Headlocked Comic Creator Michael Kingston Interview: Wrestling Comics, Creative Wrestlers & More

You've already well surpassed 300 backers and the $22,000 mark on Kickstarter. How awesome of an accomplishment is that for you with still a few days left before the campaign is over?

Kingston: The money is never really the issue for me. Obviously, we need to make enough money to produce the book. I don't ever see a dime from any of this stuff, honestly. It goes to artists, printers, the post office, and if I have money left over, it's going into the next thing. I still work a regular job. I work between 60 and 70 hours a week. My mortgage is taken care of and my lights are going to stay on, but I have two more books I want to launch. I've got collaborations coming up. We just wrapped up a collaboration with The IInspiration. I'm working on a Christmas one now I can't announce yet, but it's pretty wild.

I'm doing a story in February with Jerry Lawler that's an ode to the wrestling journeymen. We have plenty of stuff coming up and that's all going into the next thing. I just want backers. I want people to read what we make. Everything that we do is made with love. You can always tell if something is made for money or made out of love and all the guys that contribute to the series like wrestling comics and they all want to do it. The artists all love wrestling and it's all people who are making something cool and we want people to try it. For me, the backer number is the most important number and you want to get more than the last one.

Have any of the wrestlers you've worked with surprised you as far as how creative or artistic they were?

Kingston: The story stuff doesn't surprise me because wrestlers to me are natural storytellers. They tell stories in the ring, they're telling stories in the back and in the car between shows. It's what they do. They're storytellers. That part of the collaboration is generally easy and I look for people who can relate to the grassroots, built-from-the-ground-up sort of thing. I look for people like that, people who do their own thing. A guy like Effy or Danhausen who came up from nothing, or a guy like Samoa Joe who resisted the urge to be a stereotypical Samoan and had a great career. Someone like MVP, who sold his gimmick to WWE, something nobody else has ever done.

People like that, I target people like that, like Matt Cardona and Brian Myers. Has there been anyone who has been given less and done more than Matt Cardona? It's amazing. I have so much respect for guys like that. Those are the guys that get it and make it work. That part of it doesn't surprise me, but some wrestlers have contributed actual art in addition to Jerry and that always surprises me. We had Tugboat do a piece along with Ken Anderson and Booker T. Tony Atlas does art, too, and he does pointillism. The wrestlers who have art skills always interest me.

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