Interview: CHRISTOPHER CHAOS Creative Team Discuss the Series’ Debut
L to R: Christopher Chaos creative team: Nick Robles, Isaac Goodhart, Tate Brombal, James Tynion IV (Credit: Derby Comics)
The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #1 from Dark Horse Comics was released this week (you can read my review for it here). To celebrate the debut, Third Eye Comics in Annapolis, Maryland hosted a signing event on Saturday with the series’ creative team. Fans were lined up before the store was even open in anticipation of meeting the series’ author Tate Brombal, artist Isaac Goodhart, and cover artist Nick Robles. They were met with an immediate surprise when doors opened and it was revealed that series creator James Tynion IV was also on hand to chat, sign items, and take photos over the course of two hours.
After the event, the creative team was gracious enough to chat with me about the fan reaction to the series, queer representation in comics, and Christopher Chaos’s instantly iconic look. Check out my conversation with the creative team below!
Third Eye Event Recap
The series is billed by the publisher as an “LGBTQ+ horror-hero coming-of-age series that's Invincible meets Doom Patrol”" and many fans in attendance expressed their personal connection to the story. When asked what it meant to have so much LGBTQ+ representation in comics in today’s world, fan Cierra shared their excitement, “Finally! We know that DC's kind of paved the way for LGBT representation for a while, but to see it spread out, especially in some more up & coming indie comics from big names and things like that, is really special for people who've been reading these since they were kids.”
Greg Stevens, a lifetime comic fan who previously met Brombal and came to this event for a chance to catch up with the author, echoed similar statements related to broader representation in today’s comics, “I'm experiencing this as an adult, but I would have loved to experience this as a kid. So I like the direction that [it’s] gone.”
The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #1 is available now wherever comic books are sold, including Third Eye Comics’ online store. For a limited time, fans can order exclusive copies of the debut issue signed by Brombal, Goodhart, and Robles through Third Eye.
The series has been upgraded to ongoing by the publisher, with The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #2 expected to hit shelves July 26, 2023.
Be sure to check out Third Eye Comics’ calendar for upcoming events across their six comic book stores across the greater-Washington, D.C. area.
Derby Comics’ Interview with the Creative Team
Derby Comics: Congrats on the launch! What has it been like to see the fan reaction of Christopher Chaos?
Tate Brombal: The coolest thing is seeing all of the fan art already. It's just incredible. And so many people just seeing themselves in Christopher and like that response kind of means the most to me…there's already just so many people sharing their opinions, sharing the paintings, like there’s a small community already, which is really cool to kind of step into.
Derby Comics: In a recent interview, you mentioned that Christopher was one of the two characters you’ve written that you see yourself most in. How do you approach creating so many characters while still maintaining some type of personal connection with them?
Brombal: Well, it didn't start that way! [laughs] I sort of looked back because we've been writing [and] working on this for two years and a year of scripting it. I was looking back on so many conversations and I realized when I was writing. Then I was like, what can I hold? I would pick something from my life, but like I didn't realize each issue I was like, I'm just every, all these conversations are just from different like conversation with my mom, conversations with a friend and looking back I was like “I have just been writing so much of myself into Christopher.” So it wasn't intentional. It was in the moment, but I didn't realize how much of myself I was doing.
James IV: And it's funny because, like I remember in the early part of the process, when it was like the start of the development, Tate would actually get much more fixated on every supporting character and not Christopher, but then it's just like I think by like sheer force of like, “No, no, no” Chris was the center of the story…and then…I think you [Tate] just channeled yourself into into him.
Brombal: Yeah, because finding his voice took longer than expected. There were a couple of versions of the first issue where his voice was wrong and then at some point it was like you [Tynion] unlocked something where the opening line, you were like what if this was the first line he says? Which is the, “sometimes I think I'm really f*cked up in the head.”
Tynion: [Laughs]
Brombal: And I was like, that is great, but I'm like he would say that but he's also like a soft boy. So I added…my second line, which was “and I don't even like to swear.”
Isaac Goodhart: [Laughs]
Brombal: Which is like, this is Christopher, and it was just…yeah.
Goodhart: Oh my god, I never knew that.
Derby Comics: It feels like that [line] takes away some of the mad scientist part of him and he’s kind of also just an innocent person.
Brombal: He’s a softie, yeah!
Goodhart: Stay tuned. [Laughs] It’s only issue one.
Derby Comics: As a queer comic book reader myself, getting back into comics as an adult was kind of a really different experience than growing up. What's it like now, for all of you, to be able to write characters who are openly queer…or part of any marginalized community, without any type of question or pushback from publishers?
Tynion: I mean, it's incredible. I remember when I started my comics career, even 10 years ago, I was worried about coming out because I thought I wouldn't be able to write some of my favorite characters. Like some of my favorite characters were the Robins and I thought that these, even though…no one was ever going to say that in a room or anything but they would just think in the back of their mind they did wouldn't want that. And…being at this point in my career where now…I can decide on the stories that I make and I don't really have to ask permission to make them the way that I want to make them.
I don't have to just put in one queer character. The cute queer characters that I put in there do not have to be perfect…I think Nice House on the Lake in particular…the villain of the whole thing is queer. More than half of the cast is queer, and it's just like this represents my life. It represents me…I don't know how to write comics that aren't personal to me, and the simple fact that you know again and again and again, I'm able…to show the comic market that…you can do this and these books can be the best selling books in the industry without compromising…in any way. So I'm really, really, it means a lot to me.
Brombal: And then me personally, I came into the industry on the shoulders of the giants of James [Tynion], of Phil Jimenez, of all these queer creators who kind of allowed it. So I came into the industry with Barbalien: Red Planet, which is a queer, historical superhero book. So I came in already creating books out as gay.
And I could only, I felt confident in that because, I remember when James, finding out James was bi[sexual] and how massive that was. So it's just like…the only reason I can do what I'm doing is because of what James did, what Phil Jimenez did, Klaus Janson did, like all of the queer creators before me. So it’s amazing to see the industry come as far as it’s come.
Derby Comics: Isaac, as the relative newbie to the Christopher Chaos group, what was it like coming into a debut issue that already had so much back story and kind of history developed for it?
Goodhart: Yeah, you know, it was great because Nick [Robles] had done a lot of legwork just designing the characters, establishing the look. But the interesting thing is, and I've talked about this with him before, Nick and I, we have different sensibilities. Similar, like, influences I would say but the way Nicke draws hair for instance took me a long time…to wrap my mind around how to get that shape looking right from every angle. So I spent a lot of the first issue trying to reverse engineer how Nick draws and be very faithful to his style and his influences and all that.
And then once we got to issue 2, issue 3, issue 4, I was like alright, I figured out a way to remix my style and sensibilities with Nick’s and now we're rolling and now we're rocking them, moving them, flying through the art. And then when we got announced for print through Dark Horse, that's when I went back and I started redrawing a lot of the panels that were a little crunchy. The great thing is when you jump into a new world where everything is established, [it’s] “hey here's what we're doing and we're going now,” it's trial by fire, you gotta learn fast.
And because I'm drawing Nick's designs and Nick is one of the best artists in the industry, I had to jump in quality. I had to improve very quickly, so I'm very grateful and I think if you read issues one through six you'll see big leaps in quality from me personally.
Derby Comics: Would you ever dye your very beautiful hair that [Christopher’s] color blue?
Goodhart: [Laughs] Well FlameCon is in August so I’ll think about it!
Derby Comics: Are there official names for his [Christopher’s] colors?
Nick Robles: Unofficially we call, or I call them the CYK coded, like the print colors. So that was just almost an accident I think but it works out SO well. He is such a character that pops anywhere you put him. Like even on these posters and stuff, I walked in, I was just like, that works SO well. I'm so happy with how that turned out. I'm so happy that he is such an iconic looking character. He is unforgettable and yeah, I think he's going to stick around for a long time.
Derby Comics: One last question for you, Nick. Do you approach doing guest cover art differently than you would if you were doing the cover art with the actual art [for the] comic itself?
Robles: Yeah, I think so. I think, yeah, absolutely.
Goodhart: Great question.
Robles: I think there's a more intimate angle that if you're going to be doing the interiors and you know more of the long road ahead of, you're going to take that into consideration for everything you're putting on the cover and how much you want to reveal, how much you just want to hint at, or just who you want to portray and focus on.
So yeah, like variant covers or guest covers…you don't know the long road ahead. Usually you just know the issue you're working on, or the vibe of the book If you're coming in a little later. It's more of a what's there and what I can contribute? And with doing interiors, it's like I know the way I can plan ahead. I know what I want to reveal. I know what I want to focus on.
James Tynion IV is an Eisner & GLAAD Media award-winning comic book writer. He is best known for his work on the BATMAN franchise at DC Comics, his DC Black Label series THE NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE and his independent series DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH and SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN.
Tate Brombal is a Comic Book writer based in Toronto. His comic series HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER spun out of James Tynion IV & Werther Dell’Edera’s hit SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN and debuted in 2021. His Eisner-Nominated mini-series BARBALIEN: RED PLANET also released in 2021 as a part of Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s BLACK HAMMER universe.
Isaac Goodhart is a comic artist known for work on UNDER THE MOON: A CATWOMAN TALE, VICTOR AND NORA, CONSTANTINE: DISTORTED ILLUSIONS, and, most recently, THE ODDLY PEDESTRIANT LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER CHAOS. He got his start in comics after being one of the winners of the 2013 Top Cow talent hunt.
Nick Robles is a freelance artist from southern Louisiana. Self-taught, he works with digital art as his main medium, leaving sculpting and oil painting as a personal hobby. He has dabbled in the arts as far back as he can remember - whether it be drawing, music or writing - and he can't see the dabbling going away anytime soon. Something he's quite alright with.
Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book publisher founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson as an offshoot of his Oregon comic-book retail chain, Things From Another World. Richardson pursued the idea of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals, and thirty years later the company has grown to become the third-largest comics publisher in the United States.
Third Eye Comics is a comic book and gaming store chain based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. They have locations in Annapolis, MD;, College Park, MD; Lexington Park, MD; Waldorf, MD; Mechanicsville, VA; and Short Pump, VA. The chain is known for its wide selection of comics, graphic novels, toys, and games. They host a variety of events, including comic book signings, game nights, and cosplay contests.
