Over his long cartooning career, writer and artist Jeffrey Brown has not only made books based on his own life, but also ones connected to the Star Wars saga.
But it’s no exaggeration to say his newest, Marvel: The Uncanny X-Men: Days Of Future Fun (hardcover, Kindle) is a dream come true for him. Especially since he says as much in the following email interview.
Photo Credit: © Jill Liebhaber
For someone who hasn’t read any of your previous books, what is Marvel: The Uncanny X-Men: Days Of Future Fun about? Because it’s not, we should note, an X-Men adventure, a parody of the Chris Claremont comics Days Of Future Past, or a book-length critique of the movie.
It’s a collection of fun comics recasting the X-Men as kids, in the same vein as my Darth Vader And Son books. Most of the references are to the Claremont X-Men comics, which is the era I grew up reading (the title was just finding a good pun to play off of). So it’s not a parody or critique for sure, more of a love letter to the characters and stories, hopefully with as much heart as humor.
Whose idea was it for you to do a book of X-Men cartoons?
The idea had been vaguely kicking around for years, actually. One of my childhood dreams was to draw for Marvel, specifically the X-Men, so it had been on my mind in some form or other all along. After doing the Thor And Loki: Midgard Family Mayhem book, I knew X-Men was at the top of my list. So whenever Steve Mockus (my editor at Chronicle Books) and I were talking about non-Star Wars projects I might like to do, X-Men would come up.
Unfortunately, Marvel said no the first few times we brought up the idea with them, and I started thinking it wasn’t a possibility. But after the Thor book came out, we mentioned it again, the timing worked out, and they liked my sketches. So it wasn’t necessarily difficult, just took patience and persistence!
Once Marvel said “yes,” where did you get the ideas for these cartoons? You mentioned Claremont’s run of the comics…
The more familiar I am with material, the easier it is to come up with ideas, and this book I think some of it was really sketching ideas that were already in me. I did go back and re-read a lot of my X-Men comics, and also made a list of all the characters I wanted to try and fit in somewhere. I filled a little sketchbook with maybe 150 or so ideas.
How often did you ask your contact at Marvel to send you an X-Men book for, uh, research? Yeah…research.
I didn’t ask for any actually, because I don’t have room for a second copy of all the X-Men books I already have! I even have multiple versions of some of the stories, like the Asgardian Wars — individual issues, trade paperback collections, and the giant omnibuses…
Did Marvel give you any guidelines or restrictions when it came to your comics? Obviously, they wouldn’t want you showing Wolverine drinking, smoking, and slicing bad guys into cuts of deli meat, but what about stuff that doesn’t fall into the category of “it’s a book for kids so…duh”?
I don’t think there were any guidelines stated, but that may be because I’ve been doing books like this for so long, and have such a familiarity and affinity with the material, that I was always going to fit in that space.
There was the direction to not quote or use the films, but I wasn’t interested in that in any case.
The biggest question was regarding which versions of the X-Men I’d be playing off, and I knew I wanted the classic Claremont X-Men — from Uncanny issues 150-225 or so. They were fine with that, but wanted me to put Wolverine in his blue and yellow costume, and not the brown and dun colored costume I drew him in at first. Initially, I was resistant to that, but it wasn’t such a huge problem, and in the end, I think the book looks better with him wearing the blue and yellow. They did let me go with punk rock mohawk Storm and short hair Rogue, which felt right for me.
So, how hard was it to draw the X-Men in your style?
Not hard at all. I’ve been drawing Marvel characters since I was a kid, and with the costumes, it’s such a natural fit, and an easy transition from drawing Star Wars the way I do to drawing these super heroes.
Was there anyone who was particularly difficult to get right? Or surprisingly easy?
For some reason, I had a hard time drawing Magneto’s helmet, maybe just because he’s one of the characters I haven’t drawn much. Everything else was pretty easy. Things that are fun to draw tend to be pretty easy.
Also, how did you decide which X-Men to include in Marvel: The Uncanny X-Men: Days Of Future Fun? Like, did you just stick to the classic line-up, did you go deep…? Because there’s a lot of them, especially if you include mutants who were not X-Men per se, like Ms. Marvel.
The lineup is more or less the main heroes from that X-Men run of the early 1980s, and I tried to focus on the characters who are also most present in other X-Men incarnations like the films. Wolverine, obviously, and also Cyclops, Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, and Jean Grey as Phoenix. And of course, Professor X and Magneto are the adults in the Danger Room.
So, did you include any who are not among the best known but is one you just really like?
Mostly, I stuck to the main and best known characters — there wasn’t enough space in the book to fit quite everyone, though I managed to find room for the New Mutants, Toad, the Blob, and even Sebastian Shaw. The most obscure character is maybe the demon N’Garai from X-Men #143, who you can find hiding there in the book.
Marvel: The Uncanny X-Men: Days Of Future Fun is your second Marvel Comics book after Thor And Loki: Midgard Family Mayhem. Is there any crossover between these books?
There isn’t, though I tried to think of a joke around the Asgardian Wars, which is one of my favorite X-Men story arcs. I try to not force things and let the ideas come more organically, and the right idea never came to mind.
What about plans to do more Marvel books and then do a really big one with all of the characters? Because Marvel: The Avengers: End Of The Game seems like it would write itself…
Maybe someday Marvel will let me do a Secret Wars book and I can really go wild with the whole Marvel universe!
Marvel has been doing cartoons as part of the MCU, such as What If…? and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Have you talked to them about doing a ‘toon based on your books?
I haven’t yet. I enjoy the cartoons, and have dabbled in working on animation projects, but my main focus will always be the books, I think.
So, is there anything else a potential reader might want to know about Marvel: The Uncanny X-Men: Days Of Future Fun?
I think the one thing I try to do in these books is write them in a way where you don’t have to be superfan to enjoy them, but if you are, there’ll hopefully be some fun easter eggs to stumble on. So even if you’re not a Marvel zombie, you should still find a lot of fun and humor in the book.
Finally, if someone enjoys Marvel: The Uncanny X-Men: Days Of Future Fun, they’ll probably go get Thor And Loki: Midgard Family Mayhem for obvious reasons. But once they’ve done that, if they want to read more of your stuff, which of your original books would you suggest they check out?
The next book to check out would be Kids Are Still Weird, my collection of comics about my younger son Simon, with silly moments and goofy things he’s said. It’s another book that both adults and kids can find the humor in.
And if someone is looking for more Marvel from me, I have a middle grade graphic novel Hulk Teach coming out this August.
