Axe Cop!

For this week’s Rival Radar feature, we had the opportunity to chat with Ethan Nicolle, the creator of the incredibly viral webcomic: Axe Cop.  This was an interesting interview that really showed what kind of person Ethan is, and what kind of relationship he has with his five year old brother who helped create and write the webcomic.  Continue reading for our full interveiw!

RC:  First, tell us about yourself and your brother.  I know the two of you
don’t live together, but are you close?  Has this project brought you
closer together?

Dinosaur soldiers are awesome!

EN: We are all very close.  Malachai has two older sisters who I adore, I love
my Dad and his wife is a second mother to me.  Without getting too into the details, my Dad remarrying was one of the best things he ever did, and this
family is one of the best things that has ever happened to any of us, and I
say that not even thinking about Axe Cop… we just really take a lot of joy
in being together.  Most of my vacation time is spent going to see them and
also my mother and brothers in Oregon.

EN: It was typical playtime… Malachai dug some toys out of his closet, some
dinosaurs and an axe, and in the way a five year old does, he decided that
if he wanted to fight dinosaurs using an axe, he must be an axe cop. I
played along and fell in love with the idea of making a real Axe Cop
character who fights crime with an axe, so I did.

EN: Sometimes it is very challenging, but often it is amazingly easy… some of
the stuff he comes up with is pure gold and he doesn’t even know it, other
stuff I have to kind of squeeze out of him through lots of questions and
trying to patch up whatever gaping plot holes he has going.  The fun of it
is getting to take his very basic and generic 5 year old concepts and giving
them skin.  He says “aliens” I get to create an alien planet and design
alien characters with personalities.  He says “Axe Cop” and I get to come up
with this mustached Tom Selleck type cop with aviator shades and the
attitude of Bruce Wayne.  It is so much fun.. it’s like being 5 again, but
now I can draw.

ask Axe Cop

EN: The first four and episode zero were created when I was visiting for Christmas.  Since then, we have found the phone works best.  As a family we usually talk on Skype using a web cam, but Malachai is very distracted by all the things you can click on and buttons you can push when he is in front of the computer… plus there are all those video games.  He loves his video games.  So now once or twice a week he calls me or I call him and he goes in
his room and we just talk for about 30 minutes to an hour and I will quiz
him on our current story line and take notes, then I will go through some
submitted “Ask Axe Cop” questions I’ve picked out.  He loves answering the
Ask Axe Cop questions.  I can hear him jumping up and down and running in
circles as he tells me new ideas.  When he talks about fighting moves, he is
physically performing them.  Usually I have to end the conversation… the
kid could go on and on if you let him.  He really responds when you invite
him to let loose with his imagination.  He loves it.

Flute Cop!

EN: Well in general he just gives me a character name and I do the rest.  Most of the characters he has just said “leaf man” or “Uni-Man” and I come up with the personality, the outfit and overall feel of who the character is. He never said “Telescope Gun Cop has a mullet”.  Every time he comes up with
a new character (which is multiple times every time we talk) I look forward to coming up with it in the Axe Cop universe as a “real” thing.  I also love when he uses the generic term “bad guys” and I get to just come up with random nameless bad guys (see Ask Axe Cop # 8 where Axe Cop feeds bad guys to his pet T Rex).  The transformations of Flute Cop and Sockarang have been especially entertaining to execute.

EN: For me it has been amazing.  It has been a burden, but a fun one and an
exciting one.  It is a totally new experience for me to post something I
made online and to have responses to it go up in seconds and to see people
from all over the world responding to it.  It’s every comic artist’s dream
really, and so I have tried not to take it for granted.  Malachai really
doesn’t know what is going on, and it’s probably better that way.  When I
first made Axe Cop I showed it to my friends on Facebook and I read Malachai
the 12 comments that said it was hilarious and awesome.  From that point he
just thinks all the attention is more of my friends who like the comic.  He
just thinks I have a lot of friends.  That’s enough for him… every time I
make a new episode he’ll ask if my friends liked that one too.

RC: We read some things about Hollywood being interested in Axe Cop, and watched the mock trailer that you posted on your site.  You want to talk to the Rival readers about that at all?  I mean, are we going to realistically see this as an animated film or show any time in the future?

EN: That’s all up in the air right now, so there is nothing I can really say except that there is interest.  I personally would love to see it live
action.  I think the draw of Axe Cop is that it has the balls to take a 5
year old’s imagination seriously.  I think if a movie did that, I think
people would be fascinated. Of course a show would be cool too, but whatever
it is, I hope it continues the tradition of making a 5 year old it’s head
writer and not trying to work in pot smoker gags and crude humor to make it
“edgy.”  The moment you start trying to make Axe Cop anything other than
what it is, I think it dies.  I think if there is “magic” to Axe Cop, it is
not just a 5 year old being a 5 year old, it is a 29 year old taking
everything he has learned about art and story telling then becoming 5 again
as well.  It’s as fascinating for me as it is anyone.

Axe Cop trailer

EN: I never had long term goals because obviously Malachai won’t be 5 forever.
My original plan was just to do them whenever I visited, and maybe a few
over the phone… mainly because I didn’t think they would really get me
anywhere and I needed to invest my time in things that would (or at least
could).  The fact that Axe Cop has become something so much bigger than
anything else I have ever done has made it kind of an adventure.  The
audience of Axe Cops knows just about as much as I do about where it will go
next, because it all hinges on that 5 year old’s mind and where he will take
it.  I would love to get enough to do a book for sure.  I think Malachai
would love seeing all these comics in print.  As it is, I try not to set
long term goals with Axe Cop, because it is a product of on the fly five
year old thinking.  I never want to call Malachai and say “we need to crank
out 22 axe cop episodes by next June”.

EN: I am self taught… I always wanted to go to Art School but never wanted the debt of student loans, so I kept looking for opportunities, but promised myself that along the way, I would do my best to study figure drawing, get advice from professionals at conventions, and constantly try to improve on
my own.  I think if I had gotten some good art school training I would be a tighter artist, but I am also proud of where I have gotten, especially in
the last five years.  There was a period where I had no style and  thought I would never find one… but, as many pros told me it would, one day it just “clicked” (after drawing hundreds of pages of really bad comics no one will ever care to see).

EN: My humor series “Chumble Spuzz” with SLG Publishing was nominated for Best
Humor Publication in 2009.  That’s about the extent of any honors or
awards.  Humor has always been my nature when it comes to comics, though I
love action too.  That’s what makes Axe Cop fun is it is both, and I get to
time my humor and build my jokes around what Malachai gives me.  It is a lot
of fun and I literally cry laughing at times while constructing these
strips.  Ask Axe Cop 2 nearly did me in.

EN: Axe Cop is my first ever web comic… I would love Axe Cop fans to give
Chumble Spuzz a try.  Many reviewers have called it one of the funniest
comics out there and I am very proud of it.  It is not the same thing as Axe
Cop to be sure, but it is a lot of fun.  Also, I am working on another
project called BEARMAGEDDON.  It is more of a comedy action cinematic tale
about a group of losers trying to survive a world takeover by bears after
teaming up with an insane Davey Crockett type character.  Axe Cop
unexpectedly exploded, so that project has been in the back seat lately, but
as soon as I get Axe Cop into a groove we will start to release BEARMAGEDDON
online as another web comic destined to be a graphic novel (it will be one
complete story).

click to check out BEARMAGEDDON!

RC: Thanks, Ethan, for taking the time to talk to the Rival readers about Axe Cop!  We loved doing the interview with you and wish you the best with the comic or any future projects!  We are definitely looking forward to an animated version of Axe Cop, so I hope that actually happens!

EN: Thanks for the opportunity, I appreciate it.

To check out this comic visit www.axecop.com!  You can read every episode from the comic and ask Axe Cop questions from the site.  Also, you can donate to Malachai’s college fund…why not help him out, he is the brains behind this great comic!

If you’d like to call into the show or stop in to chat while recording, just add rivalcomics as a friend on Skype, then call during scheduled recording times.  If you’d like to ask a question on the show via twitter, follow stevensevert2 then send your question while we are recording.  We will announce recording times, and set up a solid schedule for the podcast soon…stay tuned!