In this episode Charles Soule stops by to talk about his violin!

Topics include topping Charles apologizing to Matt, writing Daredevil, possible B&W on DD(??), doing sooo many books, Kara gushes over Lando, following up Letter 44 with another creator owned book, John Byrne(!), Charles and his music, how does Charles even find time to read I don’t get it, and also what he’s reading.

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Transcription:

Matt: Kara, we’re back for another riveting episode of ComiXology Conversations and we’re here with a very special guest.

Kara: Special friend of the show.

Matt: Special friend of the show.

Charles: That’s so kind, you guys.

Kara: Comics legend, Charles Soule.

Charles: Wow, maybe some day.

Matt: Maybe now. Charles Soule, welcome.

Charles: Thank you so much for having me on again, guys. I appreciate it.

Matt: This is like old hat for us. We’re all dear friends, the three of us.

Charles: Yeah.

Matt: The things we’ve seen, right? Last time we chatted was in Chicago on the Twitch stage and I remember vividly the moment I asked. I was like, “Charles, this feels like you should be the next writer of Daredevil,” and then you’re like, “Matt, that’s not happening,” so, are you ready to apologize to me for lying?

Charles: Yeah, I even knew it was happening then and I like lied right in your face but, you know, they try to keep this …

Matt: Top secret.

Charles: Play their cards pretty close to the vest on this stuff so, yeah, Daredevil is an intimidating job to put them out there. I’m following Mark Wade and Chris Samnee and Paolo Rivera and everybody else. Frank Miller and Ed Brubaker and all the other amazing writers and artists on that book so, it’s scary but, I don’t know. I’ll do my best. Certainly, Ron Garney drawing it is doing an unbelievable job. He’s going to smooth over all my rough spots and it should be fun.

Matt: He’s doing some really interesting things with the art too. He’s doing like a very black and white noirish vibe to the book that is great …

Charles: Yeah.

Matt: … in other parts because it’s very different than the Daredevil that we’ve seen in the last year or few years.

Charles: It was a very, very intentional choice. Ron’s art started to come in and it was so strong just as inked pages, the black and white version, that we kind of … I mean, we knew they wouldn’t go for it but we kind of tried to say, “Can we just release it this way?” You know, release a black and white Daredevil book. They’re like, “No, we can’t,” so we tried to figure out a way to kind of split the difference between the big, kind of fully rendered colors you’d see in a standard superhero book and something that we really are trying to make seem a little bit more noir so, I’d say the book is going to … You know Sin City, right? Frank Miller’s Sin City, which was mostly black and white but with splashes of color. It’s a little more than that but it’s definitely going to feel very different and very unique and hopefully will read well too. We’ll see.

Matt: Yeah. Looking back for the past few years, you did Swamp Thing. Now you’re doing Daredevil, Inhumans. You have Letter 44 so, you’re on like a ton of big profile books. Looking back on your career so far, how do you compare the past few years and now you really are one of the most sought after writers in the comics industry?

Charles: It’s hard to really have perspective on it the way that I know that I should because it feels like it’s happened really fast and so, I went from having really little, teeny, tiny, indie books out. I mean, my first book, Strong Man, came out in 2009, which is really not that long ago.

Matt: It’s like yesterday.

Charles: It is and, to be working on … I mean, I did the Star Wars book, I did Lando. I just finished Civil War for Marvel. I’m doing Daredevil and the Inhumans stuff. It all kind of blows my mind and makes me really happy and I hope I don’t get fired tomorrow.

Matt: Sure. That’s the goal, I think, for everybody.

Charles: Yes.

Matt: Just don’t get fired.

Charles: Mmhmmm.

Kara: I’ve been reading Lando because, you know, Star Wars.

Charles: Sure.

Kara: Star Wars is the best.

Charles: It sure is.

Kara: I’m wearing a Star Wars shirt right now and I really like how his little buddy …

Charles: Lobot?

Kara: Lobot has like an actual role this time.

Charles: Yeah, I wanted to give him an arc and, again, one of my ideas that I pitched that didn’t go very far was to actually call the series Lobot: Year One and they didn’t …

Matt: Guest starring Lando?

Charles: Guest starring … With occasional appearances by Lando Calrissian. You know, I thought these stories have been so thoroughly explored. We’ve seen the movies so many times that taking a bit character like Lobot and giving sort of an arc in a way that hopefully feels earned and feels consistent with Lando’s character. I don’t know if you’ve gotten to the ending yet but, it ends in a way that really hopefully sets up what Lando does both in Empire and in Jedi, sort of where he’s going to go. I had such a good time with that. I mean, Alex Maleev and Paul Mounts were the art team on it and they did an unbelievable job. I don’t think … I mean, Alex isn’t really known for sci-fi stories that I know of. He’s more sort of a crime guy but, when you think of what Lando is, he’s like a smuggling, scoundrel-y crime guy.

Matt: Yeah.

Charles: It all worked out really well and I’m really proud of that one.

Kara: Yeah, I haven’t read the final issue yet but, in the penultimate issue, there’s this moment that I thought was a great character beat for Lando where he has to choose between running and staying and helping.

Charles: Yes, yes.

Kara: You’re like, “It’s a comic. It’s on paper,” but you see the conflict in his pose and his facial expression.

Charles: He’s thinking it over. He almost wants to run away.

Kara: Yeah. I was just like, “Lando, it’s going to be okay. Just do the right thing.”

Charles: Yeah.

Matt: You know it’s a good book when we can hear Kara’s internal struggle as an external struggle at her desk.

Charles: Yes, yes.

Matt:  Just weeping. Letter 44 is probably one of our favorite books and we try to push that on new readers. It’s a great book for new comic readers. That’s one of the books that we try to push and it’s wrapping up in the not too distant future. Is there a creator run void that you would want to fill after Letter 44? Do you still have some other long term stories like Letter 44 is to fill that and keep going?

Charles: I do. It’s a matter of sort of placing them and making sure I have the time to do them justice. I mean, Letter 44 is going to end at issue 35. Issue 20 is the most recent one that came out so, there’s about a year’s worth of stories left, give or take, and I just finished yesterday issue 27, which ends the fourth arc which will start pretty soon. I’ve almost written the whole thing and a lot of heavy plot threads that I’ve had in my head for three years while I’ve been writing this series are wrapping up, which feels very strange and I can’t imagine not having an outlet for these kinds of stories in the future so, hopefully, we’ll be talking about those next time we chat.

Matt: There’s a storytelling theme that I’ve noticed in Letter 44 which reminds me of like old John Byrne Superman issues.

Charles: Okay.

Matt: The first issue almost always starts out with like a full splash page of a character talking and it’s funny because I recently read some of those old Byrne Supermans and there’s such a great start to a book because, a lot of times, it fills you in in just the character’s speech on that first page. I wasn’t sure if that was on purpose or not but, I definitely picked it up.

Charles: I don’t know if I’m copying the John Byrne technique necessarily but, I think that every issue of every comic book should be a welcoming experience to a new reader to the extent possible. Now, you’re looking at something like Letter 44 #20, which is 20 issues in. It’s the end of an arc. I mean, it’s hard to do it and have it be completely open but, you know, you do your best and you try and catch readers up as much as you can and also not have it be boring for old readers who kind of know everything already. You don’t want to like have you feel like you’re repeating yourself so, that’s writing, you know?

Matt: That’s like Porky Pig coming out of the thing like, “That’s writing!”

Kara: Matt has been so excited to talk to you about your musical prowess.

Matt: I have been.

Charles: Oh okay, music. Rock and roll.

Matt: It’s funny because you follow writers and artists and I’m not aware of many that have like a musical background and they do many musical things and that it’s like another kind of endeavor for them. What’s your history with music?

Charles: I started playing violin when I was three years old. My mom said she needed to keep me busy. She wanted to give me something to do that would frustrate me and keep me occupied, I guess, so she made me play the violin, which was very cruel in retrospect but I played that until high school when I shifted … I mean, I kept playing violin and still play it but, I shifted over to guitar and that’s a mildly cooler instrument than violin.

Matt: Right.

Charles: I started doing that and got into a bunch of bands. Then, in college, I studied a lot of theory in composition stuff. My minor was music, my major was Chinese and so, I had a lot of more bands. I was in jazz groups. I did all kinds of different things, did some classical composing and so on. All of that has sort of synthesized into what I do now, which is I have a band. This is not going to air today, is it?

Matt: No.

Kara: No.

Charles: Yeah, we’re playing tonight but, I guess doesn’t really … It’s not going to help.

Matt: It was amazing.

Charles: Yes. We’re playing a Comic Con show tonight, which I’m really looking forward to. This is, I think, sort of the coming out party for the music side of what I do to the comics community so, I’m looking forward to it.

Matt: That’s awesome. Yeah, we were, Shane … We’re big fans of Letter 44 and I think we were trying to find out as much as we could and we found a website with you and music and we’re like, “Man, I had no idea that Charles Soule was that involved in music,” and our CEO, David, he went to Julliard. He sings so, that was a funny like connection that we had in the office.

Charles: Yeah. I love music. I’ve loved writing it. I’ve loved playing it. I love listen … You know, all the things you can do with music, I like doing and I hope that it will continue to be a part of my life in a big way going forward. Sometimes I have a lot going on, like I still have the law stuff happening and everything and so, it’s hard to find time to do everything on a high level but, I’m doing my best.

Kara: Do you find that your interest in music and your musical influences … Do you find those coming through to you in your writing sometimes?

Charles: Yeah. I tend to … Now that I’ve been writing a lot very quickly, I have all these shortcuts in my head kind of. Just sort of process things that I think all writers do, like the way they approach a story and the way they break stories and think about them so now, in my head, a lot of times I will think of the song of a story, right? If it sounds right almost more than … That’s not anything I can really articulate other than I know what it should sound like so, if it sounds like that as I’m outlining it or thinking about it, then it’s right. If it sounds discordant or off, then I probably need to do some more work.

Matt: We usually ask the creator and it probably won’t work in your instance because you’re so busy but, what you read in your free time or what you recommend to other people?

Charles: I read a lot actually. I have a Nook, an e-reader and I live in New York City, which means I’m on the subway a lot and doing things like that so I find time to read tons of stuff. Right now, I’m rereading the Joe Abercrombie fantasy, The Blade Itself books. The First Law I think is what they’re actually called, sort of as inspirational research for something else I’m working on. We’ll see.

Matt: Yeah.

Charles: I just read the new Neil Stevenson book, Seven Eves, which I thought was pretty cool. As far as comics go, I read a lot of stuff. I’m fortunate to have a lot of friends in the business now who are putting out amazing books so, they sometimes send me stuff early. I get to check it out.

Matt: Nice.

Charles: I think Brian K. Vaughan just put out a book that I have the first issue of at home, Paper Girls.

Matt: It was great, yeah.

Charles: I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but, I’m dying to read that one. Yeah, there’s so many great … I feel like we’re in such a great time for comics right now. It’s fantastic.

Matt: We are.

Charles: It’s a good time to be alive.

Kara: What a time. What a life.

Charles: It is.

Matt: I appreciate you coming to take the time out to speak with us. We’re big fans. We love your books.

Charles: Yeah. You guys still have Strong Man up on the Submit website, don’t you?

Matt: That is correct. We do, yeah. I was drawn to Strong Man. Obviously, Lucha wrestling. I’m a huge wrestling fan.

Charles: All right.

Matt: It was … I can’t remember what my pitch was for Strong Man. It was like if Charles Bronson was a Lucha wrestler and was like on a revenge spree.

Charles: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Matt: What’s not to love about that?

Charles: Yes. That was one of the first books I ever had published. It came out through SLG back in 2009 and then there’s a volume 2, which actually the only place you could get it now is on comiXology. If you want some of my early and slightly less early work, the only place you can get it now is on comiXology Submit. It looks gorgeous and reads really nicely and you should check it out.

Matt: I know. I was so stunned when I was browsing the Submit books one afternoon and I was like, “My god, what is this piece of magic that is Luchador wrestling and comic books?”

Charles: I’m glad it worked that well for you, man.

Matt: That’s my external dialogue when I’m in front of the computer. “My god.” It’s very creepy but, I wish you great success and hopefully the rest of the con goes well for you.

Charles: Yeah, you guys too. Thank a lot.

Matt: Thanks.

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