How they mapped out plans for the comic:
Essentially this whole world is co-created by myself and Ivan [Plaza] from Chido Comics and then he brought in a writer named Marco Lopez and I kind of gave my sense of overall what I wanted to do, the five different series, and here are the stars that were starting to work with. Rey Mysterio was going to be action adventures, Solar and Super Astro is going to be more of your cosmic adventure. Konnan, I knew I wanted it to be like a government operations-meets-X-Files with some wacky kind of conspiracy theories in there. We took the basics of what I had in mind and worked on an overall outline for the Luchaverse with Ivan, and he and Marco went off and did the first draft of essentially the entire story world—what would become the ‘Bible’ for the entire Luchaverse.
Kleinrock added:
It was coming up with these stories and coming up with these genres, but then also one of the most important parts to me and where I’ve really been involved is making sure that each series feels true to the people who are in it. Unlike Superman or Batman where there is no real person who’s been on TV for years and years and who is interacting with people. You can write these characters any way you feel, and there’s 97 different universes or realities—we’re dealing with real luchadors here right now. Eventually there’s going to be additional characters and original characters that haven’t existed in the world yet. But, when it comes to Rey Mysterio, making sure that the dialogue and making sure that the personality comes through, making sure that it—as much as it’s a PG-13 types of book, it’s still family friendly.
You know, Rey isn’t out there doing things that Rey wouldn’t be doing as opposed to Konnan, which is a much freer book [laughs]; Konnan pretty much does or says anything. There are certain things you can get away with in his book, that you couldn’t get away with in the other books and you know really working to making sure that even though this is a fantasy world and even though these are the Lucha Brothers, it’s a brand new kind of origin story. We still want to make sure that when they sit down and read the comics themselves, they feel like that could have been them and they’re stepping in as an actor to play those roles and that it feels authentic to people who have watched these characters on television.
Is there anything you’d like to stress or take pride in knowing about the series?
A lot of times with comic books, the cover art is done by somebody different than the interior art, and the interior art might be good and might have its own style, but the time and attention and money goes into hiring a really good cover artist. We’re using the same cover artists as we are for the entire series and so people are picking up our books and they’re going, ‘oh, wow, the art is this good through it.’
There was somebody recently that reviewed [the Luchaverse] books and said that there was no discernible difference between Luchaverse books and a DC or Marvel book. That was a huge compliment! To hear that they feel like the quality is up there with big boys really meant a lot and it’s been really cool. We went to San Diego Comic Con and we had artists and writers for Marvel and DC, especially Mexican artists and writers are coming up and talking with Ivan and introducing themselves and saying that they’re so happy to see that this world happening. It’s so cool to see not just a Lucha world but with actual Luchadors involved, and if there’s things that they can do with us down the road that’d be great. It means a lot to know that—we feel like we’re doing something that’s cool because, you know, we’re making it—but to see the reactions of both genuine comic book fans and wrestling fans and actual people from the industry, it’s been really cool.
In terms of like what’s next, really right now, the focus is on the remainder of these five ‘one-shots’ that kind of lay the groundwork for everything to come. The Tinieblas Jr book launches this week as we mentioned, then in November the Solar and Super Astro book will launch, and then in January the Konnan book. Once you’ve read all five of those, there will still be plenty of questions to be answered, but a kind of general overall sense of the whole kind of bigger story of the Luchaverse will will start to come together, and then from there we’ll see what the next step from there.
You also work for VIZ Media, the publisher behind the new Shinsuke Nakamura biography. How do you think Nakamura would be as a superhero or a comic book star?
VIZ Media is the largest distributor of anime and Manga in the United States. The Manga side, the actual published books is still a super big business even in an era when book sales overall are declining. I think that Nakamura as a Manga character could be super popular and exciting. The crossover between anime and Manga fans and wrestling fans is really big. One of the things that I think—I’ve been working with business now for six and a half years—when I first got here, people knew that there was a little bit of a crossover between wrestling fans in an anime and Manga. I remember my first week here looking at message boards and stuff on their websites and seeing like so many screen names that were obviously wrestling influenced from CM Punk related names or this, that or whatever.
And, and realizing over the last number of years more and more that there’s a crossover between wrestling fans and Manga fans, even to the point of Sasha Banks— I think if you go to her Twitter and her header still Sailor Moon related. Um, so I absolutely think that there is, there is something there.
Not that Nakamura wouldn’t make a great character in the WWE Boom! Comics that they put out, but I think specifically because of Nakamura being Japanese and because of just the personality that he has and the kind of character that he is, I can certainly see something down the road. Maybe something where Nakamura was presented in Manga form.
If you have a chance to check out the biography of it’s really good. In Japan they had published two books that were really kind of a long shoot interview with Nakamura going from childhood all the way through his career in Japan before coming to WWE. This is the first time it’s been translated into English and it’s got a number of great photos from throughout his career, his time with the Inoki Dojo in Los Angeles where there’s training alongside guys like Samoa Joe and Bryan Danielson and obviously a ton of great photography from Japan too. That book is out now everywhere in bookstores and on Amazon, so if you have not checked it out it’s definitely worth reading because it’s a unique perspective; there have not been many English books written about Japanese wrestling stars.
It’s exciting to see Masked Republic products at #NYCC expanding in presence. Not only are our @theluchaverse comics here at Booth #137 (with @HeadlockedComic & @ChidoComics) but our Lucha Libre Thumb Wrestling Kit is at the @Running_Press booth. pic.twitter.com/InBdQlnReO
— Masked Republic (@maskedrepublic) October 5, 2018
