A Sitdown With Jeff McComsey On Z-MEN, RISE, and Lyndon Johnson

Art by: Kurt Tiede, Alisson Rodrigues, Max Flan

I recently had a chance to chat with writer Jeff McComsey, who is currently working on two of the initial ten books from Double Take, both set in the Night of the Living Dead universe. We discuss both books, Z-Men and Rise, at length, as well as what is in store for both series and the process of getting this thing off the ground. Hope you enjoy!

Matt: I really enjoyed both Rise & Z-Men. Now, both of these are part of the same universe. Were you a big fan of the original film? Or was it just a chance to play around in a well known playground?

Jeff: Oh no, I have definitely been a fan of the film for a long time. Black and white films right away have a special place in my heart, but Night Of The Living Dead, I was a huge fan, and it was a great opportunity to kind of expand on this universe alongside Bill Jemas and the other guys.

Matt: At the beginning, since the launch is initially 10 books, did you have free reign to pick what angles you wanted to take within the universe? Whether it be something more government related and procedural like Z-Men, or something a little different with Rise, was that your choice? Or was there a more firm plan in place?

Jeff: I was lucky in that I was kind of there from the beginning. When they decided what they wanted to do I was right there, so I pretty much got to pick what I wanted to work on. We knew that we wanted to, I wouldn’t call it the flagship book per se, but we wanted to do something with Johnny and Barbara from the original movie. My initial pitch was for two secret service agents, which eventually became Z-Men. A lot of it was just being there at the beginning and making my own decisions on what interested me, because I love historical fiction type stuff. It is kind of my bread and butter, so Z-Men was my natural choice, so we can follow these two guys but also see the bigger picture stuff from Washington D.C., which is always a lot of fun.

Matt: And that is something I really enjoyed, especially the focus on Lyndon Johnson. I loved that you included his infamous pants line, which to be quite honest I did not realize was real before John Oliver featured it on Last Week Tonight. Regardless, I appreciated it being in the book.

Jeff: Haha, if anything we had to tone down LBJ a little bit, because he was a mad man.

Matt: Are we going to see him featured as prominently as he was here throughout the rest of the series?

Jeff: Yeah, I mean one of the things that we are setting up here is the deterioration of the situation in Pennsylvania. In the film Night of the Living Dead, by the time it ends you get the impression that the situation is more or less under control. They figure out how to kill the zombies, they’re burning them up, etc, etc. What we wanted to do with our story is show how things quickly escalated after that, and the fun way to do that is to show the official response and how they completely cock everything up. The metaphor that we were working with, or from I should say, was the Vietnam War. So you have an obvious disconnect with what is going on in the field, and what people are actually seeing going on versus Washington and how they are going to deal with it. LBJ should be around for quite a while.

Matt: Good deal. He is quite a fascinating character. Now you get to work in the '60s here. Is there something you really enjoyed about writing in that time period? Something you didn’t like? How ingrained in the decade did you get?

Jeff: Well for me I like it because when you are writing modern stories, technology has an interesting way of kind of changing how information moves. For instance everybody has a cell phone, know what I mean? The fact that here the technology is kind of limited, for instance the Z-Men have to report in and tell their superiors what they see, playing this game of telephone, so it just creates a lot of opportunities for adventure or action, whatever you want to call it. I was watching a movie set in 1980s New York and the guy was making a telephone call in a phone booth and he gets shot. I realize that is a common trope, and I thought to myself how do they shoot people in movies anymore now that nobody goes into phone booths, know what I mean? It's just like not having to add that cell phone device, I mean the story would be over in a matter of an issue if you had the proper communication equipment, so it has been fun to write in the period.

Matt: There is something to that. I mean it feels like it gives the story more room to play with, since the answers are not immediately available and just a few Google searches away. A little legwork is required.

Jeff: Absolutely, and you also get a little whisper down the lane too, because they have to report to a guy who then reports to a guy who then tells the President, as opposed to nowadays where the information is patched directly in, and that is something that plays a part in the story later on.

Matt: Now Clancy and Stewart have a very, I guess best way to describe it would be a Men In Black Agent K and J type of vibe. What do you enjoy most about writing them?

Jeff: I like Clancy because he’s an asshole. He is a little older than Stewart, and he’s been around a long time. We haven’t gotten to it, but their backstory involves them goofing something up under President Kennedy in Dallas when he was assassinated, so they are kind of in the doghouse when we meet them. They have been buried in the motorcade, and Clancy has pretty much accepted his place, until he gets the opportunity from the director of the secret service, so this is a big deal for them and is their redemption moment, or at least it could be. I don’t get to write them enough, and they are a lot of fun.

Art by: Kurt Tiede, Frederica Manfredi, Vladimir Popov

Matt: Yeah they are, and poor Stewart. His sideburns really aren’t that long. I don’t know why everyone gives him so much grief about those, they are perfectly fine. It's not like he has full-on chops or anything.

Jeff: (Laughs)

Matt: Now your other book is very different in tone, and it was here where you were able to delve more into the film universe. What was your goal with this book?

Jeff: Really to merge these two worlds. The Night of the Living Dead film and these new books that Double Take wants to put out. and making sure we connected these so that fans who read the books would be right on page with where we were going, and also present it in a way that if you hadn’t, and were one of those two poor souls who hadn't seen the movie, you could still hop right on and be interested. I think that Johnny and Barbara are two — its funny because they are kind of the main characters, at least Barbara,  from the movie. Johnny really, he shows up in the first 5 minutes, is knocked unconscious, and you don’t see him again until the very end, so he spends much of the movie catatonic. It was kind of an opportunity, a blank slate to start with as far as their personalities, and of course they are brother and sister and like to give each other a hard time. A lot of that was fun to play with. Traditionally in comics when you have a male and a female lead there is a love interest there, but Johnny and Barbara are brother and sister, so there is a completely different dynamic there.

Matt: Something I noticed is that if you had never seen the film, and you just came into this book I could see someone questioning whether or not Johnny is actually dead or not. There is a certain uneasiness there, and the way he moves throughout combined with the unique art style help push the question even further. That constant question of is he or isn’t he kept me intrigued throughout. Now you got to work with two very talented and very different art teams here. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jeff: Definitely. Unfortunately I don’t get to be as involved with the art side of it. I see it when it comes in, except for the one case where pencil roughs are done in house. In fact I did pencil roughs for Rise #2, and then they get sent off to different people. When they come back, honestly as a small publisher myself outside of what I do with Double Take, it is a genuine pleasure to get back finished artwork. I wouldn’t say they are squiggles when they go out, but they are very unfleshed out, and then you get this great finished work from them. So the pencilers and the colorists, they just did a fantastic job. As for the artwork on Rise, it is just a great approach to, instead of like Z-Men, where it has traditional pen and ink, Rise has something more akin to colored pencils, and I’ve been very happy with it.

Matt: Agreed, Rise is a very unique book. Also have to give props on the cover to Apple Zhang. That art is gorgeous. Straight up frameable.

Jeff: Yeah, they found some really great people for the covers. I’ve been really blown away by them as they come in.

Matt: One of the other things that I enjoyed is actually in each book. Towards the back is a map of the entire area, and you can actually see where all the different series are based. It's a cool way to show the reader what other series they might be interested in and how they relate to each other. Are we going to see some of the books and characters crossover at all? Or are things staying self contained?

Jeff: Though some are self contained and more one offs, there will be some crossover. That map will actually be more expanded as the story goes on, which I agree that was a great idea. It helped the creative teams, too, because we are all in our own little stories. On the surface of course we all know they are connected, but those little things helped us bring it all together. In a way like Game of Thrones in that if you didn’t have that map you wouldn’t know where the hell all of this stuff was going on at. A lot of times the spacial relationships are very important to the story, so it has been a huge help.

Matt: It's just one more thing to invest people in the world. As for the two books, they are both very different, but which one are you enjoying the most? I’m sure they both let you do different things writing-wise, but is there a favorite?

Jeff: I can definitely find something enjoyable in each one, but if I had to pick my favorite it would be Z-Men, just because getting to put words into Lyndon Johnson’s mouth and you’ve got secret service guys, a certified nut job, and Robert McNamara who is also a controversial historical figure. It is just really satisfying because of all the research you’ve done and then you get to put words in their mouths. Just really fun.

Matt: Now this project was all Kickstarted, which is a very unique process in of itself. Has it all worked very traditionally for you in coming up with the idea, writing the first drafts, etc., or was the fact that the project was funded by a lot of people changed things in any way, whether it was taking their opinions into account, changes in scope, etc?

Jeff: I wouldn’t say the Kickstarter had a lot to do with the creative process. If anything it did lead to a lot of story meetings early on. Like I said I was lucky enough to be there at the beginning, so a lot of it was just going back and forth figuring out what stories we wanted to tell, as well as more importantly what is the long term goal here. There was a lot of work and a lot of trashed ideas that came out, just because we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do before we launched, so most of it was just story meetings. And that is cool because Bill is obviously very experienced with that type of thing, and helped us navigate what works and what doesn't.

Matt: Yeah, you see the credits on the book with a name like his and it does automatically instill some confidence that the team knows what it's doing.

Jeff: Absolutely.

Matt: So how will the distribution work on future issues? Will it be another Kickstarter for the next set of issues?

Jeff: I believe what they are going to do, and I could be wrong here, but I’m pretty sure that they are going to put out three issues of each, and then there is going to be a hiatus and then they will come out with the next three. There is kind of a big event that happens at the end of all the third issues, and that does crossover. Then it would be another big launch for those just like it was here, with the ten issue packs, so I believe issue two goes to the printer very, very soon, and then issue three shortly after that, so you are basically getting three issues of each, and then we will come back with the next three a little later in the fall.

Matt: Well, I’m excited to see what that big event is now. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, really appreciate it.

Jeff: No problem, thanks a lot man.

Z-Men and Rise are both available now.