Known by some as a comic book writer, by others as a marketing man, and by
still others as an opinionated comic book industry columnist, Beau Smith has
spent his fair share of time in the trenches. Over his career, he’s written for
many different publishers and he’s created properties such as Wynonna
Earp, Parts Unknown, Primate, and Maximum Jack. For
those who know him, though, it’s tough to think of one of his creations that
comes closer to reflecting his personal sensibilities than his latest creation,
Cobb, who is featured in the upcoming IDW Publishing mini-series 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.