We spoke with the president of Thrill-House, Michael Town.

Newsarama: Michael, my first question is simple. Why enter the comics market now in what some would see as an already overcrowded marketplace?

Michael Town: If not now, then when? We met with other companies about both of these projects. No one wanted to touch Shark-Man with a ten foot pole almost exclusively because of the title, which they all thought sounded silly. Meanwhile, the movie Batman Begins opened last summer. Superman Returns opens this summer and Spider-Man 3 opens next summer. But nobody could get past our title. We did have one of the big companies interested in Cryptid but ultimately, I thought, "Why do we need them?" I mean, why give up creative control, not to mention merchandising rights, to projects and characters that we love?

NRAMA: Glad you brought up Shark-Man's name. It is somewhat silly - almost throwback sounding, as many have noted. That didn't put you off?

MT: No, because you're not eight years old. But you probably were when you fell in love with all those other characters. There are kids going to see Superman this summer who have no idea who he is. Next summer their dad will introduce them to Spider-Man. Those kids will accept Shark-Man without blinking.

NRAMA: Are you saying this is a kid's comic?

MT: Absolutely not. In fact, that's why I wanted Ron Shusett to write it. For this to succeed, it has to work for adults and kids. That's the key to all the great success stories in this business. Even so, I wouldn't call this version of Shark-Man "kid friendly". Ron wants to explore the mature version of the character, which tends to mean scenes that are a little intense. That's his style.

NRAMA: Fair enough, but as Shark-Man's name fools us into what lies beneath, does Thrill-House as a name sum up who you are as a company or is there more to that as well? It does have a very retro feel to it.

MT: I asked our writers and artists to come up with ideas for the company name and Alex Horley [artist of Cryptid] came up with that one. It just struck me somehow. It conjured up this image of this scary ride I liked to go on at the county fair when I was a kid. But it was that kind of ride you'd have fun on even as an adult. Then I thought about the famous "Marvel Bullpen", with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. All these guys throwing out their ideas, bouncing them off of each other. It just seemed right.

NRAMA: In your first press release you were very broad in talking about your influences and you just made a comparison to the other "House" of ideas. Would you like to be more specific about them?

MT: I don't know how I can be. Look at Shark-Man. You'll find the Count of Monte Cristo, Alex Raymond, Victor Hugo, Batman, Spider-Man, the Phantom of the Opera, Jules Verne, even Al Capone. It just goes on and on. I'm sure if Alex Raymond were asked about his influences for Flash Gordon, he wouldn't just stop with "Buck Rogers". He'd talk about "Siegfried" and Sax Roehmer and Douglas Fairbanks, Fritz Lang, Hal Foster, and who knows what else? But as a company, I'd say we're primarily influenced by the bigger companies that are doing so well at influencing our popular culture. Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, Top Cow, etc. What they are doing is amazing. But even they were influenced at one time by EC Comics, Warren, Tower and others. We all influence each other, even if it just to distance ourselves from the competition.

NRAMA: Your first two projects are Shark-Man and Cryptid. Starting with Shark-Man, the story that appeared in Atomeka's A1 shows the title character being killed (or presumably wounded) was that a red herring to throw us off what this story is really about or was it set before the mini-series or maybe they aren't even connected at all?

MT: Actually, it's very critical to the overall story arc of Shark-Man. In fact, we're retelling that opening in the new comic. A lot of people were confused by that first Shark-Man story. It was meant to introduce our man of mystery, but it was like starting off a Sherlock Holmes mystery with the murder of Sherlock Holmes and then having no second chapter. Plus, no one's heard of Sherlock Holmes before! Now we've got more pages to play with and Ron [Shusett] and Steve [Pugh] make such a great team.

NRAMA: So this first two issue story is an expansion of that story?

MT: No, no, no. Just the opening sequence of issue #1. There is more information you didn't get before. The characters are placed into more context and the action is cranked right up. Plus we get to start introducing the other regular characters.

NRAMA: Given your titles, would you describe yourself as a 'pulp' publisher or do you consider yourself mainstream?

MT: Pulp was mainstream. The Shadow, Doc Savage, they all sold great numbers. All the early comics could be described as pulps as well. I think comics are pulp, at least the best selling ones. Somewhere in between, I guess. Maybe we're "Retro Pulp".

NRAMA: What are your personal goals for Thrill-House?

MT: Thrill-House is about iconic imagery and good story telling. We want our comics to be fun. Good stories combined with artwork that makes you stare at each page like it's a stand alone piece of art. And the right artist can do that. That said, we also want to make movies, TV, video games, action figures. The projects we have chosen to start with are ones that have the potential for all forms of entertainment and were developed as such.

NRAMA: Would you like to see a time when you might have a line of monthly titles or branch off into licensing projects to increase market share?

MT: Right now we're committed to publishing the (six-issue) Cryptid graphic novel. Though I'm sure we'll have a follow-up project for Alex before he's done, whether that's the further adventures of Kipling McKay - the lead hero of Cryptid - or something new. But Shark-Man will be an ongoing title. I just have to find a way to keep the bigger companies from enticing Ronald Shusett and Steve Pugh away from us. As for market share, we're not in it for that. We would be insane to try and compete with Marvel and DC. We have our own sandbox and we're very happy playing in it.

NRAMA: What made you go for one of Hollywood's top screenplay writers to produce your first comics rather than one of the many talents already in the industry?

MT: I first told Ron about Shark-Man while we were sitting in a movie theater waiting to see The Mask of Zorro. Now I'm like any other guy when it comes to movies. I have ideas of what I'd like to see and I'd pitched them to Ron at parties or whatever, and he just wasn't interested, though he was always polite. So we're waiting for Zorro to start and we're talking about Douglas Fairbanks and what a big influence he's been on movies and I mention how he also inspired Batman, which of course leads into comic book heroes. So I saw my moment and asked, "Have I ever told you about Shark-Man?" And I can still see his face turning towards me with these focused eyes and he says, "Shark-Man? What's Shark-Man?" So I told him about the ocean city and the submarine and the prison and he just really got into it. You know, Ron is hugely influenced by Jules Verne. Just a huge fan of Verne. Anyway, that got the ball rolling. But it wasn't until Dave [Elliott] came on board that it all started to come together. He introduced us to Steve Pugh, Alex Horley, Mike Todd [creator of Cryptid], Garry Leach. And those are all the guys that make up Thrill-House.

NRAMA: So what does the next twelve months have in store?

MT: As Dave said in the talk-backs on your board, "Keep watching. The future will amaze you. I know, I have seen it."