Interview with comic book guru, SCOTT TIPTON

   Scott Tipton is a columnist for director Kevin Smith’s website www.moviepoopshoot.com, a website dedicated to comics, movies, and entertainment news and articles. You might recognize the website, featured in the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. On moviepoopshoot.com, Scott Tipton is known as the Professor of Comics 101. His unsurpassed knowledge of comic books is uncanny like the X-Men and amazing like Spider-man. I recently interviewed Scott on all things comics, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Donald Rumsfeld.

Bob K. – So, Scott, how’d you end up working for moviepoopshoot.com?

Scott Tipton – A good friend of mine is the Editor-in-Chief, Chris Ryall. And when Chris got the opportunity to get the site going for Kevin, Chris asked me if I wanted to be involved and I said absolutely. I’ve been working on the site as Associate Editor since it started. Actually, June 16th was our 1-year anniversary. The first few months, I was copy editing almost everything and editing columns. I also handled the news headlines and the teasers. A couple months ago Chris and I were talking, and we thought it’d be cool to get another comic column going because there’s so many comic movies out right now. We wanted to try to give some background on some of the characters.

Bob K. – What would you say is the hardest part of your job?

Scott Tipton – The hardest part, I think, is that we really make an effort to keep the site fresh. I mean we have several daily updates. Every day you go to the site you’re going to find four or five new columns, and about five or six news updates, which we’ve done on a daily basis for a year now. Our goal is to have magazine-quality writing and magazine-quality editing. We really make an effort to edit everything, to get the best possible writers, and to make sure everything is as professional as possible. We want it to be as good as we can possibly make it. (Laughs) Which is kinda killing us.

Bob K. – Can a fella make a comfortable living as a comic book aficionado?

Scott Tipton – (laughs) Um…no. Not so much. The problem with being a comic-book aficionado is that’s where a lot of your money goes. You’ve got to have other things going on. The best way to do it is to find ways to put the sickness to use for you.

Bob K. – Where exactly does all this interest in comics stem from?

Scott Tipton – Um, geez, since childhood. My parents taught me to read when I was really young. Like, before I was a year old, I could read. Comics were the first thing I’d ever read. There were always big stacks of comics around. My dad was a big fan of comics when he was a kid. The first thing I can remember reading is Batman and Spider-Man. I’ve had a love for the medium ever since.

Bob K. – For a person who’s never picked up a comic book, where would you suggest they begin?

Scott Tipton – It’s hard to say. A lot of it really depends on what you’re interested in. The nice thing is, if you look hard enough, there’s comics out there for everyone. If you’re a horror fan you can go with the Vertigo books that are out right now. The Neil Gaiman Sandman classics particularly in the last 10 years. Vertigo’s doing a lot of really good horror and suspense books. If you’re an action fan, Image puts out some good non-superhero action books. Of course, if you’re a superhero fan, DC and Marvel both put out a lot of things. Some I think are great, some I think are not so great. Both put out high-quality books every month. As far as comedy goes, Image has got some really funny books. “Liberty Meadows” is quite good. Oni Press puts out one of the most hilarious, foul-mouthed, violent comics you’ll ever read. It’s called “Barry Ween: Boy Genius,” written and drawn by Judd Winick, you know, from the San Francisco season of the Real World on MTV? It really depends on what your interests are. There’s something out there for everyone. I think a lot of people just figure that comics are all the same Batman/Spider-Man stuff that’s been around for years.

Bob K. – What’s your opinion of the current Hollywood trend of comic books being adapted to the screen?

Scott Tipton – Well, it’s good until the first bad one hits. It’s all about trends, and of course, right now we’re in the middle of the big superhero trend. As long as the movies are of a high quality and still making money, it’s a great thing because it’ll just bring in more. Comics are a huge mine of really creative material just waiting to be turned into films, and Hollywood is just keying in on that. That’s why every comic you can imagine has now been optioned. But once that first stink bomb hits and hits big, everyone’s gonna back off. (Laughs) So if you’re a comic book fan now, you’ve really gotta hope that stinker isn’t coming.

Bob K. – If there was any comic I’d like to see brought to the screen it would be Batman: Year One. What would you choose?

Scott Tipton – The dream is “Watchmen.” It’s an almost impossible task. I think it’d be better off as one of those big-budget Hallmark mini-series. It requires more than three hours.

Bob K. – It might even work as a three-part Lord of the Rings type thing.

Scott Tipton - Exactly. Something for a couple movies, yeah. There was talk a couple years ago of Terry Gilliam taking it on. I can’t imagine it in any better hands. I think he finally abandoned the project as not being realistic, from a production standpoint. Overall, I think “Watchmen” would be my pick. “Batman: Year One” would be great also, as you mentioned. That’s something that’s visually framed for cinema already. Between Frank Miller’s pacing and David Mazzucchelli’s art, it’s ready to go. It’d be really nice if it happened.

Bob K. – What do you figure the reason for the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Mania’ was in the late 80’s and the early 90’s? Do you figure it deserved the attention?

Scott Tipton – Well, it’s funny. A lot of people looked at the animated cartoons, the massive merchandising wave, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Beefaroni, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sleeping bags, and the whole merchandising blitz, and a lot of people didn’t realize there were some really good comics at the base of that.

Bob K. – Absolutely, and they were a little darker too.

Scott Tipton – Oh yeah, they were much, much darker. Eastman and Laird did some great stuff with those first few comics. I remember having collections of those in college when they hit, and it was great stuff. While you were reading those, you weren’t necessarily thinking, this is going to make a great kids cartoon. That wasn’t really the purpose of it at all. But then once they broke that trend that you could come out with a little black and white comic and make a lot of money doing it, people saw it as, “Oh, here’s a trend we can hop onto.” All of a sudden we had “Adolescent Black-belt Teenage Hamsters” and knockoff after knockoff. It wasn’t the gag that was selling those books, it was a fun idea executed well, and that’s always going to succeed no matter what the trend is. So, it absolutely deserved the attention, yes.

Bob K. – What would you think of a dark “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie?

Scott Tipton – I think it would have to wait a few years, because (laughing) people are still going to have that image from the first movie…of that Muppet rat doing kung fu in the cage. That’s a pretty hard image to get out of your head. Actually, I’m really curious to see, there’s a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series that just came out. Peter David is writing it after a good run on Supergirl and a 12-year run with The Hulk. He’s really good with characterization and suspense. He has a lot of humor in his books. Have you seen the new animated series of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Bob K. – Oh yeah. You bet. It’s fun.

Scott Tipton – Yeah, that’s a much better approach than the 80’s one.

Bob K. – Alright, Scott, here’s the big one. What series would you dub the ‘Sistine Chapel of Comic Books’ and how can other comics aspire to its magnificence?

Scott Tipton – Gotta say the “The Spirit” by Will Eisner. Up to that point comics were a pretty basic art form that was being used for popular crime stories and action/adventure. When he got back from the war in 1947 and started handling the strip himself every week, he just broke the form open and did whatever he wanted with it. He made it a vehicle, not for telling action stories, not for telling crime stories, but just for telling stories. Every week you would see him take a different approach. You never knew what you were gonna get. He broke open the use of storytelling through panel-by-panel breakdown. He basically invented the splash page because he didn’t have a cover to use. “The Spirit” was eight pages being stuffed in newspapers, so instead of a cover he would have that first opening page be plot or something to bring you into the story. Pretty much everyone working in comics today is working in Eisner’s shadow.

Bob K. – It was certainly a terrific series. Which reminds me, which villain or hero best describes yourself, and why?

Scott Tipton – (laughs) Oh god.

Bob K. – That’s a pretty nerdy question. I’m sorry.

Scott Tipton – That’s all right. The geek questions are the best ones.

Bob K. – There won’t be any more past this point…or maybe there will. So what do you say?

Scott Tipton – I’m not so sure about describing myself as…I’ve always had an affinity for the Ant-Man character from Marvel Comics. He was Ant-Man, and then he was Giant Man, and then he was Goliath, then he was Yellowjacket. I always loved the character because he’s just nuts. His only power is to shrink. He has a massive inferiority complex, he’s always having nervous breakdowns, and his one big success as a scientist was creating this robot that then tried to kill him and his wife for the next twenty-five years. He was always screwing up. He’d leave and fans would be like, “Come back in, he’s Ant-man, we like him, come on back in.” He’d try new costumes and new identities. He’d always keep coming back; I always liked that about him.

Bob K. – Which person in the media today do you think would make a really good comic book villain? I’d have to go with Kevin Smith, he’s like Lex Luthor.

Scott Tipton – (laughing) The thing is, he signs my checks, I’m certainly not going to give him that. Um…Donald Rumsfeld has something kinda sinister about him. He seems a bit fiendish. Sometimes he seems like he’s twirling his moustache.

Bob K. – I hear you’re also a toy designer. Is it the dream job Tom Hanks lead us to believe it was in ‘Big’?

Scott Tipton – Well, I don’t have any hot babes in limos. But other than that, it’s pretty sweet. It’s very similar to comics, in that it’s a dream gig. We mostly design action figures, so it’s basically taking the characters I loved as a kid and turning them into toys.

Bob K. – Have you ever thought of doing a comic yourself?

Scott Tipton – At one point, yeah. This is all ten years ago. And if you wanted to get work as a writer for comics you’d have to go to New York and get a job as an editor for Marvel or DC. I love California so much, I’d never wanted to move. Now you can be successful in comics without having to move. There was nowhere near as big an indie comics arena then as there is now with the Internet and everything. Also, today, companies are looking for new writers outside of comics, which wasn’t always the case. So, yeah, I’ve thought of it here and there, but I hear a lot of people talking about how they start doing it for a living and then they no longer enjoy it as a hobby. I really love the art form so much, I’d hate for it to turn into a grind where it’s like spackling walls or digging ditches.

Bob K. – Absolutely. So besides comics and work, what do you do with your spare time?

Scott Tipton – (Laughs) Um, geez. I don’t really have any spare time right now. Between the site and the day job, it’s pretty much all filled up. That and, actually, I will admit there’s been an awful lot of ‘Enter the Matrix’ on the XBox going on here.

Read Scott’s regular column under Comics 101 at www.moviepoopshoot.com

-Bob Krzykowski is the Comics Editor for the UMass Daily Collegian

collegiancomics@yahoo.com