In the literary world Brockton McKinney is a triple threat. He’s a comic book writer, short story author, and screenwriter. Brockton is currently promoting his upcoming comic book trilogy The Gingerdead Man: Baking Bad for Full Moon Features and Action Lab Comics. This comic is the incarnation of the popular Full Moon film series, The Gingerdead Man.
Brockton is a huge fan of the Full Moon franchise and plans to lovingly bring this demented character to life in comic form.
Issue number one of The Gingerdead Man: Baking Bad hits shelves and online on February 3rd, 2016 via Action Lab Comics.
I had the unique opportunity to chat with Brockton about his new Gingerdead Man series and what it took to get this comic off the ground and more.
The book is open for pre-order now, and comes with three covers; regular, Dan Mendoza (Zombie Tramp) variant, and a Masuimi Max risqué photo variant (both variants are limited to only 1,500 copies each)!
Item Codes: DEC150925, DEC150926, and DEC15092
https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/DEC150925
Horror Society: To get things started here, currently you’re writing the new horror comic The Gingerdead Man: Baking Bad for Action Lab Entertainment and Full Moon Features. For those that might not be as familiar with the film the comic is based on, can you tell me a little about the character?
Brockton McKinney: Absolutely. What we’re dealing with is a serial killer who takes over a bakery in the original movie and he ends up being caught and executed but his mother brings his ashes back and sneaks them into the bakery. The bakery accidentally uses the ashes when they’re making gingerbread men. He comes back as a homicidal cookie maniac guy taking revenge on anybody in the bakery.
Horror Society: Okay. Were you a fan of the film?
Brockton McKinney: Yeah, I’ve seen them all a few times actually. I’m a big Full Moon fan from back in the 80’s and 90’s so I kind of followed them into their newer stuff like Gingerdead, Evil Bong. Its super fun, I love the practical effects as far as the puppets go and sight gags. Yeah, I’m definitely a huge fan.
Horror Society: Cool, I like them too. How is it you came to take on The Gingerdead Man for the comic?
Brockton McKinney: Sure. I worked on a comic book for Action Lab called Ehmm Theory and they would ask me to pitch them stuff if anything came up. Shawn Gabborin who writes Puppet Master, he’s actually the guy who acts as the editor for the entire comic book Full Moon universe. We both are huge Full Moon fans and he asked if I wanted to pitch for some Full Moon stuff so he gave me a list and I picked a few of them off of there and Gingerdead Man was the first one to go through.
Horror Society: That’s pretty cool.
Brockton McKinney: Yeah, it was really cool. That’s their most modern; they’re still making those movies now.
Horror Society: Does Charles Band have anything to do with it? Did you get to talk to him or get any instructions from him or were you given complete freedom with the character to do what you want?
Brockton McKinney: They didn’t give me any instructions right off the bat. The pitch I had was pretty specific. Shawn works directly with Charles and the editors at Full Moon and so we would be in a big email chain where they would say “we like this but could you change this” or “things look great, run with this” that kind of stuff. So yeah, I got notes for the entire first pitch and the first issue and the second issue was fully approved.
Horror Society: Nice. How long of a story arc do you have planned for the series? Do you have a complete vision for the series or are you kind of writing on the go?
Brockton McKinney: I arced it out for a few. I definitely have the first three would be the miniseries Baking Bad. That’s the one that I pitched. I tried to treat each script like a little film and one of the things that Gingerdead does in the films is they jump around a lot from one film to another. Super fun but not very continuity based. For my take on it, I’m a continuity freak I get angry at like Nightmare on Elm Street 2 for not following the rules. For me, I want to treat each one like a movie, I want to have a sense of continuity as far as the comic book universe goes, it’s a little bit different from the film. There are lots of blood and over the top sight gags and cool characters, all that stuff I stuck with. It’s the perfect formula.
Horror Society: Yeah, okay.
Brockton McKinney: I have nine that I actually have outlined out. We’ll just see how these first three go. You don’t want to talk out too much beyond what you’ve been approved for.
Horror Society: Hopefully it will make it through the series you have planned out.
Brockton McKinney: Yeah. I hope so too. I really love the character and I’m a lifelong Full Moon fan and love what they’re doing. To be able to play in that universe at all is a dream come true. I feel like fans of the movie and of just Full Moon in general are really going to enjoy it.
Horror Society: Based on what you’re saying, how much inspiration from the film did you take for the comic?
Brockton McKinney: The star of the whole thing is obviously Gingerdead Man. They have done a lot of callbacks in the films. I was going to bring back one of the characters and they had already done it. I tried to create a brand new cast but kept one of the locations from the original and that’s sort of my returning character.
Horror Society: How would you compare writing for comics…you’re also a screenwriter and short story author as well but how would you compare comic book writing to 
screenwriting?
Brockton McKinney: It’s the same sort of idea for me at least to take notes beforehand and have everything planned out before you start breaking it down. Comic books in particular are not a very organic way to write, at least for me. It’s a lot of page one, panel one, essay, dialogue, panel series, if you go into that without having a plan, it’s real easy to get stuck. I’ll do dialogue just like I would for screenwriting or anything else. I’ll do dialogue in one straight page.
Horror Society: After you have written your part of the comic, how much input do you have in the rest of it as far as the artist and the artwork and so on down the line?
Brockton McKinney: Really the final call is Shawn and Charles and Action Lab. Up until it gets to them, there’s a lot of back and forth with me and Sergio who is the artist. He’s the penciller and inker, then our colorist, we have a discussion about whether the light is wrong in certain parts of it. Charles would tell us it needs more blood, let’s make this thing bloodier and we were like great.
Horror Society: Gingerdead Man: Baking Bad, is that going to be bloody? Is it going to be for mature readers? How is that going to be?
Brockton McKinney: Yeah, it’s definitely for mature readers. If you’ve never seen one of the films, they don’t shy away from the blood and gore and nudity and everything else. In keeping with that same spirit, I think the final page of issue #1 will be pretty talked about. We definitely did not shy away; it is an absolute hard R comic. It makes you laugh and scream and be squeamish and can’t wait for the next issue.
Horror Society: That’s good to hear and that sounds terribly interesting.
Brockton McKinney: We didn’t want to shy away from anything. Even at the end of the first issue we were like how can we punch it up? What else? Let’s kick it up even more for the second and let’s kick it up even more for the third one. It’s part of that roller coaster idea that when you’re getting to the top then you just drop straight down.
Horror Society: Wow that sounds awesome! Issue number one is scheduled to hit store shelves on February 3rd, 2016, is that correct?
Brockton McKinney: That is correct.
Horror Society: Do you have the ability to write any other Full Moon comics out of their gallery of characters?
Brockton McKinney: Yeah, I pitched for a few things but I’m not allowed to talk about it yet. It’s one of those things where I make sure you guys are the first to know. I’ll hit you up before I make the announcement because you’ve been so cool about everything. If you’re a Full Moon fan, you’re getting ready to be in for a treat. It’s not just me but several writers and artists have signed on to do some pretty incredible stuff for Action Lab and Full Moon. I’m envious, I want to be a part of all of it but I can’t. It was pretty crazy seeing the list.
Horror Society: I can’t wait to check out the issues and see how they turn out, it sounds really cool. Besides writing the Gingerdead Man: Baking Bad comic, do you have anything else on the backburner that you’d like to talk about?
Brockton McKinney: I’ve got a couple of things…I have my first all-ages comic coming out from Action Lab. It’s a female stunt woman who is tasked with saving the earth from aliens, pretty nuts stuff and it comes out in May of next year. I have some other stuff cooking that I can’t really talk about right now. It’s exciting stuff. It’s the most books that I’ve had come out in a year. I’m focusing exclusively on comic books right now which are really fun.
Horror Society: It’s good to be busy isn’t it?
Brockton McKinney: It sure is, it sure is.
Horror Society: Well Brockton, I don’t want to take up a lot of your time. I really want to thank you for talking with me. I know everyone is going to get a kick out of your Gingerdead Man: Baking Bad comic just from what I’ve heard and read so far, I can’t wait to see it.
Brockton McKinney: Absolutely man, thank you so much for having me for an interview.
