Tiger-men are cool. Whether it’s Prince Tuften of Kamandi, Shere Khan from Talespin or Bronze Tiger when he wears that mask, there’s something about a human/tiger hybrid that strikes fear in the heart of pretty much anybody and inspires awe in the others. And now, a new Tiger-man has joined their ranks.
Blighter is a hunter, and he’s coming to our world to hunt. Blighter: Tracker of the Realm is a new Kickstarter from writer Jeff Parker (Batman ’66, Agents of Atlas) and artist Drew Moss (Copperhead, Blood Feud). ComicsXF talked to Parker about the campaign, Tiger-men and antiheroes.
Matt Lazorwitz: What is the elevator pitch for Blighter: Tracker of the Realm?
Jeff Parker: It’s a modern-day setting, but what if Mowgli from the Jungle Book teamed up with Shere Khan instead of the other animals? And then what if they hunted deadly monsters?
Matt: This is your first Kickstarter, or at least the first you’ve run yourself. What made you decide to take the Kickstarter route?
Jeff: A number of friends who had done Kickstarters were very happy with having an ongoing connection to their readership, and that sounded good to me. You can put out something you’re very proud of and it still gets lost in all the noise or is mis-marketed. Or I’m out cycling around and not doing the online outreach to find my readers. Kickstarter seems to make that relationship more solid.
Matt: How did you hook up with artist Drew Moss and the rest of your creative team?
Jeff: Editor Nate Cosby, who I’ve worked with on many books over the years, put us all together. He’s good at telling who will sync up, and keeping the machine rolling once it comes together. We worked a lot on the Marvel Adventures books at Marvel, and the Flash Gordon relaunch at Dynamite. We even did Angry Birds comics!
Matt: You’ve written a lot of superhero books, and some sci-fi as well, but not a lot of fantasy. Have you had a fantasy itch you’ve been dying to scratch for some time?
Jeff: Well, that’s where I need to probably be more clear — Blighter may look like fantasy, but it’s science fiction! With elements of fantasy-horror, perhaps is the way to describe it. I have nothing against fantasy! But I see how a boisterous tiger-man sets that tone. Hopefully it will make a nice gateway for fans of both genres. Star Wars is sci-fantasy, after all, I hear that’s caught on to a degree.
Matt: On the campaign, you talk about wanting to write a character who is “just a whisker away from being the villain of the story.” First, great wordplay there when said character is a tiger-man. Second, what is it about characters that are straddling the line between good and evil that speaks to you?
Jeff: As out-there as a lot of the concepts in Blighter are, the characters I think, feel real. And most people are not all good or all bad. Oddly it raises some philosophical questions: Does it matter more what your intent is, or what the results are of your actions? Blighter is a bloodthirsty glory-hound (excuse the dog metaphor), but as they say, “He gets results,” and ones that are positive for our world. That’s what’s interesting about Arvi, his sidekick. She’s a child, and we’re used to thinking of children as idealistic and not given to tolerating nuance. But she is all about the fact that Blighter is the one being she’s seen be effective against the creatures running rampant all over the world, and she wants to be part of his operation. As you’ll see, she has good reason.
Matt: Lord Blighter is a tiger-man, and your Agents of Atlas work is noted for the use of Kenneth Hale, better known as Gorilla-Man. Are there any other animals you think would make great man-hybrid protagonists, not counting the expected werewolf ones?
Jeff: First, thanks for the callback to Gorilla-Man! Boy did I have fun writing him. Friends often pointed out that he spoke often in my voice, which I’m not sure is a compliment or simply too insightful. This is a tough question because Jack Kirby’s Kamandi showed us that almost any animal can be anthropomorphized well (especially when you’re Kirby). I’m a big cephalopod fan, so I’m going to say octopus for now.
Matt: Congratulations on surpassing your funding goals right out of the gate. I see you already have some stretch goals announced. Mind talking about them, and maybe even hinting if there are more to come if you blow through those?
Jeff: The big one I really want to get to is the 35K because I want the book to be longer, and I guess everyone is like that once they dive in. I am open to suggestions — some backers have asked about hardbacks and I’m not adverse to it, I just prefer reading softbacks personally. But yeah, my main goal is getting enough funding to simply go longer and make sure the team are compensated well.
Blighter: Tracker of the Realm is live on Kickstarter now and runs through October 21.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
