Now this is a comic book I can get behind. It has punk rock, zombies, villains and lesbians – oh, and did I mention the authors behind Toe Tag Riot managed to piss off the jerks behind the extremely homophobic Westboro Baptist Church? Triple awesome.
We asked co-author Matt Miner and his crew all about it. For those interested in checking out the glorious mash of tongue-in-cheek blood and guts, Toe Tag Riot hits comic book stores in November. The work will then be collected into a paperback and available in regular bookstores and on Amazon after the four-issue series concludes.
GC: Tell us about Toe Tag Riot in all its gory detail.
Matt Miner: Toe Tag Riot is a tongue-in-cheek story of this punk rock band that is cursed to become zombies every time they perform their music. Being the ethical sometimes-zombies that they are, they decide to use their powers for good: by eating the terrible people of the world, like racists, misogynists, homophobes and the like. Since the transformation back to regular people is taking longer and longer after each show, the band goes on a cross country tour, chasing the cure and heading for a showdown with the Westboro Baptist Church.
GC: Where did the idea come from?
MM: I came up in the punk scene and always wanted to do a book about punk zombies. After meeting the artist on the book, Sean Von Gorman, and seeing the masterful way he draws physical comedy, we kind of brainstormed this idea together. I don’t eat meat in real life, so I started wondering what I’d eat if I were a zombie. I don’t think they can live on a diet of grains and vegetables, so what’s the next-best ethical choice? Well I guess it would be to make the world a better place by eating all the awful people.
GC: I understand there is a twist; can you tell us how the Westboro church got involved?
MM: Those clowns are quick to jump on anything they perceive will give their ridiculous cause some publicity. They saw that their horrible signs showed in one single image on our Kickstarter page, so they jumped to champion the project as spreading God’s law or something.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that a book featuring the comedic slaughter of homophobes might side on the ‘being gay is totally alright’ side of things, but I guess WBC didn’t catch that. They did get pissed, however, when they found out that the two women in Toe Tag Riot are a lesbian couple, calling Sean and I "Insincere Pervs" and, recently, planning to picket Fall Out Boy, since Andy Hurley, the drummer and a friend of mine, decided to join the book as a character.
GC: I think we can all agree they deserved this, but why did you pull the wool over their eyes so to speak?
MM: We never lied to them or misled them, really. Only a fool would truly think that this book was actually championing their message and not mocking it, but nobody ever accused WBC of being very smart, you know? We thought they might make asses of themselves when we launched the Kickstarter funding page, and we were right. It was fun to watch unfold.
GC: What has their reaction been, and is it what you expected?
MM: Well, like I mentioned, their reaction started off along the lines of this is awesome, our hateful signs are showing to oh, this comic book is LGBT-positive? We totally HATE that! to We’ll get even with them by protesting Fall Out Boy concerts! Totally expected. They’re real-life cartoon villains, but not the smart kind.
GC: How big of a role did Kickstarter play?
MM: Huge. Because comics and graphic novels are so expensive to make (art costs alone on each issue are around $4000), we couldn’t have done this without Kickstarter’s crowdfunding.
GC: What’s up next?
MM: I’ve got a few comic series going now and a couple coming up that I can’t talk about yet. If you find me on Twitter at @MattMinerXVX that is the easiest way to stay in the loop about what I’m up to and what real-life bad guys I’m agitating with comics.
