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Jim Zub, easily my most-interviewed creator, is on a tear lately. In addition to wonderful corporate-owned work like Figment, he more than stuck the landing on Skullkickers and he nailed the second arc of his new series Wayward. I talked to him about both beginnings, endings and everything in-between. When did you map out the overall story […]

French born illustrator Marguerite Sauvage has been invading the comics world of late and she is wowing fans this week with her stunning interior art for the all-new DC Comics Bombshells series! Sauvage is a self-taught artist who actually decided to pursue a career in illustration after earning her degree in Law and Communication. Just some of her clients include such big names as Elle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Louis Vuitton, L’Oréal, PlayStation, and Apple!

In addition to the interior art on Bombshells and Sensation Comics featuring Wonder Woman #3, Sauvage has been very busy as a comic book cover specialist for such titles as Hinterkind, Wolf Moon, Secret Wars, Howard the Duck, Jem and the Holograms, Thor, and Wayward.

With so much great comics work completed in such a small amount of time(1-2 years..?), I’m excited to see what Marguerite Sauvage has in store for us the next couple of years!

If you’d like to see more of Sauvage’s work and get the latest updates, you can follow her on twitter here.

For more comics related art, you can follow me on my website comicstavern.com – Andy Yates

And when I say must-read, I mean MUST READ, as it really lays out fundamental changes in how the industry is working for creator owned books.. A few days ago I noted how an old post on the economics of Jim Zub on Skullkickers, his Image comics, had gotten a second life on Facebook with it’s very low numbers on comics profits. In the comment, Zub promised an update, and he’s delivered with an analysis of his new book, Wayward. As you can see from the above graph, it’s a HUGE change, and it’s all due to the rise of Image Comics:

The Image model has always been about investing in yourself and reaping the benefits of that investment if sales are strong. I knew that going in with Skullkickers back in 2010 and, even when our sales were borderline unprofitable, I stuck with the series as a way to establish myself as a writer and show people our team could produce a high quality comic month after month. Now, four and a half years later, I’m seeing the benefits of that consistency and the growing creator-owned market with my new Image series called Wayward.

Zub enumerates a number of ways Wayward has surpassed Skullkickers, including his larger profile in the industry at large, and the material being more suited to today’s market: “Cute supernatural teenage girls (surrounded by cats) kicking the shit out of monsters on the street of Tokyo plays to a bigger audience than a bro-centric slapstick violent D&D tale, especially in 2014-2015.” While you should read the whole thing, one particular bullet point is worth highlighting:

• Retailer Outreach: I’ve also done a ton of retailer outreach over the past four years. Having well regarded work is wonderful but only if retailers feel confident they can sell the books. As we headed towards the launch of Wayward, the crew at Image and I did a lot of communicating with retailers about the series, showing them exclusive artwork and previews, doing everything we could to prove to them that this was a series they could confidently sell to their customers. That lead to several comic shop and convention-exclusive variant covers for Wayward #1, bolstering our launch numbers by thousands of copies while creating extra interest in the series.

While some may see the “variant method” as a danger sign, I think the numbers on these variants are still low enough on an individual basis to avoid threatening overall comics sales. It’s also CRUCIAL that today’s retailers are more open to diverse material. I don’t like to live in the past, but some of my 90s conversations with retailers begging them to consider selling Simpsons comics spring to mind. But you know it was a different world 20years ago. It’s a different world than it was even FOUR years ago. While Zub notes that neither he nor Wayward artist/co-creator Steve Cummings are rolling in dough, they have enough to pay the rest of the team, and for Cummings to work on the book full time. AND they have a war chest to help promote and keep the book on its successful sales trajectory.

Zub notes that the first Wayward trade paperback is coming out in March, so even his numbers post serves as a way to promote the next work.

Good sound tips all.

Above: the triptych cover for Wayward #6-8 by Cummings.

By Matt O’Keefe

Jim Zub has been on a tear since Skullkickers debuted in 2010. In four years he’s gone on to establish himself as writer of properties such as Pathfinder, Samurai Jack, and Disney Kingdoms: Figment. Now he’s going back to his creator-owned roots with Wayward, a comic book series from Image with Steve Cummings about a group of teens taking on the supernatural in Tokyo, Japan. I spoke with Jim about the thrill of launching a new title, and the journey that led to Wayward.

Art by Steve Cummings and Ross A. Campbell.

This is your first new creator-owned book since 2010. Is launching a new series more exciting, or terrifying?

I thought it would be easier but, the minute the press release went out and Wayward was fully announced, I realized I’d forgotten that stomach-wrenching fear of putting out a new creator-owned series. It’s wonderful, but there’s definitely a bit of fear wrapped up in it.

Establishing a new title and getting people to try it out, that can be a tough prospect. I’m doing everything I can to make sure readers and retailers can see that we’re hauling ass on this and doing everything we can to launch strongly.

Japanese mythology has been left largely unexplored in Western fiction. It must be exciting to introduce such a rich world to readers who are largely unfamiliar with it.

Absolutely. Japanese mythic lore is such fertile ground for exploration on so many levels and I’m incredibly stoked to be able to use that foundation and bring a modern spin to it. Readers won’t need any prior knowledge in order to dive in and enjoy the character story but, by the time they’re done reading, I hope they’re intrigued and want to read more.

Cover art by Alina Urusov.

What kind of Japanese mythical elements will we see in Wayward? Ghosts? Demons? Gods?

Yes. Yes. No comment. :)

The sheer variety of yokai at our fingertips is kind of staggering. I feel like our first story arc is just scratching the surface and that’s a very cool feeling.

That being said, I don’t want people to get the wrong idea that it’s all monsters all the time. Yes, the creatures and spirits are important, but it’s a really a story about these teenagers in Tokyo and their struggles.

Is Wayward Rori’s story, or do you consider it more of an ensemble piece?

It’s an ensemble, but Rori is our touchstone character who brings readers into that world, so the first arc is heavily weighted around her experiences. As the story goes on it expands past her and takes on a larger scope.

How far have you laid out Wayward? Is there an overarching story you’re telling?

The first arc is obviously tightly written and I know where our second arc goes, though Steve and I are still brainstorming ideas that will be a part of it. I’m really hoping readers connect with our cast and we launch strong so we can have a long and healthy run where we can explore bigger ideas about myth, belief, and supernatural elements in the modern world.

Interior art drawn by Steve Cummings with colors by John Rauch and Jim Zub.

You and Steve Cummings created this series together. What were some of the benefits of knowing who was going to be drawing your story from the start?

Building a story with an artist and feeding off each other’s strengths right from the get-go is really empowering. There’s an enthusiasm and interplay that I don’t think you get when you’re writing a concept for no one in particular. Steve wanted to do an urban supernatural story set in Tokyo and I was eager to write something dark and engaging to meet that vision. The visual elements were right there from the start and in a visual medium like comics that’s ideal.

How has what you’ve learned about the comics industry since starting Skullkickers informed Wayward?

Well, right off the bat, I’m hoping 4 solid years of writing comics, more and more each year, has improved my storytelling abilities. I have a better sense of what’s possible on the page and how to communicate those ideas to an artist.

Beyond those aspects of the craft, I’ve promoted Skullkickers steadily at conventions, stores, online… slowly but surely broadening my network and hopefully proving to readers and retailers that the comics I create are worth supporting.

Over the past 4 years I’ve had other creator-owned projects I’ve developed but something always got gummed up – artist availability was the most common, but there were other projects that didn’t feel like the right book at the right time. I used to get freaked out that if I didn’t have a follow-up project out immediately I wouldn’t be able to “make it” in this business but now I’m more zen about it. I don’t want to have my name on something half-baked just because I can put it out. Wayward is Steve and I both putting our all into it.

Interior art drawn by Steve Cummings with colors by John Rauch and Jim Zub.

You’ve talked a lot about productivity in the past. Is it harder to work on a creator-owned series like Wayward than a licensed book that has firm deadlines like Samurai Jack?

It’s definitely harder at the start because you don’t have a baseline. World building is always tough. It’s creatively satisfying to have it all be “yours” but setting up that framework and making those decisions is a lot of work compared to gathering reference material and building on what’s already there.

Even still, once I get rolling on a creator-owned project there’s a tremendous amount of pride there. The freedom to make big decisions quickly and to feed new ideas as they come to me is really wonderful. I really do enjoy balancing both creator-owned and work-for-hire projects. They flex different creative muscles and make me a better storyteller.

What’s inspiring you, in or outside of comics?

Comic-wise I’m loving, in no particular order, Saga, Daredevil, Swamp Thing, Conan, Amazing Spider-Man, The Sixth Gun, Shutter, Invincible… lots more.

Outside comics I’ve been reading quite a bit of non-fiction. My cousin gave me a great book all about social systems and the way we make decisions called “Nudge” that I quite enjoyed. I’m midway through Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise about predictability and data sets and it’s also pretty fascinating stuff.

I don’t get many chances to play tabletop RPGs any more thanks to my intense work schedule, but I tried out a storytelling improv-centric game that plays out all in one session called “Fiasco” a few months ago and it was stellar. Within a few hours you and your friends build a crazy crime story from scratch and play it through to an unexpected, and almost certainly hilarious, end. Creative, fun, and really fulfilling.

Follow Jim on Twitter @JimZub and at his website full of awesome tutorials. Pre-order Wayward #1 at your local retailer with the form above.