A ‘Counter-Program To Spandex’ – Matt Hawkins Talks Top Cow At ECCC

 

Top Cow took over the Twich Livestream at Emerald City Comic Con on Saturday at noon to talk about their comics. Matt Hawkins said there are about 30-40 people working at Top Cow. Hawkins said the original name of the company was Top Dog, which they weren’t able to trademark, so they used Top Cow as a joke. Which stuck. Hawkins was originally working for a competitor and having arguments with Silvestri over hiring the same artist. Around 1998 he came over to Top Cow, he said. Mark Silvestri, of course, was one of the original founders of Image, and Top Cow carries that legacy.
Hawkins spoke about Postal, which launched about 3 years ago, a kind of “Northern Exposure meets Twin Peaks” comic. In a town full of criminals off the grid, with the one rule of no crime, a murder sparks off conflict. Postal was picked up by Hulu, and will be out as a show next year, probably in the summer. Hawkins picked a place in Wyoming because it was the town furthest from any other town in the entire United States, he said.

Samaritan is a series about a woman who is part of a hacker group, and she’s determined to take down a religious ideologue president, Hawkins said.
Asked about where his ideas come from, Hawkins commented that he has a Masters Degree in Physics, so some of his ideas for Think Tank comes from that. He gets many ideas from science journals, which he actually reads.
Think Tank is Hawkins’ longest running series, now on its fifth series. The series “Animal” that launched this week talks about the use of animals for espionage by governments. Hawkins said that there are such things as fish drones used by governments—that look like real fish but are drones.

Aphrodite V is about enhanced humans, set in the near future. Eclipse is written by a new writer, Zack Kaplan, is about a solar flare that wipes out the population, and a community of people who now live underground.
Asked how Top Cow chooses what to publish, Hawkins says they are more interested in thrillers, dramas, and the like, in a “counter-program” to the Big Two, the “spandex set”.
Genius is about a master-mind who organizes gangs against the police. A sequel is coming up soon, in late summer/early fall, Hawkins said.
Hawkins commented that we’re in “post-plot phase” in Hollywood and beyond, and having a real plot is hard to find.
Magdalena is coming up soon, a story about descendants of Jesus Christ, and a character who uses the Spear of Destiny to fight dark forces.
Hawkins said Top Cow is about being a “different flavor” compared to other publishers.
Top Cow.com has over 50 volumes that you can download for free, he reminded the audience.