Last year at San Diego, mom and I picked up a comic
called The Successors. The book's main character for
that issue was emblazoned across the cover. The name
was Psycho Chick, and mom and I knew that we had to buy
it. I read it and thought it was highly amusing, but
we had to split up the indie comic bootie and mail it
to other people to review. The Successors #2 ended up
with Jamie Coville and he reviewed it. Shortly before
San Diego this year Russ Kazmierczak Jr. e-mailed me
and told me that they would have a new comic out and
would be at San Diego. At their booth at San Diego, I
picked up their new comic "Doug Deever Dumpster
Diver," and I absolutely adored it. I decided to
interview both Russ Kazmierczak Jr and Brent Otey at
their booth at San Diego. Both are really charming,
intelligent men with a great sense of humor. I hope
you enjoy this interview with them as much as I
enjoyed talking to them.
Sidra:
How did you get interested in comics?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
Ive always been interested in
comics. I think my first exposure to comics was way
back in 1982 or 1983 when I got my first He-Man action
figure. There was a little comic in the back. So, I
started making my own comics on pieces of paper,
folding them in half and stapling them down the
middle. I think we could call those comics Circle
Head Square Body Man. A couple years later my dad was
working for a moving company, and this guy was going
to throw out a box of comics. So, my dad said," Hey
can I keep those and give them to my kids?" So, I got
a free box of comics. He got a free box of Playboy,
but thats kind of incidental. I dont think hes
involved in the independent porno business, but I
thought, "I want to get involved in the independent
comic business. " I wanted to see if I could
contribute. I met Brent through the university I
attended. I like to write and I can draw, but I
didnt feel confident enough in my drawing abilities.
Brent liked to draw, and he could write, but he didnt
feel confident in his writing abilities. So we
thought, "Why dont we take our two weaknesses, put them
to the side, and emphasize our strengths?" Thus, The
Successors was born.
Brent Otey:
Ive had comics since I was a kid. I had
Devil Dinosaur, which just creeped me out. It was the
creepiest comicbook to me. I had, of course, Captain
America. I still have the Captain America I had back
then, too. But really, it was Batman that sold me. I
got into Batman pretty heavily. I got into him a few
years before the Death in the Family series, but the
Death in the Family series really sold me. Once I
discovered Dark Knight Returns, I was hooked. I was
never coming back. Then a few years later I actually
discovered Watchmen, and I tell you it doesnt get any
better than that. See, that should probably
discourage me from ever being in comics, because those
are like the best comics ever written, but those are
the influential comicbooks.
Sidra:
What made you decide to create comics?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
I guess reading comics was one of
the strongest influences, because with a really good
comic you can sense the energy of the creators. They
had fun writing it and drawing it together. So, I
wanted to experience what that was like. Also, I think
living vicariously through those heroic adventures was
an influence, but also exploring avenues that arent
really explored in other mediums. Its easy to
write...its not really easy to write, but lot of
people practice writing short stories. I thought that
would be a big challenge as a writer to try to
incorporate pictures into those stories, and then have
someone else draw those pictures. I got into it more
to challenge my writing, and live vicariously through
the heroes, cause Ill never have pecs like that. And
again because I wanted to experience the fun of
creating comics.
Brent Otey:
You know of course the same. I drew my
first comic as a kid, but in all honesty, three years
ago Russ and I show up at the con[San Diego Comic Con]
just as fans. Im here to show my portfolio and get
rejected by everybody thats available, and to get
criticized and humiliated. Russ and I cruise around.
Were at the con. Were having a good time, and I
talked to a couple guys and I asked them, "You know
how you make it in the business?" They told me, "
Self-publishing man. You can self publish. If they
like your stuff theyll find you." So Russ and I went
and had dinner down here in downtown San Diego, and we
decided, "Dude, we need to form our own company. We
need to get this whole comicbook thing going. we need
to self-publish". So far its lead nowhere. *laughs *
Sidra:
Youve previously published The Successors how
did the idea for it come about?
Brent Otey:
Its all you man.
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
Gosh, the idea for The Successors
started with just a couple of characters. I was
really impressed with Eric Larsens Savage Dragon
comic in that it had a strong ensemble cast, all of
which he self-created, mostly when he was a kid. So,
I kind of wanted to write something that had an
ensemble cast and each character represented a
different facet of the story. I wanted the origins of
the books to kind of be a tip of the hat to the
classic origin stories of the Golden and Silver age,
but I also wanted it to have a modern flare. So, the
idea of old iconic superheroes falling from the sky and
giving their superpowers to regular people kind of
came about through that. Ill be honest... the Optimist
started kind of as an autobiographical character, and
then I realized nothing in my life could really
backdrop a successful superhero story. Struggling
comicbook writer, who wants to be a superhero... it just
didnt seem to pan out. I kind of developed his story
first. We put that on the shelf for Psycho Chick. We
published number two first starring Psycho Chick
because we thought that would have a more
marketable name, but a lot of people were interested
as the Successors as a whole. When we revisited
number one, we tried to zero in on a tone or a mood
for the book. We call it superhero satire only
because we wanted to deconstruct the genre a little
bit. Number one is actually based on an essay Warren
Ellis wrote, where he was pretty much anti-superheroes.
We kind of thought it was ironic because his paycheck
comes from writing superhero books, for the most part.
So the Optimist kind of parallels that in that hes a
superhero, but he doesnt want to be a superhero, and
hes not afraid to publicly express that. So really
The Successors is really kind of a tip of the hat to
the business from those who enjoy the superhero genre
and to those who realize that, yes, comicbooks as a
medium is more than that. But you have to acknowledge
the roots as well.
Brent Otey:
I dont know I just draw it.
Sidra:
The Successors is a very well done comicbook,
do you plan on putting out any further issues?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
Do you want to answer this one because I answered the other?
Brent Otey:
Yes. * laughs * We love the idea of the
Successors, and of course when we started
brainstorming, we had the whole one hundred issue run
maxi-series plotted out, every issue, and when we
started publishing them and actually paying for them
we decided to narrow it down to maybe five or six,
cause that would take us about fifteen years to raise
the funds to produce. We have the scripts up till five
basically written. We actually had the entirety of
issue number three drawn and written, and we really
just shelved it. Partially out of finances, but really
we just werent excited enough about the project, and
thats a big thing for Russ and I. If we arent
excited about our book, were not going to be able to
talk anyone else into loving the book. Number three
is about Citizen Angst and hes a great character.
Hes got a great feel to him, but we just havent
really found the right script or the right story for
him. So we kind of put that back. Russ youre going to
revisit that script, right?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
As we speak.
Brent Otey:
As we speak hes busy writing it. We plan
on revisiting that one, and thats probably going to
be our next comicbook. Issues number four and five are
actually going to be a two part story, which will be
exciting. Four and five will be Crack Up turning into
Crack Down. That should be an interesting story.
Hopefully issue number six will be about the
Fahrenheit Five. That should round out our cast. We
have multiple characters that we love and we want to
get in print. I dont know how were going to
approach the next book, because realizing that the
finances are whats really stopping all our ideas, we
might start trying to cram ideas into a book. Or we
might try and actually skip some characters we dont
feel that much for, and jump to some the character
that we do feel for, and just mentioning the others on
the side. We definitely plan on publishing these. We
really were hoping someone else would be interested in
publishing these so that we could get our characters
out there, and not have to pay for it all. But you
know if we have to pay for it all, its a labor of
love.
Sidra:
Your new book Doug Deever Dumpster Diver is
very different from The Successors. How did you come
up with the premise for it?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
Doug Deever Dumpster Diver was
actually the first script I began to write as a
script. Everything else for the Successors... The
Successors was originally called, before Brent told me
it sucked, Heirs to Heroism as in they were heirs who
had inherited heroism, but The Successors is a much
better title. We got that by putting Heir into the
Thesaurus. I looked at Successor and said, "Okay, that
works." Itll be next to Superman in Previews. Doug
Deever was really the first thing I wrote as a script,
and my intention with that was to write something that
wasnt a superhero book, because thats what I
primarily read. I wanted to take a departure from
that to try something new, something definitively
alternative. I was on about page six and it got
shelved. Recently, I kind of got a new energy for it,
and completed it kind of quickly as far as my time
table for writing scripts goes. What I wanted to say
was sequential and a lot of things that happen in the
book are consequential to what comes prior in the
book, so its very cause and effect. I put a lot of
thought into the characterization as far as
motivation. You have this cast of characters, these
bums. They represent actual homeless people weve
encountered. Just being here in San Diego for the
con, weve met about a dozen more were gonna put into
a sequel. * laughs * Doug Deever is just kind of an
adventure into alternative comics, and I liked that so
much Im probably going to stick with that, primarily
speaking. Not that I would like to write Batman or
Robin, DC. Alternative comics give you the opportunity
to explore a lot of facets of real life through a
fictional or fantasy way. It was a privilege to
write.
Brent Otey:
As much as Russ tried to make Doug not a
superhero, hes wearing a cape the whole time. So you
know we always have the superhero roots even as
alternative as we get.
Sidra:
The art in this book is very different from
normal comicbook art. Its a combination of photography
and illustrations. What made you decide to use that
art style?
Brent Otey:
Well, when Russ gave me the idea a few
years ago, it occurred to me that Doug was a different
story. Ive always loved photo montage, and I cannot
think of the illustrators name to save my life, but he
was a popular illustrator and he would be in TIME. He
does all photo montage and the guy is incredible.
Ive always loved that style and I wanted to try it
out. So when Russ gave me the first two or three
pages of the script, I did them in that style, just to
try it out. It kind of developed into its own kind of
visual language which I really liked in the book, and
I will try to work it into the other books. Because
the other books I would just sit there and draw as
drawing. With Doug it kind of took on its own life.
It was really interesting from my point of view as an
artist to do it because I found this subtle language I
could tell through the story. Doug is a dumpster
diver. Hes a rejected kid. Hes garbage, but yet
hes the cleanest one. Hes the purest object in the
whole book, and hes the cleanest looking of all of
them. You have the bums who are part cartoon with
realistic clothing and the people who have realistic
heads but have cartoon bodies. Its almost like
theres something missing in both of their lives or
theyre trying to cross over to where the other ones
are missing or something like that. Or maybe even
cartoons are garbage and real things are not. Theres
kind of a cross here so the art style just took on a
life style of its own, which was really cool for me.
It really helped tell the story in a more subtle way.
Ive always loved that style and of course if was a
lot of Photoshop work. Its a lot of work to do it
that way and its hard to get all the photos you need,
because sometimes you just cant find the right photo.
It was fun. It was a lot of fun.
Sidra:
Was it hard to do that art style?
Brent Otey:
Like I said before its hard finding the
photos and doing the manipulation. In a sense its
easier when youre doing some of the post-production
like the lettering. What would happen is unless
youre really smart, which I am obviously not, you
should go through and really plan out all the pages
and figure out where all the text balloons are going
to be, but I tend to just sketch them out however and
go with it. And then when we do the lettering were
always like "Crap! Where do we put all these words?
The page is too wordy. The balloon is over this guys
head." It was really nice for that because I could
always jump back into photoshop and scoot things
around because Id have them on different layers. It
was real easy to rearrange a panel or that kind of
thing. Overall it was tedious, but the nice thing was
that once I had a page kind laid out Russ could really
jump in on the work because it was really a matter of
cutting pictures out, scanning them in, and dropping
them in. So Russ could do a lot of the work while I
was doing the clean up work. It was a little more
efficient than usual.
Sidra:
Out of curiosity, where did you shoot the
pictures? Did you use a real dump?
Brent Otey:
Use a real dump? Oh no.
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
* laugh * I wish. That would have been awesome.
Brent Otey:
Actually no...(attendee comes up and buys
a copy of Doug Deever) the pictures were just around
Fullerton where were from, and we would, you know, take
a picture of an empty looking field. Wed take
pictures of trash. Wed go into alleys and take
pictures of some trash and some trash cans, find some
interesting photos. From there Id just kind of
create a scene. Like for the dump and the
fairgrounds, what I did was that I would take a page
and I would just create a big scene on there and I
would just focus in on different parts of the scene in
different panels. So it looks like we did a lot more
work than we really did. For the dump wed just kind
of built a pile of trash and duplicate those pile and
stretch them, make them look a little bit different.
It would have been nice to find a real dump, but in all
honesty, I dont know if it would have serviced our
needs. Im not all that great of a photographer.
Were just getting snapshots.
Sidra:
Did you base Doug Deever off of any real person?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
I work at the Boys and Girls Club
in Fullerton, and I would say that some of the kids
there contributed to Dougs character, but I wouldnt
necessarily say that Doug wholly represents anyone of
them. I want to be a teacher primarily so I have a
passion for kids, and when you see a parent drop their
child off outside the Boys and Girls Club everyday
without coming inside the facility to check it out and
then that kid knows to wait outside for that parent to
pick them up, theres just a sense of abandonment
there that I felt I could represent in Doug. Cause
the kid wanders into the club, and hes got friends to
hang out with, but what if the Boys and Girls Clubs
wasnt there or on a holiday it was closed, what does
that kid do? Hes really left to fend for himself, if
the parents are still working or if they even dont
care to spend time with their kids. There was
representation of a lot of kids I know in Doug, but for
the most part he kind of became his own person as we
constructed the scenarios he was going to find himself
in. For example, building that trash house kind of
defined him as a character. He became a very
creative, innovative, introspective person in doing
that. The trash house represents his complexity in
the way that it crashes and hes forced into the real
world. He kind of becomes a product of his environment
in that there are a lot of paradigms that he could
fall into as an eighteen year old guy. He could
easily fall into that coffee shop paradigm. He could
easily fall into the waiter or the bus boy thing,
holding an apartment. Theres nothing stopping Doug
from doing all those things other than he recognizes
in himself almost a higher usefulness because of the
abandonment experience as a kid. Doug, hes not me,
if thats what youre thinking.
Brent Otey:
Although the cardboard guy in the story
is a real guy, totally real guy. That was again three
years ago when Russ and I were here at the con. I had
parked way out in Timbuktu and I was walking to the
car. I was out in kind of a bad section and there
were a couple bums around. Theres this guy dragging
around this piece of cardboard, and he looks at me and
says, "Im the cardboard guy. I get the cardboard."
Thats all he said, and I thought that was the
funniest thing in the world. I told Russ, and he just
took that character and ran with it. We used the two
lines that he said and thats all hes got. What
about Kyle, dude?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
My brother?
Brent Otey:
Yeah.
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
Well, my brother likes to
dumpster dive, and the book is dedicated to him
because he contributed some money to its printing. God
bless him, but he dumpster dives. He doesnt dumpster
dive out of any personal necessity. Its more of a
hobby. Through him you could say I was introduced to
the concept of getting useful stuff out of the trash,
because man, he would furnish the garage, make a
little lounge for him and his friends, with loveseats,
couches, a TV, lights, and lamps. He found all that
stuff and it worked. Yeah, I do often wonder why
people threw that stuff away, if it works. Is it
that they just dont like the look of it, or they just
dont find it useful in their own house anymore? They
dont realize that it could be useful somewhere else
like my brothers lounge.
Sidra:
You all do an online Radio show do you plan on
continuing that?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
I had a very short lived career
on the radio. On the actual radio I did a fifteen
minute show through a syndicated radio company whom I
will not name. It stunk because they were telling me
I had talent. I had the face for radio and all that,
but I had to pay them for the show. It was kind of
like me breaking into the business and I think it was
kind of a scam. So, through that I said to Brent,
"Hey why dont we do something on the internet?" Wed
been talking about it before. So we kicked that off
talking about the latest news in the comicbook
business, reviewing series that wed read, and then
focusing in on a kind of featurette story. Weve done
it twice and we werent as pleased with the sophomore
effort. I think well continue to do that as long as
there are exciting things going on in the industry,
and there shouldnt be any shortage of that.
Brent Otey:
Russ and I sit around and talk about
comics all the time and we figured we might as well
record that. We crack ourselves up and we think its
hilarious, and so far no one else does, but we enjoy
it. Were definitely going to change the format down
to half an hour. We didnt really intend for it to be
"sit down and seriously listen to what were saying."
We were thinking more of if as "you were at work and you
can get it on the internet." Youd just pop it on and
listen and go about your work like youd listen to any
old radio, not seriously intently taking our opinions.
I think we will continue the radio show and we have a
couple topics lined up, but Id like to see us get
guests on there. We know a couple guys here that we
could probably hit up for some interviews or something
like that. Our goal, and well probably retire after
this, but we want Alan Moore on the show. * laugh *
Which will never happen so I can say that freely.
Sidra:
What can we look forward to in the future?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
Well Im sure that the next book
we will focus on will be The Successors #3, featuring
Citizen Angst, which we hope to have out by APE,
Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. Well have a
booth or a table there. Were also working on a short
fiction endeavor called the Random Word project.
Basically its a group of authors, and we get together
and we pick a random work out of the dictionary. Our
first one was Beglerbeg, regardless of that word
definition we write independent short stories. Some
people use the word as a name. Some use it as a
climatic focal point of the story. So, somehow the
word beglerbeg is incorporated into the plot, and
then only after the stories do we look up the words
definition. Generally to find that were nowhere
close to its definition, but we really werent trying
to get close to its definition. Its just a
springboard... heres a weird word, what can you do with
it in a story? Weve networked with some people here
who are interested, and just in doing it we have met
some other people who are interested in doing it.
Right now we have about a seventy page short book and
well probably expand that to over a hundred. You
come to the con and your eyes are drawn to the
visuals. You see a lot of drawings. You see a lot of
artwork. I think writers sometime feel like they get
the short end of the stick. Well, this is an
opportunity for writers exclusively to contribute to
something. Weve had a lot of feedback here. People
seem to enjoy the concept. Well explore that.
Anything else? The future of KO?
Brent Otey:
It depends on how far in the future, I
guess. I would definitely say Citizen Angst is next.
It depends on whether we get any interest. We need to
put Citizen Angst aside to get a similar project to
Doug Deever out. We have several ideas out already.
Russ and I might try and actually accomplish an
independent project. Russ has a little comic idea. I
have one myself. Well probably end up helping each
other out, but sadly enough, most small press decisions
boil down to money. Can you produce it? We have ideas
left and right. If someone would pay us to sit down
and do this everyday we could crank out the material.
In all honesty, it will boil down to the numbers and
well have to ask ourselves," Okay, which comic do you
want to do?" At this convention we said we have enough
for one comicbook. Okay, actually we didnt have
enough for one comicbook, but we could get enough if
we sold our bodies and our souls. We decided Doug was
a priority, and it was a good choice. Sadly enough,
well probably only get another two comics done in the
next year. Sometimes its decided on a whim which one
well get to do, but I dont know, man. The future of
KO its wide open.
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
I just want to clarify that it was Brents body and my soul.
Sidra:
If our readers wanted to pick up your books
where should they go?
Russ Kazmierczak Jr:
Great question! We just started
soliciting through Diamond. The Successors #1 will be
in Julys Previews and The Successors #2 should be in
Septembers Previews. So naturally Doug will follow
suit. All of our books can be purchased through
PayPal on our website .
Brent Otey:
Thats about it. There are a few local
stores in Fullerton that we usually try to get our
comics to. Like 21th Century, and Mile High and Garden
Grove. We try to get our books to them. WSeve had a
few stores shaft us. They want five or six books and
then they never pay us, but thats probably because
they never make any money. * laughs * But hopefully
people will see it in the Diamond Catalogue and order
it. Or if you know where we live go ahead and come
by.
