We got a chance to chat with James Patrick, the creator of the upcoming comic, The Monsters of Jimmy Crumb. The comic takes a young Jimmy Crumb on a blood-soaked adventure of revenge as he invokes urban legends to do his dirty work. Patrick has been working in the comic industry for some time. He’s been a part of Batman, Star Trek and his own comic, Death Comes to Dillinger.
Heres’ the interview:
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to talk about your Kickstarter project, The Monsters of Jimmy Crumb. Everything I’ve seen from it looks amazing, and I’m hoping I can put this article out in time to give you some money for that extra push at the end! Let me get to the questions!
Cool man. No worries on the backing. I appreciate the interview.
You know, I think if you boil it down there are always three possible reasons anyone does it, and
we did it for all three. The first is, of course financing. A Kickstarter – even if you have the money to produce a book or part of the money and even if you have backing — still either raises money
or puts money back into it from the get go. It’s a piece of the pie of the budget or the pie itself. Secondly, is distribution advantages. Whether it be the financial gains of eliminating the half to two thirds that a distributor takes and putting that savings in your pocket or connecting with your audience in all manners, distributing yourself has advantages. And thirdly, it’s another marketing outlet. I mean, the response we’ve gotten has been fantastic, the news spreading of it, even the people who don’t buy it are being made aware of it. It all adds up, for us and in this case, as Kickstarter being one more tier of the release of Jimmy Crumb and which exploits these things. It’s a piece of a larger whole that is the production, marketing, and distribution of Jimmy Crumb.
2) What was your inspiration for this VERY unique concept?
Slasher movies. They’re so fun, but generally not great. I don’t know where the seed started, butsomewhere along the way, since urban legends have spawned movies like the Burning, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, I decided to tap those actual legends and thereby have the very archetypes which are now popular from those movies. The campfire tales of the killer Cropsey inspired the Burning and Friday the 13th, Japanese and Cambodian legends of people dying in their sleep for no reason inspired Freddy Krueger, so we go back and tap those. And I put them in a story I’d like to read. I put them in – hopefully – a character-driven story with an active protagonist who has choices to make, has an arc, etc. A story about a bunch of kids being slaughtered isn’t interesting to me. A story about a character who uses these monsters to slaughter because of something tragic and who is on a path of destruction is interesting to me.
3) What are some of your favorite comics of all-time, and current reads?
Well, I’ll give the obvious answers. I love Watchmen, Born Again, Akira, Preacher, Sandman. Some not-so-always-used answers for all-time are Barry Ween, Arsenic Lullaby, Surrogates. Currently, I try to stay on top of DC – I do love the characters, but also because that’s where some of work revolves. Waid’s Daredevil and I like Kot’s Secret Avengers right now.
4) You’ve worked on some pretty big named comic book titles, whats the difference when you’re starting your own comic
studio and working for yourself?
The direction of the money 🙂 One way, you get to buy things. The other way, you have to sell things. 21 Pulp is a financed company and I’m just a part of it, so that’s nice, but when it came to
books like Death Comes to Dillinger at the start of my career, I was selling my comic collection to produce it.
5) Any plans to hit up comic conventions this year and spread the word?
I’ll try. I do a lot of local cons like River City in Marietta, which is awesome. I book a lot of stuff last minutes, or just show up to network like I did at Baltimore last year. But I’m really bad at it because of other life stuff. My kids have baseball tournaments and soccer games
Fans of slasher movies, violence and people who are general heathens of society.
7) I know there’s Bloody Mary, Cropsey (which I’m guessing is because you’re a big fan of The Burning), and Nightmare Killer. Any plans on adding more to the horror lineup if things go well with the comic?
By the way, Cropsey is the actual legend and they used it. He’s also the (or one of) legend that
inspired Friday the 13th, and there was some actual production shifts because Friday the 13th and The Burning were coming out close to each either. I took the legend, not the Burning’s
character, just in case any lawyers are reading. But back to your question – there are a couple more monsters in the first book which we haven’t revealed and there will be a new lineup for the sequel, if things go well.
It’s in the beginning stages, and we have other talent lined up, and we’re sort of going with whatever works and not trying to get ahead of ourselves right now. We are a studio, but we are also whatever we need to be – a publisher, a distributor, etc.. There was a time that was frowned at – but there are new models out there we want to utilize. Like Kickstarter. These things don’t have to be a desperation. They are tools which should be exploited, and we plan on exploiting every avenue which is best for our company. Well, I digressed there a tad. We have other books lined up 🙂
Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to talk about The Monsters of Jimmy Crumb and 21 Pulp. I can’t wait to see the finished project and I’m more than confident you’ll make the funds you need!
Thanks, man! I’d say, yeah, I’m confident we’ll get there, but pushing over that line and the more we have the better position we are. So keep it coming, people!
