Interview | Geoffrey D. Wessel
During C2E2, Kara and Matt sat down with (stood up, wrangled, it’s all the same) with some great COMIXOLOGY SUBMIT creators to talk about their books, their process, and what they read themselves. Since these interviews were done on the fly and in the heat of the con, we also transcribed these interviews. Some parts of the interview have been abridged for maximum hilarity. Enjoy!
Kara Szamborski: Here we are at C2E2. For the first time, we have an actual legitimate place to be for conducting these interviews. We’re seated. We’re at the comiXology booth. We’re here with Geoffrey Wessel to talk about his book, “Keeper”. Available now on comiXology Submit.
Matt Kolowski: Thanks for taking the time out.
Geoffrey Wessel: Not a problem. How are you doing today?
Matt: I’m doing amazing!
Kara: I went in blind on this book. I got through the first issue, and I was writing notes for myself as I was going. I got to the big reveal and in caps I wrote, “I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.”
Geoffrey: There’s a lot of people that do that. In fact, last year I was on a local soccer oriented radio show. It was ostensibly…the radio mouth piece of the Indy Eleven, NASL club. It was at the weekend of the Indy PopCon, I managed to stick myself on there.
I’m one of the fans, I was always on the West end of the Michael Caroll Stadium setting off smoke during matches and all that. It was in the run-up to the World Cup too, so I mentioned the character Scott Winslow, is an American goalkeeper.
He’s like, “Oh, so he’s a real heroic type like Tim Howard or Brad Guzan,” some USA goalkeepers. I said, “Well, no, actually, he is a serial killer.” You could just hear the record scratching in his brain as I derailed his interview live on the air.
Matt: What pushed you in that direction? You’re, obviously, a huge soccer fan, yourself. What made you, “OK, I’ll do something about soccer,” but it’s because you wanted to make a twist and make it different?
Geoffrey: There are a couple reasons. It was based on a flash fiction I had written in 2007, where it was just a stream of consciousness. It was this idea of someone who’s celebrated, he’s a known media name but he’s also this vile predator.
The whole book is a comment on celebrity because, of course, in this culture, we also tend to make serial killer celebrities in their own right. There’s a bit of a commentary about that, but the sad fact is, unfortunately, at least as far as I can see there’s not a real market for legitimate sports comics, the straight sports comics.
Matt: It’s funny you mentioned that, because I’m trying to think back to when I was younger, the only sports comic I read was, it was like an NFL one, where they have suits of armor …
Geoffrey: Marvel put that out, “NFL SuperPro.”
Matt: SuperPro, that’s it!
Kara: Internationally, there’s a lot. There’s a lot of French comics about soccer, there’s a lot of Japanese manga about basketball.
Geoffrey: There are, but what’s funny is, one of the people here at the table, who actually bought the Keeper issue that I had on sale, it was a couple and they were very definitely English but they said, “We’ve never seen a football comic before.” I’m like, “In England? Are you kidding me?” Apparently, it’s become a dying art. I guess, there’s no market, at least not right now.
Matt: It’s funny you mentioned that, because in another languages, it’s odd that there’s a market there. Maybe you should start getting translations on the book, too.
Geoffrey: I have thought of that, I have thought about it. I know, definitely, in Japan, I have several volumes of several soccer manga. Of course, a manga is a whole different story.
Kara: A whole different story.
Matt: It really is, yeah.
Geoffrey: That’s a whole different animal. That’s where we’re at. It was something I had already written and played with. Unfortunately, you just can’t do a straight sports comic, that’s where I brought in Scott doing what he does.
Matt: I don’t think I’ve ever seen colors like that in a book, and it’s hard to describe. It reminds me of older 1980s British comics like the magazines and “Warrior” or the original “Miracleman,” too, even.
Geoffrey: Warrior was a black and white book, though. [Editor’s Note: oops.] The original “Marvelman” and “V for Vendetta” is, people tend to forget, they were black and white, actually. Jeff Simpson on the first couple of issues, he ended up leaving the book, but he is still going to be doing the covers for it.
We have a new art team. Jeff Simpson, he hand‑colored the first few issues with copic markers because we were up against it. We had a colorist and the colorist disappeared off the face of the Internet, so we didn’t have a choice.
Matt: How do you view the series as a whole? When you wrote it down there’s …obviously, we haven’t even mentioned the other angle where the police are starting to look into the serial killings and there’s the hunt begins. Do you have a finite eyed vision for the story and it will come to a head at X ..
Geoffrey: I do, I do have a plan for Keeper. I’m planning to take it out to about…Will it be issue nine which is actually issue 10 because we did a zero issue, which in comiXology is combined with issue one, because the submit policy wouldn’t let me do a free issue.
That’s what issue zero is going to be, so, I just smooshed the two together. There is a definite plan for this. I do have a plan.
Matt: Right before you started writing, what was the impetus for you to, “OK, I read a lot of comics. Maybe I want to try it myself, see what happens”?
Geoffrey: Let’s see, I’m trying to think of the one thing. I don’t think I can come up with the one thing that did it. I’d always wanted to do something along those lines. It was I had other thing going on, too, in real life. I’m 42 years old now, and I’m still considered a rookie by most standards.
I had other things going on in life and, if I can speak frankly, I had some real confidence issues for a good long while. I finally broke through. It was a matter of breaking through them. Am I still screwing up? Yeah, but a lot of it is lessons to be learned. I’m trying to think. I can’t think of the one thing.
Maybe one thing that helped was the fact that I got on both Warren Ellis’ message board at the time, which is called “The Engine,” and then I also discovered “Millarworld,” Mark Millar’s message board. That’s, in fact, where I came across Jeff Simpson.
He approached me about doing something and I said, “Well, here’s ‘Keeper.’” The poor guy had never seen a professional soccer match in his life.
Kara: You showed him the light.
Geoffrey: He handled it!
Kara: Very nice. I had a thought and you can tell if I’m right or wrong, or if this is open to interpretation. When you get a little bit more into the story and you see how the detectives are going about trying to solve these crimes, they seem to be taking for granted that no one on the team is involved.
Do you think that has to do with celebrity culture and it’s trusting them because they’re famous or…?
Geoffrey: You’re half-right. There is a little bit of that. It’s actually more like there’s also the reputation in England…The club that I used in “Keeper,” the fictitious name is Lewisham United. Their real life name is Millwall, and they actually have a bad reputation with their hooligans.
They have one of the worst hooligan reputations, whether deserved or not. There’s some evidence to suggest maybe it’s not completely deserved. At the same time there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that there was a size-able element of Millwall fandom that were also extreme right‑wing skinheads.
There was a definite hooligan element to Millwall whether justified or not, so that’ll be why. Of course the first thing you would think of is the hooligans.
I do think that there is a bit of a, let me put it out there, prejudice against people, because Scott is definitely blonde‑haired, blue‑eyed, even though he’s in England, all‑American athlete. Therefore, “There’s no possible way this can happen,” even though we just convicted Aaron Hernandez of a murder, the Patriots tight end.
Kara: Can you tell us a little more about the symbols that are carved into the victims?
Geoffrey: I could except it would be a spoiler!
Kara: No spoilers.
Geoffrey: It really would be a spoiler for something that is yet to be revealed. Yes, there are occult-y looking symbols carved into the victims. That is true. I can’t really say much more than that.
Kara: Totally fine. I am an anti‑spoiler person, so that’s absolutely OK.
Matt: It’s funny because talking about soccer in the United States, the MLS is here. How did you, yourself, get into soccer? How did you become such a hard‑core fan of the sport?
Geoffrey: I was never much of an athlete. I actually came about it because we had digital cable, and there was a channel that was then known as FOX Sports World, which then became FOX Soccer Channel, which is now no longer in service, either. It’s become FOX Sports 1 now and a lot more generalized.
It was because of that. I forget exactly which season it was. As time went on, I found myself falling in love with the game play of one particular club, who was the club I support, Arsenal. This was back when Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp were playing for them.
I fell down the hole a little bit. I don’t have a horse in Major League Soccer. I like a few clubs, including the Chicago Fire, the Seattle Sounders. Their hated rivals, the Portland Timbers, I like them too.
I’ve been an advocate for the sport. When Indianapolis got its own North American Soccer League club, it was a good thing. I’ve been down to the matches. We take the whole family down there. We set off flares and lead hooligan chants. It’s good times.
Matt: What did you read when you were growing up? What brought you into comics?
Geoffrey: I started out as a devout Marvel zombie. My very first comic that I have any consciousness reading was either “Spider-Man in The Electric Company,” or I got for a Christmas subscription to the Marvel’s “Star Wars” comic back then for Christmas one year.
It was that, and then meeting my stepfather, who had every Spider-Man issue from the beginning up until a certain point in 1976. Of course his mother ended up trashing all the earlier stuff, as in throwing it out, whereas myself and my brothers, we trashed the other issues because we kept reading them and re‑reading them.
From there I somehow fell into the independents, because about 1985 of course was “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Of course the most important issue for me of that one was TMNT number eight because that also had “Cerebus”.
I ended up reading Cerebus all the way through to the end. Even the most difficult, trying periods of Cerebus I finished it.
Because of Cerebus I also discovered Alan Moore, and through there “Judge Dredd” and “2000 A.D.” From there I also discovered Peter Milligan, and Grant Morrison, and so on and so forth down the line. Then “Vertigo” happened.
It’s been a lifelong, ever‑evolving affair with the art form. Now of course I do a strip for David Lloyd, the artist of “V for Vendetta.” I do a strip for his publication “Aces Weekly,” also featured on comiXology.
Kara: It’s great that you’re contributing to a medium that you loved for so long.
Geoffrey: Yeah. I have different opinions about the medium, but I figured the best way to influence those is to positively contribute to it.
Kara: Great policy.
Matt: With Submit, you put your own stuff out there. You referenced some that you loved reading. Are there titles now that you seek out specifically by those same creators or new creators that you look for?
Geoffrey: I will read everything by Alan Moore, no matter what it is. Grant Morrison, I’ve become far less a fan of than I used to be, but I will still take a look at things by him.
Of course, “Saga” is the best comic on the stands, no doubt. I’ll look at anything by Kieron Gillen, especially if it’s drawn by Jamie McKelvie, since “Phonogram.” Phonogram was one of my catalysts, too.
Kara: Are you reading “The Wicked + The Divine”?
Geoffrey: I am definitely reading The Wicked + The Divine. It’s a great read. It was issue eight, the one where it was an acid trip at a rave, and it had some of the best coloring work I’ve ever seen in a comic book. Matt Wilson definitely has his definite part to play in that book.
Kara: Yeah. He is next level.
Geoffrey: What else do I read? One of my best friends in the business, Al Ewing, from 2000 A. D.. He’s now making his way at Marvel, of course.
Matt: He didn’t draw the…is he an artist or a writer?
Geoffrey: He’s a writer.
Matt: OK. It must be another Ewing. I was thinking about the Nick Fury…When they made Nick Fury, the son, the new Nick Fury. There was a Ewing attached to that.
Geoffrey: I don’t think that was him, no.
Matt: We’ll just say it was.
Geoffrey: I tend to look at a lot of things. I try to keep up and see what’s going on. There’s a lot of positive movement with…Even though I’m not so much into superheroes anymore, It’s great that you have books like “Ms. Marvel,” “Captain Marvel,” by Kelly Sue, the Batgirl books, and all that.
It’s a good, positive movement, even if I’m not reading it, which more people could benefit from. The point of view is, even if this doesn’t affect me directly, it can still be a good thing.
Matt: It’s a great way to put it. Geoffrey, I appreciate your taking your time out.
Kara: Yes. Thank you.
Matt: Keeper on Submit, you need to read it, right now. How often are you ever going to see soccer meets serial murderer?
Geoffrey: Hopefully, not too often.