Interview with David F. Walker Part 1

David F Walker is a man of many talents. He’s produced a few films—including the critically acclaimed Blaxploitation documentary Macked, Hammered, Slaughtered, and Shafted—and worked with the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Aaron McGruder. He’s authored a few novels ranging from new tales of Ernest Tidyman’s John Shaft to his own Becoming Black, a personal exploration of racial identification, racism, and pop culture. He’s an award-winning journalist, receiving the 2003 Society of Professional Journalists Award for excellence in writing. At Portland State University, he teaches a class on writing for comics.

I have no idea where he finds the time to also churn out stellar work on comics like Shaft (Dynamite)—which is on its second mini-seres, called “Imitation of Life”, with art by Dietrich Smith—Cyborg (DC), which is the most in-depth look at the character the medium has ever seen, and—alongside artist Sanford Greene—Marvel’s new release, Power Man and Iron Fist, reuniting one of comics’ most classic friendships, Luke Cage and Danny Rand.

Amidst all of that, he was kind enough to find a couple of hours to talk to me about a number of topics, including his experience in the comics industry, Blaxploitation films, and what comics mean to him.

Want to know more about Walker? You can check out his website http://www.badazzmofo.com/, and you should absolutely buy any comic that has his name on the cover—his 2015 Shaft miniseries, “A Complicated Man” ranks among one of the greatest comics I’ve read in years.


Matt Carter: It sounds like you’re a busy guy this days.

David F. Walker: Yeah, ya know, that’s one way to describe it. I’ve also managed to take procrastination to a whole new level, so…there’s that too.

MC: Sounds like you had a hell of a traveling week last week.

DFW: Yeah, and I got a direct flight from New York City to San Francisco last weekend, and I used to love direct flights, but my brain wiring doesn’t work anymore, and I had a meltdown right over Colorado, right as the flight got really bumpy…

MC: What were you traveling for? Was it all for comics or was it for lecturing or…?

DFW: Yeah, it was all comics stuff. There’s back to back events, one in New York City and one in San Francisco, for what’s now being called “Black Comic Weekend” and it ties in because it’s the Martin Luther King day weekend, and they’ve been doing the event in New York City for…this is the 4th year, in San Francisco it’s the 2nd year.

MC: I’d heard the New York event had a pretty solid turnout too.

DFW: It was insane, words can’t describe it, it’s the best event I’ve done in…not just my comics career, but I did independent publishing for years, so I would go to the alternative press expo, and San Jose, and then San Francisco, so I’ve been doing stuff for 20 years, and never been to anything like the event at the Schomburg.

MC: That’s awesome. So was the demographic of attendance pretty varied?

DFW: This year was getting there, there was a little more diversity within the crowd, but it’s still really a huge amount of Black folks, a lot of families there, a long of young kids—it’s a really kid friendly thing—and I think in part it’s put on by the New York Public Library System, so you get a lot of people who would never go to say, New York Comic Con, because Comic Con costs a ton of money to get into, so for me, a lot of it is meeting the hardcore kids and families that I want to meet in the first place. Not to knock the die hard fans because I like die hard fans.

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MC: But the thing is, the die hard fans are gonna be there, so to reach a completely different audience is a pretty special experience.

DFW: Yeah, and I’m just one of those people who believes that, ya know, I love comics and they’re great for entertainment value, but I was a kid who learned how to read through comic books, so I’m also a really strong proponent of education and an educational component, which I feel has gotten really lost in this age of big event crossovers and variant covers.

MC: Yeah…I feel like the idea of the long form comic series is dead. There’s six to twelve issues mini-series with major characters that have 40 years of history behind them, and then you do something like they pulled the Sam Wilson switch as Cap, which I thought was great, but I feel like it’s a character that hasn’t really had a chance to grow.

DFW: Yeah, well character growth is a tricky thing, especially in what I just call mainstream comics—mainstream comics being primarily the two bigger publishers—and, I think that a lot of people don’t realize that we’re talking about IP’s that are exploitable commodities, so we can talk about a character and does the character have a chance to grow, or develop, or evolve over time: but we’re not really talking about characters, we’re talking about product.

MC: That’s absolutely true. I mean, Spider-Man is a character, but for all intents and purposes, he’s an intellectual property that exists to make money for Disney, and that’s something that I think everybody accepts without even really knowing it, but at the same time, I feel that now that these major companies are delving into comics ownership, there’s still a disconnect and I think there’s always going to be one because you run the risk…if you redo your entire comics line to mirror the movies—that undeniably have a wider audience—you’re going to lose the core fans that got those movies made, basically.

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DFW: Well, yeah, and I think there needs to be more of a middle ground for sure.

MC: Yeah, because I think the reader is smart enough to discern that the Spider-Man they see on the screen, is not necessarily the same one you’re gonna see in four months when the new Captain America comes out.

DFW: Well, you would hope that would be the case, sometimes, I don’t know. I think that people get lost, the invest a lot in their favorite characters, maybe more so than they need to… we could use Star Trek as an example. There’s the new series that J.J. Abrams directed, there’s people that are up in arms like, “This isn’t really Star Trek!” and, “Chris Pine isn’t really Captain Kirk!” and all this stuff, and I’m like, “Well, rather than complaining, I’m just gonna go back and watch my episodes of Star Trek.” Those still exist…

It’s an interesting dynamic to me, and I know some scholars have written about it, but…it’s dangerous to say this, but this pop culture phenomenon has just grown immensely over the last few decades. What we’re really talking about is a type of religion, and to say that, people freak out: “Oh you can’t compare it to Christianity, or Catholicism,” and I say, “No, I’m not comparing it to that,” but a lot of the same principles are there; there are people who believe in Superman as much as they believe in certain deities. I live my entire life by, “with great power comes great responsibility.” I have that memorized. I can’t tell you all of the ten commandments, though…

MC: It’s true, there is a fanatical sense to it, and…that’s never gonna change, that’s just what it is…I feel like comics are venturing into this world of “Big Money” now, bigger money than they’ve ever seen, even in the heyday of the 90’s when X-Men was selling millions of copies, they weren’t making money like this.

DFW: And they weren’t making money the movies are making.

MC: That’s what I mean, there were no movies like that to really say, “Oh, this is viable.” It’s interesting to watch unfold because it’s still pretty new.

DFW: It is, and I’m old enough to remember when the Punisher with Dolph Lundgren was a big deal and that movie sucked!

MC: It’s terrible! Or that old Captain America movie, or that original Fantastic Four movie.

DFW: And all that stuff is only 20-25 years old. Tim Burton’s Batman came out in ’89, so that was 26 years ago…which seems like a long time, and it kind of is, but for younger people, especially…I’m teaching a class in writing comics right now at Portland State University, and I’ve got these students who are like, “Oh yeah…I got my first comic in ‘99.” And I’m thinking to myself, “What do you mean, ‘99?!” and then I’m realizing, “Ok, this person’s like 20 years old,” so they don’t remember what it was like in what we called “the Dark Ages,” when your superhero attire consisted of underroos, and that was about it. It is a weird time.

MC: It’s interesting, and I think it’s largely going to turn out to be a good thing, because in my opinion, anything that gets a bunch of kids buying comics is a good thing for everyone. I spent the majority of my adult life in the music business, and when Starbucks started selling records, people complained that it was “fake”…and my thought was just that, getting anyone to buy a record in 2015, I don’t care how you did it, it’s a good thing for everyone.

DFW: And also, I’m a guy who’s viewed by the industry and most readers as a newcomer…but at the same time, I’ve been around the industry for years. I actually went to the Kubert school back in the 80’s before I got kicked out, and then I started a career that took me away from comics, but I still had tons of friends that worked at different publishers and I was doing all these things that kept me connected to comics, and so I understand how the industry works, and it’s similar to what you’re talking about in music now…It’s like you get called up to the big leagues, whether it’s Marvel or DC, and you get a ton of work, but a lot of talent runs the risk of getting burned out, and you see a lot of really creative folks leaving some of these bigger companies and going back to doing independent stuff at Image, or at Dark Horse…and it’s interesting to me, because now I’m starting to understand how and why this happens.

MC: Correct me if I’m wrong, the first one you did was The Army of Dr. Moreau right? That’s your first published work?

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DFW: There’s another one that I did that’s kind of obscure, it’s called the Supernals Experiment, and that’s a digital-only book, but I also wrote an English language version of a Manga series, probably around 2005 or 2006 which was for Tokyo Pop—that’s the company that kind of hosed everybody. So yeah, that was my first paid gig in comics and then I’ve been doing independent stuff that was really small print runs, and then I did Number 13 for Dark Horse, and Number 13 helped lead to The Army of Dr. Moreau actually…

It’s funny, I just had someone ask me this the other day. They were like, who are you, where did you come from? I’m trying to explain to them, well, there’s this 20 year history as a freelance journalist, so we could start with that. And they look at me like, oh you made that transition, how and why? What happened was I was working at a newspaper. Started freelancing in the nineties. Got a regular job as an editor and a staff writer right as that industry was sort of crumbling.

And I left my job at the newspaper…I was just about to turn 40 and I was like ok, realistically speaking my life is more than half over…what is it I really want to do now that I’ve left this job and comics is always there, and on a social level I have some really good friends in the industry…When I say really good friends it sounds weird because it’s name dropping, but like Brian Bendis is like my big brother, and David Rucka is a great friend, and Kelly Sue DeConnick, these are all people that I love dearly, and they were all saying if this is what you want to do then do it…I realized yeah, I’m 40, but if I’m lucky and I live to be 80 or 90 I don’t want to spend 40 years going, “Oh I should have gotten into comics,” and I didn’t and so that was the beginning of it…

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MC: I think to some degree it benefits you to get into it a little later…because you don’t really risk the burn out…I saw what happened to a lot of young kids going to recording studios where they’d start and…they’d be doing these crazy 18 hour days for weeks at a time; by the time they were like 30, they were wiped. They were completely different people…so I think getting into something a little later is sometimes kind of a benefit.

DFW: The other thing that’s good about that I think is that…it’s easier to understand things aren’t working out and why they’re not working out…But [when] you’re younger and you’re not quite sure and you’re trying really hard and [you] don’t want to lose this gig…I’m very lucky to be working in comics, it’s really like a lottery, but the thing is, if it goes away, I have other options, and I have other skill sets, and there’s other things that I do and want to continue to do…

MC: I think that there’s this misconception about careers where people think a career is a linear process—it shoots up like a graph or it shoots down like a graph depending on where you start. And it’s not…So I did want to touch on some things…I thought Shaft was easily the best comic last year, honestly, I loved it…It didn’t just stand out amongst their line though, it stood out amongst every publisher…It gave more depth to that character than I think the average person is familiar with.

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DFW: Or is expecting…which is the goal I was going for…As I’m working on the sequel it’s like you go up to bat and you hit a home run and then everyone’s expecting you to hit a home run and I feel like the sequel…the first issue, is like a solid triple. It’s not a home run you know. Part of that is it was just timing and I was trying to do something really different with this…People are going to go in expecting the exact same thing. I can’t give you the exact same thing. It’s not fair to you, it’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to the character.

MC: And it’s literally impossible to do. It’s just a moving target you can’t hit…every piece of art someone makes is not going to be the same as the one before, otherwise nobody would make any art. Did you pitch [Shaft] to Dynamite, or did they come to you?

DFW: I pitched that to them and it’s kind of an interesting story…I’d been wanting to do the comic for quite some time and when Darwyn Cooke’s Parker adaptation started coming out…I was like, oh my god this is what I want to do. Unfortunately, I don’t really draw but this is the sort of thing…I’d like to do…with Shaft.

And I kind of sat on the idea for a while thinking it’s never going to happen…I’d done Number 13 for Dark Horse, Army of Dr. Moreau was coming out. But I wasn’t getting attention and I wasn’t getting work offers that I wanted…Well if I could do a Shaft comic I know I could hit a home run.

So I started investigating, trying to figure out who had the literary rights, because it was a series of books as well as a series of films and I suspected that the two were not interconnected…I got in touch with the estate of Ernest Tidyman. First I got in touch with his widow and built a relationship with her and she was like, I think this is a great idea. She got in touch with…the agency that reps his estate and got them on board, and then I reached out to Dynamite. It was a pretty short list of publishers because it had to be one who had a history of licensing stuff so they knew how to go through that…but the other thing is that they they put out books that are rated R…they’ve been known to throw caution to the wind. And that was this huge thing for me because I was not going to do a PG version of Shaft.

They were interested so I got them in touch with the estate and the agency and then it took literally…nearly a year and a half to work out the deal and I think even during that there were times where…there was a certain amount of apprehension on their part because they’re dropping all this money on the license and they’re [thinking] can this guy really pull it off? Because I had only a few minor titles to my name and there’s this notion if a screenwriter wants to go into comics, that screenwriter might think, “Hey, I write screenplays, how hard can comics be?”…And I didn’t want to have that attitude because I know how hard comics can be…In the end, there may have been one or two writers who could have sold more numbers, and I don’t want to sound like an egomaniac, but I don’t necessarily know if anyone could have written a better book because nobody wanted it as bad as I did.

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MC: I know it was critically acclaimed and I thought that it was so well written, and so well produced, and so well drawn by Bilquis Evely—she was fantastic, and I was completely unfamiliar with her work—all the elements of that came together in a way that doesn’t happen very often.

DFW: Yeah it’s lightning in a bottle and then you’re like…now I gotta do this again. It not scary but it’s…easy to give in to your fears as a creative person, your neuroses and all that nonsense, and trust me I do that on a regular basis but you just got to go for it, and some point you’re going to take your lumps because there’s always going to be the people who [say] this isn’t as good as the first one or the second one was better than the first one but the third one sucks…And the thing is nobody sets out…to make something that sucks. But a million things can happen along the way.

And sometimes the stars just don’t necessarily align in the right way or more importantly, your comic comes out the same day that Dark Knight 3 comes out and everybody goes out and buys this Dark Knight 3 or worse there’s a new Halo game…and everyone spends their money on that instead of comics. We’re fighting for the same consumer dollars and that’s another thing that a lot of people don’t necessarily always take into consideration.

MC: That’s absolutely true. Something else I wanted to touch on is, I think that what really set apart Shaft was, what other Blaxploitation comic, or character from a Blaxploitation film is there, that’s really been done in the last 10 years? He is the face of the genre…I feel like it’s a pretty important and yet generally misunderstood or ignored genre, mainly by white people. What do you think people should know about it?

DFW: Well I think that…it’s become this sort of [thing] rife for parody and satire.

MC: The Kung Fu genre has that too.

DFW: Exactly but if you watch a movie like 36th Chamber of Shaolin which is, I think probably the greatest Kung Fu movie of all time, it’s not a joke. It’s not meant to be a joke. Super Fly isn’t meant to be a joke. Shaft isn’t meant to be a joke. Even the Dolomite movies which are comedic and suffer from low production values…it’s meant to be what it’s meant to be and a lot of it’s misunderstood or doesn’t age well. I think that’s an interesting thing because you look at a movie from the same era—Dog Day Afternoon or The Godfather movies or something like that—and people still take those movies seriously for a whole host of reasons.

MC: They’re no less fantastic than any Blaxploitation film. They’re no less rooted in that whole ideal.

DFW: …There’s a couple Blaxploitation movies that when I show them to people they…get what’s really great about the genre and the key is that some of the best movies…of that genre are not the most well known. So, Across 110th Street is in the top five greatest but not everybody’s seen Across 110th Street. Not everybody’s seen Gordon’s War or The Spook Who Sat by the Door. In fact, a lot of people haven’t seen Truck Turner, which is great movie…I think there’s a lot of characters to mine in there but, and…I’d love to do one of the Pam Grier characters as a comic…

MC: It’d be even cooler to do a shared universe situation with all these characters because it would be the most insane place ever.

DFW: That’s kind of how I feel about it…Part of what started it, even before I really started pursuing the idea of even doing a Shaft comic—it was probably about 15 years ago…I really want to do a Dolomite comic. I think those are so ridiculous and outrageous…You could never do Shaft vs. Frankenstein or…Shaft vs. Blacula, you just couldn’t do that. But you could do that with a Dolomite comic, you could have Rudy Ray Moore go to outer space.

I knew Rudy and I was like, “Rudy I really want to do a comic…called The Further Adventures of Dolomite,” and he was like, “Oh that’s great, let’s try and work something out.” Unfortunately we were never able to work something out and then he passed away. But then Black Dynamite came out and [it] was essentially what I was talking to Rudy about…and it was like, ok I don’t need to do this now, it’s been done.

MC: It’s a pretty amazing genre and I feel like it captures a very specific period in time. I feel like…Shaft is still the best example because most people I know only know Shaft as a theme song.

DFW: …It’s this iconic character that not everybody understands…or what he means and the vast majority of people didn’t even know that there was a series of books or even that there was a single book…People were like, where’d you come up with all this stuff like he was a Vietnam vet—I was like it’s in the books…I went through, found every single reference to it and the funny thing is there’s not quite continuity—was he in Vietnam in ’66 or…’70? How many tours of duty did this poor guy do? But there was a lot of stuff that I was able to pick through because the end of the day…a book will always give you more than a movie can give you.

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MC: Your work introduced me to Shaft as a completely different character and opened my mind to the fact that there’s an entire prehistory to the character that the movies don’t even touch on.

DFW: …And the movie doesn’t get into his backstory but the book does. You could do an entire book…about what this guy goes through. And to me that’s endlessly fascinating…We’ll see if they decide to do that…That initial mini-series [I wrote], 75% of that first issue took place in Vietnam…and at the last minute Dynamite said, “We’re thinking about maybe doing an entire mini-series set in Vietnam, so let’s not do this first issue this way.”…And it was interesting to me because by having to change that first issue I had to actually change an entire aspect of that whole story arc which was how he actually came into being a detective.

MC: I’m looking forward to the follow up to it. I hope they keep doing it. How are they to work with?

DFW: That was about the only note I think. They were super cool. Everybody’s got different stories about working with different publishers and editors and my relationship with Dynamite has been really positive…

MC: That makes sense though because they’re looking at the property as a larger thing then…It’s pretty cool and confidence-building I would imagine.

DFW: …Because they’ve got the rights to James Bond now I said, at some point I want to write a James Bond comic, and somebody said to me, “Oh, would it be bond meets shaft?” No, I just want to do a straight up James Bond. To me that would be just flexing my muscles in a way I have yet to do.

MC: …I think of him as the opposite Shaft in terms of, he’s iconic and people know the novels…It’s interesting to put that in perspective…there is an expectation all of a sudden if you write that…So to flip it a bit, going to Marvel now—I know you did some Secret Wars stuff for Marvel.

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