INTERVIEW: Ed Piskor remixes first 280 issues of ‘X-Men’

There’s ambition, and then there’s Ed Piskor.

The celebrated artist, who has won an Eisner Award for his work on Hip Hop Family Tree, has brought a breath of fresh (yet nostalgic) air to Marvel’s X-Men universe with his new series, X-Men: Grand Design. The special edition trade paperback of the miniseries is out today, April 3.

Here was Piskor’s pitch to Marvel: Take the first 280 issues of the iconic X-Men comic book — issues that he adored while growing up — and “remix” them to offer his own take on the material, solve any continuity issues and essentially streamline the many stories and characters into one impactful through line.

The results have been acclaimed by critics and fans alike, and Piskor shows no signs of stopping. The first six 40-page issues, which he wrote, drew, inked, colored and lettered himself, are in a new trade paperback, but he is also lining up X-Men: Grand Design — Second Genesis and X-Men: Grand Design — X-Tinction. Fans of these superheroes will be quite content for the next three years.

“Before I even had the idea for Grand Design, Marvel had me do a special cover for an issue of X-Men,” Piskor said in a phone interview. “It was this kind of initiative they put forth to do a series of covers based on famous rap albums, but with superheroes shoehorned into the composition. … They wanted me to use their current crop of what the X-Men is now, and I had absolutely no idea what those comics look like nowadays. And it was kind of the most joyless time I’ve ever had as a professional because I had no connection with the material, so a little bit after that, I won an Eisner Award for a volume of Hip Hop Family Tree. That’s a big deal in comics. It’s kind of like an Academy Award for comics, so I was feeling extremely egotistical or full of myself that I tweeted that Marvel should let me make whatever kind of X-Men comic I want to make.”

Little did he guess that Marvel would reach out … almost right away. From there, the ball started rolling. Within five months he was putting pencil to paper on the project that would become Grand Design.

“They asked me what would my comic be,” he said. “What would I end up doing for them? This may or may not be the only thing I ever do for Marvel, so the simple answer to give was I want to do everything. Let me take the first 280 issues of X-Men, which is about where I stopped reading, and let me kind of remix the entire canon for myself to make a complete story that has a beginning, middle and ending. These monthly comics they’re built to keep people coming back. … But I just wanted to make something complete.”

Between the tweet that hooked Marvel and the beginning of the project, Piskor revisited some of those 280 issues from his youth in order to brush up on the material. Admittedly, he knew most of the large story arcs from memory; that’s how influential X-Men was in his childhood.

“These are comics that I’ve grown up on,” he said. “These are comics that I’ve reread several times anyhow. This is a dream project of sorts. … This is all I have to give, and it’s something I do really, really well. Some people would call it research, but I just called it reading for pleasure.”

As far as taking on the lettering, inking, coloring himself, there was no question he would be performing a one-man show. As he put it, he does not play well with others.

“Comics is so incredibly labor-intensive, and it’s such a deep thought exercise that you really risk making a piece of junk with the more people that you bring into the fold to put together each page,” Piskor said. “And so if there’s a weak link, blame me. If it works, blame me. If it doesn’t, it’s all my fault.”

Piskor is not looking to push the limits of what he can do with these memorable characters. He is trying to honor these creations and bring them together into a complete narrative.

“[Being controversial] is not even the spirit of what my comic is,” he said. “It’s the opposite. It’s like be as faithful to these characters as you could possibly be. Before I achieved the comic that you read, I basically do a quick and dirty draft of it in complete form beforehand. I just kind of draw it on your standard typing paper, really fast, really loose, and I send it off to the editors to take a look at. They’ve never come back with questions or concerns or anything like that. They’re quite happy with the direction that I’ve been taking it in.”

The response has been epic, and fans can expect a lot more from Grand Design.

“This book came out … and flew off the shelves,” Piskor said. “It’s caught on. It’s a pretty fun thing to watch happen because that first issue was completed about a year and a half ago, and it was completed inside of a vacuum. I thought it would work. I really believed in it. I put all my effort into it, but you never know until it hits the shelves.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

X-Men: Grand Design, the special edition trade paperback by Ed Piskor, is now available from Marvel. Click here and here for more information.