Matthew Kadish talks 'Earthman Jack' Series, DC vs. Marvel, 'Star Wars' (EXCLUSIVE)

Matthew Kadish is an author, but he's also a pop culture Renaissance man. There are few people I've met in the industry with as much passion for comic books, science fiction, and film as Kadish. It certainly helps that he's immensely knowledgeable about his areas of interest, in addition to being highly opinionated about these sorts of topics. It's a passion he's been able to pour into several well-received books, from his own Cathouse series to his latest novel, Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet, which is the first in a planned seven book series. The story centers on Jack Finnegan, a young boy suddenly thrust into the midst of a galaxy-wide conflict to which a mysterious, ancient spaceship proves key.

I had the opportunity to speak with Matthew Kadish about the book series and a whole lot more.

What was the origin of the series, and what can we expect from Earthman Jack? Also, what are Kadish's views on the cinematic war between DC and Marvel, the upcoming Star Wars sequel trilogy, and the nerdification of pop culture? Check out our exclusive interview below!

Credit: MatthewKadish.com

What was the genesis for Earthman Jack?

Matthew Kadish: It was actually a dream I had when I was in college. I can't remember if I was drunk at the time or not, but I had this dream about a young kid who found a magic spaceship at the center of the Earth. And I woke up and thought, "That was kind of a cool dream." I wrote it down, and over the years, I added ideas to it. And eventually, when I decided I wanted to write a novel, I was like, "Well, I have all this stuff for Earthman Jack. I might as well do that." So that was the genesis of it. It was just this weird dream.

How is Earthman Jack different from other, similar books in the genre?

Matthew Kadish: Well, it's a lot more fun. It doesn't take itself very seriously. And the idea behind it was that I wanted to take all the sci-fi that I loved growing up in the 80s and early 90s, mush it up into a ball, and say, "What would this be like if Steven Spielberg directed this before he started to suck?" [Laughs] And that's basically the impetus for this book. It's just about a sense of wonder, a sense of hope, a sense of adventure that I don't think a lot of modern sci-fi has. Everything is so dark and cynical and action-packed, but you don't really care about the characters. I wanted to go back to that feeling I had growing up, watching E.T., Explorers, Last Starfighter, and stuff like that, when you're a kid and you think, "Yeah! This is cool!"

How did you get into comics and sci-fi?

Matthew Kadish: I wasn't getting laid a lot when I was a kid. [Laughs] Actually, when I was very young, like kindergarten age, my dad was station in Germany, and there wasn't a whole lot of English material out there. I had two English things I could partake in regularly. The first was a busted up VHS copy of Star Wars, which was our only movie that was in English. I must have watched it a thousand times. The second was there was this corner store where we lived on base that sold American comic books. There was this little rack that had Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man on it. And every time my mom would go down there and shop, I'd run down there and buy a comic book. And I'll never forget, they used to stamp the comic books to let people know that you paid for them, and they'd always have these three stars stamped somewhere on the cover of my comics, probably ruined their value. But that's how I got into them. They were the only English thing we had available. And I thought, "Wow, Batman's fighting evil-doers. That's cool!" So that's the thing that got me into it.

What do you think about the nerdification of pop culture, where all of a sudden things that were nerdy are now cool?

Matthew Kadish: Ever see that movie Revenge of the Nerds?

Yes!

Matthew Kadish: That's what I think about it. I think it's great, because you have this thing that used to be nerdy and geeky and kind of looked down upon is becoming mainstream. It all comes down to the girls, you know? When I was a kid and went to comic book conventions, you were lucky if you saw some overweight woman behind a table selling comic books. Nowadays, you have girls walking around here, half-naked, dressed up as God knows what. But whenever the girls start getting into something, that's when it becomes cool. So now that it's becoming more mainstream, it's a positive thing, because everyone loves escapist fantasy. And there's no better escapist fantasy than comic books.

Credit: MatthewKadish.com

Awesome! Now, this is more of random question, but is DC making a mistake by leading off with a big superhero team-up, or is this the only way to compete with Marvel?

Matthew Kadish: Well, Marvel definitely has a leg-up on them, and DC has so many great properties that I feel like they have to bust onto the scene in a big way. I just don't agree with how they're going about doing it. I think having Batman v Superman leading to Justice League leading to separate movies is an okay strategy, but I feel like they're not respecting the material enough, and they're going to piss off a lot of fans. And that backlash is something that will hurt the strategy.

How do you think they're disrespecting the source?

Matthew Kadish: A lot of their casting decisions have been kind of odd, to say the least. A lot of the liberties they're taking, such as Wonder Woman's costume -- or should I say Xena: Warrior Princess' costume. Or when you have David Goyer talking about how he doesn't like Martian Manhunter, you know? Even if you look at the Man of Steel movie, you have Superman kill someone, that's one thing about Superman. He just does not kill. I once read a Superman comic where him and Wonder Woman were trapped in Valhalla for, like, a millennia, and he never killed anyone. But in the movie, Superman just can't bend his head-up, he has to snap his neck. And there was no build-up to it at all, you know? So that was one of those things where I felt that's not part of the character. If they were going to make that decision, it should have been set up so that it was a big decision instead of this last-minute thing. So I just feel that the creative minds behind the DC stuff are not as respectful to the source material as the people who are with Marvel. I think that's always been the key to Marvel's success, their respect to the source material.

Credit: MatthewKadish.com

What do you think about the direction of Star Wars Episode VII? Since we're returning to real props and practical effects...

Matthew Kadish: Well, the thing I'm excited about with the new Star Wars movies is that you have people who truly love the material behind it. I feel like Star Wars elevated with Empire Strikes Back, and in that situation you had Irvin Kershner working really closely with the producer to bring it down to a character level, so that it became more than just a silly science fiction movie. It became a saga and an epic. I feel that was lost when Lucas did the prequels. So, often times, you see Star Wars fans deliver better material than the creator did, you know? JJ Abrams is a huge Star Wars fan, and he's very respectful of what people want and what they're expecting. So I can't see bad stuff happening with this. I think Disney is taking the right approach by letting the creative people do their thing, and staying out of it. I think Lucas had the idea, "Oh, we're going to sell lots of toys, so let's create Jar Jar Binks." And Disney could take that approach, but they're not. They're letting the creative people decide what's best for the story. And I think that's the thing that has me most excited about it.

Back to Earthman Jack, if you were to sell the rights, do you think it'd make a better film or a TV show?

Matthew Kadish: You know, it's pretty long, so I think it would work in both mediums. But selfishly, I'd love to see Peter Jackson turn it into an epic movie series, but I could also see it as a TV show or something like that. I could also see it as a series of Pixar films. It could go any which way.

Credit: MatthewKadish.com

At the risk of posing the George R.R. Martin question, how long do you think it's going to take to get all seven books out? What's your process as a writer?

Matthew Kadish: I'm heavy into outlining. I like to know where I'm going, I don't like to just start writing and figure it out as I go. So I actually have all seven books in the series outlined. I have the last chapter in the last book written, so I know how it ends. I just always hate it when you get to a point where the first two or three book sin a series are awesome, and then the fourth one is "eh", and the fifth one is disappointing, and the sixth one is really boring, and you're wondering when it's going to end or when it's going to get better. I always hate it when that happens, and I don't want that to happen here. So I've been very careful about how I can make each book entertaining on its own but also fit into a much larger story which is going to be captivating. That's the challenge of writing space opera or epic stuff. Sometimes it gets so big, it can get kind of hard to rein it in. And I think Martin ran into that with Book 4, because originally, he was going to skip forward five years and then pick up. But then he was like, "Oh, that's a bad idea," so he had to scrap everything he wrote, go back, and re-figure it out. He just got lost in what he wanted to do.

It seemed like kind of a "making it up as he goes along" situation...

And now he's making so much money, he doesn't care. [Laughs] I mean, he cares about the quality of his work, but he doesn't care about how fast he produces it.

Lastly, what's the best comic-to-film and comic-to-TV adaptations you've seen?

Comic-to-film, I feel like Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, at least the first two movies, were really good. They took the best elements of Batman and brought them down to Earth, and made it a real crime saga, and made it believable. I think that was a fantastic adaptation of the character, and it revitalized the brand after the Clooney fiasco. As for TV, I'm really loving Arrow. I was not a Green Arrow fan. Even when he was on Smallville, I just felt Green Arrow was a poor man's Batman. But I feel like even though he's still a poor man's Batman, they're making him a really cool poor man's Batman. They're really the guys who should be doing the movie stuff, because they're taking the DC Universe and folding it into that show in such a masterful way.

Have you gotten to see The Flash at all?

I did get to see The Flash, and I was very happy about that. It's another really good show. I'm looking forward to Constantine too. Gotham, I'm still on the fence about.

It's trying to do too much.

Yeah, I'm not a big Bruno Heller fan, who's the guy who's behind that show. So I'm kind of worried about the direction he's taking it. But I'm willing to give it a season to find its legs.

Well, thank you so much for the interview! It's been an absolute pleasure.

Absolutely. Glad we could do it!

You can download a copy of Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet by visiting Matthew Kadish's official website here.

Check it out! It's definitely work a look.