Boxers or Briefs is a feature where we get to interview people and ask them really important questions about pants. We also get to ask less important questions about their current projects and their experience in the industry. The Panteon recently had a chance to interview Thom Zahler. Thom Zahler is the writer and artist of Love and Capes, a superhero romance self-published through his own Maerkle Press and also available on the web at Love and Capes.com, and he’s been working in the industry in various capacities for many a year before that. Thom’s also a regular fixture on this site’s comments, and so we took him aside to ask a few questions about Love and Capes, superhero romance, the comic book format wars, politics and more. Submit a request here if you think we should interview you, or make suggestions in the comments if you’ve got someone you think we should interview.

1. Where did the idea for Love and Capes come from? Has it been brewing for a while, or was it a recent inspiration?

ZAHLER: It had been brewing for a while, for sure. I always liked writing the day in the life kind of stuff better than some of the straight-out superhero stuff.

But, specifically, it came about because of a reality show called Situation: Comedy on Bravo. It was basically Project: Greenlight for sitcoms. I decided to write one which I called Long Distance. It was a semi-autobiographical story about a cartoonist trying to begin a long distance relationship. (I’ve since published that as a scriptbook available from Amazon.com.)

I had such fun writing it that I wanted to write more sitcoms. And then there was the chocolate and peanut butter moment of marrying superheroes with sitcoms.

Some of it was probably percolating from being at a comic book convention in ’92 or so where Roger Stern was asked if Lois and Clark would fight when married. “Of course,” he said, “Clark has no oven mitts or step stools.” I guess that kind of stuck with me. When I thought about focusing on the superhero relationship, that was a big part of it.

2. It’s a tough game for self-publishers these days… what has the response been like to Love and Capes, and how are you getting the word out to a sometimes hostile direct market? Are you reaching other markets as well?

ZAHLER: First, I’m finding that just about everyone who reads it falls in love with it, no pun intended. So, there’s a stickiness to it that I didn’t foresee, but it’s a good thing.

I had a couple of things going for me with selling the book, too. I did the first issue as a one-off project, and based all my financials on not selling an issue. I saw it more as a promotional piece. With that in mind, I could print them before I saw any orders. I was able to offer free sample copies to any retailer who asked me for them, and using the internet, managed to make that offer to a number of retailers. So there was a lot of try-before-you-buy, even before it listed in Previews.

The other thing was that I broke the book down in four panel segments. There’s a joke or a payoff beat every fourth panel. That allowed me to chop it up into segments that would work well online. That’s allowed a really convenient and free jumping on point.

It was Bill Williams at Lone Star Press who pointed out to me that the computer screen is longer than tall. It’s half a regular comic book page. So, I figured out a way to split every page in half and have it work well online. Making LNC web-friendly rather than just throwing up a whole page that requires scrolling didn’t hurt.

I have taken the project into other markets. Before the writers strike I went out to Hollywood to discuss the book as a live action sitcom. There’s a potential animated project that could happen, too. I’ve pitched it a couple of different places as a collection, too. It’s a pretty easy-to-sell and marketable concept, I think,

3. Along the same lines, you released Love and Capes #4 as a Free Comic Book Day selection. How did that go for you? Did it get a good response? Did you pick up a noticeable bump in new readers? And would you do it again?

ZAHLER: The Free Comic Book Day issue did really well. I sold roughly three times the number of books of a regular issue, and it got great exposure. I was written up on Salon.com and Entertainment Weekly Online. I did notice a bump in readers from issue 3 to 4. I was really impressed at how well the retail version of #4 sold. It sold better than issue #3, and had been available for free two months before.

The traditional arithmetic on books is that #1 will sell X, #2 will sell half that, and #3 will sell half again. With Love and Capes, there was a dip between #1 and #2, and since then we’ve been gaining readers every issue.

I have tentative plans to do issue #7 as another Free Comic Book Day issue, so yes, I’d do it again.

4. Love and Capes is a superhero romance… what are some of its biggest influences, in terms of both the superhero genre and the romance genre?

ZAHLER: Mark Waid. He’s a sitcom lover, you can tell. Impulse was a sitcom comic. He was as interested in the situation stuff as the superhero stuff, maybe even more so. A lot of his tone is in my book.

As far as superhero stuff, the Silver Age Superman is a huge part of the superhero stuff. That and the old Adventures of Superman TV show. Those versions of Superman were kind of (and I’ve used this word to describe it over and over) avuncular. He may have been saving the world, but he was never really worried about it. And because he was calm, you were calm.

Crusader has a lot of responsibility, and he could get all down about it, or moody, or serious, but he doesn’t. He can see the fun in things.

And I’m also pulling a lot from the superhero fraternity in those Silver Age stories. Superman and Batman knew each other and hung out. The JLA had monthly meetings and monitor duty. Heck, these were the guys who in the middle of a bunch of super villain attacks would switch foes just to keep things interesting.

As far as the sitcom aspect, Mad About You is the biggest influence. Paul and Jamie had the relationship I want to have. They really liked each other, could make fun of each other, and love each other. They could be romantic together or be wacky together. They’d do big stories about their relationship, little stories about one dinner date or going out of town for six weeks. (The episode where Paul goes to Chicago to film a movie is probably my favorite. In a lot of ways, it’s a template for Love and Capes. Lots of little, bite-sized stories, rather than one big one.)

Friends is the other big influence. Especially in the first couple of years, they did a brilliant job mixing the comedy with the serious beats. In the first episode, you do feel the ache Ross does that his marriage is over and his pining for Rachel. There are a ton of jokes around it, but that serious core is the heart of the episode. Traditional comedies wouldn’t have had the chops to do moments like the one where Chandler is offered a promotion and a ton of money, and it freaks him out because he doesn’t know if this is the job he wants to have the rest of his life. A funny episode, but with heart.

That’s why I can take the chance of doing a page or two without the jokes. The best example is in #1 where the last few pages are actually quite serious. You get 21 pages or so of light fun, and you think you’re going to get that again as Abby’s watching Mark fight a bad guy on TV. And then there’s the line where she says “I’ve never seen him bleed before.” All that comedy before it makes that serious moment stand out. And there’s still a payoff beat every fourth panel.

Some of that concept I borrow from Shakespeare. In reverse. His tragedies have some pretty funny moments in them, because to get progressively worse and worse is difficult and a big downer. But lighten things up a minute and you don’t have to get darkER, just dark again.

Sitcoms in general are one of the big influences on LNC and me in general. The idea of having the brunt of the superhero stuff take place off panel is based on the sitcom practice of having people have jobs we rarely see. I always use the example that Ross was a paleontologist, but we rarely saw him do his job. I’ve got the standard sitcom structure of a couple of standing, recurring sets, too, like Abby’s bookstore and the roofs of Chronopolis.

It’s the structure of a sitcom placed in a superhero universe.

5. Abby and Mark, Lois and Clark, Peter and Mary Jane… who wins in the face-off in the Super Newlywed Game?

ZAHLER: Abby and Mark, hands down, because their getting together doesn’t destroy the central concept of the book. Heck, it is the central concept of the book.

I think having Superman and Spider-Man get married were big mistakes all around. So much of their core concept involves the unrequited or frustrated love.

I think part of the attraction of Superman is that we relate to Clark Kent. We all think we’re cooler than everyone else sees us, and if only they could see how we really are, they’d notice us, like us, fall in love with us. If Lois falls in love and marries Superman, you no longer have that quest. The woman you desperately want finally understands you. And you lose the isolation and loneliness of the character, which is a huge part of him.

With Spider-Man, at his core he’s a loser. He rarely has a good day. You, as a reader, feel sorry for him that he does all this good and never gets rewarded. How sorry can I feel for anyone who’s married to the redheaded supermodel Mary Jane Watson?

My friend Paul D. Storrie first floated this notion by me: Why rob the next generation of stories that you grew up on? A ten year old starting to read Superman now (if there is such a ten year old) will never know the Superman-Lois-Clark triangle. Yeah, there’s All Star Superman when the stars align to produce a new issue. And I suppose there’s the older stuff if they want to dig it up. But still, I think it misses the heart of the character.

Charlie Brown didn’t get the Little Red-Haired Girl. Ever. Not even in the last strips. He’s not supposed to. He’s supposed to have that perpetual quest that he can never fulfill but never gives up on either. And we can all relate to that.

That’s why I put Mark and Abby above the others. There’s been some fun stuff done with Clark and Lois, and to a lesser extent Peter and MJ. But look at Joe Quesada and his hate-hate relationship with Peter’s marriage. He realizes that the marriage is a mistake, and he’s trying to fix it, but man, it’s hard to walk that marriage back, isn’t it?

But Abby and Mark are designed to have that relationship. Their relationship, dating, engaged, married or whatever, is the story.

Oh, wait, did you actually mean on The Newlywed Game itself. Let’s see, Peter and MJ would lose because Parker always loses. Lois and Clark would be the serious competition, but I think Clark told too many lies for Lois to keep track of. Mark ‘fessed up to Abby after six months, and doesn’t work as hard to keep his identity secret, since he wasn’t boneheaded enough to say “I know Superman… even though we’re never together.” So, Abby and Mark would win the prize picked especially for them, which would definitely include a stepstool and oven mitts.

6. And as a follow-up of sorts, what are some of you favorite superhero relationships in comics, past and present?

ZAHLER: Silver Age Superman and Batman have my ideal superhero friendship. They used to just hang out. They couldn’t be more different, and they were the best of friends. Heck, World’s Finest was pretty much the first superhero buddy comic. Followed closely by Green Lantern/Green Arrow, the hard-traveling heroes.

I like Lois and Clark, the pained, interrupted relationship. And, in a bit of cognitive dissonance, I like the way Kurt Busiek is writing them as a married couple. It’s like you mentioned about Brubaker bringing back Bucky. You didn’t want them to do it, and may not like that they did, but man, it was a good story. Busiek is writing the stuff that should have been the first year or two of their marriage.

I like Peter and MJ, especially in the movies. I know the MJ in the movies isn’t the one from the comic, but again, it’s a fractured, complicated relationship, and I like those. We all have them and can relate to them.

Tony Isabella’s Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Mark Waid’s Wally West and Linda Park, and Dwayne McDuffie’s Sue and Reed are great loving and interesting comic book pairings.

7. You produce Love and Capes as a series of arcs, but it’s done more or less as an ongoing series… and to date, there are no trades, although I would assume there will be one in the future. Do you have any thoughts on the miniseries/ongoing/original graphic novel format struggle that’s going on in the current market, and how did you settle on the format you use for Love and Capes?

ZAHLER: I’d love to do a trade. It’s a little financially infeasible for me unless I go on another game show. I’ve been talking with a couple of other publishers about collecting the first six issues, though. If I can get someone else to do it, and the deal’s right, I’ll jump at it. I have advantage of having six completed issues. I don’t need a page rate, and you know it’s already finished. I just need a cut.

The book is designed as a series of arcs, but that’s just how I write. I start and point A, and know I want to get to point B. Everything else is a little more free form. It’s my mad TV love. I tend to think Premiere-Sweeps Week-Season Finale and fill in some of the blanks as I go. It’s a journey with a rough map, and, like they say, getting there is half the fun.

But when you ask me about the Format Wars, man, are you opening up a can of worms. So, sit down or start scrolling.

I think the monthly comic is important to the industry. It’s why we go into the shop every week. And, going into the shop exposes me to more people and more product, and hopefully expands my purchases. It’s the weekly show compared to the DVD box set.

And, if you’re a comic company publishing a monthly book, for God’s sake, hit your deadlines. It’s a pact you have with your readers. I never tune in to a promised episode of Grey’s Anatomy only to get a rerun, different show altogether, or static. I understand that there are creators who are slow or unreliable. Fine. Just wait until the book is done before soliciting it.

I wouldn’t mind a shift to more straight-to-trade products. That’s fine. Heck, in some cases it seems downright silly for me to buy every issue of a comic when it’ll come out in trade in a month or two. I’m still smarting over that Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil. I think a mix of original graphic novels and comic books would be a good thing.

I’ve been on both sides of this. When I published Raider, I went the OGN format. My feeling was that it would be an easier sell. A complete story for $15. Being a small publisher, no one would trust that a comic Raider #1 would be followed by Raider #2, and given the way Diamond works, they might have stopped carrying it with issue #4. So I went to a trade.

I also figured it would be an easier sell at conventions. I figured that people at a show actually want to buy and try something new, and so much easier with a complete story in a trade, right?

Now, it didn’t work out as well as I had thought. Part of that is that Raider is a harder sell. Love and Capes is a superhero sitcom. Raider is this story about a evil conspiracy and its good counterpart who have been fighting for fifty years, and then this Raider guy shows up… A lot harder to shout at someone from behind the convention table.

When I started Love and Capes, I really wanted to do color. Now printing mathematics being what they are, it costs as much to print 1000 trade paperbacks in black and white as it does to print 5000 color 24-page comics. And, because of setup fees, those are the breaks. Printing 1000 instead of 5000 color comics won’t save you 80%, but more like 20%. So you might as well print the 5000.

The numbers dictated a floppy book, and not a trade. And there’s a lot to be said for that anyway. A trade takes me about a year, if not more. That’s a lot of screaming into a vacuum and hearing nothing. LNC takes me three months, and gets me much more immediate reaction.

Love and Capes is certainly doing better than Raider, but there are so many factors that I can’t put one over the other. When I printed the first Raider, I was pretty stingy with giveaway copies. With Love and Capes, because I had so many more, I was giving out a lot more of them. I did more review copies to be sure, and I had as part of my business plan to give out 200 or so at every convention to get the word out and build the audience.

I used to strafe the lines at San Diego where everyone was waiting for tickets and hand out books. That got the book exposure. Some people would buy it because their friends had it and they wanted their own copy. Later on, some would buy the other issues. Mid-Ohio-Con is one of the smaller conventions that I do, but because I gave away #2 with every VIP membership, I sold more books there than I did in San Diego.

And, it may just be easier to have people try a $4 book on a lark rather than a $15 book, despite the page count.

Oh, and just to toot my own horn: I haven’t missed a deadline. Ever.

8. Your name has been on books as a colorist, artist, writer and I’m certain plenty more. How long have you been working in the industry, and do you consider yourself one role more than any other? Or are you happy to be a multi-hyphenate jack of all trades of comics?

ZAHLER: I consider myself a storyteller first. As long as I’m doing that, I’m happy. I am more of a cartoonist than a writer, if you’re going to split the disciplines down that way.

I became a letterer first because I was better at it than anything else. I learned lettering at Kubert, and started looking for work a couple years before the computer started taking things over. By then, I was able to afford to get a computer rig and learn to letter that way, too.

Part of my career plan was that I’d get hired as a letterer and make my connections into the comics world that way. And, from there I’d start expanding outward. And lettering did open up some doors to some contacts that got me inking work and coloring work and so on.

I’ve been in comics for almost fifteen years. I consider myself the hardest working unknown in the industry. I love being a jack-of-all-trades and it gets me into some really cool projects and places. Just being able to letter the Lost in Space: Journey to the Bottom of the Soul was a treat, and even though I didn’t write or draw it, I’m hugely pleased to be part of it.

But, the stuff that’s really satisfying, the stuff that helps me sleep well at night, is the stuff I do myself all the way through. Some of that, though, is financial. I wouldn’t mind having an inker on Raider or some help on Love and Capes, but I’m taking a bit of a financial flyer on these projects. It’s much easier to get me to work for free than someone who’s not me. I have a way of talking myself into such things.

9. We know you had some letters published in Power Pack, and created a hero for Dial H for Hero, so give us your secret origin as a comic book fan, and how you went from fan to creator.

ZAHLER: And I was a regular letterhack in Fury of Firestorm, too. Don’t forget that.

I’ve known all my life I wanted to do comics. So I started aiming towards that early. I did the comics for the school newspaper, did the posters for the play and so on. I actually made sure to take assignments that made me work on a deadline, so I could get used to that.

Then I went to a Creation Convention in Cleveland when I was sixteen or so, and met Tony Isabella. He was writing Shadow War of the Hawkman at the time, and it was (and is) and awesome book. I loved it. So, using a boldness that my sixteen-year old self could never seem to manage to use when it came to women, I asked Tony if he needed an apprentice.

Along with Tony, I met Bob Ingersoll. You may notice that Bob is the co-writer of the story we did for Pocket Books’ Star Trek: The Sky’s the Limit, so we’re clearly still hanging out. A few years later, when I was at Kubert, Bob was writing Hero Alliance for Innovation. They needed a letterer to help out, Bob referred me, and that’s how I got my first paying comics work.

Tony and Bob also dragged me to my first big convention in Chicago. I say “dragged” because that summer I was working as a caricaturist at an amusement park, and getting Fourth of July Weekend off to go to Chicago took a lot of effort all around, including convincing my manager to work on her birthday. But I went, and everything changed.

I’d gone to conventions before, but I didn’t realize there was an after-show. The whole hanging out in the hotel bar thing was new to me, and that networking has done more for my career than anything else. After that I started doing San Diego, and then MegaCon and Baltimore and so on. Now I do 6-8 shows a year. That networking is hugely important. I think almost all of the work I’ve gotten in comics is because of networking.

And it’s funny how things work. While freelancing comics, I still had a day job as an art director for a small ad agency. There was a point where I got sick of lettering. I decided to give it up to pursue more cartooning work. But the universe wouldn’t hear of it. The year I decided that, I got three lettering jobs just walking around the San Diego show floor. Then I got regular work from Lone Star. And then Claypool, and lettering Elvira Mistress of the Dark and Deadbeats was regular enough income that I could quit the day job and become a full-time cartoonist.

I have one of the coolest jobs in the world. But I always point out, while I’m very fortunate. It’s not luck. I worked hard to get here, and to put myself in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves. When I was freelancing and working the day job I was often surviving on four or five hours of sleep. I mail out 400 postcards every month to people who could hire me. There’s a lot effort that went into getting where I am.

10. As a fan, what are some of your favorite characters, and as a creator, which would you most like to write and/or draw? Any that fit one criteria but not the other, a character you love but wouldn’t want to work on, or a character you’d like to work on but don’t particularly enjoy reading?

ZAHLER: Firestorm, Firestorm, Firestorm. I would love to work on the classic Ronnie Raymond/Martin Stein Firestorm. His was the first book I bought regularly. He was like a Spider-Man who could have a good day and had cool powers, a cool costume… heck, his hair was on fire.

I used to have a way for that Firestorm to come back that would have been really simple. DC’s done enough since then, though, that I may have to wait until the next Infinite Crisis on Infinite Crises to have it happen.

Having said that, I may be the wrong guy for the book. Sometimes, that much fan love makes you the worse person to work on a character. But, if offered, I know I couldn’t resist.

I can’t think of a character that I would take a shot at writing, although there are probably characters for whom I’m a bad fit. I might be able to do a decent Spider-Man, probably even a good Spider-Man loves Mary Jane, but probably not a great Punisher.

It comes back to that discussion you had about unsalvageable characters. I don’t think there are any, really. There are characters who are radioactive and need to be left alone for a while, and then handed to the right creative team. But I think there’s a story worth telling with everyone. Heck, look how Peter David took Jamie Madrox and made him the fascinating guy that he is.

Besides Firestorm, there are three characters, all DC, that I’d love to tackle:

The Immortal Man. I know he kind of became Resurrection Man, but I’m talking the original. Here’s a character whose power was that he died well. He’d die and be reincarnated. And his villain was Vandal Savage. So, it was the man who cannot die against the man who cannot be killed. How cool would that be, especially if you treated it like Highlander with flashbacks all over the place? It’d be a great limited series.

Slam Bradley. I love what Darwyn Cooke did with the character, so don’t take my different approach as disrespect. I’d just love to see a private eye in the DC Universe. I mean, how do you investigate a murder in a locked room in a reality where people can teleport and vibrate through walls?

Dial H For Hero. Especially these days with the internet, a book using reader-created characters would be a great thing. Probably as a Johnny DC book, but what a way to get the younger set interested in comics.

11. In your previous books, Raider, you credit both Fox News and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as inspirations, and you’ve namechecked Aaron Sorkin (West Wing) as one of your big writing influences. Taking all that into account, would a political comic of some kind hold any interest for you, either as a reader or a creator? Or is it more a case of useful background noise and an appreciation for the skills of a particular writer?

ZAHLER: Yeah, I’m a pretty unabashed political junkie. (Although I became an Aaron Sorkin fan with SportsNight and A Few Good Men way before The West Wing.) I’ve got mixed feelings about a political comic, though.

I like using politics in comics, to be sure. But a comic version of The West Wing might just be too talky, and not play to the comics medium. Plus, I hate stuff that’s too preachy.

In Raider, I used the Clinton-Dole presidential campaign as a template for a couple of the characters. But it wasn’t about the individual political issues, but more about the personalities of those people in office and how those political machinations affected the main characters and story. And, while I admit I lean to the right, in my story, both characters were well rounded and equally flawed. The Clinton type is set up as a shady guy, but in the end he does the noble thing for the country. And the Dole type, who Benefactor is rooting for, turns out to have compromised himself entirely.

The interesting place for politics in comics for me is in allegory. I think it’s much better to try to change a mind, or at least get them to consider something new, by placing it in a story context rather than a literal one.

Back to Mark Waid. He did a WMD/invading Iraq story in Fantastic Four where Reed and the gang invade Latveria after the “death” of Doom because Doom had all sorts of weapons lying around. Moreover, it was great fodder for a story, regardless of what happened in the real world.

So, if I want to make a point about a specific issue, I think it’s better to have it inspire a story rather than be the story. Like Star Trek did so often. If I tell you I’m talking about the Vietnam War, you may tune out. Set it on another planet, and control the specifics, and suddenly you can open a mind without preaching.

12. What are your favorite kind of pants?

ZAHLER: Depends. On me, I like Anchor Bay distressed blue jeans, which I have to buy when I’m to vacation because we don’t have them in Ohio. One the right woman, I’m going to have to go with “hot” or “leather.” And, I loves me my Comic Pants.