An Interview with the Creators of Reggie-Town
Todd Ireland and Kevin Leeson
Todd Ireland and Kevin Leeson’s writing partnership began with motion picture screenplays, but for Acts of Violence they crafted Reggie-Town, in which a drug addicted young man seeks to break free of the miserable cycles of his life. The out, however, is a depraved, criminal act. Kevin and Todd shed some light on the creative process that brought Reggie-Town to life.
What interests you most about crime stories, whether they be in comic form or prose?
Tough characters making tough choices. The anti-hero is more prevalent in this genre than most others. The characters are allowed to be flawed which makes them seem more real.
What about an anthology appeals to you ?
More freedom as a writer because the stories have room to breathe and explore different shades of grey. Probably helped in large part due to the fact that your protagonist is just as likely to be a criminal as a cop. In a good anthology, the stories can complement each other through their contrast in style and tone and subject matter.
Your creative and personal relationship with Ed Brisson goes back a few years. Tell us about that and then tell us how you got involved in Acts of Violence.
Kevin: I met Ed when we were both founding members of a film collective called Cinema Fabulon. We shot a bunch of short films, and it eventually fell apart, but Ed and I stayed in touch because we were both self-publishing comics on the side as well.
Todd: I met Ed through Kevin. Kevin and I met each other on the set of Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever, as we both work in the film industry.
You two and Ed were at Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle and reported that the response to the anthology was excellent and that more copies were sold than expected. Tell us about the Con experience from a creator’s point of view.
Emerald City Comic-Con is a great convention for indie creators. We’ve been going there for years, ever since we released our first title Outnumbered, and we have always felt very welcome there.
Ed credits your salesmanship for the number of copies sold. What’s your response to that?
The one thing we’ve learned the last couple of years, never assume you know who your audience is. We never look at someone and think that we know if they are interested in our story or not. We give everyone the benefit of our sales pitch, and we’ve been surprised by the response more times than we can count. Besides, it’s a lot easier to sell a product that we believe in as much as we believe in Acts of Violence.
Reggie-Town and your previous work, Outnumbered, are both told from a street level perspective– not cops, not the wealthy, not even experienced criminals or “heroes”. What appeals to you about street level storytelling?
What we think you’ll find is that both our stories are about delving into flawed characters, and the geography is incidental. None of our “heroes” are perfect, and maybe our “villains” aren’t pure evil, and it’s exploring that which appeals to us. Maybe Outnumbered is set in the city which we both moved to in our early adulthood, while Reggie-Town is probably more along the lines of telling a story from the perspective of the places that we came from.
Both Reggie-Town and Outnumbered also feature drugs and drug use and depicts the high lows of addiction. Would you say this is a result of living in a big city like Vancouver where drug use is visible and a problem in certain areas?
That is definitely true in Outnumbered, and its well-documented downtown eastside problems. Reggie-Town, however, we simply found it difficult to conceive of a modern crime story without drug use playing at least a small part. It seems so woven into the fabric of modern society.
You two are writing partners. Tell us about how that collaboration works, specifically in regards to Reggie-Town.
We have made several passes at screenplays before we started writing for comics, so we have an established method, forged in flames of contention. In short, we outline the complete story, so we know we’re heading in the same direction. Then, we split the story up into sections and write separate from one another, then when complete we give our section to the other. We both have unlimited editorial prerogative over the other’s section, and finally when we’ve assembled the newly edited sections, then do a single pass together for a final edit. That’s how the magic happens.
Now let’s talk about art. How did you hook up with Toren and why was he the right artist for the job?
Toren is the lead singer of a band I’m a fan of, the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, and he came to a show where Todd and I were on a panel to discuss self-publishing and asked a bunch of questions. We talked after the show, and he did two covers for us on Outnumbered, and it was pretty clear he was a talented guy, so when he did a test page for Reggie-Town there was no question he was the right guy for the job.
When did you start writing comics– and why did you get started?
Started in 2005, when we wrote Outnumbered for a screenplay competition. Our goal was to never let the story gather dust on our shelf, so we decided to publish it ourselves and put our money where our mouth was.
There is no doubt the comics industry is a tough one to get into and do well in. How do you measure success in your own comics writing endeavours?
By the quality of the story, and the feedback from the people who have bought our books. That being said, if your goal is to become a mainstream comic superstar, then, yes, there are a lot of barriers to achieving that kind of goal. However, if you’re a guy or girl who simply has a story to tell, there isn’t really any “breaking in”. You just have to make a comic and get it out there (and keep your day job).
What’s up next for the writing duo of Todd / Kevin?
We’re going to keep creating cutting edge comic books for a discerning audience, and based on the reaction so far, it will be hard to resist writing a sequel to Reggie-Town. We have a sitcom pilot we’ve been working on, as well as several new ideas for some feature-length scripts. In short, spreading ourselves as thin as we can manage.
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Acts of Violence: A Crime Comics Anthology is listed in the April edition of Previews on page 299 under New Reliable Press. The order code is APR101035. Head to your local comic shop and ask them to order you a copy.
CLICK HERE for a PDF that you can print and bring to your local comic shop to let them know you’d like to order the book. The PDF contains all the info that your retailer will need for Acts Of Violence.
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Tags: Acts of Violence, Ed Brisson, Kevin Leeson, Todd Ireland