One of the great success stories of recent months, Atomic Robo has made an immediate impact on comics culture with its combination of dynamic art and fun storytelling. With copies scarce and a trade paperback all but a certainty, it's clear the title has struck a nerve. A good nerve, like maybe one in your tummy or behind your ear.

We decided to take HeavyInk users straight to the source and open our forums for a fan interview with Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegner, writer and artist on Atomic Robo. Read on to learn more about their influences, their inspirations, and their underpants.

From Todd Michael Rogers: Without getting into monetary specifics, how expensive/hard is it to break into this niche world of reading, even when you have a great and beloved product?

SCOTT: I'm not sure how to break it down in terms of money. It's not like we pay to have the books printed. That's what Red 5 Comics is for. I could tally up all the pages I did without getting paid and the time spent getting people to look at them, but that would just depress the shit out of me. So instead I'll say: "It's free!"

As far as how difficult it is - that seems to be a matter of perspective. It's extremely time consuming and work intensive, but if you are truly passionate about it then that doesn't really matter. I love what I do. It gives me great pleasure - each page takes hours to illustrate and most of the time it's like escaping into a great work of fiction. It transports me to a happy place.

Unless Brian writes something stupid. Then it's not so awesome. In those cases I just draw what I want and make him re-write the script around my doodles.

But back to breaking in. For me it was a matter of setting goals for myself, coming home from work each day and just drawing, and/or reading about perspective, or cinematography. I'd do the domestic stuff; feed the family, the bedtime routine with my daughter etc. and then draw. For 2 to 5 hours. Whatever I could force myself to do before I started making mistakes and nodding off. And you don't really get your weekends off either. It's definitely a 7-days a week kind of thing.

Most people I talk to who say they want to do their own book or get work as an artist flinch when I tell them that. And I did too when other artist told me. But I decided it was something I really wanted to do, so I did it.

While I still think we've got miles to go before Brian and I are slapping each other on the back saying, "Phew, we made it!", I think we are taking the right steps to give us the best chance of succeeding.

BRIAN: Scott's right, we do not pay to have the books printed, but I sure as hell did pay a penciler, an inker, a colorist, and a letterer to produce twenty-two pages for each of six books. Let's just say it added up FAST.

How hard is it to break in though? I don't know. One or both of us works on Robo every day and we finished our six issues months ago. It's a job that never really stops and the potential for reward is pretty dubious. It's easy in the sense that doing anything you love can be easy, but the work itself doesn't ever stop.

Also, boxers or briefs?

SCOTT: Those jockey-shorts things that Marky Mark makes look so good. I like how they lift and support my love-handles.

BRIAN: Yeah, I like how they lift and support his love-handles too.

From Tyler: Hrm. I've been an 8-bit Theatre junkie for a long time. So, I'm curious how that has affected Atomic Robo. Like… did you learn things from doing 8-bit that you still keep in mind when writing Atomic Robo? Also... How long until I see 8-bit comic books or graphic novels? What if I beg?

SCOTT: I have absolutely nothing to do with 8-bit Theater, but I have learned from it, (and my daughter has contributed art to it). I think the limited format and cheesy FF sprites have left Brian no alternative to become one of the best writers in the history of writing. Bite me Dickens.

As for an 8-bit comic book or TPB -don't be thick. It can't happen. Never. It's a little thing called "copyright". Brain Clevinger does not own the Final Fantasy franchise. Square-Enix does. Stop yammering about it like a bunch of chimps.

BRIAN: In some ways I have to overcome habits from 8-bit Theater. Most 8-bit pages have at least twelve panels with a fair amount of text in each. If I wrote Atomic Robo like that, Scott would quite rightfully punch me in the throat. On the other hand, 8-bit has been great practice in mixing plot, characterization, and jokes with one another through dialog.

And there will never be an 8-bit Theater collection. Square-Enix has been very kind in pretending that I don't exist and I feel no need to try their patience.

From flexbuffchest: My question: Where's the loot ,Brian? Where's the loot?

SCOTT: Brothers and Sisters, you don't want to know. Trust me.

BRIAN: I think we'll start seeing more Robo related merchandise in '08. If this question had nothing to do with merchandise, then buy some Robo stuff in '08 anyway.

Secret bonus question: How indefinitely postponed is Atomik Age? You can tell me, I won't blab.

BRIAN: Atomik Age is as indefinitely postponed as it is possible to postpone something indefinitely I tried working on it for years, but it became more and more clear to me that everything I wanted to say with those characters and their setting had already been said in Nuklear Age.

From The Magic Marker: How long have you had the Idea for Atomic Robo?

SCOTT: Since last Wednesday.

BRIAN: Kind of a long answer considering the question. It began in 1998. The way it started...imagine Dexter's Lab and replace Dexter with a robot. By about 2000 I'd gotten a little closer to the version we know today. Robo had been invented in the ‘40s, he'd eventually establish himself as a Doc Savage-like scientist/adventurer who fought other robots and monsters, etc. In 2003 or '04 I tried going back to the original vision, but it just wasn't working for me any more. The more I thought about incorporating weird history into the whole thing, the more excited I got about the project. So I went back to Doc Savage-ish version. By mid-2006 Robo became what he is now. Scott played a pretty huge roll in crystallizing that final version of Robo. The character had acquired a lot of baggage in the eight years since his conception, and he cut through all the excess crap to remind me what was at the core.

From Stungravy: So Brian, you've come up with titles such as Nuklear Age, Atomik Age, Nuklearpower, and Atomic Robo, are these kind of names gonna be a career long trend or what?

BRIAN: I don't see a trend at all. You must be crazy.

From Astro-Lad: I've noticed (along with several readers at my LCS) that Atomic Robo is a lot like Hellboy... How much of an influence is Mignola's work to you?

SCOTT: I own a light box and every copy of Hellboy ever printed. I read Brian's scripts and then fish through my Hellboy issues searching for the panels that best match Brian's scripts and trace them. Then I draw Robo's head over HB's head. BAM! Instant Atomic Robo comic book.

Mike Mignola is my biggest single influence. He's one of dozens in general, but if I have to pick one person who I am influenced the most by it is Mignola. There was a period of several years when I wasn't reading any comics. But I still read Hellboy.

When we started work on Atomic Robo I had no idea what I was doing. I had so little experience at sequential storytelling that all I could think to do was dig through my comics and see what guys like Mignola, Immonen, Ottley, and Oeming were doing.

After Issue #1 we took a little break and I really started hitting the cinematography books and studying the craft of laying out a comic book page. I think that if you look closely at the first volume of Atomic Robo you can see the art and storytelling steadily improve as we go along. While it will be May before you can see how I am drawing Robo now, you can compare Atomic Robo #4 to Punisher War Journal #15 -both hit stores in January 2008, but they were drawn more than 6 months apart. The difference is pretty big.

So to wrap up this really long answer I would say yes, the first few issues of Atomic Robo do look a bit like Hellboy. Cut me some slack -it was the only comic book I read in the late 90's/early 2000's. But in the year or so since we started I think I've found my own "voice" and developed a style clearly my own, distinct from, but obviously touched by, the many artists who inspire me.

As far as the writing goes, while there are surface-level similarities, the two books couldn't be more different. Brian sets a very bright, adventurous, and hopeful tone with Atomic Robo. Hellboy is dark, spooky, and melancholy.

Having said that, I think this comparison will always be there because Hellboy really reinvented and defined the pulp adventure comic for our generation. It could accurately be said that Robo has more in common with Doctor Who, Buckaroo Banzai, or Indiana Jones. But Mignola's work is the standard by which this type of comic book is measured in the 21st Century. And I'm okay with that.

BRIAN: I know no one will believe it, but the irony is that Hellboy had little to no influence on my conception of Robo. I'm completely shameless about what we rip-off: Ghostbusters, Buckaroo Banzai, and Indiana Jones. You mix those movies together, put a robot in the middle, and you've got Atomic Robo. Robo's place in the world has everything to do with the logical consequences of introducing this being into 1920s New York and how he impacted society, culture, technology, politics, and religion for the next eighty (plus) years.

There are superficial similarities between Robo and Hellboy, sure. The same can be said of Spider-Man and Batman. Yippee.

From dihydromonoxide: Be your own biggest fanboy/hater for a sec: What aspect of your comic are you most proud of? Like, among dialogue, setting, inks, blah blah blah...which would you call your favorite son? Alternately, in your darkest moments, are there any elements you guys are most afraid someone's going to call you out on?

SCOTT: I think the bit that I am most proud of is Robo himself, his design and personality. I hope that doesn't sound like a cop-out answer.

The initial designs were based on Brian's concept, but then the concept would alter as he saw the art, and then the art would morph again as the written concept evolved. There was also a good deal of Brian coming up with visual ideas for Robo and me adding bits to his personality and back-story. It's been such a fantastic collaboration.

What am I afraid of? I am terrified that someone will notice that we have no idea what we are doing and expose us for the frauds that we are.

BRIAN: My favorite thing overall is also Robo's design. It's brilliant and entirely Scott's. He can give me all the credit he wants, but I only had one real piece of input: no face beyond big goggle-y eyes. He ran with that and pulled off a wonderful timeless look. Visually, Robo is as believable in the ‘20s as he is in the 2020s. It's perfect.

My favorite personal contribution would be Issue #4. It's the only one we've done so far that I really consider a comedy. Any comic where I can get Carl Sagan to say "robot pornography" is a victory.

As for my greatest fear, I dread every new issue that comes out. I'm 100% convinced that the impending issue, whichever one it is, is the one where everyone figures out that we're hacks: "What the hell happened to this series? It had so much promise!"

If you could see Atomic Robo brought into another format (cartoon series, video game, live action movie, sugar caked breakfast cereal, etc...) what would you most love to see?

SCOTT: Oooooh, that's tough.

An action platformer done by Insomniac or Naughty Dog would be amazing.

So would a pen & paper RPG.

But I'll have to go with CGI movie, directed by Brad Bird as my Ultimate Atomic Robo spin-off.

BRIAN: Yeah, that'd be it for me too. Slightly more realistically, I could settle for a really great next gen game franchise that captures the spirit and recklessness of being Robo on the job. Potential developers, the best way to do that is to listen to Scott and I.

Tesla.
VS
Heisenberg!
Bare knuckle brawl!
this
SUNDAY
SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!!
Who'd win?

SCOTT: Tesla. He was a little crazy. Crazy always helps in a fight.

BRIAN: C'mon, who am I going to vote for? The guy who can't tell where he is or how fast he's moving, or the guy who invented a robot who shot a pyramid to death?

You probably went through a lot of rough drafts and preproduction with the comic. Any interesting aspects of Robo that were changed/cut during that time? Any cool characters that didn't make the final edit?

SCOTT: I guess I already touched on this above but I can expound a bit more. For starters Robo no longer has rockets in his feet that allow him to fly. Nor does he have giant ion blasters that strap on to his forearms.

I am a big fan of the street-level character. I'll take Spider-Man over Superman any day of the week. And Brian was amazingly open to my criticism of certain aspects of Atomic Robo. Robo is also a lot more "pulp" now. He was more straight science fiction when we started. But I was working on a pulp idea at the time and bits of that got integrated into the character.

Not that Brian just let me walk all over him by any means! haha

It was like Brian said, "I have Oranges!"

Then I said, "Oranges are okay, but I've got these Apples."

Then Brian made apple-orange flambe with rum sauce from them.

. . .now I'm hungry.

BRIAN: What he said. Robo started in a much more hi-tech setting. But as I brought him into a more "realistic" world I kept a lot of the baggage associated with the previous vision. It didn't occur to me that he wouldn't have rocket boots because, hey, he's a robot, that's what they have. Scott did a great job of reminding me of what really made sense for the character and his world.

From Canadian Pyro: First, let me say that I respect, envy, adore and hate Brian Clevinger. Nuklear Age was the first truly interesting thing I've read since Ender's Game a decade ago. He makes a living out of being a smart-ass and I can't help respect him for it. Not just for having smart-ass characters, anyone can do that. He literally comes across as a smart ass in his writing.

Scott, if you are who I THINK you are, you're an awesome dude whose work I've seen on the interweb and watched with a lot of interest. If you're not, still, congratulations on Atomic Robo, because it looks great.

Oh yeah, question! On Nuklearpower.com, Brian made the excellent point that a graphic novel of Atomic Robo is an impossibility if no one buys the individual issues. Great. But I've got my issues and now I want to spread the good word without buying the entire set over again and without loaning out my precious copies. Is there a graphic novel on the way? How much Atomic Robo do I have to buy before it becomes a possibility?

SCOTT: I most certainly am not who you think you thought I was.

Trade Paperback is on the way thanks to awesome people like you who bought the individual issues.

BRIAN: Yeah, nothing is written in stone, but it looks like we're in a position to release a collected edition in the second half of '08. We're only half way through the mini-series, so we still need you guys to support the next three issues before that's a certainty though.

From blalor: Scott, how much do you miss your X-box? ;-)

SCOTT: Crap, someone I actually know is posting questions.

I'll make an extremely long and boring story very short and only moderately dull;

I recently did some work for Marvel Comics. The deadline was bananas and it was 9 weeks of VERY long days, 6 or 7 days a week. As a reward to myself for actually pulling it off I bought myself a subscription to X-Box Live and my very own flat screen HDTV.

About 3 days later my X-360 gave me the Red Ring of Death and suffered a meltdown. Then Microsoft tried to send me a box so I could send it in for repairs. The box went to Maine, though I live in New Hampshire.

It's about a month later now and still no working X-box 360. I can;t even walk through the living room because I weep like a child every time I see that stupid TV sitting there. It mocks me.

BRIAN: I also miss Scott's 360 because I refuse to play TF2 without having at least one other competent person on my team. Usually I just settle for teaming up with Scott.

(Hide interview)