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Cobb: Off The Leash
SCOOP: What's the story with Cobb: Off The Leash? Beau: Most folks that have heard about Cobb ask me if he's a tough guy. I tell em' no, he's not. Cobb is a Vertebrae. A real man has backbone. Cobb isn't some psycho out for revenge. Nobody killed his family in front of him. Nobody put his puppy in a bag and dropped it into the river. He protects the weak because it's the right thing to do. Ever since he can remember he has had the urge, the desire to protect. Like breathing, he can't stop it, He can't live without it. Although from time to time he's tried to hold his breath, in the end he has to inhale his desire to protect or he feels like he will die. Cobb has always had the ability to see danger before it occurs. He can smell it before it enters the room. More times than not he can stop an attack before it blooms into full blown violence. It's his gift. It's also his curse. In Off The Leash, Cobb is a former Level One Secret Service Agent, who for the last few years has been “under the radar” or “off the grid” as listed in government documents. When his aimless ways and an act of violence land him in jail, his former government contacts suggest that it's time that Cobb's special protective skills were put to a more productive use. Those protective skills will be needed to save a very important informant from a very sadistic Russian Mafia with connections to an even more dangerous terrorist cell. This mini-series follows Cobb on this fast paced mission without time for rules. SCOOP: How did you come up with Cobb? Beau: Cobb as a character is based on one of my dogs. I know that sounds a little odd, but then it also makes it interesting. One of my dogs is an Australian Shepherd named Blue. One blue eye and one brown eye. That kinda thing is common in that breed. Australian Shepherds are very loyal, orderly dogs. They are very protective and love to work. If they don't have a job then they make one up. If they don't have a job they can get destructive. They need to protect. They need to herd; they need to work. You do not want a destructive Aussie. They are super smart dogs that are problems solvers. My dog, Blue, has no cattle to herd. So he has created his own job and that is protecting me ...24/7. From the moment I get out of bed until I climb back in at night, Blue is up and with me every step of the way. In his world he is on the clock. He wants to know where all family members and our other dogs are every moment. He wants things in order. To him the order and safety of the pack is the number one priority. If I'm laying in bed reading and my wife comes in, he will not let her in unless I say it's ok. He loves her dearly, but I am his job and that comes first. He won't allow anyone in my office. He stands guard at the doorway to check anyone that might try and enter without my ok. He never lunges or growls like other dogs that seem to want to attack. He doesn't get excited like that. You can see him thinking about what action he will take. When he decides he then acts upon it. It's amazing to see. I wanted Cobb to be like that in human form. Cobb goes against all comic book and movie typecasting of tough guys that have come before. You won't see any panic, screaming, out of control moments. His cool and composure is his greatest weapon. There will be no stock Punisher and Batman actions in Cobb. When the action and danger starts, Cobb is at home. He almost has a tranquil grace about him when this happens. Everything is thought out. All situations are taken in and processed within seconds in his mind. Like my dog , Blue, Cobb has been like this since he was born. It's hardwired in his DNA. It's a natural instinct. He is the one person you want to back you when the bullets and the fists start to fly. The action/tough guy/hero stuff has been something that has interested me since I was a kid. In escapist entertainment I've always enjoyed the hero that stands up to evil when everyone else is trying to run from it or bends to it. In the last few decades, film, comics and novel versions of tough guys have been reduced to borderline psychos or angst ridden nut jobs. It's ok for the tough guy to be flawed, that makes it interesting, but writers as of late have gone a little overboard with it. The tough guy ends up not being very tough or just as bad as the creeps he's running down. With Cobb I'm replanting that seed of toughness from the past with a mix of personality that leads to women wanting to be with him and guys wanting to be him. We've had a lack of that in the last 20 to 30 years. Cobb has the manly ways of Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, the likeability of Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson with the intensity of Clint Eastwood and Christian Bale. Cobb is Sam Peckinpah directing 24. SCOOP:How long did it take you to develop the character and the story? Beau: For the series, Cobb, it started about a year ago at the Baltimore Comic-Con Convention when Ted Adams, then IDW's president, and I were having lunch and got to talking about how there are no real true hero/tough guys in comics and movies anymore. We both firmly believe that there is an audience out there that longs for a hero that is a tough guy without being a psycho. A modern day John Wayne, if you will. Much of liberal comics and Hollywood don't want that. They don't listen to what their audience is asking for. They want the rose colored glasses to stay on all the time. I figured it was time to listen to the readers, the public, the real consumers. It's time to give them what they really want. I have worked and researched the Secret Service and the Russian Mafia for many years. I've read stacks of books, interviewed reporters and law enforcement folks, talked with experts on the Russian organized crime before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. Last year I came across some really informative papers on the relationship and ties of former Soviet Union military and organized crime. I've inserted so much of that into this series. I want to show a side of the Secret Service that not many have covered before. I want paint a new fresh coat on the house of tough guys. It's been too long since we've had one in comics that was good because he trained well and does it because it's the right thing to do. That seems to have been forgotten. Most feel that you have to show the good guy with a psychotic bend to him. I disagree. You can be violent and have a truck load of action without being a nut sack. It's my hope that Cobb will prove that. As far as other research, as you know I am applying all my years and knowledge of boxing into Cobb. Eduardo and I have done our best to avoid any stock comic book fight scenes with haymakers and telegraphed punches. We have done extensive research on MMA (Missed Martial Arts) fighting, military defense, floor fighting, submission fighting, true street fighting and other more exotic forms of hand to hand combat for this series. There will be no copycat stuff lifted from John Woo, Tarantino and other action films as so many comic book have done in recent years. We want to not only bring a new slant to the action , we also want to give the reader a new way of looking at camera angles and still be based in a true sense of old school story telling. I use the term “Old School” as the highest compliment. Too many have forgotten the craft of comic book story telling. They've gotten lazy. It is not an easy thing to do. That's why I knew that Eduardo was the right artist for this project. He is truly a master craftsman. I wanted Cobb to be hand made and custom built. Eduardo has done that and more. SCOOP: You're working on this project with one of the great artists in the business, Eduardo Barreto. What has that been like? Beau: When I first came up with Cobb, Eduardo was #1 on the list. He and I have been very good friends for many years. We both got into the business about the same time, (we are the same age) we both grew up with the same taste in beer, babes and bad things. You never saw two guys more alike that grew up in two different countries. Eduardo and I have many mutual friends in comics. Folks like Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan, Flint Henry, and some other roughnecks. Eduardo is the kind of artist that I love working with. He can take what I have in my mind and out down on art paper just like I saw it and then add his own manly layer to it to make it perfect. We email back and forth and toss ideas and sketches back and forth. We speak of manly things and beautiful women. We also share the same tastes in film and art. A few years ago we were signed on by DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics to do the special Elseworlds prestige book called Wonder Woman vs. Xena. I wrote the script and Eduardo did the first 15 pages. During that time the Xena show got axed and Dan DiDio decided that there wouldn't be enough interest from the readers since the Xena show was no longer on the air. Both Eduardo and I got paid for our work, but on a creative side I would have loved to have seen it printed. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done. Everyone that has ever read it said it was dead on as one of the more light hearted Xena episodes that were favorites with viewers. On a marketing side I was sorry to see it not get published because even now, years after the cancellation of Xena, I know it would sell BIG numbers. It even has the creative female vote of trust. Gail Simone (Villains United) and Lora Biondi-Innes (Courting Fate, noted children's book artist) have both read the script and loved it. So Eduardo and I have been looking for a prime project to work together on ever since. Cobb is it! We also hope to do more of Cobb as well as some other projects. He and I have a western project that we have worked on called Jefferson Buck: Man Trapper. Maybe I should show that art around. SCOOP: What else are you working on? Beau: I'm doing a western werewolf story for Moonstone as well as The Phantom. I'm doing Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars for IDW Publishing. Other than that...I need work. I've got a lot of projects and pitches, I just need somebody to hire me. Starving ain't fun. Freelancing is my only job and I need more of it. I'm too good of a writer to have time on my hands. So get the word out. BEAU WANTS WORK. I ain't hard to find. Cobb: Off The Leash #1, the first issue of a four-issue mini-series, premieres in May 2006. It can be found in the March 2006 Previews.
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