I love finding new and original comic books. There’s something very fun about discovering a new setting, new characters, and a new story. Yes, Marvel and DC’s legacy characters are great, but nothing compares to an original idea. Enter Papa Cherry from Saxton Moore and Phillip Johnson. The book tells the story of a man, Pappa Mcafee, who sells his soul to the Devil to become a rock legend. However there’s a twist, Papa is followed by the angel of death who has nefarious things in mind, and the Devil has huge plans in store herself. LRM Online had the pleasure of speaking to the creators of the book at GalaxyCon 2019 in Richmond, VA.

LRM: Thank you so much for your time. So, who came up with the idea first, or did it kind of come together at the same time?

Saxton Moore: I had the idea a long time ago. It’s been sitting in my mind for a few years, and then my daughter joined a band. She became a lead guitarist, so I tried to find things to inspire, and that’s when I discovered the story of Robert Johnson, who was like this old blue’s guitarist. He’s kind of like the godfather of rock and roll who had been known to … There’s a story about the Crossroads?

That story was interesting to me. I’m a big Quentin Tarantino film fan, and I was like, what if Quentin Tarantino told the Robert Johnson story in a modern day setting?

That’s how I took Papa Cherry, and I started developing the story more. That’s kind of how I came up with it. It kind of inspired … It’s also like nowadays, we have African American stuff like that, it’s either sports or hip-hop music and stuff like that, so I wanted to show the roots of rock and roll.

LRM: Rock and roll is … I mean, African American music’s roots are rock and roll. 

Moore: Yes, once people start realizing the roots, and maybe somebody may read this book and get inspired to pick up an instrument.

LRM: Absolutely. So Phillip, how did you get involved then on the book?

Phillip Johnson: I had mostly just been posting work online, and everything like that. I worked with Saxton on a music video, beforehand. We got to be designers on the Zombie Walk video. Yeah, then they came to me with the idea to draw this comic. I’d been doing things here and there for a little bit, and that’s how we hooked up.

LRM: Did you have a lot of input on the style of his art, or did you kind of see what he had done and you’re like, “Hey, man. These are the character designs, the descriptions. Have it.” How much influence did you have on what he put on the page?

Moore: I kind of had a vision for what it was. I had designed Papa Mcafee, the main character, a long time ago. Phillip’s style is amazing. It’s like a cross between animation and anime. The way the storytelling is, Phillip brought a lot to the table, so I wanted to hone in on that. The main characters, I kind of already had kind of designed out, but Phillip took it under his wings and kind of morphed it into what it is right now. It kind of captured the characters and the feeling of the story.

LRM: And Phillip, what art styles, or artists, or even … You do have some Manga-Anime influence in there, obviously. What are your artistic influences?

Johnson: I guess I would say, sort of like a One Piece. I like the sort of comedic-like, sort of anime, and sort of Looney Tunes-esque.

LRM: You just made my editor-in-chief very happy. He’s a huge One Piece fan.

Johsnon: Oh, yeah. One Piece is amazing. It’s phenomenal manga. There’s a lot of Heavy Blacks in there. I also like … Have you heard of Gurren Lagann and  Hiroyuki Imaishi? I just like really cartoony expressive stuff. I try to really play up the expressions in the book. But yeah, lots of American comics and everything like that. I also like the Deep Shadows, and everything like that. Just try to make it something sort of unique, or a blend of all three, I would say.

LRM: This is the first book in a 13 planned series, right? Is it 13 because of 13 (supernatural number)?

Moore: I had originally wrote this … We were working in an animation industry, and we were shopping it around as an animated series, so I write in script form. So transitioning from script to comic book, Phillip just jumped in at it and really took off with it. The 13 books are part of an East Coast tour.

So originally, it was for 13 episodes of an animated series, so that way you go on a whole East Coast tour. It starts of here in Richmond. It goes up to New York, down to D.C., Philadelphia, South Carolina, down to Atlanta, and then Tennessee, and they head right back up to … It all ends in Detroit where there’s Battle of the Bands. If you win the Battle of the Bands, you get a record deal. So the first series is 13 books. Once that’s finish, we start planning out the West Coast recordings. It’s like the series where he’s on to the next plateau of business.

LRM: Nice. And, Phillip, so far with this project, what’s been your favorite thing to draw?

Johnson: I would say really fun character expressions. I come from a sort of animation background. I went to school for animation, so I like to draw smears and stuff like that, sort of like in-betweens, I guess. So, character’s who are moving around a lot. I like to draw multiple hands going all over the place, fun dynamic angles. We’ve got a scene in there that’s sort of just the character’s overlooking the chaos that’s going on in the crowd. It’s kind of at a tilted angle. Yeah, playing with perspective, dynamic angles, is the kind of stuff I like.

LRM: Is that an artistic choice to go with a black and white book?

Moore: Well yeah, being a fan … He’s a fan of One Piece. I’m a fan of Manga. I’ve read comic books in color, a lot, but when you read black and white, it’s almost like reading a chapter book where you have to fill in what that character looks like, what colors are there. I like to give the readers and opportunity to let that imagination flow. What color is this, and what’s this? So, they can paint the picture. Also, it’s cheaper to print. Later on, like they did that in Akira. They went back, and they did a colored version. So, you can go back. You know what I’m saying? Re-release the book and fill it with color.

LRM: Like the Ninja Turtles. They did it, too.

Moore and Johnson: Yeah, exactly.

More: It just gives it a little more longevity. It gives more for the fans to consider.

LRM: When it comes to doing this in black and white, do you have colors in your mind? How do you approach putting something into black and white differently than a colored picture?

Johnson: I guess I’d say … yeah. I do read a lot of Manga, and everything like that, and always kind of have this sort of like deeper gray, sort of like a representative of red. I guess since because I read Manga a lot, I kind of have a feel for what’s going to look like … what character’s going to be represented by which, and everything like that. The colors translate easily, I feel like. It’s pretty muted. It’s a pretty dark series, so that also keeps you pretty simple, in my mind.

Moore: The funny thing is book two, that I just finished writing, there’s a lot of color nuances going in there. There are things where things have to be red, but it’s in black and white, so now we have a challenge to figure out how we’re going to approach these scenes with color because, it’s supposed to be a colorful event, but now it’s going to be in black and white.

Johnson: Doing the cover’s going to be really fun.

Moore: Yeah, but we’ve got to figure out a way to incorporate the richness of the color without having actual color.

LRM: That’s great. What else is on the horizon for either this franchise or for either one of you?

Moore: Right now we’re producing book number two. I just finished writing it. Phillip’s going to start illustrating it next week, or so. We’re going to do a Kickstarter campaign, like maybe late July, as we did for the first book where we raised $16,000 for book one on Kickstarter, successfully. We’re going to start Phillip off, and then raise money to finish the book, come the end of next month, and then we hope to get book two out, which is a two-parter. Book two and book three are both at the same venue. So we’re hoping to get book two out before the holiday season.

LRM: Phillip, do you have anything on your horizons aside from this?

Johnson: Yeah. I’m working on some writing on the side, and everything like that, trying to get at least maybe a couple of short stories out by the end of the year, as well. Nothing definite just yet, but still things are in the work and all of that.

Moore: One last thing. I have an animated series that we did animation on, releases June 9, which is right around the corner, on Fuse TV. It’s called Sugar and Toys. It’s produced by the same team that produced Black Dynamite and Boondocks. It’s like robot chicken. There’s 2D animation, 3D animation. We animated the first two episodes and did production on all eight episodes.

LRM: Great stuff! So, June 9 on Fuse TV. Well gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it.

Moore: We appreciate it.

Johnson: Thank you.

You can purchase Volume 1 of Papa Cherry now and be sure to check out the animation on Fuse TV today!

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