Get wild! We're Going FERAL with TONY FLEECS

Austin Allen Hamblin is back - this time with Tony Fleecs over the ongoing Image Comics collaboration with Trish Forstner, Feral.

---

COMIC BOOK YETI: Tony, first noting your work in Stray Dogs, it turns out tons of your work was already in my collection, including; Jeff Steinberg: Champion of Earth, Firebreather, My Little Pony, and a bunch of anthologies for which you have drawn or written. Our readers might also know you from your work on Rick and Morty, Star Wars, Local Man, Uncanny Valley, or Army of Darkness Forever. You’ve had a pretty interesting career. Did you think you’d end up where you are now? Is this kind of what you pictured when you were starting?

TONY FLEECS: Yeah, interesting is a good word for it. I'm kind of where I hoped I'd end up. Which... I try not to take for granted when I'm complaining about how much work I need to get done. I still, obviously am striving to get better at making these things all the time and of course, I wish more people read them. But I've been making a living JUST from comics for over a decade. Image, my all-time favorite publisher since I was 13 is my home for creator-owned comics and I'm getting these cool opportunities to work for the big publishers on characters that I grew up loving. I get to write and draw for a living. It's pretty good right now... (He says as the whole world falls apart).

CBY: You had said to me in the past that when you started to do licensed comics, it was when you started getting good. Can you elaborate on that?

TF: It wasn't when I STARTED doing licensed comics. It was just the repetition of making those comics. Every month. On a deadline. Licensor approvals. Dealing with notes. Dealing with different scripts from different writers. All of that was like comic book boot camp. I drew like 50 My Little Pony comics and I did a bunch of Star Wars adventures and Rick and Morty and hundreds of covers. And once you get your legs under you and figure out how you're going to get a book done every 20-25 days, you start to be able to try new things. Stretch and experiment... All while paying your rent.

When I'd draw other people's scripts (I only wrote a couple of the Pony books), I'd see all this stuff that they did that I liked AND stuff that I would do differently. It was pretty organic-- I didn't get the My Little Pony gig and say, "OK, now I'm at comic book school. Let's start learning." but that's basically how it happened.  

CBY: Feral is in the same vein as Stray Dogs, yet it is so different. When did the idea for Feral first cross your mind?

TF: It took a while to crack it. Stray Dogs was such a lightbulb moment for me that I was just sort of sitting around at first just waiting for another lightbulb. We knew we wanted to do cats and from there it was just... How do we do this same thing but make it completely different. We wanted to keep the animated animal/horror vibe but nothing else. Because who wants to just repeat themselves? Especially so early in our creator-owned books. Once we landed on rabies, that really got the motor running. Then it's placed outdoors while Stray Dogs was set indoors. Instead of one antagonist, it's everyone they meet... It just started to feel right. 

CBY: Is it fair to say that it feels like your version of The Walking Dead?

TF: I remember when I heard Robert Kirkman's pitch for that book, "The worst part of any zombie movie is the end"-- Why are they stopping? They should just keep going. The next day would be just as messed up and terrifying. That really struck a chord with me. We're definitely doing that.

In our case, The Walking Dead is sort of just shorthand for "long running zombie series." It's not a Walking Dead homage or remake-- It's not like when they had cats meowing over Bohemian Rhapsody. It's like shorthand for, "Dramatic, scary, heartbreaking, surprising story. Incredible cliffhangers. Sprawling. Huge cast. Deep characters... but with cats."  

I'll tell you what The Walking Dead has that I wish we had: Guns. It's tough to keep thinking up new ways for these unarmed cats to keep killing rabid zombies.  

CBY: What does the collaborative process look like with Trish? Do you think you approach writing differently because you are an artist?

TF: I think I approach all of my books differently because I'm an artist. Being able to think visually, I think, makes it easier for me to see the pages while I'm writing them. I'm always trying to be mindful about how much stuff I'm putting on a page and how it's all going to fit together when the artist draws it. I think about anchor images all the time. How can we put something on this page that draws the reader's eye. 

This book, in particular-- the way we do it wouldn't work if I couldn't draw. Trish is a genius. One of the best character cartoonists in comics. One of the best to ever draw a dog. When you see Sophie from Stray Dogs or Lord from Feral-- they just look like iconic cartoon characters. Like you've known them since you were a kid. 

I sort of cast these books like I was hiring artists to make an animated movie. Trish drew animals EXACTLY how I wanted them to look. And then one of my oldest friends, superstar artist Tone Rodriguez, draws the backgrounds (and the cars and people-- anything that's not an animal). He's just an amazing draftsman. He does great mood too. Can make a field or an empty room look creepy just by the way he draws them. So those two are co-artists on the book. I draw pretty detailed thumbnails for them to work off of. That keeps everything unified. Trish and Tone are working from the same layouts so that in the end it all matches up. And then Brad Simpson comes in and paints these beautiful textures on the backgrounds and he leaves the characters in flat colors for the most part, again, so that they look like an old school, 2d animated movie. 

CBY: How far do you want Feral to go? Is this the next Savage Dragon?

TF: We've been saying 60 issues from the beginning, but we've also been saying that if the book catches fire and people are still reading it in four years -- We love making it. I would keep making it forever. The worst part of a zombie story is the end, right? They should just keep going. 

CBY: How can people follow your work?

TF: I'm @tonyfleecs on all the socials. And if you want to sign up for my newsletter or shop for original art, I'm at www.tonyfleecs.com.

CBY: This has been Austin Allen Hamblin from Comic Book Yeti, signing off with another interview from the Yeti Cave! Be excellent every! https://linktr.ee/austinallenhamblin

---

Like what you've just read? Help us keep the Yeti Cave warm! Comic Book Yeti has a Patreon page for anyone who wants to contribute: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookyeti