INTERVIEW: ‘Elephantmen’ celebrates 100 issues with conclusion to ‘Pentalion Job’
Image courtesy of comiXology / Provided by Super Fan Promotions with permission.
Richard Starkings, creator and writer of the successful Elephantmen comic series, recently wrapped the latest storyline in the comiXology title. The thrilling conclusion of Elephantmen 2261, Season Two, dubbed The Pentalion Job, is now available from the online comic seller. This final installment of season two is also the 100th issue of Starkings’ creation.
For newbies, Elephantmen follows the adventures of Hip Flask, a genetically engineered animal-human hybrid who was bred to be a weapon of mass destruction. He, and others like them, are hybridized animals that have violence pulsating in their blood, but after the war is complete, they must rejoin society and find their way in this new world.
In Elephantmen 2261, Season Two, Flask is facing his biggest challenge yet, and he must overcome the odds and find the man behind the so-called Pentalion Job, a mysterious deal involving transgenics trading amongst Africa, China and the United States. Flask’s right-hand man, Jack Farrell, tries to help, but he is caught up in a fight with the Synthetics.
Starkings is joined in Season Two by artist Axel Medellin. Boo Cook provides the cover of the finale, issue #4.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Starkings about the thrilling conclusion of the second season. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
Could you imagine that Elephantmen would still be going strong 100 issues after its debut?
When Elephantmen launched in 2006, I thought I had enough stories to last six issues — mayyyybeee 12. But, as one issue followed another, I realized that I could keep going well beyond my original expectations.
Key to the longevity of any series, I think, is the appeal of the characters in the stories. I really like all the characters I created for Elephantmen, and I’m always thinking of what would happen to them next. Each story in an ongoing series has inevitable consequences, and I feel I’m following the characters as they act and react to all the things that have happened to them.
When I announced at the ComiXology Originals press conference that the last issue of 2261 season 2 would be the 100th issue in the series (counting all the Hip Flask issues I self-published and the various Elephantmen one shots and mini series), there was a round of applause. I was genuinely surprised — it hadn’t really occurred to me that this was a milestone, even when I was putting the big ‘100’ on the cover.
I’m intimately familiar with each and every issue, so it really doesn’t seem like a long time. When I consider that I’ve been working on the series 20 years or more, then yes, that seems like a long time!
What can fans expect from this concluding installment in season two?
The Pentalion Job was a lot of fun to write — it’s a no-nonsense, action-packed heist story, with giant Elephantmanned robots punching each other up, so there’s a lot more of that as the story reaches its conclusion. But there is a twist in the tale — a twist we’ve been leading up to since the ‘All Coming Evil’ storyline back in issues 65-70 (always available on ComiXology!).
I think longtime readers will recognize the inevitability of the twist, but hopefully they’ll be surprised too. I can’t say any more!
I should also say that I really like writing the Hip Flask/Jack Farrell buddy-cop relationship, which we’ve focused on since the move to ComiXology Originals.
What’s it like to work with artist Axel Medellin?
Axel is perhaps the most patient and accommodating artist I’ve worked with — and I’ve worked with a lot of artists! He works from pencil thumbnails I create as I’m plotting out each story, and he always brings so much more to them than I am capable of adequately communicating. Over more than 50 issues now he has come to know the characters very well, and it’s hard to imagine working with anyone else on the series. We have definitely developed a shorthand that makes working together very easy.
What do you like most about Hip and writing for the character?
Hip is a character who has suffered in life but is at peace with who he is and will always go out of his way to help others, even if they are at odds with him. He has a good sense of right and wrong and has an open heart towards anyone and everyone that crosses his path … but if you cross him, or hurt his friends, he will take you down!
Other Elephantmen are not as happy in their skin as Hip is, and in that sense Elephantmen is just a story about being human, even if you happen to be an 8-foot tall human/animal hybrid.
What was the first comic you ever read? What did you love about it?
I read comics from a very very young age and was always attracted to them. The first comic I really loved was a weekly British comic called Countdown, which featured comic strips based on sci-fi TV shows like Doctor Who, UFO, Fireball XL5 and Stingray. The stories were so colourful and beautifully illustrated that I often preferred them to the TV shows themselves.
I wanted to live in those worlds! Science fiction has always been the big attraction to me — not superheroes — so it was inevitable that I created a science fiction comic when it came to writing my own stories. I also loved reading the Fantastic Four — which I always thought of as more sci-fi than superhero — and a series called The Trigan Empire that ran in another British weekly, Look and Learn. Rebellion/2000AD are planning to reprint The Trigan Empire this year or next, and I highly recommend it. It’s a science fiction epic!
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Elephantmen 2261, Season Two: The Pentalion Job is now available from comiXology. Click here for more information.
