By Matt McGloin • 7/1/09

Sam Johnson Is All Geeked Out

Sam Johnson spoke with CosmicBookNews for our Independent spotlight feature, "Declaration of Independents," on his upcoming project, Geek-Girl .

Johnson, who also wrote Gold Town and Cabra Cini: Voodoo Junkie Hitwoman shares why he writes with a female lead, discusses some of his influences and even offers advice to up and coming creators.

CosmicBookNews: How did Geek-Girl come about?

Sam Johnson: Awhile back, Image imprint Shadowline ran a Who Wants to Create a Super-Heroine contest. Geek-Girl was one of the ideas I came up with for this. The concept wasn’t as fully realized as it is now; since then it’s been developed-- strengthened as a result of going through Small Press Idol last year, where it did pretty well--and is now rock-solid and firing on all cylinders.

CosmicBookNews: Are the inspirations for the characters actual people?

Sam Johnson: Not really, the inspirations come from a couple of places; one being TV shows everyone’ll be familiar with where you have over-privileged girls living somewhat superficial lifestyles… a version of that world is where Ruby (a.k.a. Geek-Girl) comes from and I thought it’d be interesting to throw a curveball into that mix, where suddenly this ‘cool kid’ is rendered an outcast among her clique.

CosmicBookNews: What can you tell us about Ruby Kaye?

Sam Johnson: She’s a student hottie at Acorn Ridge college in Maine--who gets what she wants. When she overhears about her college’s resident brainiac Trevor having invented these super-tech glasses, she decides she wants them. And manipulating Trevor and his friend Jeff by their libidos--with the aid of alcohol--she manages to win them in a game of Strip Poker; granting her flight, super-strength, and--due to a flaw in the glasses' programming--super-klutziness.

CosmicBookNews: What made you decide to do a "cool" person becomes a "geek" - sort of an opposite Peter Parker?

Sam Johnson: While it wasn’t a contrived choice: as it usually tends to be a geek who’s awarded coolness and hero-worship by their powers, I thought it’d be interesting to flip that and take someone who’s ‘Little Miss Popular’ and have her status stripped from her by her powers (the ways the glasses affect her go beyond just making her klutzy--but that’s something that will unfurl).

Then she can see who her real friends are and see what’s really important to her… Doing something worthy or being one of the ‘cool kids.’

CosmicBookNews: Who are you working with on Geek-Girl?

Sam Johnson: There’s a standalone Geek-Girl #0 that’s in the can, bar the coloring being completed. This is illustrated by Sally J. Thompson. Sally’s work is usually more slice-of-life than GG, but she stepped up, and her style fits this issue well as it establishes Ruby in her ‘world of clique’ and leads her into the world of super-heroics.

Sally also draws a very cute Ruby.

Following this one-shot, sometime later there’ll be a 4-issue Geek-Girl mini-series (currently in the works), which throws Ruby headlong into the world of ‘tight ‘n’ capes’--pitting her against a villain of massive--and growing--power who takes down someone of huge stature in Maine’s ‘tights’ community right off the bat. It’s gonna be a real baptism of fire for Ruby.

CosmicBookNews: Who have you collaborated with in the past?

Sam Johnson: A bunch of great artists, Anthony Peruzzo on Gold Town; Bruno Letizia (who ‘gives great horror’) on the debut of my Cabra Cini: Voodoo Junkie Hitwoman; Alwyn Talbot (son of Bryan Talbot), who’s done work for DC; I’ve had artists that have flaked on me--as everyone’s experienced--but I’ve had artists (such as the above) who’ve really delivered.

CosmicBookNews: Most of your books seem to have a female lead, any particular reason why?

Sam Johnson: I enjoy writing strong female characters and feel the comics market for these hasn’t been fully realized; and this is something I’ve built a specific venue for at my www.fanbabes.com, both to promote my books and other people’s. GG seems to have caught people’s imaginations, and I’m hopeful that Ruby will find a firm place in the canon of established super-heroines.

CosmicBookNews: What made you want to write and publish comic books? As a writer, was it always "comic-book writer?"

Sam Johnson: Very early on I toyed with the idea of being a journalist, but I needed the creativity, and as for ‘why comics--?’ While I’ve done an MA in Creative Writing for Film & TV, comics are my passion--and part of the appeal of them for me is the continuity, and having characters and their relationships grow over a series. You can’t do that so much in movies, and while you can do it in TV, you wouldn’t have as much control, and you also wouldn’t have another element that appeals so much to me about comics--and that’s having a shared universe.

CosmicBookNews: You came in second place in Wizard's Talent Search contest. Can you tell us a little about that?

Sam Johnson: This was during the ‘90s ‘boom’ period: Wizard magazine ran this contest for Malibu Comics who were building their Ultraverse super-hero line at the time (the Shazam!-esque Prime being the most memorable and successful of the books). You had to write a filler story outline for one of their books, I submitted three, and one of them landed me joint-second place.

Soon after that, Malibu were bought up by Marvel and nothing more came of it--I did get every Ultraverse super-hero book they’d published as a prize, though.

CosmicBookNews: Who are your influences?

Sam Johnson: One of my biggest influences is Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol; the outright bizarreness and inventiveness of that has been a huge inspiration to me. Warren Ellis is another--what he did on Thunderbolts was great--and basically the foundation for what’s going on in the Marvel Universe now: which I’m really enjoying. Get past the implausibility of Norman Osborn having been granted the position of phenomenal power he now has, and you have exciting and interesting times in the MU.

CosmicBookNews:Do you follow any particular books?

Dark Avengers is my favorite book at the moment, and I’m enjoying many of the other Dark Reign-related books, too.

CosmicBookNews: You mention you would like to do work for the “Big Two” if you had your choice what would it be and why?

Sam Johnson: Doom Patrol for DC.

A few years back, I actually had some discussion with Matthew Clark--who’s illustrating the new DP series that’s out in August--about pitching a DP series to DC, as we’re both huge fans. The timing wasn’t right, though, as DC were giving it a rest after the unsuccessful last run. It looks to be in great hands with Keith Giffen writing and Clark illustrating this new series, though, and I’d love a shot at an arc or an issue if Keith ever needs a lay-down.

As for Marvel, as I say, I’m digging what they’ve got going on there and I’d love to take on any number of their books. And while we’re on Marvel, on April 1^st, I ran a mock-press release for a Spider-Man/Geek-Girl crossover; a story in which Ruby and her college arch-nemesis über-bitch Karin Carpenter go back in time to when Peter was ‘Puny Parker’--contrasting with Ruby’s flip on that; and Norman Osborn gets on the wrong end of Karin’s acerbic tongue--leading to her getting on the wrong end of the Green Goblin’s glider! Despite putting a few clues in there that this was a hoax, a lot of people fell for it and dug the idea. Joey Q, if you’re listening…?

CosmicBookNews: What can you tell us about getting your first comic book work published, how it came about, challenges?

Sam Johnson: Timing and contacts have been very important in my experience.

I had the aforementioned Gold Town story (‘Little Janice Wants to be a Star’)-- about a guy looking for his daughter, who’s moved to this city be a movie star and got sucked into the world of porn--picked up to go in a chunky anthology…and when it looked like things weren’t coming together with that, Anthony (the artist) heard Joe Pruett--who runs Desperado and published Negative Burn (which was one of the longest running anthologies)--was looking for stuff, through Joe’s brother--and via that, the story got published; and some other things have come about in similar ways.

CosmicBookNews: Do you have any advice for up and coming indie creators?

Sam Johnson: Yeah, get your name out, get your work out. Get a website, a blog, MySpace, facebook, Twitter if you like… participate on forums. I spent a long time just coldly submitting stuff to publishers and then things not coming together either due to an artist flaking or a publisher folding. The more places you’re known at, the more chances you’ve got of something like the example I’ve given above happening.

I’d also recommend entering Small Press Idol. I was a contestant there last year and a Judge there this year; and having been on both sides, I can tell you it’s an invaluable experience in developing your comics ideas and marketing skills. The latter of which--unless you’re incredibly lucky--are essential if you want to have a chance at making a hit indy book.

CosmicBookNews: What are Sam Johnson's plans for the future?

Sam Johnson: Well, a character of mine I mentioned earlier--Cabra Cini: Voodoo Junkie Hitwoman-- will be taking on Hispanic werewolf ‘El Hombre Lobo’ in
H!M Comics’ IF-X Halloween issue. And, tying-in with this, her origin story will be reprinting in Wild Wolf Entertainment’s chunky horror anthology Wicked Tales, also this October. So October’s gonna be ‘Cabra Cini month,’ and you can check out more on Cabra and friend-request her--and get more info on those when it comes in--at www.myspace.com/cabravoodoo

And then it’s Geek-Girl #0. I want to make sure everything’s absolutely as good as it can be for the book before it comes out (hence my recent decision to go full-color with it), but you can get all updates on its release, plus Previews, and stuff on her Rogues Gallery at www.facebook.com/geekgirlcomic or www.myspace.com/geekgirlcomic There’s an official Geek-Girl website also in the works; the above will let you know when that’s up and running, and they also link to Ruby’s facebook group, where if anyone has any more questions for me on Geek-Girl, I’ll be happy to answer them!

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