Declan Shalvey & Andy Winter: Hero Creators
This Wednesday sees the release of Hero Killers from Moonface Press. It's been getting some very good press so far...
“A wickedly sidelong look at the world of capes and cowls from the writer of the excellent, ever-surprising Devilchild. It’s a mark of Winter’s skill and originality that he makes you care as much about his bastards as his paragons.”
Mike Carey (writer, X-Men & Ultimate Fantastic Four)
“Declan Shalvey impresses with dramatic and energetic art. 8 out of 10”
Comics International
“Grant Morrison’s Zenith mixed with the good bits of Mark Millar’s Wanted… [boasts a] cracking final sequence that is guaranteed to stick in the memory long after the comic is put down.”
Silverbulletcomicbooks.com
I spoke to the creators of this wonderful comic recently and asked them about Hero Killers and what the future has in store for them!
The Artist
James:Who are you?
Declan: My name's Declan Shalvey. I'm a comic book artist from Ireland. Hero Killers is my first published work.
J: How did Hero Killers come about for you?
D: I was showing my portfolio to artists at the Bristol convention in 2005, when John McCrea suggested I go through a small press publisher in order to get work published. He told me I should go talk to Andy Winter at the Moonface Press stand and see if he'd be interested in working with me. Thankfully, he was. He asked what kind of story I'd like to do. Most of my portfolio consisted of superhero work and he said he had an idea for a superhero story, so it all went from there, pretty much.
J: Who are your influences?
D: Well, when I was very young, it was only Jim Lee. That's all I would look at, but i eventually stopped looking at him and moved on to Alan Davis, Andy Kubert, Kevin Nowlan, Mark Bagely, David Mazzucchelli, Steve Dillon, Carlos Pacheco and John McCrea.
I didn't read much comics when i was in college, but when i finished i saw work by Bryan Hitch, John Cassidy, Alex Maleev and the like which gave me a smack in the face, artistically.
J: What was the hardest part of working on Hero Killers?
D: Well, I'd never drawn an entire comic before! I'd always done six page samples, so drawing the whole thing within a deadline was a huge challenge, but i learned so much as a result. Designing costumes that worked was a challenge too, you can design a costume and it looks fine when he's standing there, but will it work when his arms are raised, or if he stretches? I suppose I'm not sure what the hardest part was, the book was a series of challenges, really. All of which were tackled as best i could.
J: Why should people read Hero Killers?
D: Cuz I spent weeks drawing it!!! Ah, just kidding. When I read the script, i thought of how much work it would take to do and how much of a good job I'd do on it. Whether I did a good job or not is debatable, but i wouldn't have spent 'x' amount of days working on it if i didn't think it'd be worth it. I thought, this is a great story and i really wanted to do it.
If that doesn't convince ya, then I'd have to say Mona. Mona Saint is a great character. That's why people should read it. Once you've read it; she's a real person. You'll love her or hate her. Or both.
J: Whats next for Declan Shavley?
D: Me? Well, I've taken over art duties on the Eagle Award nominated Freak Show, by Atomic Diner. I've just finished the first issue, so it should be out before too long with a cover by Sean Philips, no less. I'm also working on a Zombie project for Arcana, but that's a ways off from seeing print. It's based on a short story I did called La Famiglia, in Arcana's Dark Horror Anthology. I also have some work coming out soon with Onyx Cross Comics in their Shivers Anthology.
The Writer/Creator
J: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Andy: My Name’s Andy Winter, I've been reading and buying comics pretty much all my life, writing and self-publishing them since 2002. I was born in Northampton but now live in Southend with my wife and two young sons, making a living as a writer and sub editor. All pretty mundane really. Apart from the murders... ;-)
J: So Hero Killers can you explain a little bit about the comic?
A: The Hero Killers of the title are a team of meta-human assassins employed to eliminate Bronze Eagle, who just happens to be America's most loved and respected superhero. He's kind of a cross between Superman and Captain America – noble, patriotic, kind of irritating.
Mona Saint – the team's leader – suspects she's making a mistake by taking on the contract but she's so greedy and hates superheroes so much that she just can't help herself. Without giving too much away, let's just say things don't go as planned... Those are the specifics.
More generally, Hero Killers is a black comedy and a kind of morality play dealing with greed and vengeance. It's about damaged people doing horrible things to each other and the world at large. I've been describing the book as 'Mark Millar's Wanted' meets 'John Carpenter's The Thing' as there's a visceral splash of horror in there, too.
J: Where did the idea come from?
A: TV shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood and The Shield were a definite influence on Hero Killers as they all feature prominent characters who are highly dysfunctional, unpleasant and capable of extraordinary acts of betrayal and violence. And yet, fans of the show – including me – take these utter bastards to our hearts, make excuses for them and even root for them when "the authorities" threaten to put a crimp in their plans. I wanted to see if I could write a character who was, if anything, even worse than [The Sopranos] Paulie Walnuts and [Deadwood's] Al Swearengen, and still make them sympathetic in some way. I ended up with Mona Saint, the head of Saint Inc., a company that assassinates superheroes for mountains of cold hard cash. She's like Tony Soprano in Prada heels.
J: Hero Killers focuses very much on the relationships of the characters – how important for you is it to balance action and emotion?
A: I guess action comes from emotion and vice versa, so they're kind of indivisible. Twenty pages of some superhero knocking the heck out a bad guy for no particular reason wouldn't be very interesting. Twenty pages of some superhero knocking the heck out a bad guy because he's just murdered said hero's entire family and pet dog makes proceedings a little spicier. Drama is all about creating conflict and in some sense that conflict can be equally brutal whether played out physically in a fight or emotionally in a conversation or argument. So, to answer your question, getting the balance right is really important to me.
J: Hero Killers deals with villains, very nasty villains – are they more fun to write than heroes?
A: I think it's easier to make villains more interesting sometimes because they're more, shall we say, morally complex. They're damaged and lost, and I think it's that that makes them fascinating to write.
Take Mona Saint - she's beautiful and as smart as a whip. She could have been an actress or a scientist or US president. Instead, she runs a business dedicated to murdering people for money. I'm interested in how she got to be so morally stunted and how she justifies her cruelty, ruthlessness, vengefulness and rapacious greed to herself.
Does it keep her awake at night? Which buttons would you have to push to make her vulnerable? Is she capable of love? I find such damaged people fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.
Thanks to Andy and Declan for giving their and well done with the success and praise the book has been picking up. Hero Killers is out this Wednesday in the US available through Diamond, (Previews order code: SEP06 3458).
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