War Rocket Ajax #122: Tim Seeley On ‘Hack/Slash,’ Exploitation And Kenny G

After two Q&A episodes, the War Rocket Ajax podcast returns to its usual format with special guest Tim Seeley! You know Seeley as the co-creator of Hack/Slash, the writer of Bloodstrike, Revival and Witchblade, the former artist of G.I. Joe and one of the creators behind Double Feature Comics, and on this week's show, he talks about the reaction he's gotten from his books and how he approaches writing a comic that moves across genres -- and you can listen to the show right here at ComicsAlliance!War Rocket Ajax #122: Songbird with Tim Seeley

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)

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On this week's episode, Chris has returned from San Diego with all the grumbling about Comic-Con that you've come to expect. Plus, a lengthy anti-rec / diatribe about Braid, and Matt takes listener suggestions on cartoons to watch!

When Seeley joins us, the conversation turns to Hack/Slash and how it's affected reader perception of his work and his career:

As far as books being judged I'd have to say that I get judged for Hack/Slash so much that it's not even surprising to me. That's a lot of my fault, because I think that the perception is always that it's just a dumb booby-book that has nothing beyond that. It didn't really help us out that around the same time we started, the Zenescope stuff started coming out, which, I mean, certainly a lot of it is just sort of stupid and sexist and kinky and silly. That didn't help us.
I certainly have an aesthetic that I like to maintain for a tongue-in-cheek, hokey approach that sometimes people don't realize there's a story there too. Don't feel bad, I'm super used to it at this point. In fact, most of that sh** is the reason that I was like "I've got to do a horror book where I don't have to deal with this stuff," and that's why I did Revival. That's not the only reason, but one of the reasons was that I need to do something respectable. As much as I'm doing what I want to do, clearly this is making me come across as a certain kind of creator.
I think I got pigeonholed, which is fine. It's a pigeonhole I like to be in, but I don't only want to do that kind of thing for the rest of my life.
But yeah, Hack/Slash is like a blessing and a curse. Exactly the way that I know you reacted to it when I would assume that you would be the kind of person who would like it, is this kind of thing that I've been dealing with for eight years.
The book has to be what it is, because the people who read it, that's what they like about it. But I came up in the same group of guys, and even before some writers that were doing Image books, like Matt Fraction or Jonathan Hickman, Kieron Gillen, Robert Kirkman even. I came up at the same time as those guys, and I've had less Big Two stuff. I'm fine on work, but I do think that Big Two editor types don't think of me in the same way because of the book I do. A project has to come along very specific to what they perceive I can do. I did Ant Man and Wasp at Marvel, and that was sort of someone saying "Well, Seeley writes a kind of jerk bunch of characters and some crude sh**." No one read Phonogram and said "we can't put Gillen on Thor because he writes about British pop music."
I got a pigeonhole that none of those guys did. Or they just didn't think I was good.

Plus, more about his other projects, and where he (literally) draws the line for exploitation, in this week's episode!

Show Notes:

Follow @HackinTimSeeley on Twitter, and check out his DeviantArt gallery.

Check out Double Feature Comics, it's highly recommended.

Find out more about Delilah, who describes her show as a "safety zone where listeners take off their armor, slip into a 'Mr. Rogers' cardigan, sit around the electronic hearth and share their secrets."

Kenny G - Songbird:

Chris's Rec: An anti-recommendation for Braid.