After working for Marvel and DC as an editor for nearly 10 years apiece, Mike Marts decided to do his own thing, and last year, alongside Publisher Joe Pruett, he did just that, co-founding AfterShock Comics as Editor-in-Chief. Today, AfterShock announced a new six-issue mini-series by veteran Warren Ellis and artist Phil Hester called Shipwrecked (out October 15, 2016). It's weird, unique, and creator-owned -- something that can be said about every comic in AfterShock's small line.
We conducted a phone interview with Marts to learn why he left the Big Two to start AfterShock, what makes their comics different from other publishers, what lessons (good and bad) working for the Big Two taught him, and what books are AfterShock's biggest success.
IGN Comics: Tell me about the genesis of AfterShock Comics.
Mike Marts: The desire to build my own company was something that I'd thought about and considered for a long time. Especially my last few years at DC Comics, I gained a lot of experience managing a line of comics and building worlds and developing a whole family of characters and titles. I knew I had that in me and I had this desire to break out and do my own thing, but what was missing was the partner to do it and the means to do it.
A little over a year and a half ago, I was contacted by an old friend, Joe Pruett, who is our Publisher at AfterShock, and he described the company that he was starting to get up and running, and it was really just perfect timing for me and a great point in my career to pursue that dream of starting a company and creating my own thing.
IGN: So you really wanted to start a new company, with Joe, from the ground up, rather than move to another publisher?
Marts: Exactly. At this point, I'd spent over 10 years at Marvel of my career and close to 10 at DC, I had a lot of experience at other companies, it really felt like I had made some good contributions there, but I always wanted to do my own thing so this was the perfect chance and perfect opportunity to try that.
IGN: Were there any things that you learned, good or bad, working for Marvel and DC that has been an asset to you starting up AfterShock?
Marts: At both companies, I had the good fortune of working with a lot of high-end creators from working on the X-Men books and Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman. I was really lucky and fortunate to work with so many top name creators, whether it was Scott Snyder or Grant Morrison or Joss Whedon or Andy Kubert or whoever, so that really helped me to develop a good way of working with top-level talent, which are the exact same type of creators we were reaching out to when we were starting AfterShock. People like Brian Azzarello and Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner and Mark Waid. These were all top-level people, some of which I'd worked with before, some of which I hadn't, but that experience at Marvel and DC certainly helped me to get these relationships up and running quickly.
Also, the experience of working on a whole line of titles or family of titles, be it Batman or X-Men or Guardians of the Galaxy, helped me think beyond just regular, single-series editing, thinking of what a family of titles would feel like and present that to the consumers. That experience certainly added to the foundation of AfterShock.
As far as bad things, it's hard to pinpoint anything specifically, but every difficult experience working for the Major Two was mostly a learning experience, so I think that anything I learned along the way working for the two big publishers, I'm sure I pocketed away in my brain somewhere for future reference, and I'm sure a lot of those lessons have helped me out in the formation of AfterShock.
IGN: AfterShock puts out creator-owned comics, but there are other publishers that already do that, so can you talk about what sets AfterShock apart from the rest? What are you doing to make AfterShock attractive to creators?
Marts: We keep our line intentionally tight. We're not looking to take over market share or go crazy with title count, and because we're only working on 8, 9, 10 titles a month at most, I think we're able to devote more time and energy to the quality of the books. That's everything from the covers to the story inside to the level of creators that we're working with. The top-level quality that we put into every book is certainly something that sets us apart. We also take calculated risks and try to push the envelope and try to think outside the box and try to do things differently. We're not afraid of experimenting and trying new things and taking chances. So that mindset also sets us apart from other publishers.
We receive hundreds of submissions for stories each month. We carefully go through everything and we're very specific and particular in what stories we accept. We've been known to get pitched by some top-level creators and for whatever reason the pitch or story doesn't work for us, we've had to pass on that and try to develop something else with that writer. We're very specific in how we approach the types of projects that we do.
I think those things combined really set up apart from other creator-owned publishers, and beyond that, we really try to foster a creative environment that is friendly to the creators, that feels comfortable and safe, that essentially feels like a family. So that's what we've been trying to grow and nurture at AfterShock.
IGN: Speaking of creators, Warren Ellis just announced a new comic he's doing at AfterShock, Shipwrecked with artist Phil Hester. What brought Warren to AfterShock to do this comic?
Art by Phil Hester
Marts: Warren is one of those creators that we sought out right from the get-go when we first started the company. We almost had something off the ground at that point in time, but Warren's workload at the time was really growing and he had taken on the James Bond book at Dynamite, so the timing didn't really work out then. Since then, Joe Pruett, our publisher, has a great relationship with Warren and he kept the dialog and conversation going in the months following those early talks.
Eventually, some time and space opened up in Warren's schedule and he had this project that really seemed to fit perfectly into the type of thing we like to do and after that it was pretty easy getting this off the ground and getting it up and running.
IGN: I've read the solicit, which is short and tantalizing, but could you talk a little more about what his new comic is about?
Marts: Warren is no stranger to exciting science fiction and science fiction which really takes incredible, unexpected turns. Planetary is a perfect example. We keep going back to Planetary and we think the type of reader who is interested in Planetary is definitely going to be interested in what he's doing in Shipwrecked.
It follows the story of Jonathan Shipwright who, when we get to know him in the early pages of Shipwrecked #1, he's the sole survivor of some shipwreck that went horribly wrong. His journey is one where the reader is with him every step of the way learning things as he does. Just classic Warren Ellis, there are exciting characters at every turn, each one with some different clue that will lead us along Jonathan's journey, and then we soon discover there are other characters who are involved in this shipwreck and it's much bigger than what we're led to believe in the early pages.
And that's really just the beginning of the crazy, mysterious, captivating journey, which is full so many twists and turns.
IGN: I'm interested to hear what the digital marketplace has been for you. I imagine that starting a new comic book company in 2015 would benefit greatly from being able to spread the word digitally and put comics in front of people that way. Has that been the case for AfterShock?
Marts: We have partnered with Comixology to distribute our digital comics. We see the whole digital landscape as something that is still in its infancy. I think that the landscape you see now with digital is only a fraction of where we can go with it. AfterShock is very aggressive in our digital strategies and our digital expectations. We hired on someone a few months ago, Mike Zagari, who worked for Disney Publishing and DC Comics and is huge in the digital realm at Disney in terms of virtual content development. He's been a huge piece of the digital puzzle for us. We feel that the best is yet to come. We're exploring many different opportunities, many different strategies on how we can get AfterShock created original content out through digital means.
IGN: What are your favorite success stories from AfterShock so far?
Art by Pat Olliffe
Marts: Rough Riders was a story which was pitched to us last San Diego Comic-Con by Adam Glass. Adam was the executive producer on Supernatural for some time and is now the showrunner on CSI: Criminal Intent. I'd known Adam from when he was working on writing Suicide Squad for DC Comics. He met the AfterShock team last year at San Diego and we had about two or three different pitches with him and Rough Riders was the one that he pitched us first. He pitched that and we were just like, "Stop! We got it. That's exactly what we want to do."
We knew it was a good story and a great concept, but it's really taken on this whole life of its own and we're so excited by the success of Rough Riders. Right now it's our best-selling title and we expect a lot more from the creative team in the months to come.
That's one example. The other great success story is that all of our initial launches were so well-received by everyone. By retailers, consumers, reviewers. I think people really noticed the amount of detail and energy and time that we put into each and every one of these comics. It was nice to feel appreciated in that way, nice to see the hard work we put in was recognized.
IGN: I'll have to say that my personal favorite is InSeXts by Marguerite Bennett and Ariela Kristantina. It's a great lesson in how to write great female characters, great gay characters, really just solid storytelling all-around. I tried to get into Second Sight by David Hine and Alberto Ponticelli, and it's not that it was bad, but it was so unsettling with the guy with the suit wearing other people's teeth and hair, it was hard to keep reading. Comics don't usually give me nightmares but that one haunted me for a while after reading.
Marts: It's good to hear that you had that reaction because David Hine is that type of writer. You meet David face-to-face and he's the nicest guy you could meet, but having worked with him a lot over the years, he's very experienced in writing successful stories that border on the dark and the gritty and the grotesque and the obscene and the stuff that nightmares are all about. When he first started talking to us about Second Sight, it hit all those key marks and we knew we had a great story on our hands.
IGN: And to end with, what would you say directly to readers to get them excited to check out some AfterShock comics?
Marts: I'd say that AfterShock will give you a great cross-section of everything. We have many different genres that are represented in our publishing line. Everything from sci-fi to horror to action-adventure to period piece. I think we've even created a few genres of our own, certainly with a book like InSeXts, which doesn't really fit into one specific genre. There certainly is something for everyone in our publishing line.
Not knocking the bigger publishers, if superheroes is your thing then you're certainly going to get it from the Big Two, but I'm not sure how much else you're going to get from other publishers. We have such a wide range of titles that there really is something that I think will be special to everyone out there.
Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.
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