Broken Frontier

"I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't just preach to the converted," Ron Marz says to me. "That's a waste of time and effort." We're talking about Broken Trinity, the big summer event for the Top Cow, and we're specifically talking about writing for an audience that's bigger than your established fan base.

"It's a welcoming storyline," he says of Broken Trinity. "The issue we put out for Free Comic Book Day is a nice setup to it, and that was our intention. You meet all the key characters and what they're about and you can just enjoy the story on its own."

Marz and the publishing staff at Top Cow have hit on a novel concept for a summer event, especially in the sea of special issues and monthly tie-ins that lately seems more like a tidal wave: Do a three-issue arc. Devote three more stand-alone issues to key characters in between those issues. Then it's all over.

This was the same format Marz and Top Cow tried out last summer for the First Born summer event that brought a child into the Top Cow universe by Witchblade bearer Sara Pezzini and he of the Darkness, Jackie Estacado. It's a formula Marz seems very satisfied with. "The length of First Born was a really good length. It made me tell a concise and complete story." After the success of First Born, when it was decided another event was worth doing, the format came back for an encore as well. "It forces the creative team to be as succinct as possible. We can't waste 8 pages on a car chase. We've got to make every page count. It's a cool way to work," he adds on reflection. "There's no fat on the story at all."

Storytelling concerns aside, Marz admits there's also a practical consideration for the format and length. Over and over again in our discussion, he seems keenly interested in making sure the stories he's writing can be enjoyed by as many people as possible. "Previews lately is the size of a damn phonebook," he observes. "You have a lot of choices. [So] we'll do a big-deal story but it'll cost you 18 bucks for the whole thing."

In many ways a follow-up to the First Born storyline, Broken Trinityis focused on three major characters in three major characters in the Top Cow universe: the Witchblade, the Darkness, and the Angelus. In the process, Marz hints, the story will introduce several new characters into the fold to be lasting parts of the universe by the story's conclusion. As with First Born, the story grew fairly naturally out of plotting the monthly series.

"There was no absolute imperative to do a crossover in this timeframe," Marz says. "For First Born the story got to the point where it was a bigger deal than the monthly. Because that went well, we started to [ask ourselves], 'do we want to do something else? Do we have a story that's worth doing another event?'"

Moving from the idea to the greenlight is a fast process at Top Cow, one of the reasons Marz says he so enjoys working there. Being a smaller publisher means there are typically less people involved in decision making processes, he explains, which translates into less hopes to jump through to get something on the page. Less characters in the universe help, as does, he says, having less books in the line. "It's really a boutique shop," he reflects. "They have a lot less bullets in the gun every month. So they all have to count."

He goes on to share a little about his process. "When I'm the lead dog, the story comes from me and gets passed down. I don't approach it differently than a one-and-done like Witchblade #119. My job is to tell the best story I can. What is the story? What's the best way to tell it? Who matters to the story? I find the best two or three characters to focus on and go from there. ...That's why you come back month after month, because you care about the characters. When you stop caring about the characters, that's when three bucks stays in your wallet."

As a writer in comics, Ron Marz's name is often synonymous with big changes and huge shakeups in the worlds and lives of his characters. This is the man who wrote the story in which Green Lantern Hal Jordan became a mass murderer and had to be replaced by a completely new character.

 On his watch, most of  Witchblade's supporting cast is dead, Sara Pezzini has a new job, a new romantic interest, and a child fathered by Jackie Estacado. But although his writing often brings huge shakeups, Marz insists the one thing that never changes in the character. "She's the same at her core," he says of Sara Pezzini. "The core of the character remains unchanged. She's still the same Sara Pezzini she's been from the very beginning."

Broken Trinity #1 streets this week. If you want to check this out and be one of those new readers Broken Trinity is so eager to welcome into the fold, the kickoff preview issue from Free Comic Book Day is also online for free  here.