At a comics convention, an early stages movie deal is something of a 300-pound gorilla—something everyone wants to discuss, but still tries hard not to jinx. In this industry we’ve seen countless optioning deals come and go, so when a creator announces that they’ve got the ball rolling on a project, it can be difficult to broach the subject.

The Goon creator, Eric Powell, while slightly apprehensive, seems fairly confident in a recent deal struck for his most famous creation. And really, the artist has every right to be. After all, he’s got David Fincher in his corner. A self-proclaimed fan of the Dark Horse  series, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button director has signed onto the project as a producer. Powell has begun working on treatments for the film, and, by all accounts, the early animation looks extremely promising.

In this second and final part of our interview with Powell, we discuss working for the Hollywood machine and what it’s like letting his creation go, ever-so-slightly, in order to explore mediums outside the insular comics world.

[Part One]

The old cliché is that the character writes itself. Is that the case with the Goon, or do you find yourself shaping him to fit what you’re interested in doing as a storyteller?

I think to a certain extent, the character writes himself. What I’m doing is coming up with a story and basically dropping the characters into it and it’s how they react to a certain scenario, that’s where the story comes from.

Have you attempted to drop them in a scenario that felt artificial? Are there ways they won’t bend?

Yeah, there are. I do a lot of weird stuff with them, put them in a lot of weird stories, but there are things that I’ve come up with, when I started writing and I’m like, “no, scratch that.” Sometimes you can play with that, too. You drop them in a scenario where they completely don’t make sense and play off of that. I have a project that we’re going to be announcing in the next month or so that’s very much that type of scenario.

Mike Mignola has a very tangible universe, but he lets other creators explore it. Is that something that interests you, or do you just want full control over your creations?

I don’t mind letting some other people come in and play, but I like it when the creator is really—kind of like when Paul Chadwick does Concrete. When Concrete comes out,  it’s always Paul Chadwick. That’s the way The Goon is going to be. I might bring other people in to help, like bringing Dave [Stewart] on to do colors. And there might be some other projects with other creators involved, but The Goon itself, I’m not going to turn that over to another artists. If The Goon book is coming out, I’ll be doing 90-percent of the work involved.

You’re working on The Goon film project right now.

Yeah.

In a sense, does it feel like you’re turning him over to other creators?

That’s such a different animal to me. They’re doing an adaptation of my comic, which I’m helping out with. But we’re adapting my comic and making it work in a different format. The comic is mine and always will be mine, so that doesn’t feel that weird to me. I actually like the idea of having a team take on the character, because I’m just so used to the idea of working in that room alone, and I’m the only one putting anything into it. I think it’s really fun and cool to have this big group of people with all of these ideas coming together and working toward making the film.

So you’re not losing any sleep over this?

No, it’s been great, so far. They’ve been really great about keeping me involved. I thought they’ve had some really great ideas. I’m working on the treatment for the story and [David] Fincher’s been very involved and had some great ideas, so I’m very happy with the way it’s been going.

Is the treatment an amalgamation of stories you’ve done in the past or an entirely different beast?

I would say it’s an amalgamation of the comic book as a whole and making it work in a movie format. Direct translation is not really possible.

There does seem to be a cinematic feel to some of your work. Is this more of an issue with storyline?

Storyline—because all of the issues of The Goon have been very episodic. Probably three-quarters of The Goon so far have been self-contained stories that have linked together to a bigger story. You can’t really take that and make a movie out of it, so we’re basically taking the material and staying very faithful to the characters and everything. We’re basically taking the whole concept of The Goon and contracting it into 90 minutes that we can make a film out of.

Ideally it’s such a strong character that it will translate to any other medium. Do you feel pretty confident in the Goon as a character?

I’m probably more confident—if we actually get the thing made, I’m probably more confident than I should be, because one, I think the characters themselves are funny and strong enough to really work. And I’ve seen the visuals—some of the test stuff that they’ve done, and I have absolutely no fear that it will look amazing. Those guys just do crazy spectacular work, and if we actually get the thing up on the screen, it’s going to look amazing. I know that. I have no doubt aobut it.

You’re still in that really tentative stage?

Yeah, they’re basically still pitching it to the studio. I don’t know how Hollywood works, but everybody talks about stuff that never ends up happening. But, all of the feedback I’m getting so far, it sounds pretty positive that we’re going to get the thing moving forward, but I like to stay cautiously optimistic.

Is the script finished?

No, I’m working on it.

How much say do you have in the script?

I’m taking input from Mike Richardson, from Dark Horse; Tim Miller, with the animation company; and David Fincher—the three producers along with myself. I’m basically laying the ideas out and taking feedback, and we’re all working together, trying to get the treatment the way we want it, and I’m working on the script at the same time.

Beyond collaboration, how different is the experience of writing a movie script.

It’s actually similar to writing a comic script, because you have to do a descriptive narrative with dialog. The major difference, really is that, when you’re writing a comic, you have to work with static panels, like still photographs. Whereas, when you’re writing a film script, you can actually have action going on that you couldn’t in a comic.

So it’s almost easier, in a sense?

Yeah, I think so.

And the collaborative aspect isn’t difficult, having worked alone for so long?

Not with these guys.  I’ve had collaborative efforts in comments, where people will throw out ideas.

But these guys are all fans.

Yeah. That’s what makes it so cool. They love the comic. They wanted to make the film from the comic. They get it. they understand that’s it’s this weird quirky thing, and we’ve got to keep it this weird, quirky thing. All of the input I’ve gotten—it goes without saying that David Fincher knows what he’s doing. So I’ve got complete trust in their judgement and their input. They’ve been pretty great to work with.

It’ll be interesting to see how these conventions change for you, as we get closer to the movie.

Yeah. It’ll be curious. Once there’s actually a timeline for the film, I think that’s when things will actually increase.

Are you excited for that inevitability?

I’m excited and kind of scared [laughs].

–Brian Heater

A skilled craftsman by any measure, Eric Powell has put in his time all over the industry, from more independent works to superhero franchises like Batman and Superman. The Lebanon, Tennessee-based artist is, however, most content to do things on his own terms, reveling in the rare manner of freedom afforded to him by his own Dark Horse series, The Goon, the ever-evolving tale of a classically-styled pipe wrench-wielding ruffian doing battle with whatever manner of strange and fantastic villianry the artist’s mind can concoct.

After nearly a decade, the series has become Powell’s major creative outlet, and the hard work has paid off in spades. The book has become one of Dark Horse’s most popular creator-owned works and has garnered Powell numerous awards, including a handful of Eisners. It’s also recently been optioned by David Fincher in hopes of being transformed into an animated feature.

We sat down with Powell at this year’s New York Comic Con to talk about his work in the industry and why all roads lead back to The Goon.

How many conventions do you come out to a year?

About four or five a year.

Any favorites, or do they all tend to blend together?

They all kind of blend together. I know lots of people don’t like San Diego because it’s so big, but I have to say, I love San Diego because it’s the one show, because it’s so big, that you feel like you’re doing something. You don’t feel like you’re stuck in a closet. There’s so much other media.

It’s the non-comic people who come by the booth. The ones who aren’t as familiar with the medium.

Yeah. It’s just cool to be there. And I love San Diego, the town.

Is it more difficult in the superhero shows—shows like Wizard World—to get people to pay attention to what you’re doing?

Yeah, it is. But that’s the case in the industry as a whole. It’s hard to get anyone to pay attention to you when you don’t have a superhero title coming out from Marvel or DC. But things have changed. I feel that, because more bookstores are getting involved and carrying comics and manga is making such a big impact, that the superhero genre is kind of losing its stranglehold and other types of material are getting looked it. It’s really exciting.

I read an interview with you some time ago, in which someone asked you what The Goon was about. You seemed to have a hard time describing it. Is that still difficult?

It is, but I have my standard answer now: “It’s a dark comedy about a street thug, in a world of monsters,” which doesn’t even begin to describe what the book is all about, but that’s my standard answer now, when people ask that question. Because it’s so all over the place and just any weird thing that comes out of my head, it’s hard to describe exactly what it is. It’s really something you have to read to really get, I think.

When you come to a show like this, you’re really selling yourself to passersby. That’s got to be difficult when you don’t have a straight ahead pitch—“it’s Superman meets Aquaman, meets Love & Rockets.”

Exactly. It doesn’t have that automatic hook, like, “I’m doing this book and it’s Spider-man versus zombies.” Everyone automatically understands that. I can’t really say The Goon is like The Matrix meets Indiana Jones. That’s how everyone tries to categorize what they’re doing, and with The Goon, I can’t really make those comparisons.

How did it evolve when you were putting the pieces together?

It still evolves. Because the one goal I had was that I was going to play to my strengths and do exactly what I wanted to do. And if you look at the book, for better or worse, that’s what I’ve done. The art is always changing and evolving, because I love playing with the medium and experimenting. And the stories go anywhere from completely absurd to, with Chinatown, overly dramatic and serious. I don’t plan on changing that. If I want to do Goon fighting giant robots, I’m gonna do that. If I want to do a serious love story, I’ll do that. I’m going to do whatever I want to do, and if people like it, that’s awesome.

I know you’ve done some stuff with the Marvels and DCs of the world, specifically the Bizarro book. Does that sort of thing appeal to you at all? Or are you surrendering too much creative control?

Yeah, I’ve been offered quite a few jobs in superhero books, but, for the most part, I turn them down, just because they’d take my away from doing The Goon. The amount of creative control I have in doing The Goon is the main reason. Because this is my job and I’m making a living off of it, but also, not to sound pretentious about it, I feel that I am an artist, so if I want to draw a big guy punching shit, I get more fulfillment out of that than I do working in the constraints of a superhero universe, where, if I want to do something completely off-the-wall, they tell me that it doesn’t fit with the rest of the universe.

It’s all by committee, basically.

Yeah. That’s their system, and that’s fine, but for me, that doesn’t work. I want to be able to do what I want to do. I want to tell the stories that I want to tell, and if I was working on a superhero book, I wouldn’t be able to do that.

[Concluded in Part Two]

–Brian Heater