He is driven by his passions… comfort, food, and love. These are things that we can all identify with. It was only because of his overwhelming size and unnatural presence that he was often attacked and pursued by those who did not understand him or feared him.

When Marvel Comics gave the monster his own comic book series in the ’70s (by writer Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog), I was hooked. I stuck with it, even after Ploog left the series and the artwork lost its brilliance, but if Marvel put out a horror or monster title (which they did A LOT during the late ’60s and through the ’70s), I had to have it! Years later, I was at my local comic shop, Collector’s Corner, and I found the Classics Illustrated adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It was a nicely preserved copy, and it brought back memories of reading it years ago in my English class in elementary school, where our teacher made a massive pile of Classics available to anyone who wanted to read them. On the last page, there is a banner which reads “He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in the darkness and distance.” It was reading that line again which sparked my desire to create The Gunhand.

TW: How did artist Matt Plog come on board?

MG: I was introduced to Matt Plog through my friend and publishing partner, Scott Braden. Scott had met Matt through a mutual friend of ours and he had been doing a lot of illustrations for Scott’s series, Kent Menace. As I was developing my series, The Gunhand, Scott suggested that we run a two-page preview for my series in the first issue of our new series under our Brilliant Enterprise LLC banner, Kent Menace Quarterly #1. I immediately thought of Matt, whose Kent Menace illustrations had impressed me with their dynamism and colours. I quickly worked up sketches of a two-page scenario I called “A Quiet Respite from the Trail” and gave Matt my HIDEOUS sketches/layout. What he returned to me was pure magic and I knew I had my series artist. Luckily, he said “Yes” to the gig!

TW: What is it about horror and western that works well together?

MG: The word “Gothic” comes immediately to mind, and it accurately describes both the Western and Horror milieus. I think Horror and Westerns work well together because the more modern your setting, the less frightening or believable your situations become. Are you more afraid of a noise outside your frontier cabin door, or outside your heavy, triple-locked security-doorbell-adorned door, illuminated by a halogen porch light?

It’s easier to believe stories of werewolves, skinwalkers, ghosts, demons or sasquatches in the Old West than in modern times, where there are very few mysteries left in the world. Unlike the Old West or earlier, when the Sciences were still discovering new things every day.

TW: What are the influences for you as a writer on the series?

MG: I approach every story I write like it’s a movie. I see the scenes unfolding in my mind; I rewind and fast-forward to test the best way to pace the action so that I can get the story across in the proper number of panels, not too many to drag it out, not too few so that the progression gets lost on the reader. As a writer, I am influenced by all of the media that I have ever consumed… which is something I think many writers also use to create. We write what we know but try not to duplicate what we’ve previously seen. Yes, I have seen other Frankenstein stories set in the West, but that’s where the similarities end. As I said earlier, I am a big fan of Marvel’s monster comics of the ’70s, and I like to inject some of that style into my series. I just received the completed cover for issue #2 and all its missing to give it that Marvel Comics ’70s feel is a picture/price box in the upper left corner and a bar across the top exclaiming BRILLIANT COMICS GROUP in black and yellow! I don’t want to rip off Marvel’s Frankenstein, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a wink and a nod, and a tip of the hat to a childhood favourite that brought me so much enjoyment and entertainment.

TW: Can you describe The Gunhand in one pithy sentence?

MG: “What if the Frankenstein Monster was chosen to be an unwilling weapon of vengeance?” I think that just about explains it all in a nutshell.

TW: The Frankenstein Monster is a character that is so familiar to readers and audiences. How do you find something fresh and new to say about him?

MG: I found that sticking closer to Mary Shelley’s “noble creature” than Universal’s misunderstood monster was the way to go, because there have only been a handful of screen adaptations that attempted to avoid the “square-headed monster” and depicted the monster as often quite intelligent and more sophisticated than the more “popcorn” version of the character… a sleepy-eyed shambling monster always ready to choke the life out of a villager or constable. In The Gunhand, the monster begins the story as the basest form of the character, a violent, dangerous being. But after he is given the arm of the supernatural tracker/assassin Edgar Caine, the monster begins to become more rational, and far more eloquent than when we are first introduced to him in the story.

TW: You have written about comics for decades as editor of Previews. Why has it taken so long for you to take the leap into writing one yourself?

MG: I have my friend and publishing partner Scott Braden to thank for my introduction to the world of writing. When he brought me into his world of Kent Menace, we often spoke about storylines and characters, and things we could bring to readers that would not only thrill and excite readers but make us proud of our stories and the products we produced. I don’t even recall how it happened, but one day I was writing a Kent Menace story and filling it with thinly veiled TV characters from my childhood, the boat from The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and a perky heroine held hostage on a nightmarish old Soviet era submarine crewed by a mad geneticist and his band of fish-men hybrids. It all felt like I was writing an episode of Jonny Quest, but it also taught me about pacing, building a scene, and my first foray into dialoguing. A couple of years later, with several Kent Menace tales under my belt (and more to come!), I’m finally doing my own thing, which is a fantastic, if nerve-wracking endeavour!

TW: On a related question, how nervous are you about the reception to this?

MG: You bastard! I told you that in confidence!!! (laughing) But seriously, I am a bundle of nerves! I’m still waiting to hear what kind of orders I’ll finally wind up getting and it is almost more tension than I can handle! I have experienced a wonderful outpouring of encouragement and positive feedback from friends and colleagues over The Gunhand (Scott continues to refer to it as my “Million Dollar Idea”!), and I am hoping that the reactions that the series (thanks in no small part to the incredible artwork of Matt Plog!) have received from fans at recent promotional appearances. I am nervous, but staying hopeful that comic shops will take a chance on our big little series. I have so many wonderful, exciting, horrifying and hilarious things to show the readers in the months to come!

TW: It is described as a series. How have you broken the story down into arcs and how far ahead have you plotted it?

MG: The series is bi-monthly, and each 12-issue run is considered a “PHASE” in the saga of Victor Caine, The Gunhand. By issue #12, the last issue of “Phase 1”, I will turn the series on its head and send it careening into “Phase 2”. What that will entail, and what will be the catalysts forcing the move to “Phase 2” of The Gunhand will be made abundantly clear on the last page of issue #12! I have plotted out the story through “Phase 3”, and from there, well, I’m not sure if we’re taking it in another direction for a fourth time, or if we’ll be giving Victor (and me) a rest. (laughs) We shall see…

TW: It is being published by Brilliant Enterprises, which is run by your friend Scott Braden. What made this the best place to publish this series?

MG: Scott is like a brother to me. We have each other’s backs. We don’t always see eye-to-eye on things, and there are rare occasions where he pisses me off for the stupidest things, but that’s what friends — and brothers — do. They fight, they make up, and they publish comics together. In the end, it was a no-brainer to publish my series through Brilliant Enterprise, as that was where I was invited into the world of Kent Menace and started my “Autumnal” writing career. I never would have gotten around to writing The Gunhand if it wasn’t for Kent Menace and my brother from another mother, Scott.

The Gunhand#1 is available to order now from Diamond and out on 25 October

https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/AUG231786

Item number AUG231786