Broken Frontier

Visionary Comics Studios’ Headlocked: The Tryout, the follow-up miniseries to Headlocked: Work of Art, centers on the colorful world of professional wrestling and follows the journey of pro-wrestler wannabe Mike Hartmann as he tries to make his name in the sport he loves. With two issues available in stores Headlocked writer Mike Kingston gave Broken Frontier this exclusive writer’s commentary on Headlocked: The Tryout #1…

Headlocked is the story I’ve always wanted to tell. Growing up as a wrestling fan, you constantly have to defend it to everyone because it has that stigma.

PAGE 1

At the end of Work of Art, we left off with a flash forward showing Mike Hartmann in the ring, lying in a pool of blood just 31 days after he got off the bus in Philadelphia. Since I wasn’t opening with a big action scene, I thought this would be a neat way to pull the reader right into the story. Jess really brought the mood here with the colors.

Headlocked: The Tryout pages 1-3

PAGE 2

While Headlocked is a wrestling comic, it’s not just a wrestling comic. There’s definitely a solid young adult drama behind the wrestling as well. You have this kid who against everyone’s advice decides to strike out on his own to follow a dream. He’s on his own for the first time, in the big city, trying to make a name for himself. Who hasn’t at least dreamed of doing something like that?

PAGE 3

Since Mike is essentially on his own in a new city, he doesn’t really have a supporting cast yet. I’ve never been a giant fan of thought bubbles and I’m a firm believer that the dialogue in caption boxes needs to come from a very real place so I decided to use his diary for the internal monologue.

Hartmann’s voice is really important in this series since one of the things I am exploring is identity and why people end up choosing certain ways to define themselves. So what he’s thinking versus what he says/does is a big part of that.

PAGE 5

You call this a wrestling book? Four whole pages and not a single body slam? I didn’t want people to forget what we were all here for, so we had Randy smack ‘em right upside the head with a wicked splash page. This is one of my favorite pages from the whole series so far!

Headlocked: The Tryout #1 pages 5 and 8

PAGE 8

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching wrestling on TV but actually going to the live shows totally enhances the experience…especially if you’re up close. I wanted to give people the feeling of the full entertainment experience that wrestling has become with the lights, the smoke, and the big arena full of rabid fans.

I decided to loosely base the WFW on the late 80s WWF, since that’s what a good chunk of the mainstream equates with pro wrestling and I really want to book to be accessible to everyone…not just wrestling fans. That’s why we’re starting his journey at the very beginning.

I love the little lighting effect that Jess (series colorist Jessika Gravel) used on the last panel here….and that’s all her….I didn’t write that in the script but it just adds so much and really closes out the scene perfectly.

Headlocked: The Tryout pages 16, 19 and 23

PAGE 16

Wrestling is all about crazy over the top characters. But if you’re a fan of wrestling history one of the things you learn is that some of these guys are just as crazy outside the ring. The character of Leo London is inspired by that notion. He’s just so much fun to write. He’s this totally bitter old school wrestler taken to the absolute extreme. He’s an old shooter so even though he’s almost a senior citizen, he can still kick your ass. He hates what wrestling has become and has no problems letting anyone know it.

PAGE 19

Wrestling school tryouts are absolutely brutal. It’s like the first day of high school football practice meets the first day of American Idol. You’ve got your talented people and you’ve got people who don’t belong in the same zip code. It’s all about weeding people out to find the people with that perfect mixture of talent and desire. It’s a ton of running. You’ve got guys passing out and puking all over the place.

PAGE 23

You know how it is…you gotta leave ‘em with a bit of a cliffhanger. It looks like Mike might’ve underestimated things just a hair. Does Hartmann have what it takes to pick himself up off the mat and make it into Leo London’s wrestling school? Sorry folks, you’ll have to read issue #2 to find out…but I can tell you one thing…you aren’t gonna be able to guess what’s coming next!

Headlocked: The Tryout #s 1 and 2 are available now published by Visionary Comics Studios priced $3.50