Evil Ernie the Undead Unleashed in All-Ages Book

New Zealand-born writer-artist Roger Langridge, 46, who began his comic career with the popular Judge Dredd Magazine series The Straitjacket Fits, talks to Brandon Jerwa of BleedingCool.com website about the challenge of turning the undead, psychotic killer Evil Ernie into an all-ages book.

Langridge explains the story behind Evil Ernie: “Ernie thinks he’s a badass and tries to get away with something, and Smiley – who in Li’l Ernie is sort of a Jiminy Cricket character – keeps trying to set him on the straight and narrow, to no avail. There are also some zombies. Zombies seem to be an indispensible part of the property’s DNA, so I jammed a bunch of ‘em in there.”

When asked about how the comics industry is reaching a younger generation of comic readers, Langridge says it could always do more.

“But it’s been gratifying to see so many great comics for kids appear over the last few years. The more the better.

“We need a fresh generation of readers coming up behind the current one if we expect to still have a comic industry thirty years from now.”

In 2012, Langridge scripted a four-issue Popeye miniseries for IDW Publishing.

Original article by Brandon Jerwa, BleedingCool.com, January 3, 2014.

Photo by Mike Rhode.