PopSyndicate.com

Thanks for doing this.  How have you been?

Been well no complaints.

The comic book market is a tough one.  The comic book landscape is littered with the bodies of failed publishing companies.  What made you want to get into this business?

We wanted to create original content and not be bound by constraints of others.  However, I have to tell you the first two sentences you wrote for question were things I wish I had looked at more closely before starting.  I seriously had no idea how much work it was going to take to get us to where we are at now.

You’re starting your fourth year, what has made Viper Comics succeed where others have failed?

I think our success has come from only publishing work we’re 100% behind and seeing it through even when sales haven’t been there.  In addition, we owe a lot to the creators for having a high level of commitment to their projects.

Actors and directors don’t watch movies.  Some authors don’t read other peoples works.  Lots of comic book professionals don’t read comics because of being so involved in the creation process. Do you still read comics or has running a publishing company ruined it for you?

Well I can honestly tell you I feel bad at moments but all I have time to read is our books that are in production or look at future books we’ll be publishing.  As you know our work continues to increase and our staff is the same, time is limited.

Everyone wants to get his or her comic published.  Viper seems to be very select in the properties they publish.  What do you look for in a property? 

We like to look at stuff that people think publishers won’t publish.  We want to see original ideas, stuff that hasn’t been done. 

Any advise you would offer up to people looking to solicit to Viper? 

Send in paragraph synopsis of pitch and few pages of art.  Keep it simple.

When DEAD@17 came out it was big hit.  Did that surprise you?

We knew the project was special but had no idea it was going to do as well as it has done. 

Where you worried about being labeled as another horror publisher?

Not really because we knew what other work we had in store and it was just a matter of time before people would see other projects we had in the works.

Viper helped establish Josh Howard, Kazu Kibuishi and David Hopkins (check out his Pop Syndicate column).  Who’s the next artist we should be paying attention to?

Otis Frampton (Oddly Normal), his book was just selected as a top 10 Recommended read by Book List.  Cool thing is we just heard of this and we have Volume 2 releasing late May.  Another person to keep an eye on is Jason M. Burns he wrote The Expendable One, Dummy’s Guide to Danger and we’re about to release The Underworld Railroad.  We’ve also had lots of good reviews for Courtney Huddleston and Scott Zirkel “A Bit Haywire.” We actually have a one-shot by Courtney Huddleston coming out in May.  Be on the look out for Javier Grillo-Marxuach The Middleman Volume 3 releases in July (but we didn’t help establish Javi, he’s already an established writer…he’s a writer on NBC’s Medium TV Show).  The Middleman was also selected as a Recommended Book for Younger Readers by the American Library Association. We also have Wes Molebash we’ll be releasing his One-Shot in comic format for his You’ll Have That webcomic strip.  Ryan Cody and Adam Cogan creators of Villains are also having great success and positive reviews with their project. 

What’s happening with Viper Comics these days?

Just finished working on our biggest book ever, Josh Howard Presents: Sasquatch a 256 pages full color that will be slightly bigger than the digest size books we publish.  It will be a 6X9 portrait size.  This was a huge undertaking.  I can tell you we can’t wait till it hit stores I think fans will be very pleased.

What’s going on with the third installment of Middleman? 

Volume 3 will be out just in time for San Diego Comic Con.  Can’t wait the series has had great reviews. Plus we’ll be announcing the winner of the Middleman Contest very soon. Winner will do the artwork for an alternate ending that we’ll be included in Volume 3.

I know this is still hush-hush but can you talk about any of the development deals Viper has in the works?

Not at this point I can say that I’ve been told that announcement (movie deal) will go out to the trades in next few weeks (hopefully), and they’re working on possibly doing big announcement on this same project at SDCC.  We also have another project that’s been optioned but we still can’t make announcement or mention of. 

Describe the process of getting a development deal. 

Don’t know that there’s a process, it’s more of just getting projects out/completed and creating some visibility for them.

Viper recently added several web comics. Why expand the web comics and do you have any other areas you want to expand into? 

Well we want to publish some of the great webcomics that are out there.  We’ve seen some really cool projects and want to help bring more exposure to them.

Where do you see the future of Viper Comics going? 

We have lots in the works, hopefully soon we’ll have our first action figure which is based on Nara from Dead At 17, and we also have an apparel line we’ll be launching this summer. Plus lots of other very exciting things…

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