Image Comics Community

I don't think we'll ever run out of ideas for The Coffin; it's such a broad concept. This new series will certainly be as diverse as the first, perhaps more so. We don't want to be constrained by the idea of a comic book publisher called Golden Nugget who put out all these weird superhero, mystery and science fiction comics. Certainly that's still the core of the series, but some of the issues go wildly off that track. We want to surprise our existing readers, whatever their expectations may be. I did plan to do something totally different for the first issue. It was written and drawn, then I guess I panicked a little. When we put out the first series, we didn't even know if we had an audience, so we followed our noses. This time around, I know we have a fan base out there, so I figured we should maybe play it a bit safer and start out with the story that most closely followed the concept from the original series. So our story of the psychotic clown and the overweight housebreaker who is searching for her missing daughter has now been put all the way back to issue six. I think it's the strongest story of the series, so I know we'll be going out on a high note.

Issue one now features the origin of the Shield of Justice, a character from the first series. Issue two is "Tales from the Haunted Jazz Club," where a beatnik version of Red Wraith hosts a night of storytelling. The theme for the stories is love and mutilation. A couple of these are adapted from horror stories I've had bubbling under for a while. One of them is adapted from a true case as told by Dr Frederick Treves, the man who discovered the Elephant Man. Issue three is based on a crazy plot of Shaky's, where the Red Menace, first seen in issue one, steals the USA's most treasured monuments and transforms them into a giant robot, which will lead an attack on the country by the Kommie Kill Kadre. That issue is very much in the vein of the old Simon and Kirby stories but with a meta-fictional element thrown in, of course. These are all standalone stories but there are aspects of each story that seem to cross over, and, once the series is finished, you'll see there was a lot more going on than is apparent on first reading.

Cool! Have you seen the "experience creativity" ads that Image has been running lately? The one with Shaky Kane where he declares that he "has never let reality get in the way of what i do" is not only cool, but Shaky looks like a dead ringer for the beatnik version of the red wraith in it. Think he's basing it on himself or am I just seeing things?

Hahaha! I love Shaky. Either that's Shaky from years ago or he's rocking a wig, haha. Shaky did this funny video on vimeo a while back.

http://vimeo.com/18418826

From the looks of it, the book got it some views. There was a link or comment about it on the back of the recent issue.



Shaky is definitely one of those guys that excite me whenever I see a new piece of art and makes me want to pick up a pencil and actually start drawing. It's rare for that to happen nowadays.