Conjuring THE VERDICT

a creative conversation between Dean Haspiel & Martin Powell

As I embark on creating a new character called COVID COP in 2023, a comic book that I'm currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, I couldn't help but think about what brought me here and the very first comic book character I got published in 1987, a collaboration with Kentucky born writer Martin Powell.

It's been over 36-years since we co-created and collaborated on THE VERDICT, a mini-series about an urban vigilante who lived in Thermo City, published by Eternity Comics. A few years later we produced a serialized sequel in the pages of a comix anthology called Caliber Presents that was later collected into a one-shot called The Verdict: The Acolyte (published by Caliber Press). And, with Martin's permission, I even went on to write a third Verdict story that I never illustrated.

Since then, we both moved on in our own diverse comix careers. Martin became a well-honored and accomplished writer, and I eventually worked for all the major and independent publishers on various franchise characters and illustrated other writers semi-autobiographical stories. I also drew my own memoir vignettes and created characters like Billy Dogma and Jane Legit, and The Red Hook.

I've always described The Verdict as a cross between Batman and Boba Fett with an Art Deco flair. That's how I designed our anti-hero, but I wanted to get Martin's side of the story. So I wrote and asked him…

(The Verdict covers by Howard Chaykin, Denys Cowan, Dean Haspiel, and Sam Kieth)

Martin, with the aid of hindsight, what were you thinking and what did you originally intend THE VERDICT to be before I got my grubby mitts on him? Or was The Verdict born wholly from our collective imagination? I don't quite remember the seed that bloomed into our collaboration.

MARTIN POWELL: I know what you mean, I recall some of it like yesterday, while other parts seem vague and prehistoric. Well, you and I met—you probably recall—through an APA (Amateur Press Association), a group of writers and artists with hopeful aspirations for careers in the comic book industry. It was called “The Chain”, and membership grew fast. This was the booming era of WATCHMEN and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and everyone wanted to work in comics.

DEAN HASPIEL: Holy mackerel! That's right! Anybody else you remember taking part in The Chain?

MP: Heh, now that you mention it, thinking back over The Chain’s many members, I believe you and I are the only guys who stuck with it!

DH: Did we discover The Chain via The Comics Buyers Guide?

MP: Hmm…my memory’s a bit foggy there, and I could be wrong, but I think I was introduced to The Chain through a fellow fan when my address was printed in the letters column of an issue of MOON KNIGHT or maybe DAREDEVIL. Not sure which. Maybe both. Anyway, you and I met--through The Chain--when I saw your comics art in one of the mailings. It was a stylishly insane short comics story called “Switch to the Illy Mode” (which I still love). The basic concept of THE VERDICT was already festering in my so-called brain a bit before that--but seeing your art really brought it to a boil. After we exchanged a couple letters and a few (back then, expensive) phone calls, The Verdict and his hellish domain of Thermo City took shape rather rapidly.

DH: It occurred to me that THE VERDICT costume design was based on my original character, a mercenary called SLASH. Dunno if you ever saw the battles my high school pal/cartoonist Josh Neufeld and I used to draw called “Blade versus Slash.” It was a back-and-forth, call and response type thing. BLADE was a character Josh created in homage to DC Comics’ TEEN TITANS villain, Deathstroke. Anyway, I drew SLASH but he didn't have much of a back story. And when we invented THE VERDICT together, I adopted (adapted?) my SLASH design into THE VERDICT.

MP: Really?! Wow, I don't think I ever knew that. Seems like THE VERDICT was lurking inside both us for a while before his official conception. This has very little to do with THE VERDICT, but I remember first getting the hint of an idea for THE VERDICT from a Jamie Hernandez story in an issue of LOVE AND ROCKETS, which was a great favorite of mine in those days. It was the atmosphere really, a noir-ish Alex Toth style. I think the purgatorial Thermo City actually came into being first and then THE VERDICT was naturally born from it. The VERDICT’s name popped into my head, for some unknown reason, after you and I had decided to develop something together. Originally, the character I imagined was a merciless Dick Tracy-type figure wearing a long trenchcoat, very pulpish, but when I saw your design, all that went out the window. The second I opened your letter and saw your sketch, I knew that was THE VERDICT. It was suddenly like he’d always existed.

DH: What were your hopes and dreams for THE VERDICT?

MP: Well, pretty much what happened, didn’t it? You and I worked hard on that first issue while being busy with our regular jobs at that time, and we ultimately completed it. I loved every midnight minute, typing my fingertips raw on a manual portable typewriter, even though I really didn’t know what I was doing. That was perhaps the greatest gift THE VERDICT gave me, the luxury of learning-on-the-job. I still vividly remember how excited we were after you submitted THE VERDICT to Brian David-Marshall at Eternity Comics—and he accepted it. THE VERDICT gave both of us our collective foot-in-the-door in the industry. It gave us a badly needed boost of enthusiasm, if not exactly confidence, and set us on firmly on the path. When the legendary Don Thompson reviewed THE VERDICT in The Comics Buyers Guide, he gave us a grade-A rating, and we were suddenly real. I shudder to imagine where I’d be without that moment.

DH: Martin, if you were to create a new character for 2023, who would it be and what would they do?

MP: I’m focusing more on writing prose novels, featuring my own creations, these days. I do have something going right now, a horror novel for an adult audience, that will somewhat mirror the real horror going on in the world for the past couple years. But I do want to continue to write comics for as long as there are comics. Perhaps, someday, THE VERDICT will rise again—just when we need him.

DH: Perhaps! Thanks, Martin, for roaming down memory lane with me.

Viva The Verdict.

Now go check out COVID COP.

—Dino

Instagram / Twitter / Website/Blog / Nightwork Studio