Ethan: Hey Chris, how is it going in Dr. McNinja land right now? What about Galaga? How is it trying to keep up with two webcomics at the same time, like me? I currently have no backup pages. Everything on my websites is everything I have drawn. In between answering and asking you questions right now I am working on tomorrow’s Axe Cop page. It’s terrifying. Do you ever cut it that close? You seem like you really have it together.
Chris: Ha ha, oh my goodness. Ethan, I am barely holding it together! Doing two comics at once is nuts. After this question, I’m excited to finally have some time to go do the dishes. Yeah, I’m pretty much in the same place as you as far as (not) being ahead.
But sometimes I actually kind of like cutting it that close. Not often! Usually I prefer having everything planned out ahead. But sometimes I find that making decisions on the fly can lead to some really bonkers stuff, storywise. And then it’s fun to justify it. I started studying improv comedy a little under a year ago, and that’s one of the big core things of improv: when you say or do something really weird or funny or bizarre, you have to figure out a way for it to make logical sense in whatever world you’re operating in. It turns out that’s what I’ve been doing with Dr. McNinja all along. So if I have to make up something on the spot, because it’s Monday and a page is due, I trust that I’ll be able to make it look like it’s something that was meant to be there all along.
Ethan: I am also trying to work on the Axe Cop TV series, and I have another show that is currently optioned at Cartoon Network that they want a bunch of ideas and art for. It is insane trying to hop from one project to the next, often in the same day. On top of all that I’m trying to get married and become an instant dad. I do think that the projects flow differently when they are down to the wire like that, like you said. Though sometimes I feel like I rush them a little too much. I guess you can now follow up and return a volley question. My head hurts because my Cintiq is not working and I have a ton of work to turn in that is due today.
Chris: While this all sounds pretty overwhelming, I have to congratulate you! It all sounds super exciting. Especially that marriage coming up! It seems like you and I both had to pay for our weddings ourselves, and it seems both of us had to come up with some interesting ways to pull it off.
My wife and I were engaged for a few years with no way to pay for a wedding, until under weird circumstances our dog won $5K in a cutest dog contest. We took that money and put it immediately toward a down payment and were able to set a date. Income from regular work, some gifts from parents, and family connections to vendors took care of most of the rest, but I remember there was a point where I was afraid we were going to have to postpone the wedding just because it didn’t look like we were going to be able to make the final payment on the venue and catering. And then I made Dr. McNinja fridge magnets, and that covered it. There was a moment during my reception when I was like, “Man. A cute dog and fridge magnets did this.”
Can you talk a bit about how it’s going with your own creative fundraising with Axe Cop Gets Married?
Ethan: Yes, this is the most stressful and wonderful time of my life. I have an insanely full plate, but I am thrilled with everything on it.
I might need to try doing the fridge-magnet thing. I am sort of in that same position. We have our final payment for venue and catering coming up and it’s going to be tough to pull off. I’m working on more last-minute creative fundraising ideas. I think that is the definition of trying to make a living making webcomics: constantly coming up with creative fundraising ideas so you don’t have to get a normal job.
I’m going to pepper this paragraph with links, so I hope you can cope with how whorish that might feel. The Axe Cop Wedding campaign has gone fairly well. I do feel like I could have run it better, but I just sort of dove in. I’m selling a lot of stuff that is only going to be available to people who participate in the campaign, so there will be an exclusive sketchbook, a screen print, an Axe Cop wedding invitation, and other stuff to make it unique. Since Axe Cop is getting married in the current story line, I tried doing this cute little thing where you buy Axe Cop something on his gift registry and that gets you varying bundles of stuff. You can even be in the audience at Axe Cop’s wedding. One guy bought the highest-tier item (the golden mustache) and got to be made into an actual character in the comic. It will be the last time I do something like this before the TV show hits in July. First thing I’ll be doing after I get back from my honeymoon is packing and mailing orders.
Just before my recent trip to New York with Malachai, I was opening boxes of Axe Cop comics from Dark Horse I had ordered to sell at conventions, and I didn’t even realize I had my own small box of Timefists. It was like Christmas. I threw one in my bag for the plane ride. Malachai found it and devoured the entire thing in one night. He’s eight. When I got home, I was at my fiancée’s house and the book was sitting out. Her three-year-old (my soon-to-be stepson) opened it and gazed in amazement, like he was looking into the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. He was mesmerized by all the ninjas and dinosaurs and gorillas and pirates…Anyway, I’m just curious: are you aware of how appealing your stuff is to kids, and have you ever thought about making something aimed at kids?
Chris: Oh, man! I’m really happy to hear Malachai is still into Dr. McNinja. And I have to say, this is the first I’ve heard of anybody as young as three enjoying it! But that’s a really interesting question. I’m honestly only vaguely aware of the children in my audience. I’m always delighted to hear about it, but it always seems to be a special case, where a cool parent or cousin or babysitter or something lets a kid in their life in on McNinja.
That said, I am working on a (not Dr. McNinja) middle-grade fantasy novel, so I guess the answer is yes!
Okay, I feel like we have danced around the big, awesome TV show now enough that people probably think it’s weird we’re not hitting it head on. I know it’s taking up a lot of your time, and I’m really curious what sort of duties you have over there.
Ethan: Yes, the TV show. I think I’ve avoided it because I am a part of that vast group of people who think Dr. McNinja should have been a TV show a long time ago. You have a certain number of very militant fans who feel the same way, and they often express it in the comments sections of the videos showing previews of the upcoming Axe Cop TV show. It’s exciting to see it really coming together. The first episode has almost totally been completed and it is a thrill to sit and watch it. I will admit, I had my doubts early on that the TV show would be able to retain the feel of the comic, but I think it does. It also does it in a totally different way because it is a different style and we don’t use narration (I use narration in the comic to avoid about two hundred times more drawing).
The TV show takes up a lot of my time when it is in the writing phase. During those times it is literally a full-time job (a really fun one). I work in the writers’ room and I’ve been impressed with how much of my input gets implemented and taken seriously. They don’t have to listen to me—they licensed the show; they can do what they want. I get to be part of the process, and that has been a lot of fun. Often at the end of the day we have a list of questions for Malachai, so we put him on a conference call or I call him when I get home and get answers. There is a lot of new material on the show, but most of it has either come from or been run by Malachai.
Outside of writing, I go in for a just-about-weekly meeting to check out the progress on animation and especially character designs. There are some amazing character-design guys working on this show and taking all my tossed-together character designs to the next level. It’s pretty cool to see the things my brother and I came up with reenvisioned with so much thought put into it.
It amazes me that, with the massive audience you’ve been able to build online, you haven’t had a TV show yet. What has been your experience in that arena? I think Hollywood is afraid of webcomics. They had to be convinced to go to paper comics for their ideas, but they seem to have only begun to take webcomics seriously. I think the moment a webcomic becomes successful in a medium like TV, they will be all over it, but people in Hollywood are terrified of risks (rightfully so, because they are making massive investments). Do you think webcomics are stigmatized by the broader entertainment industry?
Chris: Man, I had no idea McNinja readers were being comment punks. I am really upset to hear that.
HEY, COMMENT PUNKS. ARE YOU READING THIS? LEAVE THE NICOLLE BROS ALONE. THEY ARE GOOD DUDES AND DESERVE A GOOD TV SHOW, AND OTHER THINGS THAT MIGHT BE NICE ON TV DON’T FACTOR INTO IT.
Anyway, yes, various network executives have decided over the course of my career that Dr. McNinja should not be on television. The last attempt at pitching to Adult Swim was probably my best shot, as two creators of some very popular TV shows went to bat for me, and we developed a pretty great pitch together, and it still didn’t work out. And we had the lovely Dr. McNinja Dark Horse trades to hand them too, so I don’t think the webcomic thing factored in at all. My first go-round in Hollywood, I was partnered with a production company that was trying to sell it, and this was before there were any Dr. McNinja books, and they actually printed their own, just to give to TV people. If you want some rare Dr. McNinja merchandise, a copy of one of those comics is it. Even I haven’t even seen one in person.
Anyway, I think it’s officially time to produce a cartoon on my own. I’m just about done with the script, and I’m starting to talk to some animation-industry friends to see who I can work with.
I love hearing about behind-the-scenes-type stuff like what you’ve laid out here! That creative process just sounds like a blast. I saw the most recent trailer, and it looks amazing. And that cast is, of course, incredible. Hearing Peter Serafinowicz say he’s going to make Axe Cop poop himself to death is THE BEST.
I will let the readers in on a little secret now, and that is that we have been doing this interview over the course of a week, sending off questions in between our various projects. I’m curious to check in with what you mentioned earlier in the interview! Did you fix your Cintiq and hit your deadlines? And what do you have on your plate for the rest of this week, or next week? Or YEAR?
Ethan: Ha ha, well, to be fair, the majority of McNinja readers I have encountered have been awesome. In fact, I’d say a large portion of committed Axe Cop fans were McNinja fans who discovered Axe Cop when we did that fateful crossover.
Yeah, I did manage to hit my deadline, sort of. They gave me an extra day on it. On top of my two webcomics I was working on an optioned TV show pitch for Cartoon Network. It’s about fifteen pages, full color. Lots of material to write and make up. Plus coloring, and I hate coloring. It’s just so much work.
Currently, as I answer this question, I’m waiting to go into another writing-room session to punch up an Axe Cop script. Today and tomorrow I’ll be working on writing Axe Cop in the writing room, which means I’ll be drawing comics in the wee hours of the night.
This year…Well, I have two optioned shows at Cartoon Network that are not based on any of my stuff anyone knows about. The Axe Cop TV series launches in July, so it will be interesting to see where that takes things. I plan to continue to release Bearmageddon at a steady weekly rate, unless an opportunity presents itself to focus on it and get it done. It’s probably going to be a 250–300 page story. Also, Malachai and I are working on another Axe Cop miniseries for Dark Horse to follow up President of the World as I continue to update the site with the Axe Cop Gets Married story line and new Ask Axe Cop episodes. We have a President of the World trade coming out soon (which will be Axe Cop Volume 4), and another web collection is also in the works (volume 5). I also plan to be an awesome husband and stepdad—not saying I will succeed, only saying that this year is my first year as a family man and I’m more excited about that than anything else in this current paragraph.
I’ll just bounce that question right back at you. I know you have another McNinja omnibus coming out, and now I know you are planning to produce your own animated series punk-rock style. Any other plans for the coming year? Your beard seems to be coming along nicely. Do you plan to keep letting it take over your neck and body, or are there any plans to tame or restrain it in any way?
Chris: That all sounds awesome! Except the coloring, of course. I don’t mess with that nasty stuff.
To answer your question back to me, I am thrilled to say that all the dishes in my apartment are now clean. Today I’m drawing the final strip of Galaga season 1. Next week I immediately start up on the filler strips titled WHAT IF Christopher Hastings WROTE Galaga, and then when that’s done, start drawing season 2. And of course Dr. McNinja is updating three times a week too.
I recently wrote half of A+X #8, which comes out the first week in May, and it features Deadpool having a fun little escapade with Hawkeye. I don’t believe those two have ever teamed up before (one time Bullseye pretended to be Hawkeye and teamed up with Deadpool, but that doesn’t count), so it was really fun to write. I was a very mean writer and made Reilly Brown draw some very difficult scenes, but, oh boy, does he kill it.
I’m really pleased to have the Dr. McNinja Omnibus coming out this summer! Very soon after making Dr. McNinja in color, I wanted to re-collect all the earlier black-and-white material into one inexpensive book. Growing up, getting into comics, I loved the Marvel Essentials books and the Dark Horse omnibus collections because they’re these 500-some-page bricks, and don’t cost much at all. It was a great way to get into new characters, and I wanted to be able to offer that with Dr. McNinja. And we did!
I think we’ve covered all my current projects! The middle-grade novel I’m working on is very different than other stuff I’ve done, so we’ll see how that pans out. I can’t really say anything about it right now, so that’s pretty boring! Same deal with punk-rock cartoon. Sorry!
As far as my beard, I actually get it trimmed regularly, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I think I can attribute much of its power to getting it skillfully trimmed by a professional. When I cut it myself, it was like I was just throwing clippers into a dark forest. I had no idea what was going on.
DHC: Haha! Thank you both for an entertaining interview once again. So great to have you two working on such amazing and fun projects. Keep up the good work!
Don’t forget to check out the Axe Cop Wedding campaign and the release of Chris’ new Dr. McNinja Omnibus out this July!