Ben Lichius ("The Black Coat" Co-Creator/Co-Writer)

Ben Lichius is the Art Director for Vicious Cycle Software in Chapel Hill, NC.  He also done work for Hasbro Interactive, Gearhead Entertainment and Take 2.  He's worked on such games as Heroes, The Call of Duty and Spy vs. Spy, collaborating with such comic giants as Marvel, DC and IDW.  He has always enjoyed comics, and through his work in the video game industry has been able to stay close to that love.  But his first loves is his family and his church.

 

Gonzo: First and foremost I’d like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview.

1. Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into comics.

BL: I’ve been reading comics since I was about 10. They got me interested in art and got me drawing. I ended up going to school for Graphic Design and working in magazine publishing but I never lost my interest or passion for comics. I would make up my own stories and characters and draw bits and pieces of things. I really just enjoyed the creative side of it – how it let me stretch my imagination.

I eventually got into video games and now I’m the Art Director for a game company in NC. Since we work on a lot of comic book properties, I get to put my interests in games, comics, and art all to good use on a daily basis which is cool. After working with Marvel on one project, I decided it was time to take an idea that I had been playing around with for several years and push it to the next level. Since my job keeps me pretty busy, I really didn’t have time to draw anything, so I decided to write a script for The Black Coat instead. A few twists and turns later and here I am!

2. Now I noticed from your personal website, www.denseboy.com, (nice site too!) that you also draw, but you didn’t illustrate The Black Coat.  Any aspirations on drawing comics in the future as well as writing them?
 

BL: I have always been interested in comics primarily from an artist’s perspective, so I would love to someday get to draw a book. I think I would need to spend some time dusting off my drawing table first though. I don’t draw near as much as I should, so I’m usually pretty rusty.

3. You also have a pretty impressive team working on this book.  The art, I must say, looks amazing.  Tell us a little about the team and how you all came together.

BL: Yeah, Francesco is one of the reasons I’m so rusty. Who needs to draw when you have someone like him around, right? He’s just an amazing artist and he blows me away with what he has done to bring the world of The Black Coat to life. I met Francesco online when I posted some of my BC concept work. I mentioned I was looking for some help and he jumped at the chance. Now we’re partners and he’s been busting his butt making the coolest looking comic pages I think anyone’s seen in a long time.

My friend Adam officially came on board after I had the first draft of issue 1’s script done. He’s a great writer and has an incredible imagination too. He helped me out a great deal while I was writing issue 1 so when it came time to do issue 2, it was a natural fit to have Adam take over writing duties. Adam’s an avid comic fan and has lots of other projects in the works. He’s also writing “Villains” which is a book he created and will be released by Viper in April.

Chris Studabaker (letterer), Jeremy Colwell (cover inks), Jim Charalampidis (cover colors), and Euan Mactavish (cover colors) are guys that we couldn’t do the book without. They all bring a level of expertise to their crafts that give the book that extra level of polish. They’ve all invested a lot of themselves into the book and have a love for the character and the story we are trying to tell. I’ve really been fortunate to get a chance to work with all of these guys.
                                                              
4. What is The Black Coat about?

BL: The basic premise is that The Black Coat is a masked super spy fighting the British and the forces of the occult in New York City right before the Revolutionary War. He has a network of agents that help him out, but when it all hits the fan, BC puts himself on the line – buckling the swashes of evil to help protect a burgeoning country. He’s an inventor as well and has all kinds of gadgetry at his disposal that helps him do his work. So he’s kind of a cross between James Bond and Batman. But there’s definitely a horror/x-files thing going on in New York that makes BC’s job incredibly dangerous.

“A Call to Arms” is about an evil ancient secret society that comes to New York to work with the British and ends up wreaking their own special breed of havoc. It’s not obvious right away, but BC is really the only thing stopping them from destroying the Colonies.

It’s pretty much the history you never read about in school. In fact, The Black Coat is probably the reason you never read about it. And seeing as how our country still exists and we are not over-run with armies of the undead or maniacal killers born from some twisted science, I think we all owe him a great deal of gratitude. J

5. The Black Coat is an interesting idea conceptually.  Why the choice to focus on a story taking place in the 1700’s?

BL: I’m a big fan of history and historical action. It’s not much more complicated than that really. Once I started tossing the idea around though, I realized that the Colonial era has been virtually untapped as a setting for this kind of story. It’s a unique time when huge leaps were being made in the fields of science and industry but most of the world was still stuck in the middle ages. Because of that, I think it’s a fun time to explore. It’s history, yet there are a lot of very ‘modern’ things happening which gives us something to identify with. And it makes BC a pretty uniquely ‘American’ hero as well which I enjoy.

6. Now you know I have to ask.  The Black Coat was scheduled to ship this week from Speakeasy.  With the recent demise of Speakeasy, how has this affected the book, the team and you?

BL: It’s disappointing and a bit of a setback but it hasn’t changed what we want to do with the book. For me, the biggest disappointment came from being  3 days away from having our first issue hit the stands and then having it all yanked away. But we are still planning to release all four issues and I think, for the team, it has really given everyone an extra measure of resolve, which is impressive to see.
                                                            
7. So then The Black Coat is currently looking for a publisher, right?  Any specific companies you’re looking at or are you just playing it by ear?

BL: We have a few that we want to target, but we are not ruling anyone out. We’ve already had several places express interest in publishing the book, but we want to find the right home for BC. We don’t want to rush into anything that could put us right back in the same situation we were just in.

8. What has your experience in comics thus far been like?  Has it been a positive or negative experience overall?

BL: To be perfectly honest, a little bit of both. There are things that [are] incredibly frustrating about trying to get a comic on the shelf, but then you talk to the fans and people at conventions, and it all seems worth it. You certainly need a lot of passion to do what we’re doing. Some days I feel like I have more of it than others, but it helps to have an understanding wife and a lot of people that are pulling for you to succeed. I’m expecting that when issue 1 hits the shelves, I’ll be getting a monster-sized boost of passion. I’ll be flying so high, I might need someone to tie a rope around my ankle. J

9. Are there any other comic projects in the pipeline you’re working on?

BL: Right now, I’m totally focused on The Black Coat. But I’m always banging on a few ideas in the back of my mind. So we’ll see how things go but hopefully I’ll get the chance to do some other books in the future.

10. Let’s play a game.  “If people like                 they’ll like The Black Coat.”  Fill in the blank with any stories you think fit.

BL: Pizza!! Oh, wait. I thought you were going for a madlibs thing there for a second… Stories, eh? Well there are some obvious parallels like Zorro, Batman, or The Scarlet Pimpernel, but really anyone who is a fan of action/adventure stories, pulp books, serial matinees, murder mysteries, or historical fiction should really enjoy the book. It may have an historical setting but it's really a superhero-style story at heart so I think people that usually stick to the spandex should still find something to enjoy.

There’s a sci-fi/fantasy element to it too in that there is magic and crazy science stuff going on (how do we fit all of this in one book?), so I would encourage anyone that likes that kind of thing to check it out. I’ve talked to a lot of fans that are really missing CrossGen and the books that they put out. I think The Black Coat can help fill that void in a lot of ways.
                                                             
Gonzo: Thank you for your time.  As is custom here at The Comic Avalanche we like to ask if there’s anything else you’d like to say to our readers.  Maybe a plug, maybe some advice for aspiring creators, or whatever else you may want to say?

BL: I’d like to thank all of the fans out there that have stuck with us and continue to give us their support. We know there are a lot of people out there pulling for The Black Coat and we appreciate it. If anyone wants to keep up with the book they can do so at our website: www.the-black-coat.com. We just opened our own forums so if you’re looking to chat with other Black Coat wearers, that’s where to find them!

 

 

Thanks, Brant W. Fowler, aka Gonzogoose