Legendary Comics recently released “A Town Called Dragon” which is written by Judd Winick, drawn by Geoff Shaw and colored by Jamie Grant. This 5-issue dragon story is an intense look at a town in Colorado that suddenly discovers they have a dragon problem. Issue one released Tuesday, September 22, 2014 and is available at comics retailers everywhere for $3.99. Without further ado: Judd Winick.
BSR!: You have a new book coming out in a few days?
JW: Yeah, I’m very excited! It has been kind of alarming, Bob Schrek and I talked about this a while ago, and it came out spectacularly. Geoff Shaw who is an amazing penciller who is bundled with his inker and colorist Jamie Grant. I really think this is going to be the last book from Geoff that isn’t a major super hero book; he’s that good.
It’s a good trope, because these misfits have to stop this giant thing… a goddamned Dragon!
BSR!: There is a wide range of themes here from the boring town, to the German excavation team, Leif Erikson, where did this come from?
JW: I wanted to do a story that isn’t so doom and gloom, but a gigantic dragon story that was still small. So we landed somewhere between Northern Exposure and Jaws. I was laughing when I started writing it because I decided to put all the tropes on it. A rag tag team of misfits joins together to fight some giant evil. It’s actually a good trope you know, because these guys band together to stop this giant thing, which happens to be a goddamned dragon. It’s between Northern Exposure, Jaws, and… well dragons.
BSR!: So, in this arc baby dragons are invincible when they hatch, where did that idea come from?
JW: I needed a way to make it hard for our folks to kill them, and for this dragons egg to be the most dangerous thing in the whole world. You know, this is the final egg, they can’t just leave it somewhere, they need to hide it. It sort of reverses how animals are when they’re young. The ticking time bomb idea is that if this thing cracks open we’re doomed, this thing is at its worst at the beginning. Once it’s an adult you can hurt it, but then it is big and you have to throw armies at it. So, yeah I wanted them to take it half way across the world. Plus I wanted an excuse to make Leif Erikson visit North America, because his king ordered him to.
BSR!: Any particular reason you chose Colorado?
JW: I wanted a real small town, which generally exist in the middle of our country, away from the coasts. I also wanted a way to trap people in this day and age without natural disasters like snow storms. It’s one thing when you’re on the coast and something comes in to eat people, or Godzilla is crushing a city, but a Dragon taking out a city is one thing, but why a town, you know? I like the idea of it being small, I’m giving something away, the entire town has to fight because they’re trapped.
BSR!: This is a five issue run, is it monthly?
JW: yeah, the first issue is a double issue and the last issue is a double issue, we’re going old school. We’re finished with it so it will be hitting monthly, that’s the nice thing about working with Legendary is it’s already in the can and launching monthly.
Not only does Geoff do a great giant lizard, he also designs amazing characters.
BSR!: How did you get paired up with Geoff Shaw
JW: The greatest matchmaker in the industry Bob Schrek! When I pitched him the story he said let’s get somebody cool, and after about a year he found Geoff who was doing other Legendary stuff that was delivering the goods. Not only does he do a great giant lizard, he also designs amazing characters. Everyone looks different and the acting is really good. Not everyone is a cookie cutter, which can sometimes be lost in comics. Everyone is unique in how they talk, act, look, move, their faces change during their scenes amazingly. Geoff Shaw is a great actor and terrific director; he knows what he’s doing.
BSR!: One of the characters I find really interesting is the gentleman that discovers the excavation team, how much of these characters side story will we see?
JW: All of them, some more than others, but you will learn what brought everyone here. Everyone happened to be in this town and it is very fortuitous so we talk about it. Each of them could have their own issue; if it was television we could pull a ‘LOST’ and give them all their own episode, who knows maybe we will. We’ll see.
BSR!: How has this creative process differed from your other work?
JW: Since it’s creator owned I get to create and run everything. You know, when you write Batman you can only do so much, because you have to follow his parameters. He’s not going to kill anybody; he’s not going to die, etc. When you’re doing your own characters it’s very different. You can take them anywhere, and you don’t have 75 years of backstory so you build them from the ground up. This is not an ongoing story it is final; there is a beginning, middle and end. So no-holds-barred, everything goes, no one is safe. Which makes for compelling story telling. That’s what I love, we get to make our own universe, characters, and choose where it goes.
BSR!: Would you consider doing some one offs that focus on the characters specifically?
JW: We talked about it, it seemed to be a maxi-series, you know a quickie; but when we got into it, it felt like more. Some stories are in for the long haul, but with this it’s about a dragon egg hatching, and if we keep dragging it on, we would follow this back story but the dragon is still out there and we’re spinning our wheels. The story is a runaway train, who needs analogies, it’s a dragon that is ruining the town. Would we ever go back? If it is popular enough, maybe, but this is a full story, which was our job with this one. We have other ideas that are a longer form story, but in this one the Holy Grail is to kill the dragon. Which was a title for a while, we bounced around Kill The Dragon, We Have to Kill The Dragon (laughs).
BSR!: Any final thoughts for us?
JW: Yeah, this is a great comic, and it’s a monthly. It reads really well, and it was designed just like TV to give you a chunk at a time. It will read great as a trade, we’ve made sure of that, but it’s a great run to look at month-by-month. So come back every month, because it’s built that way and believe me it changes. Some issues cover back-story and there is even one issue that is 25 pages of wall-to-wall action. It’s a monthly baby so show up.