BY JENNIFER M. CONTINO
When Jeff Kipnis found out his girlfriend was afraid of squirrels and lightning, he decided to assuage her fears by creating colorful stories of a superpowered Lightning Squirrel. From those prose shorts and other stories around the furry fighter, came the notion of turning this hero into a comic book, so Lightning Squirrel: Terror in the Ruins was created as a part of the Hope: New Orleans collection. Now, a few years later, the hero's staring in a six-part The Adventures of Lightning Squirrel tale, going up against dastardly villains to keep Clifton, New Jersey safe.

THE PULSE: Prior to your work on Lightning Squirrel, what other projects in or around the comics industry had you completed?

JEFF KIPNIS: My first published comic project is the short story Lightning Squirrel: Terror in the Ruins which is included in the Hope: New Orleans (2007) charity anthology from Ronin Studios, benefiting the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricane victims.

Two Lightning Squirrel novels were published in 2001 and 2005, ahead of the comic book being produced. I had been working many years (since the mid-late 1990s) on getting either a publisher to accept the Lightning Squirrel story and script for their own artists to draw, or to put my own art team together on the book to submit a complete product to a publisher.

We finally decided in 2008 to start putting the title out through Ka-Blam and IndyPlanet to get some exposure for my talented and hard-working team, and we hope getting a finished product into the public will help generate interest from purchasers and publishers.

THE PULSE: It might be a little obvious, but just who or what is the Lightning Squirrel? Is it a human in costume with the proportionate powers of a squirrel or an animal with uncanny abilities?

KIPNIS: Lightning Squirrel is a superpowered, English-speaking (and rhyming) rodent who defends the NYC suburb of Clifton, NJ (my hometown) from crime and villainy.

THE PULSE: Just how did your rodent get superpowers? Is it normal for animals to fight crime in this world or in Clifton New Jersey?

KIPNIS: Lightning Squirrel was a normal gray squirrel, who gained his powers from a combination of accidental exposure to toxic chemicals from a pharmaceutical company on whose property his home tree was; followed by a high voltage zap from a bird-feeder protection device created by one of that company's scientists. Major credit for LS's origin goes to my good friend and mentor Dr. Charles Magee (one of the real world's foremost surface analysis scientists), who accidentally suggested the "Tesla coil on the birdfeeder" idea. Is it normal? Of course not, aside from, for example, dogs trained to aid with law enforcement.

But "normal" isn't very much fun, is it?

THE PULSE: Not usually. Is your series more along the lines of a Captain Carrot where animals rule and there aren't any "human" characters or is he just one or many abnormalities in the mix here?

KIPNIS: The series is fully populated by humans, robots, aliens, and a small number of talking animals like Lightning Squirrel. There are squirrels and other animals who are perfectly typical, though.

THE PULSE: What inspired you to do a miniseries like this?

KIPNIS: TAOLS (the acronym we use for the title) was originally a series of short stories that I wrote for my then girlfriend (now wife) Nancy, when we first started dating. Very early on, I learned that she had a paranoid fear of squirrels, instilled when she was a young child by her mother - "Squirrels have rabies and if they bite you, you die!" It was so bad that she couldn't even walk on the same side of the street as a squirrel when we were first dating (she's much better now, even photographing them occasionally in the wild).


Another of her great fears was/is lightning, in part because she was life guarding at an outdoor swimming pool at the time. So, I put this beautiful woman's two greatest fears together and created a superhero. His arch-nemesis, Swimming Lady, is based on Nancy, who was a competitive swimmer for many years (and can still swim circles around me with one arm behind her back). It was actually Nancy's idea to make it into a comic book series, as the original style was really cartoony/comic-booky as written.

So the script for the entire miniseries is drawn from the short stories. The only additions are the two origin chapters in Issue 1, upon which my art team insisted.

THE PULSE: Give us a few teasers about the rest of the cast? Who is the aforementioned dastardly Swimming Lady? The evil genius Comic Man and the valiant Ice Weasel?

KIPNIS: As I said, Swimming Lady is based (loosely?) on Nancy. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's a great swimmer and a teacher by profession, but she has this paranoid hatred of squirrels and has vowed eternal enmity against them.

Her boyfriend is Comic Man - a handsome, brilliant inventor who wants to indulge his lady-love, but understands that she's a bit loony and doesn't think that Lightning Squirrel, or any other squirrels for that matter, really deserve to be destroyed.

Ice Weasel appears in Issue 6 (and other stories outside the miniseries). He is a white weasel with cold and ice-generating powers akin to Iceman of the X-Men, and also speaks English like Lightning Squirrel. The two become fast friends and allies as they battle the killer snow goons in the story 'Frozen in Horror.'

THE PULSE: This sounds like something that mixes the old Looney Tunes cartoons with Sonic the Hedgehog. Who or what influenced you the most as you worked on your script for this series?

KIPNIS: I think the most important literary and media influences include the Looney Tunes cartoons, series with a touch of the absurd and ridiculous such as Robert Lynn Asprin's Myth-Adventures, Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's books, and Mark E. Rogers' Samurai Cat books.


Also, there are definite themes pulled from years of collecting and reading comics, primarily as Marvel Zombie. I wanted this to be a fun, all-ages type book, where a lot of stuff gets blown up.

THE PULSE: How did you come to collaborate with Victor Cabanelas on this project? How well is he realizing your vision for how this story should unfold?

KIPNIS: Victor came on board as the third artist to tackle my Lightning Squirrel script for the Hope: New Orleans charity anthology (Ronin Studios, 2007). After the first two left the project (it's complicated), Victor posted at the studio that he had time for another project just when I needed someone. He did an excellent job on that short story (with inker Betsy Luntao and letterer Colleen Allen), and afterwards I asked him to let me know if he would be interested in doing further Lightning Squirrel work in the future. His reply was essentially, "Who said I wasn't?"

And his work has been brilliant. Victor is a good visual storyteller, and puts a great deal of effort into getting things right, asking for further explanations, descriptions, and visual references as needed - especially since he lives in Argentina so some things (for example, hockey equipment) are unfamiliar to him. He also really wanted to capture the feel of what Clifton, NJ is like, rather than base his scenes on a typical city in his area. Victor has a good understanding of action and point of view, and often will make small changes or add or subtract some script elements to be sure the story flows in a sensible manner. It is a big help, since I tend to script from a plot and cinematic perspective, which does not always translate well into static panels.


THE PULSE: When you were just reading comics and not a comics "creator" what titled topped your pull list each month?

KIPNIS: X-Men titles since Issue 160 or so of Uncanny (and I still subscribe to three titles and read others on occasion), Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Spider-Man primarily. I really love Marvel's cosmic books now and Guardians of The Galaxy (starring Rocket Raccoon and Groot!) is my favorite monthly title.

I also read JLA (started after the wonderful Cartoon Network series wound down) and dabble in other Marvel, DC, and occasional Indy titles. My son Jack (age eight) is a huge fan primarily of Batman and Spider-Man. He subscribes to The Batman Strikes (which is changing to Brave and the Bold) because we enjoyed the cartoon so much, and it was extra cool because fellow Roninite Russell Lissau wrote several issues that we collected.

THE PULSE: How is the current state of the economy affecting your works?

KIPNIS: I've had economic issues all along, being the primary breadwinner for our family . That's a big part of the reason that it took so long to put our art team together - I needed people who loved the project enough, and had enough time, to do it for percentage of profit because I don't have the funds to pay them up front.


As far as the current economy, the main effect is that it restricts some marketing and sales efforts such as convention travel and appearances, or even how many free copies I distribute for review and promotion. I want to be able to return as much profit as possible to the team, in return for their efforts and faith in the project.

THE PULSE: What are the challenges of working on a comic at this point in time, when the purchasing dollar is so limited by most comic fans and retailers?

KIPNIS: I do not think there is any change to the general rule that publishers and distributors will not take on projects that they do not think will profit them; it's just good business. The current economy emphasizes that, especially with increasing prices from high volume publishers. I frankly would very much like to be selling our title at a lower price than $3.50, but with low volume sales, I need to increase the potential for some profit from which to pay the rest of the team.

On the plus side, though, we will not alter the price with respect to story page count, which is increasing for all issues after Issue 1. There is, of course, a huge amount of friendly competition out there - all of we indy creators want to do well ourselves, but want our peers to do equally well.

THE PULSE: How many issues of this series are in print now? When is the newest part due in stores?

KIPNIS: The first two issues are available now, and the third issue is due out Spring, 2009. We hope to maintain roughly a quarterly release schedule.

THE PULSE: What other projects are you working on?

KIPNIS: We are near completion of our eight-page FULL COLOR Lightning Squirrel story for the Hope: The Hero Initiative charity anthology, due out Spring, 2009 from Ronin Studios. The story stars Lightning Squirrel, the Ghostly Gecko (who debuted in our Hope: New Orleans short story from Ronin Studios in 2007), and the Storming Sidewinder.


I also have two Lightning Squirrel novels in development. These follow the already-published The Blawnox Unpleasantness (iUniverse, 2001) and Cosmic Redshifted Anthrocentric Worms: The Adventures of Lightning Squirrel (iUniverse, 2005), both of which are actually sequels to plot of the comic book series coming out now.

Publication of the stories is out of order because it took much longer to put the comic book team together and get that project produced and published than it did to complete and published the novels.




The Adventures of Lightning Squirrel is currently in black and white format with full color cover, and the 6 issues of explosive comedic mayhem will be brought to you by:

Penciler: Victor Cabanelas
Inker: Eran Aviani
Letters: Brant Fowler
Cover Colors: Ed Davis/Mick Clausen
Edits: Dustin Archibald
Story: Jeff Kipnis

Slightly off-topic, as a kid, my dentist was Dr. Marvin Kipnis.

Any relation to Jeff?

Only in the sense that conventional wisdom (rumor?) is that all Kipnis's originated in the same part of Russia.
Otherwise, sorry - not a close relation.

Thanks!