Interview with “Brimstone & the Borderhounds” Team

At this year’s Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con, Nick Cavicchio and I had a chance to meet up with a rather interesting group of creators. The Borderhounds, the creative team behind the indie publication Brimstone and the Borderhounds, were out in full-force at this year’s convention. We had a chance to chat with the head of the company, Will “Brimstone” Kucmierowski, who laid out Hound Comics’ entire, impressive brand for us.

The Hound Comics brand covers the main series, a spin-off, an upcoming animated series, an upcoming PSN/XBLA game, a fighting game for mobile platforms, an upcoming action figure, a spin-off series for kids, and a chicken cookbook inspired by one of the characters from the main series. Brim told us that his vision always went beyond just having a comic book series, and judging by what he’s accomplished in a relatively small amount of time, he’s taken great steps towards realising his dreams.

Brim told us that what was most important to him was having “[a] good story, good characters, and [a] good brand.” It all started when he received an comic-booked version of himself, drawn by Marvel & Dark Horse artist Jacob Chabot. From there, Brim scheduled a brainstorming session with writer and long-time friend Marcello Carnevali. What was supposed to be a short meet-and-greet over coffee turned into an hours-long creative explosion. From there, the series began and the team came together. Brimstone and the Borderhounds #1 showed up in Borders on Halloween last year. After the company started closing stores, Brim pulled the comic from the retailer and struck up deals to get his book into Barnes & Noble stores and onto Amazon. Beginning next month, Brimstone and the Borderhounds will be a featured book at all Barnes & Noble stores beginning next month.

Currently, the book is wrapping up a four-issue arc that establishes the backstory of the main characters. Brim said that right now, the book is skewed a bit more towards an adult audience, but that will change once the series begins it proper run. “The book has violence for the sake of telling a story, not just for the sake of violence. It’s like Law & Order. You can’t tell a story in Law & Order without a bit of blood.” Through Diamond Distributors, the series is now available for pre-order through your monthly Previews order form.

Brim talked next about the mobile fighting game, Forza Infernis, that launched recently. The game features a character voiced by Peter Mayhew (who was also in attendance at this year’s con) and music by Zo2. A full FPS game will be launching on PSN and XBLA in the coming months as well. The team’s foray into the animation, with music provided by Brim’s personal friend, Bumblefoot, of Guns N’ Roses, is on-track to major success as well – Brim told that the pilot is currently being shopped to network and has received a lot of interest. The upcoming Hound Kids series will feature the main characters as wee youngins and aims to bring some education along with the entertainment. The Luscious Cookbook, inspired by one of the series’ main characters, aims to incorporate that character’s love of chicken into an exciting graphic novel cook book. I’m not the authority on the matter, but I venture to say that Hound Comics will probably be pioneers in a new market when this project comes to fruition.

I told Brim that it really seemed like his brand was hitting the ground running, a sentiment with which he heartily agreed. He told us how his friends and family have really contributed to the initial product deployment. “Drive and ambition can really get you far,” Brim posited. In nine months, Brim has managed to turn a dream into what seems to be a reality.

We also had a chance to talk with Luscious, the real-life inspiration for the series character of the same name and the “eye candy” of the Hound Comics force at the con. He told us that Luscious is a bit of an exaggeration of his real-life personality. That being said, especially when it came to translating Luscious into the animated series, the real-life Luscious heavily influenced the development of the character. The character’s speech was modeled around his namesake’s. Luscious gets brought along to conventions and other publicity events for a good reason: character exposure. He thought being able to identify a real-life person to a character in a series was a great way for people to get hooked on the series. “If you meet the person, then you’ll be more interested in the character,” he posited. He also told us that he was really looking forward to the cookbook and the kids’ series. He said that Luscious, being an over-weight kid, is going to get teased and have to deal with bullying issues. He said he hoped that in the kids’ series Luscious could help give some hope to youngsters who can relate to the character. “Luscious is a big personality,” he said.

As you can see, Brim has managed to create a full brand based on his idea. We hope to serve as an outlet for Hound Comics in the future, so stay tuned for more coverage on this team’s exciting future.