There’s a huge number of reasons why people creates comics: artistic expression; a lifelong passion; the desire for fame and adoration; or just good old fashioned cash! However for Doug Cohen and the team behind new ComiXology Submit series Jason Coffee’s Warhawks, their motivations were much more altruistic as they launched the title in memory of their late friend bringing to life characters from an unpublished screenplay. Jason himself was a screenwriter and avid comics fan so his friends felt the best tribute they could give to him would be turn one of his scripts into an action-packed digital comic. It’s a fantastic story so we contacted Doug to find out more about their amazing journey from devastated friends to aspiring comic book creators.

Tell us a bit about what inspired you to turn your late friend Jason’s screenplay for Warhawks into a comic book series? 

DC: I first met Jason in the 1990’s when we were both film students in Chicago. We ended up in a screenwriting program together, and he was the only guy who was writing science fiction.  He wasn’t interested in any other genres. A group of us moved to Los Angeles after graduation to work in the film and television business.  Jason was slowly climbing the ladder toward a successful sci-fi writing career. He interned on Babylon 5, worked as a writer’s assistant on Roswell, read scripts for James Cameron’s production company, and had written some episodes of History Channel’s The Universe.

When he died after surgery to remove a brain tumor at the age of 33, all of his friends were devastated.  At some point during the following year, Jason’s mother told me that his last wish had been “for his voice to be heard”.  She said that she didn’t know how to fulfill it.

How many people are involved in the process of turning Warhawks into a comic and what made you choose to turn it into a comic book rather than any other format?

DC: A core group of 7 of Jason’s friends in Los Angeles got together to figure out what we could do. Jason had left behind a stack of unproduced screenplays, and as we read through them it was clear that it would be too expensive to produce any of them as movies. Jason’s tastes tended toward the blockbuster, and we didn’t have a spare hundred million dollars sitting around!

However, Jason’s other great love was comic books. He was a reader and collector, and his walls were always papered with comic book posters.  So, we decided to take his superhero screenplay Warhawks and adapt it into a comic book series.

Were there any books or series that Jason was a big fan of that inspired you when creating Warhawks? 

DC: Jason loved superheroes, and was a big fan of X-Men, among others. Since Warhawks is a huge ensemble piece, X-Men and The Avengers influenced us most, along with 1980’s GI Joe.

Did that help you to create something which you knew Jason would love and would be respectful to his memory? Or was it just a case of always thinking ‘what would Jason want’ at every major decision point?

DC: We definitely always ask ourselves “what would Jason want?”, and the creative process has felt like a conversation with him from the start. Like all great sci-fi and comics fans, Jason had really strong opinions, so there’s no chance we could get everything exactly to his liking.  But overall, I think he would be thrilled with the first issue. The cover looks likes like an image he would have hung on his wall as a poster.

What particular challenges were there in converting a movie screenplay into a comic book series and how did you go about doing it? 

DC: The adaptation was done by two of Jason’s friends, brothers Todd and Wade Carney. They are both writers, but neither had written a comic book before. There are enough commonalities between film/tv writing and comic book writing that they were able to pick it up fairly quickly with the help of a book that guided them on the format.  Our artist, Joel Gomez, has also been a great teacher. His feedback and guidance on the script helped make up for our lack of experience.

The three biggest challenges were: 1. How to condense the storytelling, 2. How to reduce the amount of dialogue while staying true to Jason’s voice and vision,  and 3. How to convert Jason’s big, cinematic action sequences into series of static frames.

How did you set about choosing the artists involved and developing the visual side of the characters? 

DC: We decided that we wanted to have the cover drawn first so we would have a great piece of artwork to show potential backers. A friend of Jason’s connected us with a former Marvel editor who suggested we contact the artist Billy Tan (Uncanny X-Men, Green Lantern).  Billy agreed right away to do the cover, but he wasn’t going to be able to design the characters.  Luckily, Billy’s brother Mike Chiang is also a talented artist, and he agreed to do the character designs. This is an ensemble piece, and there were over a dozen individual characters that had to be designed.  All Mike had to go on were the descriptions in Jason’s screenplay, and he turned out some really great and memorable characters.

Were there any existing sketches or outline from Jason that you could use as source material? 

DC: Jason didn’t leave behind any sketches, so we instead spent time talking with Mike about the comics, movies and characters that Jason liked so that he would have an overall feel for his sensibilities. We knew the character design was finished when it looked like something Jason would have worn on a t-shirt.

Billy wasn’t available to draw the rest of the book, so he hooked us up with Joel Gomez, an artist that had done some assistant penciling for him in the past. Joel was a perfect match for us. Not only is he a creative artist with a great sense of visual storytelling, but he’s been like a Jedi master when it comes to teaching us the art and business of comics. He helped make our script better, schooled us in how to promote our work, and showed us the ropes at comic book conventions. It has been a great collaboration.

You’ve released the book digitally via ComiXology Submit, can you tell us a bit about that process? What did you learn from putting together a digital comic that you could share with other first time creators?

DC: We had set out to make a print comic first, so we had what we thought was a pretty good-looking PDF file of our first issue. When John D. Roberts from ComiXology invited us to submit, he let us know immediately that the number one reason submissions get rejected is for problems with the PDF. Even though we had read ComiXology’s guidelines, our PDF was still rejected at first for compression artifacting and for aliasing in the text.  With John’s guidance, we were able to fine-tune the file and it has never looked better!

How important was it for you to release the book digitally, was that priority or did you just decide this was the most efficient way to release the book?

DC: At first, we thought this would be a “print only” comic. Jason didn’t live to see the explosion of digital comics, so we thought it was fitting to stay in the analog world. We did a run of five hundred that we gave to our Kickstarter backers and sold at conventions. However, we found that at the conventions, many people were asking if the comics were available online. So, we decided to make a Kindle edition. John D. Roberts from ComiXology read an article in which we were promoting our Kindle edition, and he invited us to submit to ComiXology. He took a personal interest in our comic and our mission of carrying on Jason’s creative vision, and really shepherded us through the process.

As first-time creators, this was hugely helpful. Then, when the comic was released last week, John’s support was astonishing and humbling. Through his own Twitter account, and ComiXology’s Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr accounts, he made sure to spread the word about Jason Coffee’s Warhawks. He also counseled me on other strategies for attracting attention to our release.

John and ComiXology clearly care about cultivating indie publishers and connecting us with readers. It’s incredible to me that we went from knowing nothing about making comics to having our first issue for sale on the ComiXology homepage right below Batman. One thing I love about digital is that the comic is always in stock, and accessible from anywhere in the world. We are currently working on our second issue, and it’s likely we will release it digitally first this time around.

How much material do you have to work with for Warhawks? I presume because it was based on a completed screenplay that you have a pretty complete first arc? If so, how long will the first series be and do you have any plans for what to do with the characters after this original run or will that all depend on the success of this first arc?

DC: We are working from Jason’s roughly 100-page screenplay. We plan to tell the arc of his screenplay in a 4-issue series. After that, we are going to invite other writers to “play” in the Universe that Jason created. We would like to see Jason Coffee’s Warhawks carry on for many years to come, and are actively seeking a publisher to help with that goal. We feel it would be a fitting legacy to Jason’s creativity.  We are also looking to return the characters to their originally-intended medium: film and television. Right now, we’re working on an animated TV pilot script, and ultimately we would like to see Warhawks as a blockbuster movie.

Last but by no means last who is your favourite character in the Warhawks universe and which do you think Jason would have geeked out over the most?

DC: There are a couple characters that Jason seems to have modeled on aspects of himself, so when I read their parts I feel like I’m hearing Jason speaking to me. One is Jefferson Caesar AKA Weapon, the Warhawks soulful, philosophical leader. The other is Timothy AKA Arsenal, who has been transplanted  from his disease-ravaged body into a massive mechanical suit. Both of these characters are large and powerful cyborgs, but they harbor insecurities that make them very human.

You can download Warhawks issue #1 from ComiXology for £1.99/$2.99 and for more information visit the Warhawks website or find them on Facebook