Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, Creators Unleashed, Duane Swierczynski, dynamite, entertainment, Ex-Con, Keith Burns, tim bradstreet

"I Ran With It, Like A Dog In A Yard Chasing A Squirrel" – Duane Swierczynski Talks Ex-Con

Comic and crime writer Duane Swierczynski brings his new series Ex-Con to Dynamite's new Creators Unleashed line. Following the dark occult The Devilers by Joshua Hale Fialkov and the more intimate Terminal Hero by Peter Milligan, the line takes a turn into the crime genre as Swierczynski joins with Keith Burns and Tim Bradstreet to tell the tale of a con man getting conned.

BLEEDING COOL: This series is about an L.A. con man, Cody Pomeray, in the middle and late 80s before and after he goes to prison. Who is Cody before he is convicted and how is he changed by his time in prison?

DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI: Not to put too fine a point on it: before prison, he was a spoiled asshole. Cody was a narcissist who used a sensory gift (or defect) to prey on the rich. He was humbled in prison, and now that he's out, he more or less licking his wounds and trying to regroup. Only, the promise he made in the slammer nudges him back out into the wild. There's honestly not too much redeeming about Cody's character; I was thinking of Jim Thompson and his amazing, damaged pulp paperback "heroes" when writing him.

BC: Barnaby Creed keeps Cody alive while he's serving his sentence. Was this part of a long range plan or was Creed the type that picked folks who would then owe him later? What is their relationship like while they are in prison?

DS: I think Creed is always looking to build his stack of chits, but with Cody, it's a slightly different story. To say more about risk a big ol' SPOILER stick over this interview. And we're going to see some prison flashbacks down the line, so there's more to their relationship than what we see in issue #1.

BC: You are known as a crime writer but this is your first real crime story in comics. Why haven't you tried the crime genre in comics before and what is the difference if any in the approach to writing crime stories in comics as opposed to prose?

DS: Actually, the crime genre has been present in a lot of my mainstream comics work — Punisher Max, certainly, was a crime thriller, as well as Judge Dredd (at heart, a police procedural) and X (urban vigilante saga). But true; this is my first full-on crime comic. (Even though it has elements of a kind of "super power," with Cody's ability to read people's emotions.) As far as the difference between prose and comic crime stories — the biggest thing for me is the ability to dip into someone's head a lot more in prose, whereas with comics it's important to tell a visual story. Cody's all surface, so I honestly didn't miss dipping into his head. But I think comics are the perfect medium to see his ability to read someone's "lights," as he calls it.

BC: Do you think this new series might work as an entry point for your prose fans to get into your comic work and from there the comic industry in general or do you see the two worlds as mostly separate?

DS: Absolutely. There is some crossover, but for some reason a lot of rabid crime/mystery prose fans seem sheepish about picking up a comic book (even like Ed Brubaker), and vice versa. I keep trying to turn both sides to the other side, if you know what I mean.

BC: This is part of the Creators Unleashed line at Dynamite. What made you bring this book to Dynamite over some other publishers like Image more known for creator owned properties?

DS: The idea originated with Dynamite, so I wasn't shopping it around. (And actually, it's not a creator-owned property.) Nick Barrucci and Joe Rybandt essentially gave me a brief synopsis (guy comes out of prison owing a favor) and I ran with it, like a dog in a yard chasing a squirrel. I do have a few creator-owned stories in the pipeline, though…

BC: You have a very interesting art team on this book. What does Keith Burns bring to the table as an artist and how does that help expand what you are doing with the story? And after his long runs doing covers for The Punisher and Hellblazer, what's it like having a cover by Tim Bradstreet?

DS: Keith is amazing. Whenever he sends me a bunch of pages I'm in noir nerd heaven. Just received a bunch for #5 today, in fact, and they're stark and mean and so much fun.

And I've been a Tim Bradstreet fan ever since those Punisher covers. I tried to hang out with him a bit at his booth in San Diego last year, but he was in the middle of a long interview, so I ended up bothering Thomas Jane instead. Which was a little surreal, bothering one of the Punishers. At any moment, I thought he might try to kill me.

BC: For your comic fans who are used to your work on Judge Dredd, Punisher and Birds of Prey, what is it about Ex-Con that will make them want to pick it up?

DS: The sex. The profanity. The drugs. The booze. The bitterness. The rage. But most of all: the 80s, man. The fuckin' 80s.

For more on Ex-Con #1, click here.

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