C2E2 Exclusive: Israel Idonije, Ron Marz and Bart Sears Talk The Protectors

Yesterday at the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo, longtime Chicago Bears defensive standout Israel Idonije formally rolled out the first print issue of The Protectors, the flagship title from Athleta Comics. The series, which we've discussed in the past, is a collaboration between Idonije, acclaimed comics writer Ron Marz and superstar artist Bart Sears. The trio managed to put aside the way the Bears beat Marz's beloved New York Giants this season to work on a project that Idonije has been developing for years, going back to one of his first years in training camp. The project, which sees a group of gifted individuals who have careers as professional athletes before realizing that they aren't just good but destined for something larger, has already been teased in webcomic form at the Athleta website for a while, but The Protectors #0 bowed at C2E2 yesterday, along with a panel discussion and signing appearance by the key talent. Shortly after the project was announced at New York Comic Con, the trio joined ComicBook.com for a conversation about The Protectors. Israel Idonije, Ron Marz and Bart Sears will sign a C2E2-exclusive lithograph from the series later today at Hero Initiative booth #829. The signing, which takes place from 2 p.m.-3 p.m., is a ticketed event. ComicBook.com: So can you tell us what motivates these characters? I mean, certainly you look back at Spider-Man and his initial "Hey, look at how strong I am! I should make some money off of this! Your characters are already professional athletes, already doing that but without any of the cynicism, and then they find out they've got a higher calling.

Ron Marz: The way the story unfolds is that we come to know the main characters as professional athletes initially. That's a big part of what the initial issue covers, is bringing you into the world of a professional football player and a professional basketball player and a professional hockey player and soccer and baseball, so we've got a few different sports represented and then they find out that there's much more to them than being a professional athlete. There's a secret that they uncover as the story unfolds and then the decision of "Okay, well I'm something more than I thought I was. What do I do with that--do I keep that a secret and just live my life, do i rise to the call and help others?" And it's going to be a different answer for different characters. Sports is the seed from which everything else in this story grows. My main concern as the writer is to tell a story about characters you care about and in this story a number of the characters happen to be professional athletes and become heroes beyond their sports lives, but at the core of the story, my job is to make you care about them as people not matter what they're doing which is the way I approach any story. Whether it's a creator-owned story or a licensed story or a work-for-hire story, to me the job is always the same: It's to make the audience care about the characters. So we're going to build these characters and with Izzy involved in the project I feel like Bart and I are getting a iwndow into the professional athlete's life--what that's like. In fact I just gotnotes from Izzy on a batch of pages saying, "We need to show the defensive back in this series of pages. It's not just about the guys up front on the line. Now, Izzy hasn't talked to me about this yet--he just sent me the note like fifteen minutes ago. So I'm not sure if he wants to make sure the readers grasp everything that's going on in the play, or if he just wants to embarrass the defensive backs for losing the receiver. [Marz and Idonije both laugh] Marz: So anyway, ultimately this is about professional sports like X-Men is about people going to a private school.

ComicBook.com: Obviously, Israel is providing you with a window into that life, but he's got to be getting some pretty valuable feedback from you, too, in terms of the approach of indie publishing. Israel Idonije: I really had no preconceived notions of how we were going to approach it. I'm the rookie here on our team so before we do anything, I'll ask Bart. I'll ask Ron. And they tell me, "Hey, this is what we've experienced, this is positive, this is negative, this works. So I'd be very foolish not to lean on my team for their expertise. Things like when everything first started, there were eleven characters and we scaled it back. Ron said, "You know what? That's way too many. Let's bring some character to here and this is why we'll do it this way--becuase this is going to cause the reader to have this reaction." And I was like, "You know what? He's absolutely right. To have that insight and to have that guidance makes a world of difference on a project such as this. Marz: The great thing for us is this being Izzy's baby, we're all in this together creating this thing without anybody else overseeing us, which is, believe me, working in comics that's just an awesome gift because we can do this thing how we want to do it and then take it to publishers and say "Here's what we've got--what do you think?" Rather than doing it the other way around, which is to round out the edges of what you want to fit into a publisher's vision of what it should be. We're very much telling the story we want to tella nd then we'll go out and find someone to help us get it out there but the beauty of this whole project has been that the creativity has come first and foremost. The way we're telling the story and the way the whole package has been put together has been dictated by nothing other than what we think is going to make the best story. ComicBook.com: Often, when you get people from outside of comics and especially people who are media-famous and not just a best-selling writer or something, you don't get a lot of these books that rae really top shelf in terms of the other talent involved. What's the bar for success selling an indie comic? Izzy could probably do that in terms of sales alone, regardless of his team. But I look at a project like this and I think this is objectively a creative team that you'd be excited to have on whatever your favorite book is. Would you guys want to continue or expand to those other characters Izzy implied you had to cut or whatever? Oh, absolutely. I hope I speak for everybody in saying we're just getting started. This is certainly for me such a comfortable fit in every way. I would happily do this until they wheel us off to the little old cartoonists' and defensive ends' homes. Idonije: Exactly. I think we're building this to have longevity. WE'r enot putting all the time and effort and the detail into how we're seting everything up just to do a one-off or one story. We'r elooking to position it so we have different directions and different things where we could take the story or take the characters or the property into. Bart Sears: And Izzy has been working on this forever. Ron and I have been working on this for months, and we've only got so many pages pencilled at this point, but we've just put so much into it in so many other ways and it feels like this is just the beginning. Marz: We've been working on this for a while but we started from scratch, really. The concept was there, some of the character designs and Izzy had a bible that was ready to go but in terms of actually having stuff ot present to the audience, Bart's been building an awesome website, we have some webcomics that people can consume for free. So we don't just sit down and start with page one of the first issue. There's a lot of other stuff that goes into it because we're starting from the ground floor and we hav ethe time and the resources to do it right. As the website started to roll out and the webcomics got out there we left a trail of breadcrumbs for people that hopefully they're not only interested in but they're excited for where it goes. I think it's easy to become cynical about comics in general if you're looking at it from the business side of things and I understand people who at first blush might look at an NFL player starting up a publishing company and doing a comic as kind of a vanity thing or the having the idea of making a comic to sell it as a movie property quick--I understand that reaction from people because many times that sort of thing is true--but I can tell you with 100% honesty that that's not the case here. everybody involved in this is doing it for absolutely the right reasons and is doing it first and foremost to make a really good comic. And believe me--you can make a really lousy comic fast. Making a lousy comic is the easiest thing in the world to do. ComicBook.com: Now, you announced this during the summer convention season and then, not having a lot of content ready to go right away or a DC/Marvel marketing budget, have you been worried about keeping things fresh in everyone's minds? Marz: I think it's somethign you've got to be aware of but I doni't think you can be scared by it. You just have to go into it with a plan and enough resources--and I don't mean just financial resources; I mean material that you're going to present and people that you're working with and ideas in general--that you're going to roll this thing out with. In a lot of ways, creating the comic is the easiest part; it's the most fun part. That's what Bart and I do. That's the bread and butter for us. All the other stuff that goes with it because this is kind of a solo act in terms of, like you said there's not a marketing push and budget behind this--that's where the additional work comes in. But in our case we're very blessed to have Izzy as the captain of the team. He's not an unknown commodity in terms of having a public persona. That's all useful stuff. I think Izzy is somewhat reticent to be the guy who is out front doing interviews and all  that kind of stuff but that's kind of a necessary evil. ComicBook.com: It's worth noting, too, that he's got a very likable persona. Izzy, you're kind of an underdog--as much as one can be and still be a top-flight professional athlete. You had to bust your tail to get onto the team and so to me it's kind of like, you're more easily accessible than I would say many professional athletes might be to your average comic book fan. Idonije: I've never really just seen myself as an athlete. I've been very blessed to make it the way I have. Coming out of college, I had a hundred people telling me I couldn't make it in the NFL. I wasn't big enough, I wasn't fast enough, it's a four down game--I'd never played four down football. I've just always lived my life in a way such that you set a goal and if it's something you want you just work for it and work for it and work for it. And though things might not always go how you want when you pursue your dreams, when you look up after the chase, you're in a good place and you're in a  better place than you could have imagined. That's been my life. I came into the League--I was sent to NFL Europe, I lived in Germany for four months, I came back here to Chicago, I made the 52-man roster, I played special teams for four years, five years. They gave me a shot to play defense; I was fortunate enough to make some plays, I started for three years--and I just finished my tenth season. I'd like to play a few more years and that's my approach to everything, even with this project with Athleta and telling this story  We're going to work and we're going to focus on doing the right things with the right people and when it's all said and done, when we look back ten years from now, my hope is that Ron, Bart and I will say, "Wow--who would have thought we'd be here when we started this project ten years ago? What an incredible journey it's been and what a blessing it's been." That's my approach to the project just as it's been for my entire career.