Robert Kirkman And Ryan Ottley Tease What’s Next For ‘Battle Beast’

Battle Beast #1 cover

It’s been seven years since Invincible ended its run at Image Comics. But now, the universe is back with Battle Beast, a best-selling series that fills in the gaps between one of the character’s first appearances, years earlier.

“It’s funny to think back on that issue,” writer Robert Kirkman told Comic Book Club. “Battle Beast was introduced in a six-panel spread. We were introducing a bunch of different villains. A couple of them were reoccurring, or coming back after being seen briefly. [There] was a panel description, ‘big cat guy,’ like, whatever. He’s like a space gladiator. I don’t even remember what the description says, but it certainly wasn’t meant to become what it became.”

What he did become is one of the most popular characters in the book — certainly popular enough to power his own spinoff series. And with the book now on stands, we chatted with Kirkman and artist Ryan Ottley about the inspiration behind Battle Beast, how to construct an action scene, and what’s next.

Plus, be sure to check out our exclusive reveal of what’s in the Battle Beast blind bags, along with commentary on the program by Kirkman.

Comic Book Club: You’re picking up right where you left off, literally in Invincible #19, which came out in 2004. What was it like for both of you? Returning to that headspace from, at this point, over 20 years ago?

Robert Kirkman: Pretty crazy. It’s funny to think back on that issue. Battle Beast was introduced in a six-panel spread. We were introducing a bunch of different villains. A couple of them were reoccurring, or coming back after being seen briefly. [There] was a panel description, “big cat guy,” like, whatever. He’s like a space gladiator. I don’t even remember what the description says, but it certainly wasn’t meant to become what it became.

Battle Beast had fairly humble beginnings. But when Ryan did his design… The character looks so cool. As we did that story, and he disappears into a portal, it was fairly intriguing. [It] took hold of our imaginations. We never could have anticipated that Battle Beast would have spiraled into this beloved character that might be both mine and Ryan’s favorite Invincible character. It’s definitely top two or three. And then it wasn’t until issue #55 that we got around to putting them back in the book, which is insane. But I think from that moment on, he took hold of the fan base. And anytime Battle Beast showed up, the fans were as excited as we were.

Getting back into that headspace and trying to fill that gap, get us from that guy that was in Machine Head’s penthouse, and then went to a portal, to the guy who was in the Viltrumite prison… It’s really exciting, and we’ve got a long story planned, and there’s a lot of cool twists and turns along the way. And to be honest, I haven’t really left the Invincible universe, because I started writing the pilot a couple of days after finishing writing the comic book series. It’s been pretty consistent for me, but being able to write it in comic book form, again, is really special. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be back doing it and working with Ryan.

Ryan Ottley: Yes, exactly. Don’t leave me out, Robert. Yes, same. I am having a lot of fun being back here. It’s basically a dream project, to be honest. I mean, Robert gets what I like. We both like similar things, which is a whole full variety of things. This isn’t just a big, serious drama. It’s quite funny. We’re both really into that. So yeah, it’s awesome to be back, and it’s a blast.

Both of you have evolved as writer and artist, respectively, over the course of these past couple of decades. How has your approach to this book, both individually and as a team, changed since then?

Kirkman: I’m lazier because I can trust Ryan more. So my scripts are a lot less detailed and involved than than they used to be. Doing invincible as long as we did, I know the stuff that excites Ryan and I know the stuff that Ryan hates, and so I try to put a nice mix of both in every issue. When I sit down to write an issue of Battle Beast, I feel like I am at Ryan’s service. So I very much try to write what will excite me, but I also try to steer it to what will excite Ryan, as well. I acknowledge that Ryan is going to be at the drawing table with these pages exponentially longer than I am at the at the keyboard with the script. And so my goal is, on every single page, for Ryan to be like, “Oh my god, can’t believe I’m doing this. Oh my god, this is super awesome. Oh, I’m having a good time on this. I’m having a good time on that.”

And so I try to do my best to service him and write things to excite him. Because if I’m excited and he’s excited, then the fan base, when they finally get the story, is also going to be excited, and that energy flows through all the way to the reading experience. That’s something that I feel a tremendous amount of pressure because there’s some lofty goals we’re trying to reach with this series. I want to make sure that we do this character justice and that Ryan is happy he spent the time on the book,

Ottley: Absolutely, yeah. And I have a similar approach. I mean, basically it’s pretty much business as usual, but I am trying to experiment more. I am inking myself on everything, and so putting a lot more into it, so hopefully I can hit those deadlines still, but it’s it’s definitely tough. But it’s fun. It’s quite fun.

One thing that I do think is different artistically is about halfway through the book, you switch to these really nice, big, full-page panels, which changes up the rhythm of the book dramatically. I assume that was part of trying to give this book its own flavor, its own identity, or was there some other goal there?

Kirkman: Battle Beast is an extremely action-oriented character, and so not only is it going to be very action-heavy, but some of the most historic action sequences in Invincible have featured Battle Beast. At least for my part, there’s a goal to try and one-up everything that has come before it.. We’ve got to give those kind of scenes the room necessary to make sure that they really shine and stand out as something memorable. Because the goal is to have as many memorable, legendary fight scenes in this book [as] occurred with Invincible and Battle Beast.

Invincible Universe: Battle Beast #1 page 2-3

And Ryan, what about for you? Does doing the full pages, the full page splash? Does that change your process at all, versus the regular, say, si- panel pages?

Ottley: I guess I don’t really notice. I mean, it feels like we’ve always done that kind of thing, double page spreads, splash pages. We even did that full splash page issue in Invincible #0. It’s always fun for me. I really enjoy drawing big, impactful scenes… I’m a big fan of Dale Keown, and the way he always had the size of the characters next to a different character, it just blew my mind. I always thought that was so fun to see proportions and scale. And so I’m trying to do that a lot, because I find that fascinating myself. What is Battle Beast’s size to this person or this alien?

On a similar note, since you are trying to up the ante in terms of the action scenes, how do you construct a good action scene? I know that’s very broad, but you’ve had these insane, over the top things throughout you know your histories through various books, but particularly like you’re saying on Invincible. So when you’re saying, “Okay, we want to raise the ante,” what do you do? Is it just simple brainstorming? Is it saying, “Okay, we had nine intestines there. Let’s do 10 intestines this time.” Or how do you hit it?

Kirkman: [Laughs] I think there’s a lot of different ways to increase the intensity and stakes in a fight scene. It’s all the story that happens around the fight scene that makes the fight scene have the emotional impact needed. So you got to build into it in the right way. And so there’s a lot of care and effort put into making sure that when we arrive at the fight scene, every character is established, there’s an emotional connection to the characters and you’re invested in the outcome of the fight emotionally.

Because we’ve been working together so long, Ryan takes what I’ve written in the script and interprets it. Sometimes he expands it, sometimes he alters it somewhat. There’s definitely a give and take. The fight scenes are much more collaborative than some of the other aspects of the book. Ryan encroaches on the storytelling part a little bit more. There was a section in issue two where Ryan was like, “not good enough. This fight scene is fine. Feel like there could be some more here.” And so we just added two pages to the fight scene. I remember we got on the phone and I was like, “Okay, well, the panel I wrote, put that here, this thing you want to do, put that here, let’s do this.” And Ryan added some really cool elements to that fight that were not there in my script.

I like giving him the freedom to be able to do that. I think is important to make the book as cool as possible, and it’s important for any comic book writer to always acknowledge the fact that we’re working in a visual medium. As much as we try to visualize the stories we’re trying to tell in service of writing the scripts, when an artist comes in and is like, “all right, visually, I think this should work this way,” you got to listen. And Ryan is somebody that is always great when he chimes in with that kind of stuff.

I regret saying this now, because now he’s going to do it more on some of the upcoming issues.

And Ryan, for you, then, is it just sort of a gut feeling of, okay, this isn’t quite working in terms of the pace, in terms of the pages? Or how do you feel out a moment like that when it’s not hitting quite right?

Ottley: It’s a case by case basis. An artist’s job is to exaggerate and really flex on the moments that you should flex on. One of the problems that we fall into, is sometimes you get too consistent, like “this kitchen scene needs to look just as good as this fight scene.” And I completely disagree with that. You got to go fast on the shitty little scenes, and then really flex on the stuff you want to flex on, and that’s the gore and the fights. I do my best storytelling on everything else. But then, when it comes to a fight, I really want to bring it home.

Kirkman: Todd McFarlane is one of the greatest comic book artists that ever lived, and his strength is knowing when to draw and when not to draw. And more people should study his work, especially his early stuff. At Marvel, you would get five pages of fingers and knees and ears and teacups, and then you get a four page sequence of Spider-Man swinging around doing something awesome with a two-page spread of Spider-Man looking great, and you’d be like, “This is the greatest comic book I’ve ever seen!” You totally forget the six pages of fingers, knees, tea cups, close ups on eyes and shoulders. And that is, I think, the ideal way to do comics.

Ottley: I totally agree. If he does a double-page spread of Spidey, it’s not just a bunch of buildings. He’s filling the page with Spider-Man. And then… Building. It’s kind of like the Kirby thing, the Eric Larson thing. Their layouts are always just unbelievable.

Kirkman: Yeah, put the cool stuff up front. Hide the hard-to-draw stuff behind the cool stuff.

Ottley: Don’t draw a whole car. What are you doing? Draw the head. That’s all you need.

I love the end of the issue here, where we have Battle Beast forming a de facto team with this computer program that hates him and a half-rotted skeleton man. What can we expect with this very weird, interesting trio as the series continues?

Kirkman: All kinds of Space Adventures. I think Prince Salaka, the half-rotted skeleton man as you so disrespectfully called him–

Oh no.

Kirkman: No, it’s okay.

Yeah, he’s not here.

Kirkman: He pulls Battle Beast into a much larger story, and he becomes a very interesting character over the life of the series, at least to begin with, and is really going to be the driver that pulls Battle Beast into some pretty interesting situations and pretty unexpected situations. He haphazardly becomes the catalyst to the series, at least to begin with. So he’s a very important character and a character that Ryan are having a tremendous amount of fun with.

This scrappy group of misfits navigating their way through the cosmos, going from adventure to adventure… That’s where the series lives, at least for a little while, and then it changes, and we go into some even darker, different, interesting places.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Battle Beast #1 is on sale now.

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