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Five years ago I picked up How to Pick Up Girls, If
Youre A Comicbook Geek at San Diego Comic Con. From
that point on, I was hooked on Rich Koslowskis work. I
always make sure I visit Richs table at San Diego.
Hes a brilliantly funny man, and a very nice guy.
About a year and a half ago, Rich finished his run on
the 3 Geeks. Recently he put out a graphic novel
called Three Fingers. Its a warped parody of a
Hollywood expose. When I met up with Rich this year,
I talked to him about reviving The 3 Geeks, Three
Fingers, and what hes planning on doing next.
Without further ado, heres what he had to say
about that and much more.
Sidra:
I read on the Dork Tower site that youre going
to be doing a 3 Geek back up story at the back of Dork
Tower. Howd that come about?
Rich Koslowski:
He allows me four to six pages, what
ever I want, per issue. It came about because John
and I have been friends and fans of each others work
over the past five or six years. So, he contacted me
about two months ago and asked me if I wanted to do it
and I jumped at the opportunity.
Sidra:
You did the last issue of Geeksville about a
year ago. Is it hard going back to the characters
after having written a relatively fixed ending?
Rich:
The ending was great. It was fixed,
but it was set in the future. Theyre all much older.
So I had alot of room if I ever brought the
characters back. Since my last Geeksville was them in
their forties, I have plenty of room to play with the
characters. Bringing them back has been very easy
even after the year, because I had a lot of unused
story ideas stockpiled, and now I get to do them. Of
course Im condensing them into four or six page
shorter story arcs, but its still fun. That makes it
easy. When its fun, its easy.
Sidra:
So are there any plans to revive it as a full
book?
Rich:
My intentions and hope is that with
the new graphic novel I have out, it will build a new
audience for me, like the Top Shelf audience.
Hopefully theyll read this and like it and ask "What
else has he done?" Theyll find the Three Geeks,
rediscover the Three Geeks, and Ill get enough new
readers that bringing them back in the future would be
much more feasible economically.
Sidra:
Are you still working on the Simpsons comic?
Rich:
Right now I dont know whats gong on
with the Simpsons. I signed a contract with them and
they accepted three or four full length stories from
me, but I havent heard from them in a few months, and
I guess according to them, theyre just extremely busy
and behind. Im contracted for at least three or four
scripts. I just dont know when theyre going to come
out.
Sidra:
You have a new book out called Three Fingers
how did you come up with the idea for it?
Rich:
Actually, Ive had the idea for about
five years. When I originally did How to Pick Up
Girls if Youre a Comicbook Geek, the success from
that was so overwhelmingly popular. My intentions had
been to just do the How to book and then do the Three
Fingers graphic novel, but The 3 Geeks was so popular
that I kept going and the success kept building into a
bigger audience every issue. So, it didnt warrant my
stopping but after two years the sales on The 3 Geeks
kind of plateau-ed out and I really didnt want to
sit on the Three Fingers concept any longer after five
years. I wanted to do it because I knew it was a
strong idea. I had to make the tough decision to pull
the plug on The 3 Geeks, and do the Three Fingers
book. That was the only reason I stopped The 3 Geeks,
because I just didnt have the time in the day to do
both. So I had to do one or the other.
Sidra:
You follow the pattern for the Hollywood expose
so well. Did you watch a lot of those to get the
personalities right?
Rich:
Yeah, I love those True Hollywood
Stories and Behind the Music. Theyre just done so
well, and the Ken Burns documentaries, Im a big fan
of those as well. His work with the baseball series
he did, and I just thought that I wanted to do
something unique. While its been done, its never
been done with these characters that Im aware of or
been done in this particular style. So when I
actually did have the idea for this story five years
ago, it wasnt going to be in a documentary style. It
was going to be a straightforward story. Then I added
a documentary style twist to it to make it a more
unique read, and I thought it really turned out well.
People seem to like it. The advance reviews have been
positive. So Im happy about that.
Sidra:
The art in this book is very different from the
art style you used in The 3 Geeks. What are the
different styles and techniques you used in this book?
Rich:
I specifically wanted to give it a
different art style. My 3 Geeks stuff is very
cartoony, very light-hearted. I wanted this to be a
little grittier. The humor is a darker, blacker
comedy, and I wanted the art style to reflect that.
So its a grittier style of artwork, with a more
accurate or realistic look in the narrative portions.
I just wanted to challenge myself, too. I wanted to
spend a little more time on the art, and make it look
a little more illustrative, have a little more fun
with it. The writing is so much different than The 3
Geeks. I therefore wanted the artwork to look
different, too. So it was totally unique compared to
The 3 Geeks.
Sidra:
During the portions of the book that look like
a photo album, a lot of the picture look like poses
and angles youd see in actual family photos. Did you
use actual photo for reference?
Rich:
Yes, I used a lot of photo reference.
It was just random sources like True Crime, TIME
magazine, those TIME collected volumes. I just found
a lot of interesting looking photos that looked like
they would fit the story I was going for. Then I
wrote around them. Thats how they do those
documentaries too. They cant find specific photos so
they use other ones that are close. It was a real
interesting way to do it. I collected all the photos
first, and I had a loose story first. Then I wrapped
the story around the photographs. I tried to do it as
a documentary film maker would make a documentary
film. I tried to follow that type of a pattern. The
interview sequences I just did a lot of characters I
wanted to use and had a general idea of what they were
going to say. I did the same thing with the interview
panels. I did all that drawing first and I wrote the
dialogue around the finished art.
Sidra:
You didnt self-publish this book. What led
to you publishing with Top Shelf?
Rich:
I love Top Shelfs quality and the
choices theyve made with other artists and creators. I
think their books are wonderful. Ive been a fan of
their work, and I wanted to publish with them because
of the attention they give to their books. I thought
about self-publishing and then I thought too that I
would like to get in with another publisher to get to
a different audience. They have a very devoted fan
base and I wanted to obviously capitalize in getting my
book into new peoples hands. So, it was a two-fold
decision that way. Actually, they were the only
publisher I approached with the project. I wanted to
approach them first and foremost see if they were
going to take it, and if they didnt I had a list of
six others. But, thankfully I sent them the outline
of the story idea and the next day they called me and
told me that they wanted to do that book. So I never
had to deal with trying to submit it to other
publishers. They took it right away, which is great.
Sidra:
What are you working on currently and what are
you going to be working on soon?
Rich:
Currently I still have a day job doing
artwork for Archie comics, and of course Im still
doing the 3 Geeks, the backup feature in Dork Tower
which we talked about, and my next graphic novel. Im
planning on doing at least one a year, hopefully even
more. Id like to collaborate with other artists or I
can be a little more prolific. Im definitely going
to get at least one graphic novel out a year. Im
hoping that theyre going to be between a hundred and
a hundred fifty pages. Ive got one solid story idea,
that Im not going to get into too much, but one solid
one thats all fleshed out and about three or four
graphic novel ideas that are outlined right now, which
are also very solid. So, Ive got a lot of choices.
Sidra:
If our readers wanted to get a copy of your
book, where would be the place for them to get it?
Rich:
I would say directly through Top Shelf
Productions. They do a lot of their own online
ordering and a lot of their own distribution.
Hopefully, a lot of the comic stores out there have
ordered it, which a lot have. A lot of them are still
reluctant to order "independent" publishers stuff. So
I would say directly through Top Shelf or through
myself, Rich Koslowski, 3geeks@aol.com .
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