Powell Looks to the Goon's Past in Chinatown

by Wil Moss, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 2/13/2007

The Goon, the hero of Eric Powell's satirical horror comic, has faced all kinds of tough situations—zombie priests, prison, giant Mexican lizards—but now he's up against two new challenges: controversy and his past.

The controversy goes back to issue 18 of The Goon, which was supposed to be a story called "Satan's Sodomy Baby." As Goon creator Eric Powell tells it, was threatening to protest the story, so Powell ran another story in issue 18 instead, promising one day to tell the dark tale. Now a never-to-be-reprinted one-shot with the word "sodomy" "bleeped" out, "Satan's **** Baby," will be published in April, a story that Dark Horse says is "the single most offensive, controversial, and flat-out loathsome comic" it has ever published.

As for the Goon's past, that will be dealt with in this fall's original graphic novel Chinatown. While Powell is keeping the story specifics under wraps, it looks to be a story serious in nature, quite a departure for a bookthat won the Eisner for Best Humor Publication in 2005.

Powell talks about why he's publishing Chinatown as a graphic novel instead of telling it in the regular Goon comic and discusses the whole "sodomy" brouhaha.

PW Comics Week: Tell me a little about the Chinatown graphic novel. It's about a pivotal point in the Goon's backstory, right?

Eric Powell: Yes, it's the big backstory. And it's a big departure in tone from the other Goon books. I take this one completely seriously. Played completely straight. That makes me a little nervous because I don't really know how the readers will respond to that. But that's the way the story had to be done.

PWCW: And you're painting it?

EP: It's mixed media like the other Goon books. Some painted stuff but pen and ink, too.

PWCW: What's the story about?

EP: I don't want to talk about it too much. But I will say it involves a woman and tells how the Goon got the scars on the side of his face.

PWCW: Why is this story being told as a graphic novel instead of in the regular comic?

EP: Because I didn't want to break up any of the dramatic beats. [The Goon], for the most part, has been absurd and fun. Now I'm giving them something different. I felt the readers would need to be able to read the story as a whole to really give it a chance.

PWCW: What was it like seeing so many other creators like Patton Oswalt, Humberto Ramos, Roger Langridge and Mike Ploog handle your character in the recently concluded Goon Noir miniseries?

EP: Amazing. I loved it. We gave those guys free rein to do whatever they wanted, and it looks like they all had a lot of fun.

PWCW: Are you working on or planning anything else currently outside of The Goon, like 2005's Billy the Kid's Old-Timey Oddities miniseries?

EP: [Billy the Kid artist] Kyle Hotz and I already have the next Billy idea, but we both need to find the time to work it in. And I have something big coming up that involves a superhero book, but I'm not allowed to speak of that yet.

PWCW: The whole "Satan's Sodomy Baby" protest seemed like a joke cooked up by you and Goon letter-page maestro Dwight T. Albatross. What's the real scoop? Was there such a story planned and deadlines got the better of you, or was the whole protest thing just a stunt to drum up interest?

EP: It's no joke to me. And deadlines had nothing to do with it. In fact, I had to kill myself to put out another issue to take the place of the "Satan Baby" book. Some people lost their minds because it had the word "sodomy" in the title. It's pretty ridiculous. The issue itself is racy, but in all truth it's pretty tame by South Park standards.

PWCW: So what is being done to prevent backlash over the "Satan's Baby" story? You're taking "sodomy" out of the title?

EP: Yes, we're taking the word "sodomy" out of the title because the distributor informed us it would cause problems crossing borders and things like that. And we're slapping warnings all over the cover. [PWCW note: Diamond Comics is also listing ordering information for it in its Previews Adult Supplement.]

PWCW: Okay. So now that you've been telling Goon stories for some time, does the character speak to you differently? How have things changed for you in telling these stories?

EP: The character has remained pretty constant to me. But all the story ideas I've been having lately have been taking a more serious slant. I don't know if I like that. I want to keep the book irreverent and fun. But that's the great thing about it. I can really pull off whatever I want with these characters.

PWCW: Do you have an idea how long the series will run, or is it indefinite? Do you know how Goon's story ends?

EP: No, I pretty much figure I'll be doing The Goon off and on until I can't draw anymore.