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Leah Moore & John Reppion, an interview

posted by Matt Knicl at 12:07 pm.

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They aren’t comic’s only married creative team, but they’re one of the few. Working together on such titles as Albion, Wild Girl, and titles using other creative properties, Leah Moore and John Reppion continue to bring new ideas and unique interpretations of the medium.

Recently, Moore and Reppion took time to talk to me about their new crossover and their zombie series, Raise the Dead.

Matt Knicl: Do you find it challenging writing for preexisting characters?

Leah Moore: It depends on how filled in their back-story is, and how much the character’s been through in the past. If there’s been a long run with many arcs, I think it’s easier to see your contribution as part of many other people’s responses to the character. If the character is relatively new its more exciting because you can invent parts of the character that haven’t been fleshed out yet, but then there’s more pressure because its harder to hide if people aren’t keen on it. If a character has only been around for a bit and you make them do something the fans don’t like it could harm the characters reputation more. I guess the short answer is yes its challenging, but its lots of fun, so a challenge is a good thing.

Matt: What can you tell us about the The Darkness vs. Eva crossover?

John Reppion: It’s our second Dynamite/Top Cow crossover series and it’s been lots of fun, thanks in no small part to our artist Edgar Salazar and colourist Romulo Fajardo Jr. who have really brought our ideas to life.

In the series vampires, werewolves and all sorts of monsters have been let loose in modern day America. Eva is a kind of medieval Buffy with a dash of Red Sonja and she’s doing her best to wipe out as many of the creatures as possible. Jackie Estacado (wielder of The Darkness) is doing his mob boss thing but soon finds that he’s having problems with some of the city’s new arrivals. He decides to take action but things don’t go quite how he’d planned.

Matt: You have also created the zombie Raise the Dead book. Why do you feel zombies are more popular today?

Leah: I don’t know why they have suddenly appeared everywhere out of the woodwork. They seem to crop up in periods of maybe more political upheaval and unrest than normal. My theory is that whenever we feel uneasy because of war, or disasters, or whatever, we turn to zombies as a metaphor and a punch bag. You can show these zombies as representing any of the evils in the world, from terrorists, to an army attacking, to a natural disaster on a global scale, and because they are always the same just lurching along, they never contradict you, and then you get to see them shot to bits. They are still frightening no matter what the context; we can just happily project whatever is troubling us at the time onto them and then watch the characters dealing with it. It depends on the writers whether the humans win or the zombies at the end, so that keep each story fresh I think.

Matt: What twist have you done to the zombie myth for the project?

John: We actually worked quite hard not to do too much of twist; we just wanted to get everything right. I’m a massive, massive zombie fan and so many people have had a crack at doing zombie films and comics and really done a bad job. We felt it was important to get back to the basics of a zombie book and just concentrate on keeping the whole thing interesting and enjoyable. That and an absolute minimum of one dead body/zombie per 3 pages, most often a lot more.

Matt: I really liked the Wildstorm Wild Girl series. What became of that?

Leah: We were hoping it might get collected, as it was always our favourite series to work on, and we wanted it to get a chance at being read all the way through from start to finish, but sadly the sales didn’t really justify a collection, which is fair enough. I hope it becomes a cult classic that they’ll dig out of the vaults one day and collect. We still get people bringing all their issues to conventions for us to sign, even though it’s been five years since we started it. I hope it does get another go one day, I could see all kinds of toys and cartoons and stuff coming out of that
series, it’s a shame it hasn’t happened yet.

Matt: Have you noticed any positive or negative trends in comics today?

John: I think the whole web comics thing is starting to resolve itself now and make a bit more sense; people are taking it a lot more seriously. You’ve even got DC doing Zuda! It’s becoming a part of the industry in a healthy way (not in a “destroying print comics” sort of way as some hysterical people seemed to imagine it might).

Matt: Do you have any upcoming projects?

Leah: We have four more projects on the go for Dynamite which we are not at liberty to discuss yet, and we are also committed to several small press strips which we do each year for Accent Uk and really enjoy. We have a story in “Comic Book Tattoo” an Image comic’s anthology of adaptations of the songs of Tori Amos which we are doing with Y the Last Man artist Pia Guerra. I am so excited about that it’s going to be amazing. Aside from that we are always on the look out for interesting projects, so with a bit of luck 2008 will be a busy year for us!

Images Courtesy Top Cow, Dynamite Entertainment, and DC

Matt Knicl: My name is Matt Knicl. I'm a U of I alumn and one of those unemployed English majors Garrison Keillor likes to make fun of. I've been reading comics since high school and one day I would like to write them. My goal is to expose readers to what is out there in the world of comics and using my English powers, show what is worth reading or not. I can be reached at buzz.comics@gmail.com.