Dan Schkade talks taking over, reviving FLASH GORDON strip

Comics establishment Flash Gordon has returned to newspapers after a 20 yr break, with cartoonist Dan Schkade taking over the strip.

King Features Syndicate introduced again the strip earlier this month, teaming with the Eisner and Ringo Award-nominated Schkade to make it occur. Schkade has picked up proper the place the final strip left off, following the overthrow of Flash’s long-time villain, Ming The Merciless.

This all comes as the long-lasting strip — initially drawn by Alex Raymond — will get able to have a good time its ninetieth birthday subsequent yr. Recently, Dan Schkade was additionally form sufficient to take a while out to debate this all with The Beat. You can discover our dialog beneath … get pleasure from!

INTERVIEW: Dan Schkade takes over FLASH GORDON

ZACK QUAINTANCE: What was your relationship to Flash Gordon earlier than getting concerned with the strip?

DAN SCHKADE: As a child I solely had a obscure information of Flash Gordon from popular culture osmosis and the short-lived ’90s cartoon, the rad one with all of the skateboarding. I lastly checked out the unique strip as soon as I began significantly learning comics historical past and was shocked by simply how a lot of the artform descends from it. The physicality, the spectacle. It was like discovering the Rosetta Stone. Aside from Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman, no one comes near Alex Raymond.

ZACK: How are you approaching translating such a long-time character for right this moment’s viewers?

DAN: Flash Gordon the comedian has been round for nearly 100 years, however Flash Gordon the character doesn’t know that. He’s a 23 year-old athlete simply attempting to do proper by his pals. I’m modernizing some features that don’t belong within the twenty first Century and streamlining some lore to make it accessible to a brand new viewers, however there’s a purpose this property has been round this lengthy and I’m not attempting to reinvent that wheel. This isn’t “not your dad’s Flash Gordon,” it’s a Flash Gordon for each considered one of us. Dads included.

Credit: Dan Schkade / King Features Syndicate

ZACK: What are you able to inform us about the place the strip will go along with Flash Gordon’s long-time foe, Ming The Merciless, defeated?

DAN: Ming is probably the most evil man within the universe. His Star Wars equal is Darth Vader’s boss, that’s how dangerous Ming is. So when you unite to overthrow the largest of the dangerous guys, what subsequent? Can your high-minded beliefs survive when there’s not this final enemy to rally in opposition to? For an altruistic, aspirational character like Flash, that’s an enchanting drawback to face. The legacy of Ming haunts the entire sequence, each the trauma of his dictatorship and the vacuum now left by its absence. It’s one thing his daughter Aura particularly has to confront; how does she substitute her father’s rule with out ending up similar to him? It’s an advanced query, and one which makes for some very fascinating battle.

ZACK: How are you managing the calls for of a each day strip, timewise?

DAN: I’m a pair months in and I’m nonetheless discovering the best rhythm. Beginnings are all the time exhausting — you’re studying how to attract a bunch of recent characters, adjusting to a brand new format, getting your sea legs. Seeing folks reply so positively to the strip has been an infinite increase, although. I actually like what I’m doing on Flash Gordon, and figuring out different persons are vibing with it too feels wonderful.

ZACK: Finally, are you able to give us some hints about new issues — characters or concepts or anything — you propose to deliver to Flash Gordon?

DAN: We’ll be travelling all throughout Mongo within the wake of this international revolution. We’ll spend time with the acquainted royal characters after all, like Prince Vultan, Witch-Queen Azura, and Queen Fria, who I discover notably fascinating. But we’ll additionally dig into the lives of people that weren’t born to royalty — staff, prisoners, troopers with out a conflict to battle in. Flash Gordon is a man who’ll attempt to make pals with anyone, and we’re going to make use of that to inform some private, human tales, even when the themes of these tales are literal aliens. We’ll even have dying matches, high-atmosphere dogfights, homicide mysteries, and at the least one monumental betrayal. Not a single day will probably be wasted.

Read Flash Gordon by Dan Schkade now through Comics Kingdom.