Milan Kovacs is a writer originally from Hungary, with an extensive background in comics, presenting amazing works such as AllStar, GOTTHEM and now presents Idols, a new proposal aimed at an adult audience and here in C506 we bring you an interview where Milan tells us more about his wonderful comic!
Without further ado, here is this interview!
C506: Milan, it’s a pleasure to have you back on the site, we have previously shared some posts about your projects and now we are honored to talk about your new comic “Idols”. Could you tell us more about this project?
Milan Kovacs: Idols has been in the works for many years and has been evolving over time. I have been fascinated with the concept of influencers and before that celebrities and their following. To this day this phenomenon fascinates me in a way that made me decide I have to get it out of my system in some form. When we did those 8 pages of origin stories with artist Erno Juhasz for AllStar I realized how much I loved working with him.
The story begins with a worldwide blackout that’s followed by chims being born 9 months after. After the blackout orbs appear hovering in the sky above nearly every big city on Earth. We follow Zeus and his story mainly but we meet a lot of other characters. Zeus is working at Brökföst Café which is a fast food restaurant and he has an encounter with a modelling who offers him a job. But I really don’t want to spoil it any more…
C506: Idols really has a lot to offer readers, but tell us, what inspired you to create this story?
Milan Kovacs: So the story came from my vision of the future, you don’t have to agree with me but I believe in 30 years there will be no religion and the people of 2053 will probably not know what the Bible is or who Jesus was. I’m not a religious person at all but the stories and the beauty of Greek, Roman, Northern and Christian mythologies are so amazing.
A few years ago I was visiting my good friends in Athens for a comic con called AthensCon and we went to the National Archaeological Museum and I had an epiphany of some sorts. I saw all those amazing statues from ancient times and the Gods they worshipped. You know not all of them are from Greek culture, there are Sumerian, Egyptian and other art too. I immediately thought if these strange-looking creatures would ever walk the Earth again people would certainly worship them just the same. This is how the concept started and there was one particular sculpture that I really liked which was depicting the suffering of the Minotaur. It was broken in some parts and that just added to its beauty and sadness. That’s how the character Zeus was born.
C506: Now, we could see that this new project, unlike your previous comics that are aimed at all audiences, is aimed at a mature audience. Could you tell us about this transition? Do you have any preference about your kind of audience?
Milan Kovacs: Honestly? I love both. Writing for all ages is easy but sometimes you have to restrict yourself with some of the jokes because of the age restriction. With idols I don’t have to do that and I can use all my favourite dick-jokes and anything I want or think suits the story. Or don’t, I can even do that!
It really isn’t a big transition for me because usually in my personal life I am 100% for mature audiences. I swear a lot and I have insanely inappropriate jokes especially when I’m with friends who know me. So I actually based some of Zeus’s later version on myself.
I love writing for children and have a lot of plans for stories in the future but I felt I needed to get this story out of my system. Mainly because I think it’s something people will enjoy and it also serves as my view on the whole influencer community, worshipping people we don’t know or immortalizing others who don’t even exist.
C506: Idols is being funded through Kickstarter, do you think that the fact that the story is not a traditional comic book story is a factor that will modify the campaign in any way?
Milan Kovacs: Well, this is a really good question! From the first moment I realized since it’s not a superhero story per se like AllStar or a parody like GOTTHEM it will have a much more difficult time on Kickstarter. I made the decision of not promoting like some other clickbait projects are doing with tits and asses. Although I know the appeal, I love a beautiful female body as much as the next heterosexual it’s just not how I work marketing-wise. But so far I have to say I think it works and we have reached 100% in a bit more than a week. I learned a lot of new lessons along the way of developing and promoting this campaign and for season 1 episode 2 I will have a lot more experience I hope.
C506: Now, let’s talk a bit about your creative partners in this story. How has it been working with Erno Juhasz and Petra Haasz to develop the art?
Milan Kovacs: Erno is an amazing artist, he has a truly unique visión and he is a maximalist. I mentioned those 8 pages we did for AllStar together and whenever I thought he would send the script back to me due to too many panels on a page or too difficult descriptions with lots of details he just sent me finished pages in a way I couldn’t believe was possible. He is one of the best I have ever worked with for sure.
How Petra became our colourist is a slightly different story. He began working with another writer-artist duo first and since none of our colourists worked really well with Erno or because of their busy schedule we needed a colourist. Erno suggested his girlfriend Petra Haasz and he said she’d be doing some test pages. Needless to say we will use her “test pages” in the final print too. The rest as they say is history.
C506: To conclude, I would like to know if you have any final comments for our readers?
Milan Kovacs: To every potential reader of idols I have this to say: if you liked Game of Thrones for the intricacies (except for the last season) and The Expanse for its mystery, this scifi-fantasy is for you. If you didn’t like those, I’m pretty sure you’ll find something else to like.
idols is a character-driven story with lots of as-yet unsolved mysteries along the way. idols is a comic series resembling a tv series. Each season will have a definitive conclusion and we will always introduce more and more exciting characters you can relate to. Thank you for the interview. I really enjoyed answering these great questions!
C506: Thank you Milan, we appreciate your time. To our readers, we remind you that if you want to support this project, there is still time, go to the following link and become part of Idols https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/milankovacs/idols-season-1-episode-1-gods-are-dead-comic-tv-series .
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