Broken Frontier

He did it while working for Devil's Due, scoring licenses left and right, and now he's performing the same magic tricks for Archaia. Stephen Christy discusses landing the rights to produce comics based on Jim Henson's universe.

BROKEN FRONTIER: When did you lay the groundwork for this deal?

STEPHEN CHRISTY: I've known Joe for about a year, but I really seriously introduced him to Archaia and the kind of books that we publish at the beginning of this year. I knew he'd been looking for a publisher for Henson to partner with, and I think that he saw that Archaia, while a small company, was one that was really committed to producing quality work.

We put our heart and soul into every book we do, and in our initial talks I made it pretty clear to him that this wouldn't be treated as just another licensed book, which was something that, thankfully, he really responded to.

BF: What impact will this deal have on Archaia’s exploits in Hollywood?

SC: Beyond the fact that it means that we get to hang around a lot more on the coolest lot in Hollywood (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise... the Henson lot really is like a mini version of Disneyland, only cooler), it means that a number of our original properties that we create with Henson are really going to have a leg up when it comes to moving them into the realm of film, TV, or video games.

That means a lot for Archaia, and also a lot for the creators working on the books. Henson is a company that's had incredible success in film, tv, merchandising, and licensing, and by partnering with them it gives Archaia another partner that we just to help us bring comics to film and television.

BF: In having Joe LeFavi be story editor for the line, you’re putting someone from outside of Archaia in direct control of the books. Is that different from how, say, IDW handles their GI Joe or Transformers licenses which Hasbro oversees?

SC: Well, when you're doing licensed books at the end of the day the company that owns the property, be it Hasbro, Disney, or Henson, is always in charge. That's just the way the licensing game works. I've always told editors, writers, and freelancers that I work with that comic book licensing is customer relations at the end of the day. If you can keep your licensor happy while managing to squeeze out an intelligent, high-quality comic book with heart, then you should give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.

However, when you have an incredibly smart, talented licensor like Henson who shares your goal of putting out the best comic books possible, it becomes a much easier working environment built on trust and shared desire for the mutual success of both companies. I trust Joe's creative instincts implicitly, and I think he trust mine otherwise he wouldn't have let us do the books! At the end of the day, we're the ones in charge of making the books, and joe's the one in charge of making sure that the quality is up to the level of Henson and that the books we're publishing both respect and expand the Henson canon.

BF: Speaking of Hasbro, they’ve kind of spread around their licenses in the past, with GI Joe and Transfomers both published by different publishers at more than one time in comic book history. In that regard, I assume you don’t find it problematic that BOOM! Studios has the publication rights to the Muppets and Farscape?

SC: Not at all! We love the guys over at BOOM!, and their success with Muppets and Farscape will help the success of our titles, and vice versa. The wonderful thing about Archaia is that we're primarily a creator-owned company. We're not in the business of doing licensed books, and the main reason we took Henson on was a personal love of the properties and the fact that our deal is less of a licensing deal and more of a partnership with them. I did the business of chasing licenses when I worked at DDP and that's not what Archaia is about.

At the end of the day, licenses are a cash-flow business and a not a long-term strategy for the growth of a company or the growth of creators. Developing content that creators own and companies share in is the most important long-term business strategy for a comic book company. People are free to disagree, but that's something I stand by and that's what Archaia's mission statement is all about.

BF: Was Archaia ever in the running for the Muppets license by the way?

SC: Nope! That's all BOOM!, all the way. We were never pursuing that license, nor are we interested in pursuing many other licenses, really. Like I said above, for us to go after a license it really needs to be something we're passionate about and want to bring the same level of quality to that we bring to all the creator-owned books that go through Archaia.

BF: You’re going to unveil the creative teams and first wave of titles at Comic-Con, but still, can you lift the veil just a little bit?

Haha... wish I could! Let me just say that hopefully fans of all these books will be really, really excited about our announcements.