Geek Syndicate Issue 7 | Page 20

Geek Syndicate
INTERVIEW

Picking the Brain of Monkeybrain

Monkeybrain Comics took the comic world by storm last year, with its “Independent’s Day” launch and slew of original digital comics. They were doing something new: selling nothing but digital first, possibly digital only, comics with plans to make print editions somewhere down the road.

Partnering with comiXology, the company launched with a line-up that featured a diverse mix of titles, everything from superhero stories to crime to humor. Over the course of the year, they added numerous titles in other genres like sci-fi, western, and more than one book that seems to not really fit into any genre. Along with the new titles came print editions of some of the first wave of books from such companies as Image and IDW. At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Monkeybrain was up for four Eisners, thanks to its title Bandette, including one win for Best Digital Comic. Not bad for a first year. With one year down, and hopefully many more to come, it seemed only right to look into Monkeybrain, the creators that are a part of it, and just how this idea that seemed crazy at first has been wildly successful. With that in mind, co-founder and writer of Edison Rex, Chris Roberson was asked a few questions, along with Monkeybrain creators Christopher Sebela, Michael Moreci, Adam P. Knave, and Gabriel Hardman. GS: Where did the original idea for Monkeybrain come from? Chris Roberson: Well, Monkeybrain had been around as a small press print publisher for about ten years, doing prose science fiction, fantasy, and stuff like that. We’d always talked about doing comics at some point, but couldn’t make the financial side of things worked. With the rise of digital distribution, though, and the elimination of printing costs and the like , we were finally able to put together a structure that made sense.

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Image © Monkeybrain Comics, 2013