Coat Check

It takes all kinds to found a country. Someone's got to draft the Declaration of Independence, someone has to lead the army, and someone has to put on a black mask and skulk around the rooftops at night committing random acts of swashbuckling and daring do.

 

And in the world of The Black Coat, a miniseries set in 18th century New York City at the dawn of the Revolutionary War, that someone is Nathaniel Finch. He's a renaissance man in the mold of his friend Ben Franklin (but more buff); a scientist, businessman, newspaper editor and spy for the Knights of Liberty. Basically, he's a founding father who's not afraid to take off his belt to whip deserving asses with.

 

Readers met The Black Coat in his first miniseries, The Black Coat: A Call To Arms, which just shipped it's fourth and final issue. The series detailed the Coat's world and his first skirmishes with an evil much, much worse than the British—a mysterious group called simply The League. Among their number are a bandage-swathed man known as the Mummy and a murderous scientist known as The Butcher (who seems to be one-part Jack the Ripper and one-part Frankenstein).

 

This unique look at pre-Revolutionary War America comes from the fertile imagination of Ben Lichius, who co-wrote the mini-series with Adam Cogan and co-created the Black Coat with Italian artist Francesco Francavilla, whose lavish black and white art elevate the proceedings considerably.

 

Together the trio has crafted an action adventure story with a hero that feels familiar, but set in a refreshingly unexplored territory. With the first mini-series at an end, I took the opportunity to catch up with Lichius to see what's next for the coolest hero in a tri-corner hat.

 

Bam!Kapow!: As the four-issue mini-series draws to a close, what does the future look like for The Black Coat? Are there plans to do a trade collection at this point? Or a second mini-series or ongoing?

 

Ben Lichius: I wish I could answer "all of the above," but I'll have to settle for two out of three for now. We are planning on collecting all four issues of "A Call to Arms" into a trade. We'll probably be soliciting it around October and it should be out in early December.

 

And I am currently working on the script for the next mini. We're slating it for early next year. We left people with a lot of questions in our last issue. We're planning to keep the ball rolling and pick up where we left off with this next one.

 

BK!: How has response been from readers and critics? The genre you guys are working in (old fashioned, period piece swashbuckler) and the tone of the serie(straightforward, totally un-ironic) didn't exactly scream "Sure thing" at the outset.

 

Lichius: We've all been extremely pleased with the response we've gotten for the book. The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive and everyone I've talked to that's read it has enjoyed it. I don't think we could have asked for much more than that.

 

Personally, looking back, it's nice having a character that I created strike a chord with people so quickly. I would have enjoyed making the book anyway, but it's so much better knowing that BC has some fans out there.

 

BK!: How many Black Coat stories are there to tell? Do you guys have Nathaniel Finch's whole life mapped out at this point, or is it open-ended? It seems that one potential stumbling block that period pieces have is that the period comes with some time constraints (the Revolutionary War only lasted so long, for example).

 

Lichius: We don't have his whole life mapped out, but from my perspective, there's no end to the stories you could tell. The one we're working on now happens to deal with the start of the war, but before the war and after it, there's still a need for The Black Coat. He's a spy, but as long as there are strange and dangerous things threatening the Colonies, he's the man to stop them.

 

BK!: Can you tell us a little bit about the creation of the Black Coat? Where he came from, and what some of the influences were that went into him and his world? One of the things that I liked about it was how it felt familiar and new at the same time; like, I could feel the influence of old Hollywood movies, but more as inspiration than as outright source material, if that makes sense.

 

Lichius: It makes sense. I always feel that there's no shame in showing your influences. There are no new ideas, after all. You only run into problems when you do nothing more than copy or repeat something that people have already seen.

 

The Black Coat character comes from Hollywood serials of the '40s, like you said, and a mix of other characters and stories that reflect that kind of story telling. Zorro, Batman, James Bond, Indiana Jones, The Green Hornet, The Masked Marvel, Captain Blood, The Black Pirate, Scarlet Pimpernel—all have a swashbuckling romanticism about them that really appeals to me.

 

Francesco Francavilla, our artist, brings with him a real love for classic horror films. So the horror elements in the book and the look of the city really get the old-school Universal treatment from him.

 

BK!: And regarding the name of your hero, is it a reference to/play on the British as "Red Coats?"

 

Lichius: Yeah. I played around with the character for a while before hitting on the name. When I did, it seemed to fit pretty well.

 

BK!: Why the Revolutionary War era New York setting? It's certainly not a time and place one sees a lot of comics, or pop stories of any kind, set in.

 

Lichius: That's precisely why I think it works. As far as historical fiction goes, there's been a strange neglect for what is actually a fascinating and surprisingly modern place to tell a story. It's a time that's rich with everything you need to tell a good action-adventure story, everyone is already familiar with it, and it's THE most important period in the history of our country. It's just been so watered down by our seventh grade history books that no one thinks to do anything with it.

 

BK!: It's interesting that though the British and Colonies are on the verge of war, the real conflict in the series is between the Black Coat's team and the League. Is this why Nathaniel Finch and Ursula never threw in with General Washington and fought the British on the front lines? Did they have a more important, behind the scenes fight to win?

 

Lichius: I've always thought of Nathaniel Finch as a guy that would have signed the Declaration of Independence except that he had more important things to do. That said, he is working on behalf of the Continental Congress and fights for the new nation's liberty.

 

His goal is independence and battling the League is just a step in that process. In the next series, we start getting closer to the war and seeing how everything ties together. Readers should get a better idea of just how BC fits into the big picture.

 

And they may end up working with General Washington. We just haven't gotten that far yet…

 

BK!:  Does the historical setting require a lot of extra reference work, particularly when using real characters like Ben Franklin alongside fictitious ones?

 

Lichius: Yeah, it does. But that's the fun part. I like to have our facts straight and be as accurate as possible before we start breaking things.

 

Adam Cogan, our writer, has done a phenomenal job at this. He's dug up old newspaper articles and done lots of character research to make sure everything feels legitimate.

 

With characters like Ben Franklin, there are things that everyone knows about him, and we can't stray from those things, but there are lots of other things that people don't know. At those points, it's up to us to either teach people something new, or modify things a bit to suit the story.

 

When we decide to stray from the facts a bit, making it still seem believable is very important. To that end, Francesco does loads of research as well, putting in hours and hours of work before he even sets pencil to paper. The end result is an authenticity that gives the readers the sense that, yeah, this could have happened. That's what we're really after.

 

BK!: Can you walk us through the creative process a little bit?  How did you and Adam work together, did you both plot and both script? And how did the initial creation process work, was there a lot of back and forth between you and Francesco?

 

Lichius: Since Adam's been gracious enough to work with me on BC (he's a busy guy with two or more other comics in production at any given time), we are always bouncing ideas around. So the plotting really happens as we do that. I drive it a bit with some editorial and continuity stuff, but basically it's just us playing with our toys and coming up with something we both like.

 

I wrote the first draft of issue one and Adam scripted out the rest of the first series. For the next series, I'll be doing all the script work, but Adam and I are still doing all of the plotting together.

 

On the creator side, I developed the character and had done some concept sketches for it, but when Francesco came on board, he really brought the world and the rest of the characters to life. The character is fun, but Francesco makes everything else believable and gives the book credibility—thanks again to his research, hard work, and imagination.

 

BK!: What's it been like working with Francavilla in general? This seems to be one of those series where the first thing to grab readers' attention is the visuals, rather than the words.

 

Lichius: Comics being a visual medium, I'd say that's true of every book—for better or worse. In our case, Francesco's work has definitely been grabbing reader's attentions for the better. He's great to work with and has a depth to his talent that you don't see very often. He's going places. No doubt about it.

 

BK!: Sometimes black and white comics are done in black and white because they look better that way, sometimes simply because they're cheaper. The lack of color certainly fits your story and hero; can you see full-color Black Coat stories in the future, or is the current palette integral to the book?

 

Lichius: We're not opposed to color. Francesco's preferred palette is black and white and it suits the book. There's nothing to say we might not try color at some point, though.

 

BK!: You've worked in the video game industry as well as the comics industry. Could you see a Black Coat videogame?

 

Lichius: Heh. Of course! We're wrapping up a game pretty soon so I've got a team ready to go. I just need to find someone with three million dollars to throw away!

 

 

For more on The Black Coat, click to www.the-black-coat.com.