What If The Bad Guys Won? — Discussing ‘Empire’ Crowdfunding With Writer Mark Waid

Eisner Award-winning writer Mark Waid is known for his work on Kingdom Come, Superman: Birthright, and Captain America, among many others. In 2000, he and artist Barry Kitson created Empire, a series in which supervillain Golgoth conquered the world but becomes weary of actually running in. The series original publisher, Gorilla Comics, folded after the second issue. DC came in print the remaining issues.

The rights reverted back to the creators in 2015, when Waid and Kitson tried a sequel series, which they haven’t completed. Now the pair is launching a crowdfunding campaign on Zoop to reprint the original seven issues in hardcover. Comicon.com caught up with Waid to discuss the campaign and why Empire perhaps more relevant today than when it was written over 20 years ago.

 

 

Tom Smithyman: Empire has a long and sometimes sordid publication history. What can backers expect from this new hardcover edition?

Mark Waid: First and most importantly, it’s never been collected in hardcover before or in any real upscale, collector-oriented format. In fact, it hasn’t been in print at all domestically for years, and it continues to be some of the best work both Barry and I have ever done — so whether a potential backer is a longtime fan or a curious reader who’s simply a fan of ours, this is the “forever edition” they’ll be wanting for their shelves.

 

 

Smithyman: Empire dealt with themes of government corruption, the abuse of power, and individual freedoms being put at risk. Do you find that the story is just as relevant as when you created it?

Waid: Oh dear God, looking at the world of 2026, we were so far ahead of our time it’s crazy. Back then, the tag line was basically “What if the bad guys won?” Today, it’s “They won, now how do we take that back?”

 

 

Smithyman: How did you first come up with the idea, and how did the two of you start working together on it?

Waid: I can pinpoint the actual day and circumstance. The morning of my 30th birthday, I was staring in the mirror and asking myself what else I wanted out of life given that all my dreams and aspirations had basically already come true. The gears started turning immediately. If you asked the question: “Now what?” as a supervillain rather than a comic book writer, how would that play out? I contacted Barry pretty quickly, as I recall — we’d already proved with our previous collaborations that we worked very well together as storytellers, and the rest followed from there.

 

 

Smithyman: The world has changed a lot since the first issue premiered in 2000. Do you think if you created it today, you would change much? 

Waid: From a story perspective, were we creating it today, we’d definitely be putting our focus on the rebel forces rather than the empire itself. That would be a mistake, but I’m sure that’s how it would go — because while I have some minor degree of empathy for Golgoth, who I consider a layered and complicated figure, none of that is true of the current US administration and its leaders. When it comes to plumbing their depths, they have none, and I have no interest in struggling to draw from a well that I know in my heart is bone dry.

 

 

Smithyman: It’s been a while since the two of you wrote and drew the series. What was the collaboration between the two of you like?

Waid: Always cordial, always exciting, and always ending up with something where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Phone calls would turn into plot outlines that Barry was free to add to and morph however he saw fit, after which I added the final dialogue (often being able to draw directly from Barry’s own notes on his layout pages, thank God).

 

 

Smithyman: The sequel series, Empire: Uprising, ended on a cliffhanger. Will you guys try to being some closure to that story, or is it best to let sleep dogs lie at this point?

Waid: It’s definitely a windmill we still want to tilt at some time, but our schedules have yet to line up. There’s been work done on it — we just need to finish it up someday!

 

 

Smithyman: Golgoth ensures his ministers’ loyalty by using the Eucharist drug. If you had access to Eucharist, who would you try to keep in line?

Waid: The idea of all comics publishers begging to please me rather than vice-versa sounds delightful.

Smithyman: Hmmm. Maybe I can use that on certain editors … Best of luck with the campaign!