Jupiter Jet: Interview with Jason Inman

This is our interview with Jason Inman, co-host of DC All Access, Jawiin, who also works for Screen Junkies, about his comic book Jupiter Jet.



How did you get into comics?
 
It really started out with me buying my first comic book in Walmart which was Batman #466, where Batman was tied to a rocket. After that it was really me reading the Death of Superman, because it really truly introduced me to the world of DC. After that I just read everything, not just DC.
 
 
What advice would you give for anyone who wants to start their own comic book?
 
Jump right into it. The best way to start writing your own comic book is to jump right into it. I mean, you can always stand in line at a comic convention trying to explain your comic to a creator, but that isn’t always the best way. It’s better to have a finished copy that you can just hand to them.
 
 
What was the process of you deciding to write this comic?
 
It was really me working in DC, among all the writers and artists and finding out that making a comic book wasn’t as hard as I originally believed.
 
 
What is the comic book about?
 
It’s all about a girl basically learning that the world is not the way she thinks it is and along the way she is going to meet men with glowing eyes, glowing ray guns, fighting blimps and robots. It is like a mash-up between the Rocketeer and X-Files, whilst being a very fun go-get  them, flight in the sky, action adventure comic book.
 
 
You mentioned the Rocketeer and X-Files, did you have any other inspirations in terms of Sci-Fi?
 
No that’s really it.
 
 
I know you are working with your wife on this comic book, so did you have any difficulties or disagreements, whilst working together?
 
We didn’t have that many disagreements whilst working on the comic book, however the first issue did go through a lot of drafts. It is more like the way we working in collaboration with each other. For example there was this one scene where I wanted Jupiter to jump off a rooftop, without her jetpack and be able to do something heroic. However I wasn’t so sure what she needed to do, like she needed to save this person, I don’t know how, but she needs to save this person. So I just wrote that she jumps off the rooftop, grabs the fire escape and it works out, but then my wife wrote that instead she jumps of the rooftop and finds out her skirt is actually also a parachute. It was a device her brother had built-in and she didn’t actually know about it, and I was like that’s an amazing idea. It also goes into one of the main reasons in which I like comic books, is the idea of collaboration.
 
 
Would you also say it was easy for you to collaborate and work with your artist as well?
 
Yes, Ben Matsuya was really great because the image of Jacky or Jupiter Jet on the top of our Kickstarter was actually the first image of Jacky that was actually ever drawn. We had sent him a paragraph for a description of what we thought she was going to look like, she was 16, she had red hair and maybe had a jacket, and he just came back with all of that. It is another thing with the idea of collaboration that he managed to create something from our barely described ideas.
 
 
That’s really cool. So when you were writing this comic book did you learn amything through it?
 
I feel that you learn something with everything that you write. A big thing that we learnt was really about the subtleties of writing things, whatever you work on, you learn things as that’s one of the most fun things about creating art. For me it was really about how many panels we had to a page and certain things like that, made a difference and made sure that it mattered. Also making sure that every line of dialog matters even if you don’t think it does.
 
 
It certainly sounds like you had fun whilst writing this comic book. Do you have a favorite character?
 
I think my favorite character has to be Chuck, her brother, since Chuck is really the character that thinks he can say anything. Even though he is only 10, he thinks he is way smarter than he actually is, like he thinks he is a genius scientist, he thinks he is an Einstein level scientist, but he’s not, he’s just a 10-year-old kid. He is constantly fighting with himself. It’s funny we were writing a scene earlier today, about him in a diner, and we came up with this idea that Chuck is the type of character, this little boy, who would order a certain type of food and drink because that is what his favorite mechanic or scientist orders. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t like it, that’s what famous scientists and mechanics eat. A big inspiration of the character of Chuck is Einstein, of course, but also his father. His dad is a character we will learn a bit more about later, since they work out of a repair shop, so we had Chuck more interested in science fiction than reality.
 
 
How can people support this comic book and what are some of the rewards you get for supporting this?
 
The best way is through the Kickstarter, so if they just go to jupiterjet.com they can support the comic book there for it’s 5 issues. Some of the rewards you can get are some really cool prints from Wonder Woman artist Nicola Scott, we have prints from Nightwing writer Tim Seeleey, and other cool things. Especially if they are looking to write there own comic book, we have professional script reviews from professionals in the industry like Joshua Hale Fialkov and Marc Andreyko, who just did the love is love Anthology. We have already reached our goal but further funding could help us improve the quality of the book and we actually also have an idea for a 4 page back-up, which will be drawn by a DC artist, who we won’t yet reveal.
 
 
 
Hey, everyone go back this fantastic product by Jason Inman, Ashley V. Robinson and Ben Matsuya. You can do that by going to jupiterjet.com where you can get some cool rewards and support a really cool cause. Also whilst your at it, you can also follow both his youtube channel Jawiin and support us by following us on @comicsthegather where you can read our weekly reviews.