Professional wrestling and comic books seem like they could easily have been cut from the same ring canvas. Yet when attempts have been made to take the action and pageantry of the squared circle to the pages of comics, fans have typically tapped out. Inspired by these lackluster attempts at making comic book heroes and villains out of real-life superheroes and bad guys, Michael Kingston takes the opposite approach with Headlocked, the story of a college thespian who decides to become a professional wrestler. Released in July of this year, Headlocked: The Last Territory exposes the gritty and gruff inner workings of the indie wrestling world as an outsider tries to break in in hopes of eventually making it big. With contributions from some of the top talents in wrestling and comics, the book has become an underground hit on the comic convention circuit, as well as amongst wrestlers and wrestling fans alike. The second volume of The Last Territory is scheduled for release next July and features the creative talents of an entirely different set of wrestlers, writers and artists, as well as some returning talents. And you can even help make the next book a reality by contributing to the Headlocked Kickstarter campaign between now and Nov. 4, with multiple exclusives and incentives depending on how much you’re able to contribute. Here, Kingston talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about how Headlocked came to be and what the next book will offer.
Based on what I’ve seen in the Headlocked books, you obviously have a lot of knowledge about the inner workings of professional wrestling. What is your background and how did you obtain all of this behind-the-scenes information?
I have a chemistry degree. I’ve been a wrestling fan and a comic book fan my whole life. I’ve studied it, talked to people, watched stuff, read stuff – since I was 8 I’ve been fascinated by it. Same with comics. I like to think I can look at something and figure it out structurally, how stories are written and whatnot. I’ve read a lot of books and just tried to come up with a story I thought people would like. I guess I don’t have the most storied background.
That actually makes the whole thing even more interesting to me because you just figured it out on your own. Even though the wrestling industry has been exposed a great deal, some of the details you get into in these books are beyond what most fans are aware of and are things only people involved in the business are aware of. So the fact that you’ve studied wrestling to that degree is interesting to me.
It’s a tricky line to walk because you want to tell an entertaining story, but you don’t want to offend the people in the business. It’s tough. You’re trying to serve a couple of different masters. I want the book to appeal to wrestling fans and I want the book to appeal to people in the wrestling business. I also want to make it accessible for people who don’t know anything about wrestling. It’s not the easiest thing in the world for me to write and it takes a little while to work through some of the scripts and conflicts and stuff. So far, I couldn’t be happier with the way it’s been received by everybody.
I first heard about Headlocked when I was talking to Ring of Honor‘s Matt “Sex” Sells at the Wizard World Atlanta Comic Con in May. Then we had Shane Helms as a guest on Georgia Wrestling Now on Oct. 6, just before his appearance at the New York Comic Con, and he mentioned his involvement with Headlocked. I’m curious how all the different wrestlers and artists came to be involved with your project.
“Headlocked” creator Michael Kingston with artist and WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler.
When I started the book it was just me and my creative team, who are all freelancers – my artist is from the Philippines, my colorist for the first book was Canadian – and I just paid them all to work on the book. I met Shane and Rob Van Dam separately at San Diego Comic-Con. They were just walking around as fans and came across my table. They both bought copies of the book when I just had a preview book, then they both reached out to me separately to tell me they really liked what I was doing and asked if there was anything they could do to help. Jerry [Lawler] was an interesting one. I just emailed him through his website and it was such a long shot I forgot I had done it after I did it. One day I got an email back and I expected it to be from the webmaster, but it was really from him. He said, “Send me some books and I’ll take a look at it.” So I sent him some books and he called me up and said, “Sure, I’ll do it.” He’s done three covers for me and we’ve done a ton of conventions together. Since then, a lot of the wrestlers who like comic books will be at shows and come find me. When I was doing one of my first shows with Jerry, Christopher Daniels came up. I went up to Christopher Daniels and introduced myself because I was a big fan, I’m a huge fan of Ring of Honor, and he said, “Oh, man. I’ve been dying to meet you.” It really kind of blew my mind that anyone would really know what I was doing at the time. That’s how it snowballed. Ken Anderson came up to me at San Diego Comic-Con one year and was like, “Hey, can I do a piece of art for you?” A lot of the guys that like comics like what I’m doing and realize how difficult it is to get any kind of traction in either world without being supported either by WWE or a top-five comic book publisher. The guys who have other skills like to showcase that they can do something other than wrestling. I think that’s kind of why we all get along so well is because we don’t really talk so much about wrestling, we talk a lot about comics.
Jill Thompson came over to my table. She likes wrestling and was interested in the book. It’s just grown from there. My whole intention for writing the book was that there’s never been a good wrestling comic, ever. I thought I would try to do something some fans would like and want to read. I’ve been a fan of both of them since I was about 8 years old and it just blew my mind that nobody’s ever made a wrestling comic that I really enjoyed. I guess I enjoyed Spider-Man’s Tangled Web that dealt with the stories featuring Crusher Hogan. But in terms of a series, no one’s ever done it in a way that I found satisfying. All the wrestlers have been supportive because they see what we’re trying to do and where we’re going. So I feel like I’ve been super, super fortunate that they’ve all been so generous.
The only ongoing wrestling comic books I can think of are the World Championship Wrestling ones Marvel did and the Chaos! Comics ones based on the Undertaker, Stone Cold and other WWE wrestlers. WWE had its own comic book a few years ago. Do you know if that still exists?
Yeah. There’s one that Mick Foley actually writes. I was talking to him about doing a story for my book and he said, “Maybe for the next one.” I don’t care if I ever make a dime off this book, honestly. I have a job that pays my bills and I love doing this. I’ve had a lot of amazing experiences and I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people I really admired growing up. Everybody that’s doing the book loves wrestling, loves comics and loves art. It’s a passion project all the way around.
You’re working on the next chapter of the Headlocked story and you’re funding it through Kickstarter. What else can you tell me about the next book and the Kickstarter campaign?
WWE Hall of Famer Booker T contributes artwork to “Headlocked”.
The way the campaign is structured, people who are just finding out about it can pledge for any book in the series. So if you just want to get the first book you can do that. It’s totally accessible to anybody, no matter what their experience with the book is. We have Booker T and Tony Atlas doing artwork for it and John Morrison, Frankie [Kazarian] and AJ Styles are doing stories. Caylen Croft from the Dude Busters is doing a piece of art and Jill still does our credits pages. Ben Templesmith is doing a piece for it, as are Ramon Villalobos, Box Brown and Jamal Igle. So we’ve got a real all-star lineup. We just announced that Ron Funches, a comedian from Undateable on NBC, is doing our introduction. He’s a huge wrestling fan and there’s a show on Comedy Central called @midnight that he’s won more than anybody else. Judah Friedlander wrote the introduction to the last one. We try to get guys from outside the business that are passionate about wrestling to do our introductions.
The next book will be ready in time for the 2015 convention season. Will you be making any convention appearances between now and then?
I’m going to Pro Wrestling Syndicate to sell books on Halloween night. I’m probably doing the Magic City Comic Con in January in Miami.