Mark Russell and Steve Pugh Talk The Flintstones

Mark Russell and Steve Pugh's The Flintstones shocked everyone by becoming one of the best comics of 2016, giving DC's Hanna-Barbera line a shot in the arm at its start and helping to assuage fears that books like Scooby Apocalypse and Future Quest would turn out to be poorly-thought-out cash cows.

The first six issues of the series are now available in trade paperback at your local comic shop, and coming to bookstores and Amazon in the coming weeks.

Some of the major topics include hysteria over marriage as a new deviant concept; the search for a competent leader versus a bullying dictator who uses scapegoating as a tactic;he lack of appreciation of veterans as well as the suffering of vets with PTSD; the history of misguided use of fear and nationalism to create for-profit wars; the exploitation of citizens considered to be second-class to their civilized society; and commentary on organized religion.

Russell and Pugh joined ComicBook.com for a brief Q&A to talk about The Flintstones Volume 1, in stores now, and what's coming up in the final three months of the series, which ships its final issue in June.

I'm sure this has been covered, but how did you make the transition from PREZ to The Flintstones? It doesn't necessarily seem like an obvious fit.

Mark Russell: One of the things that appealed to me about going from Prez to The Flintstones was the change from the future to the past. Prez was very much about the world we're making. The Flintstones is more about the world we made. So, in a lot of ways, they're simply two sides of the same coin. You could release them both in a single volume called "The Human Race: Mistakes Were Made".

Given the number of times I've seen it — or said it — I have to ask: do you guys ever tire of reading variations on "The Flintstones has no business being this good?"

Russell: I never do. I completely understand why people are reticent to pick up a Flintstones comic book. I would be, too, if I hadn't written it. At first, I was worried that no one would read it because they'd think it would just be a bunch of catch-phrases sprinkled throughout old and vaguely sexist plotlines. But, for the most part, people seem pleasantly surprised. I guess I work well when it comes to clearing the bar of low expectations. At any rate, I'm glad people got over their misgivings and gave the book a chance.

The series feels really seditious at times. Were there any bits that you had trouble getting past editorial?

Russell: Nope. Marie Javins (my editor) and Dan Didio have been very supportive of my vision throughout the process. The only things I've had trouble getting published are things that might get them sued for copyright infringement, or obscenities that violate the rules of our Teen rating. But, in terms of the content, I could have someone getting beheaded in the town square, as long as they were saying "crap-damn" or something like that.

As the election neared, was it just a foregone conclusion that you would be doing some kind of election special or did somebody at DC pitch you on the idea of tying that element of your book in with the Catwoman/Prez one-shot?

Russell: DC was interested in doing something election-related for Issue #5 of The Flintstones, which came out in early November. I was interested in doing that, too, and would have written that issue that way whether they had approached me about it or not.

How did the look of the book impact your writing of it? Certainly Steve has a very definite style on The Flintstones and I feel like it would have felt different with another artist.

Russell: Steve is the master at nailing facial expressions and doing these great, larger-than-life spectacles. So it really liberated me as a writer because I didn't have to worry about whether the emotion in a particular scene would come across right and it allowed me to tell the story as visually as possible. As a result, I tend not to pack a page with more than three or four panels because I want the story to live and breathe in Steve's artwork.

How did the tone and content of the book influence the visual take?

Steve Pugh: Hugely, I always take the lead from the tone of the writing. I was trying to whip up a little bit of John Severin's MAD magazine style in the dark, soulful eyes. Move it into social attire and realistic ridiculousness. Fred is a big wide heavy-duty dad. A man built perfectly to succeed in a world that has now gotten replaced by civilization.

Today's solicitations reveal that the book is ending. Was it always planned as closed-ended or is that just comics being comics?

Russell: No, I had always planned to end it after twelve issues. I always like to be the guy who leaves a party while he's still interesting. That's not to say I wouldn't come back to it at some point, though.

How did the look of The Flintstones evolve over the course of the 12 issues?

Pugh: I got a little bit more adventuresome with the cartooning. We were on a very fast turn around, so any experimentation had to be done "live" on the page. In world, I tried to show the town growing, the buildings getting higher. We started off in a very familiar Bedrock, with the round hollowed out bolder buildings we knew from the cartoons, but now there's towers and cinemas and off ramps.

The world and technology has changed a lot since the show was on the air. Was it a challenge to retain the overall aesthetic of The Flintstones while updating things like phones and TVs?

Pugh: The more things change the more they stay the same! I think we had a few "tablets" scattered around, but the plan was very much not to rely too much on the novelty of name checking iPads or instagram or doing any of that "hello, fellow kids" stuff in the stories for the sake of novelty. Most of the tech creeps in organically, like the iMac shaped abacus, or Fred's shellphone -- Side gags that advance the thread of the narrative. Most of the characters are of the age where they're still using their landline conch shells anyway!

Did you have a favorite bit of Bedrock wordplay that you contributed to the backgrounds?

Pugh: I tried to keep my gags visual, because many of the word gags are tied into Mark's referencing lyrics or film titles to weave into the story narrative. Every time I added my own word gags I felt like I was sneaking "Otisburg" on to Lex Luthor's map, so I stuck to bowling ally monkeys and egg whisk birds. I believe "veggie toe bull" as the vegetarian option in the Foot Licker restaurant was my finest hour, with an honorable mention to Pebble's "bomb the basalt" tee.

Steve, you didn't get to draw the Booster Gold Annual, but what would be the DC character you would most want to cross over with The Flintstones of you had the chance to draw it?

Pugh: Really I wouldn't like anything to intrude into their world, it would break the suspension of belief necessary to… OH WAIT- CAPTAIN CARROT AND THE ZOO CREW!

Certain elements of the animated series — like the Great Gazoo, or Pebbles and Bam-Bam — felt a bit like shark-jump moments at the time, but you leaned into them and did something interesting in the comics. Was that a conscious effort to embrace the full mythology?

Russell: Not really. I just worked with the parts of the cartoon I found interesting and which I felt would help me to re-purpose The Flintstones as a grand critique of human civilization. As pretentious as that may sound.