We are delighted to be joined by Patrick Coyle, the creator and writer of Bixby Grant. With the Bixby Grant: Fangs & Brimstone #4 Kickstarter campaign live next month, we got to chat about the upcoming issue.
Hi Patrick, it’s so wonderful to have you here with us again.
Patrick Coyle: Thanks for having me back!
For our readers who are following Bixby Grant, what can you say about Bixby Grant: Fangs & Brimstone #4?
PC: Issue 4 is where things start to escalate. It’s a six-issue series, so we’re approaching the third act of the story, and getting big clues to who is ritualistically murdering members of the Mayor’s re-election staff. We’re also nearing the point where Bix is going to have to wrestle with his long-standing issues with his brother Max, which he has gone to great lengths to avoid for literally one hundred years. Oh, and this issue is full of monstrous fisticuffs!
How do you feel the Bixby Grant world has expanded since the initial arc?
PC: I consciously chose to slowly open up the world of Harbor City, the city where Bixby Grant lives. The first issue is small, just Bix, Diego and a ghost in one warehouse. The second issue opens things up a little; we meet the local cops, get a sense of the political unrest in the city, and hint at the history of magic and monsters in Harbor City via The Vault. Then in the third issue, Bix and Diego take us deeper into the city and we meet many of the unusual inhabitants, getting a better look at its history with the occult and mysticism. Now, in the fourth issue, we’re cracking it wide open, slipping literally into the seedy underground. And I promise, the scale and scope are going to blow up in issues five and six!
What has the worldbuilding of Harbor City been like? Can you tell us more about the world in which Bixby Grant is set?
PC: Worldbuilding has been a ton of fun for me. I’m not a writer who sits down and writes down the entire backstory of all my characters and locations, but I do have loose ideas in my head. So it started with “mummy detective”, quickly morphed to “but what if we have our own version of each of the Universal Monsters”, and then exploded into “what if the whole town had a history with magic and monsters”?
There are not many hard and fast rules that I have about Harbor City, as I like to keep my options open. But the short history is that in the 1700s a ship full of mystical artifacts sunk in the Harbor City’s, well…harbor. Many of those artifacts washed up on the shore over the years, used in a variety of ways, some good, some not so good. The proliferation of them is then tied directly to Bixby Grant and his brother Max, going back to 1931, when Bix became a mummy (you’ll see how in future stories). And though Harbor City has fallen on hard times like a lot of World War II-era boomtowns, it has become a safe harbor (pardon the pun) for monsters and magical folk.
When we last spoke to you, you mentioned that Fangs & Brimstone has a “buddy action” vibe. In the future, do you think you would go back to your “monster noir” roots?
PC: Absolutely. I’ve got several stories in mind that are more in line with the initial monster noir vibe from our first 80-page OGN, Wolf, She Cried. I will say, though, that while Fangs & Brimstone is tonally a buddy action story, structurally it’s very much a noir detective story.
I think that Bixby Grant is a character that lends himself to many types of different story types. I have a lot of concepts that I’d like to dip into with Bix; full-out action, slice-of-life, pulp, sci-fi, horror, etc.
Can you tell time-wise how long it takes to create an issue of Fangs & Brimstone?
PC: There are a couple of ways to answer this: The first is elapsed time. As long as life cooperates, it takes about 6-7 months to go from outline to script, to pencils, inks, color, letters, variant covers, then create the Kickstarter campaign, create the non-comic rewards, run the campaign, send to print, and then ship to backers. That’s including the 20-page main Bix story and the back-up, Zombietown, which has different artists (Gonzalo Martinez with Arthur Hesli and Gonzalo Ruggieri, respectively).
If we’re talking about just the hours creating the comic itself, I’d say it’s about 2 months of work, using the standard 40-hour work week as a barometer. The first month is me writing the outline, reviewing it with Heather (Antos, our esteemed editor), creating the script, reviewing that with Heather, then getting the finished script to the artist, reviewing the art as it comes in, and then I do the lettering myself, frequently re-writing as I go because I no longer like the dialogue I originally wrote (laughs).
Bixby and Diego are two very different characters. What is it about their relationship that leads to this “buddy action” vibe?
PC: You need to get that “oil and water” relationship between your main characters to make the buddy thing work. It’s a formula for a reason: it’s fun, and it works. Bix is the cantankerous old gumshoe who’s seen some shit, and Diego is the youthful, wide-eyed optimist. Bix just wants to be left alone, and Diego just wants to be involved. Over even a short time, their personalities are going to clash. Add to that the pressure of a string of murders and the potential of literal Hell on Earth, and that relationship is going to be tested.
Was it important to you to include the Zombietown backup story in Bixby Grant?
PC: You were asking about world-building before, and including Zombietown as the backup was a good way to do that. By having the backup be a story in the same world of Harbor City, but with a different character who is Bixby Grant-adjacent, it allowed me to start expanding the world without cramming it into the main story.
Is writing Zombietown more or just as fun as writing Bixby Grant? How are they different, or complementary in tone and style? Did you ever think of making it a spin-off series?
PC: Zombietown and Bixby Grant are equally fun to write, but each has their own lane: Z-Town is a horror action story, and Bix is a horror detective story. I think they complement one another in terms of tone; they are not polar opposites like a dark and gritty gore-fest on one hand and an upbeat action thriller on the other, you know? Any minor difference in tone comes from the characters. Detective Maritza Ramirez is a good cop in a bad town, trying her best to make the world a better place. Bixby Grant is a burnt-out old soul who just wants to be left alone, but will do the right thing when he has no other choice. So Z-Town is a little darker, but only a bit, since at its core it’s about Det. Ramirez is learning some hard truths. And also the decaying zombies.
In terms of style, that was another conscious choice for Zombietown. Gonzalo Martinez is a fantastic artist, draftsman, and storyteller, and I continue to love working with him. But I wanted to demonstrate that the world of Harbor City can be shown in a very different style for a couple of reasons. First, Z-Town is a slightly darker story, as I mentioned, and Gonzalo Ruggieri brings the right vibes for that: literally darker, murkier, more painterly, but also still a bit cartoony, so it meshes with the main Bix story. Secondly, I wanted to demonstrate that Harbor City stories aren’t just one “house” style, and establish what readers might expect in future, related comics
I have considered making Zombietown into a spin-off series. I think it could lend itself to that pretty easily. We’ll see if readers would be into that, and weigh that against the many ideas I have bouncing around my head for other spin-offs…
It feels like you, Arthur Hesli, Gonzalo Martínez, Gonzalo Ruggieri, and Heather Antos seem to be hitting your stride. What do you feel is the key to that success as a collective?
PC: Now that we’ve done five Bix issues together, we’re all comfortable with each other – we’ve built a level of trust. We all know that each of us is going to deliver and do a great job, which is not something you know at the beginning of a collaboration (although you always hope for it). We’ve also learned what each other’s strengths are, and can lean into those as the project progresses. All of that helps each issue get better, I think.
With all the success the Bixby campaigns have had, what’s next for the Bixby Grant series?
PC: I think issue #4 is going to be a big one for us. We’re gaining some steam, and there looks to be an influx of new readers coming on board, which is exciting. We’ve got two more issues in the Fangs & Brimstone series (it’s a 6-issue story), and after that I’ve got a list a mile long of Bix stories I want to tell. So for me, we’re only getting started!
Any message for the ComicBuzz readers?
PC: Now is a great time to jump on board the Bixby Grant bandwagon – the story is really starting to heat up, and big things are coming! Plus, we make it easy for new readers with digital and physical Collector’s Tiers, which give you all the issues of the story to date.
Also, please take care of yourselves, and be kind to others.
Feel to check out Bixby Grant: Fangs & Brimstone #4 on Kickstarter.
We would like to say a big thank you to Patrick for chatting with us and wish him the best of luck with Bixby Grant: Fangs & Brimstone #4.
