The Black Coat creator Ben Lichius Tells All

by: curvezilla 2 years, 10 months, 1 week, 1 hour, 36 minutes ago 1

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Hear ye hear ye The Black Coat is as good as it gets! I sat down with The Black Coat Co-Creator and Editor and got the skinny on an awesome new Period comic set in the days of the American Revolution. The Black Coat has just the right mix of history, espionage, science fiction and swashbuckling sword play. The art by Francesco Francavilla is first class and worth the price of the book on it’s own merit.

Curvezilla: Thanks for taking time to give the Komikazee Nation all the details on the Black Coat.

Ben Lichius: My pleasure.
Curvezilla: Tell us a little about yourself and your role with The Black Coat.
Ben Lichius: Well, I�??ve been reading comics since grade school and have always enjoyed the medium. As a teenager, I really wanted to work in comics and so I spent a lot of my formative years learning how to draw. Once I got through college I realized that my art background could take me in some other directions besides comics. Right now I�??m the art director for a video game development studio in North Carolina. It�??s an exciting job and one that gives me the opportunity to use my experience with comics on a daily basis since our studio gets to work with a wide variety of comic book properties. But I�??ve always had a lot of ideas for comics and really wanted to contribute something to the medium.
I had the idea for The Black Coat several years ago and really felt like it was worth developing and trying to get published. But I realized that I was too busy to produce the book myself so I started looking for help. I was lucky enough to assemble a team that is far more talented than I am and believes in the book just as much as I do. It doesn�??t get much better than that�?� I wrote the first draft of the first issue and did a lot of preliminary character designs but since Adam and Francesco have come onboard, I try to leave things to the professionals. So I�??m now the editor on the book and help keep an eye on the big picture. Aside from that, I also handle most of the business side of things. I talk to the publisher and to retailers. I work with the press and coordinate events. That kind of thing. I still like to get my hands dirty when I can though, so I am penciling back covers for the first series of the book too.

Curvezilla: I read the first issue of The Black Coat and I really dig it.  It seemed to me that Black Coat had a lot of influences can you tell us about some of the biggest?
Ben Lichius: Hmmm�?� Where to start? I�??m a big fan of pulp style entertainment and shows like the old matinee theatre serials. Stuff like The Masked Marvel, The Shadow and Commando Cody. You probably won�??t see a lot of things taken directly from those shows in the book, but the Black Coat is a lot like them in that he was created to be a fun character that could have those exciting, cliffhanger type of adventures. It�??s the same place that guys like Indiana Jones and the Rocketeer come from. I just enjoy that style of entertainment.
As far as his actual character goes though, I�??d have to say his first major influence is probably Zorro just for the role of the character. He�??s kind of hero for the people but really he�??s more of a cross between James Bond and Batman. James Bond because he�??s a spy and Batman because he�??s always inventing lots of cool gadgets and does most of his fighting in the shadows.

Curvezilla: Who are the main players in The Black Coat?
Ben Lichius: On the side of the good guys, The Black Coat has a whole network of agents that work with him called the Knights of Liberty.
Ursula Morgan is BC�??s right hand woman and is in charge of coordinating all of the Knight�??s efforts. She�??s a tough lady and a savvy business woman. She�??s married but her husband disappeared several years back and hasn�??t been heard from since. As she works with The Black Coat she develops a soft-spot for him so there�??s a little bit of tension going on there.
Ben Franklin is also in the mix. He�??s a friend and supporter of Nathaniel�??s (the Black Coat�??s alter ego). He�??s the colonial Ambassador to England at the start of the war. He and Nathaniel frequently swap ideas and theories about the latest scientific goings on.
On the flip side, General Thomas Gage has returned to England and left Lt. Gen. Henry Savidge in charge of all British military activity in the colonies. Gage left Savidge with some real problems in New York though - namely the Black Coat. So Savidge makes a desperate move and contacts an ancient secret society called �??The League�?� that promises to help him regain control of the colonies. But things go bad fast and it turns out to be a real Pandora �??s Box for Savidge when �??The League�?� starts hatching plans of their own.

Curvezilla: What is the motivation for a brilliant guy like Nathaniel Finch to put on the mask and become The Black Coat.
Ben Lichius: It�??s really groups like �??The League�?� and other mysterious forces that are at work in the city that drive him to it. There�??s a real X-files thing going on in the book in that there are a lot of dangerous supernatural threats present, and The Black Coat is really the only one equipped to stop them.
Nathaniel is sort of like the Leonardo da Vinci of Colonial America because he�??s ahead of his time in a lot of ways. He�??s a scientist and an inventor and uses his intellect to fight these unexplainable monsters and dark magic. But he�??s not afraid to get out there and kick some serious butt either so I think he must like the risks involved to some extent or he wouldn�??t feel the need to get all dressed up and get his hands dirty like he does. 

Curvezilla: What type of research did you do to complete a period piece?
Ben Lichius: Lots of it. I love history, so for me it�??s one of the things I enjoy most about doing a book like The Black Coat. I think I�??ve seen every special the History Channel has on Colonial America. I have about 9 VHS tapes full of reference material. I�??ve done lots of reading and research online. I have several books I am reading at the moment to help authenticate what�??s going on in the world during our story. Adam and Francesco have been doing tons of research as well.
We feel strongly that it�??s important for us to get our facts straight, but at the same time we are telling a rather fantastic story so we are taking some liberties as well. For instance, General Gage was in charge of all of the military forces in the colonies at the time of the war, and he was in England when the war broke out �?? that much is true. But the man he leaves in charge, Lt. Gen. Savidge, is one that we created on our own. Since he was going to be dealing with things that were outside of the normal timeline, we needed someone we could put wherever and whenever we wanted �?? a clean slate. So we took what we�??d learned from other British military men at the time and came up with our own character.
In general though, I think enough of our research comes through that I think people will come to trust us and know that we�??ve done our homework. At least I hope so.

Curvezilla: Then pencils on Black Coat are really superb.  Can you tell us about the artist?
Ben Lichius: Francesco is an amazing artist. I met him online through an artist�??s forum and ever since he�??s been helping create the world of the Black Coat, bringing it to life in a way I didn�??t really think was possible. The level of detail he uses is just incredible and the research that he is doing for the book really comes through in his work. He�??s working really hard on the book but you might not know it because he makes it look so easy.
Francesco is originally from Italy and had done some comic work over there before relocating to the US. So he brings a real European sensibility to the book that you don�??t see in most American comics.
We�??ve been very fortunate to have him on board. I think he�??s poised to make a real splash in comics and I�??m just trying to get as many issues of The Black Coat out of him as I can before someone comes and takes him away from me.

Curvezilla: How many issues of Black Coat can we expect to see and how can we get them?
Ben Lichius: We�??re starting out with a 4-issue mini series, of which the first issue will be available in March. If those do well, we are hoping to put out more Black Coat books. You can get them by letting your local comic shop know that you want them. Pre-ordering the books is the best way to insure you get a copy. They should also be available on Speakeasy�??s online store or at other online comic vendors.

Curvezilla: As a writer what have been some of your influences from comics, literature and movies.
Ben Lichius: I watch more movies than anything so they probably end up being my biggest influence. I like just about any genre but I�??m big into action-adventure stuff like Indiana Jones, Jackie Chan, Star Wars, Zorro, the Spider-Man movies, etc. But I also really like a lot of the oldies. I�??ll watch anything with Humphrey Bogart or Douglas Fairbanks in it. And like I mentioned, I like the serials.
From comics, I read a lot of the sci-fi and genre stuff that Wildstorm and Dark Horse put out, but I still read a lot of superhero books as well.
As for literature, I used to read fantasy books in high school but now I mostly read non-fiction. I have 3 books going right now that I�??ve read about halfway through. (It takes me forever to read a book.) One is a biography of Ben Franklin, the other is an historical novel about the Founding Fathers, and the 3rd is about a slave conspiracy to burn down New York City in the 1740s called �??New York Burning.�?�

Curvezilla: What is Gun Powder Press?
Ben Lichius: Very simply, Gunpowder Press is me, Adam Cogan, and Francesco Francavilla. It�??s what we call ourselves when we work together. There�??s not much more to it than that. We just decided to use a studio name �??cause all the cool kids were doing it.

Curvezilla: What other comics have you worked on and what future works does Gun Powder Press have in the works?
Ben Lichius: This is my first book so I�??m pretty excited. Adam, our writer, has a couple of other books in the pipeline. He has a book called Villains due out in April from Viper Comics and an as yet unannounced book with Alias coming out later this year.
As for GPP, we�??re pretty focused on The Black Coat right now and getting those first 4 issues on the shelf. We�??re hoping to do more Black Coat books and I think we�??ve talked about some other spin-off ideas, but only in passing. We�??ll have to see how things pan out.

Curvezilla: Any creators or artists you would like to collaborate with?
Ben Lichius: Wow. Yeah. There are a lot of artists out there that always inspire me to be a better artist when I look at their art and it would be great to get a chance to see how they work. My current favorites are guys like Frank Cho, Carlos Pacheco, J. Scott Campbell, Ed Benes, Jim Lee, Mike Wieringo, Chris Sprouse and about a dozen other artists. From a creative standpoint and as an editor, I think I would like to get a chance to work with Scott Dunbrier at Wildstorm. I love the style of books that he works on.

Curvezilla: Okay Ben, last question.  Who is your all time favorite comic character?
Ben Lichius: This might be a little boring, but it would have to be Spider-Man. As I got into reading comics, he just had the most appeal for me. And he�??s managed to keep me hooked for a long time. I still read 2 or 3 Spider-man books every month.