War Rocket Ajax #101: Rick Spears and Chuck BB Get Brutal with ‘Black Metal’ [Podcast]

This week, ComicsAlliance's War Rocket Ajax podcast gets brutal with the creators of Oni Press's Black Metal, Rick Spears and Chuck BB! They tell us all about what it was like to make a bone-crushing, head-chopping adventure through Hell for kids, and you can listen to the whole show right here at ComicsAlliance!War Rocket Ajax #101: Friendship is a Sword with Rick Spears and Chuck BB

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)

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In this week's episode, Chris is gearing up for two weeks of the WFMU Fundraiser Marathon and Matt is tuckered out from wrapping the first story arc of Copernicus Jones, but they're both pleased to welcome Hundo Club member Dave Conde to the show as a special third chair. Clearly, he got his money's worth.

When Chuck and Rick arrive, Rick breaks down what Black Metal is all about for new readers:

Rick: Basically it's about these two two brothers, Sam and Shawn Stronghand, and they are these black metal dudes, and they end up shoplifting this record, playing it backwards, getting this enchanted sword, and they go to Hell to basically take over. That summarizes the first book, without giving too much of it away.

In the second book, we sort of get deeper into the mysteries of what's going on in Hell and the political structure there, and angels and Heaven get involved, and the boys decide because it's two of them and they've got one sword and they're not really good at sharing, to go get a second sword and the complications that entails. It's grim and it's dark, but also funny, and we try to have a good time with it.

You know, it's a kids' book. With lots of decapitations.

The first one, at it's heart, it's about working together. It's about partnership, you know what I'm saying? The buddy system. Because only when they work together...

Chuck: Rick and I walked hand-in-hand to make this comic, and I never let him out of my sight.

Rick: Through fields of daisies.

They also tell us a little bit about their influences on Black Metal from the world of black metal:

Chuck: I am a metalhead as of... all the times. From being a kid to being a now. Right now, at this very moment.

Rick: For my part, I listen to a lot of varied stuff and definitely a lot of metal. Otherwise, I'm sort of more of a punk kid. What I like about metal is, especially when I was younger, really young, like Mötley Crüe or something, people would be like "They're Satanists!" and I was like "Really?!" I'd get tingly abouit because if they're really into Satan, I don't know, I don't want to get into trouble, but then you're like, actually, that's kinda f***ing cool. Maybe I want to try it out. That's definitely something we want to play with in Black Metal.

Chuck: Satan is a part of Black Metal?!

Rick: Yeah.

Chuck: By and large, if you're listening to the second wave of punk or whatever you want to call it, you're listening to metal. But yes, to answer your question, we're legit.

Plus, hear about Chuck BB's appearance on VH1's The Pickup Artist. Seriously.

Show Notes:

You can find Rick Spears and Chuck BB on Twitter!

Chuck's Stone Cold Lazy appears in the pages of Decibel Magazine.

Elvis Costello's "Five Gears In Reverse" isn't on YouTube, but you should go buy Get Happy!! anyway.

If you're not familiar with Darkthrone, prepare for brutality.

The cheery story of Mayhem on Wikipedia! Prepare to fall down a hole of reading about death metal, plots to blow up churches, and murders.

Read about Chuck's encounter with the Pickup Artist, and watch the whole episode.

Check Out Dave's Knifey Spoony webcomic!

Chris's Rec: Gotham City Impostors.

Matt's Rec: The Sisters Brothers.

Dave's Rec: The Specials.

Comics Reviewed:

Wolverine #301: "There's a section of this comic called 'Chapter 11: Ninja in a Coma.' They have to go find this master ninja, so Wolverine takes these people to a hospital, where there's a guy who's been in a coma for five years, and Wolverine cuts the life support stuff that's keeping him alive. The guy starts to flatline, and all the sudden the guy gets up and says 'Logan, you insufferable bastard, I will kill you for this! ... I love the Jason Aaron books like this and Ghost Rider where he just gets to go nuts and make these crazy characters with crazy motivations. It's a hoot of a book."

Winter Soldier #2: "Here's the thing about Winter Soldier: the first issue ends with the Black Widow and Bucky being attacked by one of the Red Ghost's gorillas, who has a machine gun, and who yells at one point, in Russian, 'Death to America.' Even in a book like that, what Marvel is doing right now is putting that sort of crazy, fun insanity into their comics. At least, in the good ones."

Batman #6: "I do just want to point out that when we talked about how it was going to be super-fun to see Batman figure out what the deal was with those guys and flip the script on them, and flip out and beat those dudes up, yeah. We were right. That's totally fun."